The psychology of Tao was articulated to integrate Western and Eastern idea and tradition from the interdisciplinary perspective of multicultural psychology and neuropsychology. Contemporary human lives have suffered from the lack of ecological and spiritual resources and applications in the age of technology and science. After reviewing the literature of Taoism, the author presented four hermeneutic approaches or schemes: (1) a mind-body communication approach, (2) a wholistic approach, (3) a multicultural model, and (4) an approach of the limbic system (a model of homeostasis). Four approaches were delineated as some integrated models of the psychology of Tao. A mind-body communication approach showed a new paradigm of the healing process, including synchronistic, mystical and paradoxical events of healing. A wholistic approach discussed central metaphors such as Yin-Yang, polarity and chaos in terms of nonlinear and cyclical process of ecology. In a multicultural approach, the author adopted Taoists universal and ecological principles of harmony and order as ideological and practical instruments for dealing with and overcoming human alienation, racism, violence, oppression or injustice. In an approach of the limbic system, the function of the limbic system was analogically compared with that of the Tao, which is grounded in the concepts of integration, harmony or homeostasis. Authors preliminary development of hermeneutic approaches or models would stimulate further intellectual dialogue and research in the field of the psychology of Tao in future.

In my exploration of Taoism, I explicate the Taoist principle of ecological order. A critical awareness of the ecological crisis challenges both Western biomedical ideology and Western scientific approaches of progress. I want to discover the significant meaning of Taoism in our modern context of ecological crisis. I will delineate some alternative approaches, which provide a hermeneutic framework of approaching a solution of ecological crisis. I find an analogical and hermeneutic link between the concept of the Yin-Yang and the scientific and empirical knowledge of how the human brain functions, and apply this hermeneutic link to my own approaches in this paper.

The principle of the Yin-Yang shows that the hemisphere, including the heaven and the earth, should precede all transformational and transfigurative change in the visible world. The principle of the Yin-Yang is a sort of the divine gestalt,which sets humanity free from past historical synthesis that have outlived their usefulness, from the tendency toward entropy and repetition, from political and socioeconomic oppression, from institutional and systemic dehumanization, from personal alienation and despair (Hodgson, 1989, p. 49). The Taoist principle of ecology invites us to follow the ecosystems of God (macroscopic level) as well as biological and psychological rhythms of the body (microscopic level). I want to find Taoist spirituality (wisdom) of how to live in a healthy harmony with universal ecosystems and biorhythms of the earth (the body). I will delineate both the Taoist principles of ecology and its spirituality (wisdom) of ecological health in the following chapters. In conclusion, I will write my personal reflection on multicultural experiences in the metropolitan Chicago area. This reflection also demonstrates some implications in pastoral care and counseling.

In a mind-body communication approach, I discuss that in the teaching of Taoism, medicine is not an entity but a metaphor. In the metaphorical teaching of the Tao, we are able to find an analogy between Biblical teaching, Romans 12:1-2 and Tao Te Ching (Lao Tsu,1982), Book One Chapter One:

                The way that can be spoken of is not the constant way; the name that can be named is
                not the constant name. The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;
                the named was the mother of the myriad creatures. Hence always rid yourself of
                desires in order to observe its secrets; but always allow yourself to have desires
                in order to observe its manifestations. (p. 3).

P. Chan (1986) said that genuine effective medicine is primordial, true, unified energy; it is primordial vitality, energy, and spirit, the three treasures (p. 56). The Tao as the primordial, true and unified energy manifests himself/herself in the myriad creatures. The human body as part of the myriad creatures should follow the manifestations of the Tao. Some similarities between New Testament language and Taoist language are examined: be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what Gods will is his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2). In the Pauline literature, the mind (Nous) is described as the seat of the human will or intent and the core faculty of thought, reason, and spiritual/emotional discernment. Also, the mind (Nous) is used to designate the human being as a creature who thinks, feels, judges and knows the manifestations of God. In the literature of Tao Te Ching, human mind (hsin) and body (shen) are understood fully on their ecological and spiritual relationship to the Tao. Even though the personal body (shen) is a source of terrible vexations or afflictions (Toa Te Ching, Chapter XIII, p.19), the purified mind (hsin) as the ruler of the emotions can perceive and know the manifestations of the Tao, which is the pure spirit and energy (chi).

Here, the authors thesis is that a mind-body communication approach, which is implied in the teaching of the Tao, is a post-modern one of medicine beyond the biomedical approach. F. Capra (1980) explored the parallels between modern physics and eastern mysticism, which is mainly formulated in the principle of the Tao. He (1980) explained that modern physicists has realized the limitations of linear and verbal approaches when they empirically explain certain aspects of quantum-field theory, and that the Eastern mystics and modern physicists prefer to express their theories and knowledge in works with the help of myths, symbols, poetic images or paradoxical statements (pp. 30-31). Also, J. S. Bolen (1979) points out the Jungian concept of synchronicity, and explains that through synchronicity the Western mind may come to know what the Tao is. As a concept, synchronicity bridges East and West, philosophy and psychology right brain and left. Synchronicity is the Tao of psychology, relating the individual to the totality (pp. 6-7). The psychology of the Tao teaches us a new paradigm of healing process: synchronistic and paradoxical events of healing.

What are synchronistic and paradoxical events of healing? I think that synchronistic and paradoxical events of healing happen at the level of hypothalamic function in the brain. The hypothalamus is the central organ of the limbic system in the brain. J. B. Ashbrook (1989) explains the functions of the limbic system in the brain in a wholistic way:

                The limbic system powerfully impacts what we do. We can observe it, but we cannot
                control it. The system lays down the parameters of human capacity. It deals with four
                basic factors of survival: the preservation of the self, the protection and continuity
                of the species; the care and nurture of the vulnerable, especially the young; and the
                integration of what is novel with what is known. The particular configurations of self and
                others and of old and new are always contextual. Every moment involves the emotional
                mind of the mammalian brain (p. 365).

E. L. Rossi (1986) states that the hypothalamus integrates the sensory-perceptual, emotional, and cognitive function of mind with the biology of the body (p. 101). The nonlinear and mystical mode is a daily part of the experience of the human being. The principle of the Yin-Yang designates the meaning of our religious experience as the synchronistic and paradoxical event. J. Bolen (1979) also expresses the mode of nonlinear thinking that to experience the eternal Tao requires that our consciousness perceive through the workings of the right cerebral hemisphere, turning off the analytical, skeptical working of the left hemisphere (p. 9). The synchronistic or paradoxical healing happens in the deeper subcortical level of human mind/brain, which is connected with hypothalamic and limbic channels.

In Taoism there are central metaphors such as polarity, paradox, and the natural process of returning. These central metaphors show that the logic of the Tao is a hidden inner connection, which links chaos and cosmos, nature and culture. N. J. Girardot (1983) illustrates that the crazy logic which links chaos and cosmos suggests that one of the basic findings of this study is that early Taoist thought is most adequately understood in terms of a mythological theme of creation, fall and salvational return (p. 6). The central metaphors such as polarity, paradox (or chaos), and returning compose a wholistic approach, which functions as a narratively analogical and interpretive tool.

                Regarding the central metaphors, I refer to Tao Te Ching (Lao Tsu, 1982):

                I do my utmost to attain emptiness; I hold firmly to stillness. The myriad creatures all rise
                together and I watch their return. The teeming creature. All return to their separate roots.
                Returning to ones roots is known as stillness. That is what is meant by returning to
                ones destiny. Returning to ones destiny is known as the constant. Knowledge of
                the constant is known as discernment. (Book One, Chapter XVI, pp. 24-25).

The paradoxical returning to ones roots or ones destiny is heaven to the way. We can elicit several central metaphors for the language of change. In pastoral counseling, a pastoral counselor uses some therapeutic metaphors in order to bring a specific change in a concrete counseling setting. By applying central metaphors of the Taoism to pastoral counseling, I think that pastoral counselor is able to develop a wholistic approach for his/her therapeutic process. We may ask the pastoral counselor, What kinds of metaphor do you use? This question is so vital and important. K. Jeter (1988) exemplified the function of metaphor that metaphor presents an image to which the body immediately responds with emotion, imagination, and intelligence. Metaphor is a transformer, it transforms one energy into another (p. 63). Metaphorical communication is one of therapeutic skills in psychotherapeutic or spiritual process.

Both Yin and Yang are vital paradoxes, which manifest the underlying unity of the Tao. In the hidden unity of Tao, Yin and Yang mutually interact with one another in a nonlinear and cyclical process. A nonlinear and cyclical process triggers a therapeutic change in the right-hemisphere of the brain. J. Bolen (1979) understood the event of a therapeutic change in terms of Jungian concept, synchronistic event, and explored the wholistic healing by using the Yin-Yang symbol:

                The right brain can contain ambiguities and opposites. It takes in the whole of an
                event at once, rather than focusing on detail or part, and can simultaneously
                perceive and feel about what it takes in. The right hemisphere compares through
                metaphor rather than measurement. Its style is receptive and reflective, a more
                feminine mode that that of the left hemisphere. (p. 8).

The right hemisphere of the brain in immersed in human relationality and cultural context. It is the relational, emotional, imaginative, musical, poetic, simultaneous. On the cortical level the right hemisphere is highly activated when auditory, visual and aesthetic modes of perception stimulate it. In the minds of men and women of the total community, the paradoxical power and intervention of Yin and Yang are personified into world after world and layer after layer of spirits, good and evil (Saso 1972, p.12).

Tao is an ongoing dynamic of participation and discovery in the cultural context. The language of the Tao is metaphorical language. Also, the language of the Tao is full of stories in the form of myths, fables, and symbols. Stories bind us to all humankind and bridge us to our cultures and roots. Mythic and shamanistic stories evoke the action potential of sensory-perceptual transmission and activate the right hemisphere of the brain. From the post-modern perspective, N. Denzin (1989) postulates that the post-modern impulse conceptualizes culture in terms of performances, problematic experiences, texts, rituals, and the symbolic expressions of meaningful experience. Cultural is seen processualy, conflictually, and as always in motion (p. 3). In a cultures epistemological system, what a person is, is a function of how a person knows; how a person knows is a function of what a person knows (Marsella, 1985, p. 292). Also, from Francis Bacon on, modern science has been characterized by the implicit or explicit assumption of a deterministic universe and physical causality (Harman 1989, p. 7). From a broader concept of a cultural epistemological system, I want to overcome the limit of casual relation and to shape a multi-dimensional interactional approach: a multicultural approach.

According to ancient Chinese philosophy, Taoism, the cosmos is a series of natural progressions from the Great Ultimate, the Way (Tao) which is compose of two principles, Yin and Yang. M. R. Saso (1972) articulates what the Tai Chi, Yin and Yang principles mean in the cosmic and ecological level:

                The principle Yang is conceived to be the rule of the heavens. It corresponds to light, fire,
                life, masculinity, and movement. The principle Yin is realized in the earth. It corresponds to
                darkness, water, death, femininity, and stillness. The two principles Yin and Yang divide to
                from the points of the compass. Winter correlates to the north. When Yin is at zenith and
                Yang is reborn. The winter solstice celebrates this event. Spring corresponds to the
                east and the color green when the world of nature is reborn. Summer matches with the south;
                Yang is at zenith and Yin is reborn. Finally, autumn and the west correspond to the setting
                sun, when nature has finished producing its crops for men and begins the long rest of winter. (p. 9).

Every cosmic and ecological order proceeds from the Great Ultimate - Yin and Yang principles. It has been an oriental way of thinking about the order and the nature. According to Hebrew thinking, Hebrew people described their cosmic principle, in the Book of Genesis of the Old Testament: God created the Garden of Eden which includes the initial resource for the universal processes. The Old Testament says: In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:1-2). The creation story shows the from the chaos to cosmos motif. The mythic and mystical story of the Creation has shaped the Hebrew way of thinking and life-style. The religion of Taoism is geared to the changes in the seasons, planting, and rest: those are the experiences of the common people rather than creation or protogenesis (Saso, 1972, p. 9).

I suggest a scientific analogy between the Yin-Yang polarity and the left-brain and right-brain laterality. In the ancient Chinese philosophy, polarity doesnt mean separate and distinct interaction or forces. The central concept of the Yin-Yang polarity can be explained by employing hsiang sheng, which means mutual arising or mutual inseparability for growth. The I Ching (or The Book of Changes) demonstrates the transformative process of the Yin-Yang polarity through a number of hexagrams.

Between the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain, we can observe the organic polarity as well as laterality. The cerebral (or hemispheric) lateralization theory has been considered and investigated in terms of the dialectical and creative functions of both hemispheres. W. D. Tenhouton (1985) is right when he points out that the interaction between the appositional or synthetic mode of the right hemisphere and the prepositional or analytic mode of the left hemisphere is able to produce a third mode of thought, the dialectical or creative (p. 355). Based on the analogical imagination from both the Yin-Yang polarity and recent scientific neuroscience, I emphasize the hermeneutic mode of a creative dialectic, in the dual brain hemispheres. Sperry (1977), who in 1981 shared the Nobel prize in Medicine/physiology for his contribution to an insight into hidden from us, states the creative and dialectic functions of the two hemispheres:

                In the normal state, the two hemispheres function together as a very closely integrated
                whole, not as a double, divided, or bicameral system. The two hemispheres
                normally perceive, think, emote, and learn and remember as a unit. They even speak as a unit,
                in that the right hemisphere during speech is not idling or diverted, but is actively focused
                to aid and sustain the cerebral processing involved in speech, to add tone and expression,
                and to inhibit unrelated activity. (p. 21).

I suggest that a scientific analogy between the Yin-Yang polarity and the right-brain and left-brain laterality (dual hemispheric functions) be examined to study multicultural or cross-cultural psychiatry. By multicultural psychiatry, I mean that we can use more culturally conditioned scientific analogy when we do diagnose psychiatric patients, those who are linguistically or culturally limited, by using DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition). I think that mental health workers or religious counselors need to look at some different angles of the same diagnosis about the client in order to grasp a culturally different mental picture, a world view which controls our human attitudes and life-styles and even inner coping mechanisms.

In this approach, I focus on the pivotal function of the Tao as the integrating and harmonizing center in the universal ecology. In the human brain, the functions of the Limbic system can be analogically compared with those of the Tao. I will succinctly describe an approach of the Limbic System that could not be covered in a mind-body communication approach.

My focus is on the concepts of integration and harmony. The limbic system in the brain deals with fundamental factors of human survival: (a) the preservation of the self, the protection and continuity of the species, (b) the care and nurture of the vulnerable, especially the young, (c) and the integration of what is novel with what is known (Ashbrook, 1989, 365). The hypothalamus, centering on the limbic system, integrates our sensory-perceptual, emotional, and cognitive functions of mind with the biological and psychological rhythms of the body (Rossi, 1986). The Limbic system designates what the human being is as he/she follows fundamental factors of human survival, which could be the Way of the Tao.

Among sixty-four hexagrams in the I Ching, Holding Together expresses well the Taoists wisdom of integration:

                Holding Together brings good fortune. Inquire of the oracle once again whether you possess
                sublimity, constancy, and perseverance; then there is no blame. Those who are uncertain
                gradually join. Whoever comes too late meets with misfortune. (Wilhelm, 1990, p. 36).

The task of Holding Together is that we unite with others, in order that all may complement and aid one another through holding together (The Wilhelm, 1990, p. 36). Our human species should hold together through a community of interests that allows each individual to feel himself a member of a whole (The Wilhelm, 1990, p. 37). The task of Holding Together is the matter of how to survive together as the species, not any special nation or race or individual. The Limbic system in the brain grasps the principle of ecological preservation and nurture and survival in our day-to-day lives.

As an example, the concept of harmony is well expressed in the hexagram,

Gathering Together (Tsui). The Joyous (lake) and the receptive (earth) meet face to face: Since the lake is a place where water collects, the idea of gathering together is even more strongly expressed here than in the other hexagram (The Wilhelm, 1990, p. 174). In the similar or analogical way, the Limbic system embraces the flowing of the blood circulation in the brain. The Limbic system is sensitive enough to the overflow of the blood within to give its own feedback to the both Autonomic Nerve System (ANS) and Central Nerve System (CNS). The Limbic System holds together to bring a joyous harmony or an ecological order inside of the body.

When I experienced multicultural urban lives in Chicago, I envisioned the day of Pentecost, which is depicted in the Book of Acts, chapter two in the Bible: When the day of Pentecost came they were all together in one place. We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our human languages (1, 11v). This passage gives me the ministerial insight that all Christians (or human beings) pursue the mission of God with our human languages in order to renew the ecosystems of God, in our daily lives. The Pentecostal language (singular) is the vision of faith with which the Holy Spirit calls us and renews us to bring our own personal stories and community visions. Many urban stories and visions represent a mixture of multicultural dreams and life-patterns, especially in metropolitan Chicago.

In the story of the Pentecost, I find a biblical metaphor, which embraces our inner woundedness, idiosyncratic, and alienation. From the biblical metaphor of Pentecost, I want to look for a hermeneutic task about how to reach Christian messages of ecological renewal to our generation today, especially in a multicultural life situation in U.S.A. I believe that, for the pastoral counselor, his/her hermeneutic task is to generate a diagnostic eye to perceive the clients idiosyncratic human languages in the age of ecological crises, and to link them with the deep level of the renewing Spirit of God: a mind-body communication. In this sense, pastoral diagnosis is to find ways to explore how God is involved with those persons in the situation of personal and social, ecological crises: poverty, pain, terminal illness, hurt, racism, sexism, alienation or injustice.

In the psychology of Tao, I would like to introduce the firing process as a central metaphor, which can be compared with the biblical metaphor of the Pentecost. What is the firing process? It is a natural way or order of practical spiritual development. P. Chan (1986) explains the origin of the firing process metaphor that it is as when one cooks medicines over a fire, there are times for gentle firing, intense firing, and stopping at sufficiency. So the order of application of effort in cultivation of reality is represented as firing process (p. 58). Both metaphors of the Pentecost and the firing process symbolize the language of change in our ordinary lives. I think that this kind of metaphorical communication activates the right-side of the brain and increases our actual energy of life by triggering the threshold of action potential, in the neuro-cellular synaptic connection.

Metaphorical communication, including a sense of humor, increases the immunity of human mind. When we feel a sense of being cared, loved and connected with others, our physical immune system begins to be activated and harmonized. Clinical Psychoneuroimmunology supports the view that human health needs to be understood in terms of wholistic and ecological integration and harmony. We have to define the concept of human illness from unified and wholistic perspective, not only from one-sided or biomedical perspective. Story-telling, emotional and social support, disclosure of traumas, meditation, and religious worship or fellowship are some of methods that help to enhance the level of human immunity in our daily lives.

In Taoism, the potential energy is ecological and universal field of life is harmony, which is symbolized in the principle of the Yin-Yang. How can we actualize the potential energy in our daily lives? The metaphorical meaning of the firing process teaches us how to follow the natural and biological rhythm of the unified harmony. It is also a biblical mandate for us to take a biological or ecological rest/Sabbath: By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing: so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (Genesis 2:2-3). From the psychology of Tao, the ecological motif of the rest/Sabbath in Genesis has become for us a universal ecology/cycle of life. P. Chan (1986) explains a firing process in terms of spiritual work:

                The firing process of spiritual work is not a matter of years, months, days, or hours; it
                applies to every moment - doing first what should be done first, doing later what should be done
                later, hurrying when one should hurry, relaxing when one should relax, advancing when one should
                advance, withdrawing when one should withdraw, shifting effectively at the appropriate times. (p. 58).

Most immigrants in U.S.A., as strangers in the mainline community of America, experience spatial and temporal wandering or journey that is reflected in both the scripture and the literature of the Taoism. The role of mental health workers or religious counselors is to discern their clients sense of alienation and woundedness, and to encourage them to practice the Scriptural meaning of the Sabbath as well as the firing process of spiritual work in a timely manner, because pastoral care leads to self-acceptance in spite of the ambiguity of ones being (P. Tillich 1984, p. 127).

*This paper is copyrighted by Sang Bok Lee, Ph.D. as it is submitted and presented at the First Annual Meeting of the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences (AABSS) at the Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada, January 13 16, 1998. Reprint or correspondence concerning this paper may be addressed to Dr. Sang Bok Lee, President, Northwest Counseling & Education Institute, 307 S. Milwaukee Ave., Suite 127, Wheeling, Illinois 60090. Electric mail may be sent via the Internet to: SangLeePhD@Aol.Com

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