Abstract

The Daoist materials in the Guodian corpus consist of three short texts that agree with and support each other. All they say can also be found in the received Laozi. Their anonymous authors start from the thesis that reliable knowledge stems only from an awareness of the inner nexus between one’s own vitality and surrounding things and processes. On this basis the authors clarify two points. The first is that to act by means of intentional steering that remains outside of the things acted on is necessarily futile. Actions can only succeed when guided by “being of oneself” in regard to one’s own person and simultaneously in regard to the things or people one acts on. Secondly, human beings are primarily things that were born and will die, like all other beings. From this perspective human life follows rules that are different from those designed for people entangled in a web of social contacts and expectations.