Presented by: Michael Ing, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Indiana University
Date: Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Tao Yuanming (c. 365-427) is often described as a poet who advocated harmony with the natural world. The most recent book about him in the English-speaking academy, for instance, describes Tao as a “literary ecologian” who wrote “ecological poetry.” These views also tend to affiliate Tao with the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, since both supposedly advocate the need to harmonize with the natural transformations of the world (hua 化). This presentation will closely examine these claims, and argue that the connection between Tao and the natural world is much more complicated. More specifically, I will show that Tao recognized a tension between being himself (ziran 自然) and the natural transformations of the world. While he advocated a kind of “naturalism,” he did not believe that he, or human beings in general, were predisposed to accept the inevitable changes of the world. Hence, his “naturalism” is not necessarily about fitting into his natural surroundings despite the fact that he relies on these surroundings in his poetry. Through an examination of several of his poems this presentation will demonstrate two things: 1) that Tao saw human beings as distinct from the other “myriad creatures” 萬物 who otherwise accept or fit into the natural transformations of the world; and 2) that while Tao understood the term ziran 自然 as “being himself,” he often saw the natural transformations of the world as threats to him being himself.