The Research Of The Gentlewomanly Beauty Of Laozi's Thoughts

This article is for the purpose of discussing the thoughts of gentlewomanly beauty implicated and emphasized in Laos's philosophy. It is well known that Laozi's philosophy is constructed by the concept of "Tao". In"Laozi","Tao" is the root of all things and the origin of value system of the real world which belongs to the ontological category discussing the creation of the universe and nature. Laozi took "Tao" as the foundation to discuss the relations between man, society and nature . Laozi advocates the opinion of "the law of the Tao is its being what it is". "Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is" (Laozi "Dao De Jing" the 25th chapter. The following "Laozi'"s quotation is only the number of the chapter) . As a result of the influence of the prehistoric cultures, "the nature" which Laozi takes for the model, mostly is only one kind of summary of the gentlewomanly phenomenon of "the nature", or one kind of subjective understanding of it. The words descripting the "nature" are "the highest good ","does not struggle" (the 8th chapter) and "Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water" (the 78th chapter). It is not the water that is "sliding away quietly no matter it's day or night." It takes'Vacant like a valley" (the 15th chapter): "it is for the valley of the world" (the 28th chapter), but does not take "behold a high mountain " (the 25th chapter) . It takes the word of "curve": "curve becomes complete" (the 22nd chapter), but does not take "the straight and square". The confucianist also speaks of the nature, or makes the analogies with the things of the nature, like "road of thegentleman......is to observe the world", "approves the nourishment of the world" and soon, but they do not appreciate the gentlewomanly beauty which Laozi does. Laozi's emphasis is only "knowing male while staying female", "knowing firm while staying delicate", "not to struggle","the hard and mighty lie beneath the ground, while the tender and weak dance on the breeze above" (the 76th chapter), "the soft overcomes the hard, the yielding overcomes the strong" (the 78th chapter) as well as "weakness marks the course of Tao's mighty deeds" (the 40th chapter) and so on. Moreover Laozi speaks of the mother, metaphysical female, the water, delicacy, kindness, thrift and the baby. All of these may have a relation with the metaphor of female and mother. Therefore, Laozi's philosophy is called the maternal philosophy or the feminine philosophy by some people. Some people think that the book of "YiJing" and"Laozi" are both feminine philosophies. They are both the masterpieces of utilization of female qualities. The book of "YingJing" is only half while the "Laozi" is a complete feminine philosophy. Generally speaking, what Laozi's thoughts advocates is one kind of gentlewomanly beauty. This article is divided into three chapters to elaborate on Laozi's thoughts of gentlewomanly beauty.From the metaphysical angle, the first chapter elaborates on Laozi's thoughts of "taking the mother as the standard",which manifests Laozi's vigorous worship of gentlewomanly beauty from ontology. The subject "taking the mother as the standard" is always passing through the book of "Laozi" that has 5000 words and 81 chapters. "Tao" is called "the mother of the myriad things" (the first chapter), "the world's mother" (the 25th chapter). The relation between the mother and the son is compared to that between "Tao"and the myriad things. "The origin of the world is its mother. Understand the mother, and you understand the child. Embrace the child, and you embrace the mother, then you will not perish when you die." (the 52nd chapter) Laozi vigorously worships the maternal characteristics of Tao"; Then he looks forward to the primitive matriarchal clan society of "the small country with few people". Laozi's return to matriarchal clan society is the reflection of the thoughts of "taking the mother as the standard" in the real life. Its "root" lies in Laozi's thoughts of maternal standard.From the physical angle, the second chapter elaborates on Laozi's thoughts of "weakness marks the course of Tao's mighty deeds", which elaborates the connotation of the gentlewomanly beauty. On the physical leval, Laozi streses"weakness". He is in love deeply with these gentlewomanly characters such as harmony and inaction, tranquility and limpness. On the other hand, Laozi endues these gentlewomanly images such as the female, water, baby with such characters. With the explanation of these images and qualities, Laozi has explained the connotation of the gentlewomanly beauty and constructed his own life ideal and the life realm.The third chapter elaborates on the cultural origin of the gentlewomanly beauty. Laozi's gentlewomanly beauty has a close relationship with the maternal worship of primitive society no matter in the aspect of origin which explains "Tao" producing the myriad things of the world, or in the aspect of principle explaining the movement of Tao". This idea, this manner, only origins from the female god worship of the matriarchal clan society. Just as one of the western philosopher said that all of the jinns in any myth are the philosophical ideas which are objective or subjective.The Goddess creator is the philosophical idea about the beginning of the universe. In Laos's opinion, The Goddess creator is the direct viewing of "Tao".