Chungsoo J. Lee
A philosophic and religious corner
On Heidegger and Lao-tzu

    A convincing argument for Lao-tzu's influence on Heidegger's later thought.  
    Good articulation of basic terms such as Mitsein, Gelassenheint, "a new mode
    of being-in-the-world as cultivating and dwelling" (54), the four-fold of earth
    and sky, mortals, and the holiness of the divinities; Ereignis, time as "the
    transition that rests in stilled stillness" (64), Being as nothingness, trace,
    clearing, emptiness, star rather than the sun, dark light as in the wine, the Holy,
    "the experience of this stillness as the center of the new thinking" (72);
    destiny/Geschick; fate/Schicksal; sending/Schicken; history of Being/Seins-
    Geschichte.

    "Being or its truth can be not only a neutral structural openness, but possibly
    also that which brings Dasein into salvation and thereby shows itself through
    the unapproachable mystery as the Holy" (59).

    Discussions of Meister Eckhart, Augustine's Confessions Bk 10, 7 & 8; Paul
    Klee, Paul Celan, Chuang-tzu, Tao Te Ching Chs. 11, 28, 15, 18; Rudolf Otto;
    Hölderlin; Cézanne, and Trakl.

    An excellent discussion on Heidegger's article, "The Thing," in connection to
    Lao-tzu's emptiness of a vessel in Tae Te Ching, Ch. 11 (61-62).

    Heidegger was attracted to Lao-tzu, as he was to other poets and painters
    (Klee and Cézanne) for a new way of thinking/living--for a new way of
    dwelling poetically or "aesthetically" in the sense of the Tao and the Far
    Eastern art.

    The fundamental distinctions must be made between the two however.  For
    example, the notion of "nature" in Heidegger is very different from that in Lao-
    tzu.  For Heidegger, nature must be cultivated poetically and thus made holy in
    the way of the four-fold: earth, sky, mortals, and the divinities. Eg, how a jug
    could reveal its jugness in the service of the four-fold.  (Cf., Heidegger's article:
    "The Thing.")  In Lao-tzu, nature is the way it is in itself, as it were, without
    having to be cultivated in the Heideggerian sense.  Humans are mere part of
    nature, to be attuned to the graceful, gentle, and generous but impersonal Tao
    of nature.  (Cf., Tae Te Ching, Ch. 11.)  Tao does not need man as much as
    man does Tao.