De 德 / Virtue and Nu 怒 / Anger - part 1
The Duality of a Person
The Chinese character Ren 人 for a person or human being is made of two simple strokes, which I interpret representing as Yin 陰 and Yang 陽 energies.
According to ancient Daoist wisdom, as every individual person made of Yin Qi and Yang Qi, everyone carries both De 德/virtue (beneficial) and Nu 怒/anger (harmful) qualities and emotions in life. One of the primary benefits of Daoist cultivation practices is learning to transform our anger into virtue. This is the reason that we also refer to Daoist cultivation practices as XiuDe 修德, which literally means fixing the virtue. In Daoism, we typically apply word Xiu 修 to all cultivation practices. In chapter 7 of the 2nd edition of my book, Vital Breath of the Dao, I described several meanings of Xiu: embellish, repair, build, study, cultivate, administer, edit, amend, follow, rest, long, tall, distant, and good. Through daily cultivation, we remind ourselves to Xiu, correct our destructive habit patterns, and transform them to Nu.
Throughout the rest of this writing, I would like to share a little bit of my understanding on De. I will write a separate article on Nu later.
De 德 and DaoDeJing 道德經
De 德 means virtue, morality, integrity, ascend, and kindness. I also interpret it as function. I am sure that many of you have been studying Daoist classics and are already familiar with the fact that this word De 德 appears in the title of our most important classic, the DaoDeJing 道德經.
The common version of DaoDeJing contains two volumes. The first 37 chapters make the volume of the Dao and the remaining 44 chapters make the volume of the De. From my personal understanding, the first 37 chapters are all about the Dao, the Great Way of the Universe, and last 44 chapters are about how we live in order to behave in accordance with the Dao.
You might recall the citation from the chapter 38 of the DaoDeJing from my previous article on Hexagram Meng? Chapter 38 is the opening chapter of the De Volume of the DaoDeJing and this citation is the first sentence of that chapter. I will repeat it here for you:
ShangDeBuDe ShiYiYouDe
上德不德 是以有德
The greatest virtue is not focusing on getting what you want, thus you already acquire the greatest outcome.
The Opening of De Volume
As you can see, there are exactly three of same Chinese characters for De in the citation, yet I interpret them totally differently. This is a similar phenomenon as we see in the first sentence of the DaoDeJing, which is also the opening for the Dao volume. The same Chinese character for Dao carries different meanings within a single sentence. I wrote and published an article explaining the Dao Volume opening sentence many years ago (“The Function of the Dao.” Empty Vessel: A Journal of Daoist Philosophy and Practice, Winter 2006:12—13).
I have understood that the two opening sentences of the two volumes of the DaoDeJing hold the keys for each respective volume and contain the spirit of the entire work.
Before we continue exploring the meanings of De, let’s first do some research on the opening sentence for the De volume, from a cultivation perspective, in order to give us further insight into De.
The first De in the opening sentence means virtue or goodness. ShangDe 上德 , the beginning two words, means the highest quality of virtue or the greatest virtue. The second De means gain, obtain, want, act, or to do. The third and fourth words BuDe 不德 means do not take any action or do not gain anything. The third and final De in this sentence means function, ability, or goodness. I would like to give a new interpretation to this opening sentence from the perspective of the Daoist inner cultivation practices:
The greatest virtue is within you, you do not need to obtain it. You will have everything you need if you live from your greatest virtue.
Knowing how to live from your ShangDe, your greatest virtue, is one of the most important paths to optimizing your karma and to achieving your enlightenment.
The Symbolic De
Let’s turn to the symbol De. The oracle bone style character for De looks like an eye hanging in the center of an intersection.
To me, this intersection is the image of Xing 行, which stands for the Phase or Element of the Daoist Five Elements. You can read details on the relationship between “Xing” and “intersection” from my book, TianGan DiZhi. The hanging eye is the TianMu 天目/Heavenly Eye, the third eye which connects us to the universe.
Each time I meditate with this oracle bone character for De, I easily tune into a tranquil state and through my third eye, can feel and see the connection between my body and nature. Through these meditative experiences, I have come to interpret the meaning of De as both the prenatal function of the body, and the actions we take on a daily basis in order to follow the Dao. In other words, in order to experience a good result with our cultivation practices, we do not focus on how to gain results, we XiuDe, simply let go of our ambition to achieve, correctly follow the guidance of an authentic traditional practice, and trust the process.
Stay tuned for part two, Nu 怒 / Anger, coming soon!
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Dear Master Wu,
The more I know you the more virtue and dignity I found in you. Your mother like nurturing to your students and imperially dedication to the Dao, showing us the way.
With ultimate gratitude, happy holidays✨✨✨🎄🎄🎄🦄🦄🦄