The Logic of Withdrawal

5 April 2023

The Logic of Withdrawal

1.  The Chinese Sage, known today as Laozi, aka Lao Tzu, was the author of the Tao Te Ching (aka Dao De Ching), a brief and sometimes cryptic collection of 81 sayings, observations, and insights that has become a world classic.  Laozi lived in the 6^th century B.C. and according to the earliest sources worked as an archivist in the state of Zhou (aka Chou).  Laozi is said to have met Confucius at one point when Confucius consulted Laozi regarding some records of some ancient rites.

2.  With the disintegration of the Zhou and the emergence of widespread conflict, Laozi is said to have made the decision to withdraw from civilization by traveling to the mountains in the ‘west’.  When Laozi reached the border of Zhou the gatekeeper recognized him and would not let Laozi pass until Laozi wrote down his insights and understandings.  The book today known as Dao De Jing (aka Tao Te Ching) is the result of Laozi’s writing at that time.  After handing the document over to the gatekeeper, Laozi departed to the Western Mountains never to be seen again.  Laozi remains an important presence for Daoism (aka Taoism) as a celestial deity, one of the Three Pure Ones, in the complex hierarchy of Daoism’s celestial pantheon.

3.  The story of Laozi leaving civilization, what we sometimes call ‘the world’, is archetypal for a certain view of what spirituality means.  The story is illustrative of what I call ‘the logic of withdrawal.’  I mean by ‘the logic of withdrawal’ the view that spirituality is, in part, a process of stepping away from the concerns of ordinary worldly existence.  It is an application of asceticism to social interaction.

4.  There is a parallel story in the Platonist tradition which I have posted at least once, possibly twice, before.  I am referring to the story related by Porphyry in his biography of Plotinus where Porphyry related how a Roman Senator decided to abandon his position of power and his life of material indulgence, in order to follow the way of philosophy.  The Senator became a student of Plotinus and there is the clear implication in the telling of this story that there is a connection between the abandoning of power, and involvement with worldly affairs, and the Senator’s transformation as a kind of ascetic Platonist.  While the Senator did not wander into the mountains of Northern Italy in the way that Laozi wandered into the Western Mountains of China, still there is a resemblance in the gesture of turning away from a socially engaged life in order to pursue a spiritual life.

5.  There are other examples of this kind of life in Classical Platonism, though they are found mostly as hints and whispers.  For example, Justin Martyr mentions in passing Platonist contemplatives.  And there are passing references to ‘white robed’ Platonists, as opposed to ‘black robed’ Christian monks, in the late Classical period.  It is difficult to discern what the life of a Platonist hermit consisted of; though, again, there are tantalizing hints.  But it seems to me that part of the reason for this difficulty is that they were guided by the logic of withdrawal which inherently means that they left few traces of their way of life.

6.  The logic of withdrawal is foundational for monasticism and the way of the hermit.  More so, I think, for the way of the hermit as the way of the hermit is by its very nature more solitary than cenobitic monasticism. 

7.  The logic of withdrawal rests on the insight that this world in which we live is defective, some would say ‘fallen.’  In Platonism the defective nature of the material world is a result of the world being metaphysically distant from the One and the Good; the more distant something is from the One and the Good, the more that thing is fragmented, distracted, and unable to access, or manifest, the Good.  Hence the material world is a world of division, strife, and sorrow.  The way to overcome division, strife, and sorrow is to turn away from its manifestations and return to the One.  This ‘turning away’ is the meaning of asceticism.  Asceticism is the end of sorrow.