The meaning of Dependence in Taoism 什么是有待

The meaning of Dependence in Taoism

The counterpart of "Wu Dai" (无待, Non-Dependence); the term derives from Zhuangzi·Xiaoyao You (庄子·逍遥游, "Free and Easy Wandering"). "You Dai" means having something to depend on, having something to rely upon. The supreme state of human existence lies in attaining a kind of absolute freedom, yet "You Dai" prevents a person from achieving xiaoyao (逍遥, carefree ease).

The meaning of Dependence in Taoism

Human life is beset by desires, from which all manner of afflictions and anxieties arise, leaving one's freedom constrained in every direction. Birth and death, preservation and loss, poverty and success, wealth and penury, worthiness and unworthiness, praise and blame, hunger and thirst, heat and cold—endless vicissitudes proliferate, restricting human life and blocking the path to the realm of freedom. Beyond the various kinds of "You Dai" arising from objective conditions, a person is also frequently constrained by a subjective "You Dai" of their own—what is called "having a self" (you ji, 有己).

The ten thousand things of the world each accord with their own nature—yet none can be said to have attained Zhuangzi's standard of carefree ease. The small bird soars among the brushwood; the great bird Peng spirals upward to ten thousand li; mushrooms live and die in a single morning; the winter cicada is born in spring and dies in summer. Nature is infinitely varied, yet all things follow their own nature while also having their dependences.

Everything in the world constitutes "You Dai," and all of it represents a restriction on the realm of freedom in human life. The antidote lies in cultivating the Dao and attaining Wu Dai through the complete transcendence of all conditioned dependencies.

See also the entry on Laozi and the entry on "Wu Dai" (Non-Dependence).