35Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That OF EXPERIENCE AND BEING: APOPOS OF THIS AND THAT AN ANALYSIS FROM DAOISM TO HEIDEGGER SHEA DIVOLL § 1: TO BE “God is absolute nothingness. God is not, however, mere nothingness. An immovable unifying activity clearly functions at the base of the establishment of reality, and it is by means of this activity that reality is established.” ––Nishida Kitarō 西田 幾多郎 in An Inquiry Into the Good 善の研究 36 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College § 1.1: YELLOW-RED-BLUE I AM. Just two words. Two words so important, though, that they have come to mean God in one of the largest religions in the world.1 The idea of Being2, of the I-am-ness, the you-are-ness, and the it-is-ness underlies the premises of philosophy in a few different ways. On one- hand, much of language is structured implicitly around Being, the type of Being that lets humans describe things and people; it is the Being that says a certain cat is brown, or she is intelligent. Inasmuch as philosophy rests on the shoulders of language, it is thus subject to Being.Alterna- tively, there are also more subtle questions that define a more tacit man- ifestation of Being. What makes a being a being? How does a being be? Or, is the Being of different beings the same fundamental Being? Ques- tions like these are, in part, the foundation of religion and philosophy. Consequently, it is reasonable to desire firm answers to the questions of Being, or at the very least, to inquire for a deeper understanding of Be- ing. The man who perhaps spent the longest time addressing these que tions of Being was Martin Heidegger, a twentieth-century philosopher who laid the groundwork for most of modern philosophical discourse. By first explicating the context Heidegger arose in, then the philosophy he constructed, in addition to important ideas in classical Daoism, I will soon show how classical Daoist ideas like wuwei and equipmentality3 seeped deeply into the works of Heidegger. Contrary to popular belief on the subject, I intend to demonstrate that Daoist sources had a clear influence on Heidegger’s early work, including Being and Time. 1 This refers to the use of “Ἐγώ εἰμί” in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The phrase builds off of Exodus 3:14 in the Torah where God claims “I Am that I Am”, or in Hebrew, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh”. Hence, at a very early point in the development of Western culture, inasmuch as that term is applicable, the idea of Being was at the forefront of religious and philosophical thought. See “Christianity” by Hogg et al or “‘I Am Who I Am’? The meaning of God’s Name in Exodus” by LeFebvre for a more in depth discussion of this topic. 2 From here on, I am going to use Heidegger’s convention of capitalizing Being, primarily because of its centrality to ontology and existence. The convention of capitalizing Being is remarkably similar to the convention for writing “God”; and to this end, Dr. Michael Sugrue’s lecture “Heidegger: Being and Time” on YouTube raises a fascinating point on how Heidegger’s treatment of the word “Being” mirrors a Christian’s treatment of the word God. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaobMHescwg. 3 Equipmentality is not in itself a classical Daoist idea. However, the paradigm of equipmentality that is later shown to be present in classical Daoism is the same paradigm Heidegger uses. 37Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That § 1.2: WANDERER ABOVE THE SEA OF FOG Born in the late nineteenth century, Martin Heidegger grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Meßkirch, Germany, whereupon he began training to be a priest in 1903. After leaving the program due to health issues, he shortly thereafter began to study the questions of Being. Heidegger found himself reflecting on the ontology of Aristot- le, traditional Catholic theology, modern Protestant thinkers including Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Luther, as well as many other Western philosophical thinkers. By 1927, he published Being and Time (Sein und Zeit), and established himself as an important name in philosophy. A cursory glance through Being and Time, however, will raise some issues. Despite his elaborate education, we immediately see a stark contrast between his education and his philosophy. Consider the follow- ing quote: This undifferentiated character of Dasein's everydayness is not nothing, but a positive phenomenal characteristic of this entity.4 Where did this diction and syntax come from? For Heidegger to have such a learned vocabulary in ontology, one would certainly assume he had an education which made him proficient in such terms. And in part, he did have some education in ontology, especially as he was a pupil of Edmund Husserl. Yet, if we follow the narrative of Martin Heidegger as a Catholic-turned-philosopher, it comes off as a non-sequitur for him to have such an emphasis strictly on Being. Although figures like Saint Au- gustine come from a Catholic tradition and discuss ontology, Heidegger approaches ontology from a paradigm completely opposed to Christian education, rejecting and changing many premises Augustine would con- sider fundamental. To emphasize my point: 4 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, ed. by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1962), 69, http://pdf-objects.com/files/Heidegger-Martin-Being- and-Time-trans.-Macquarrie-Robinson-Blackwell-1962.pdf. The excerpt essentially means that Dasein, which translates roughly as Being-there, is not less relevant because of how worldly it is, rather it is more defined. However, the quote was only provided to demonstrate the vocabulary of Martin Heidegger. 38 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College The Interpretation in which the “not-yet––and with it even the uttermost “not-yet”, the end of Dasein––was taken in the sense of something still outstanding, has been rejected as inappropriate in that it included the ontological perversion of making Dasein something present-at-hand. Being-at-an-end implies existentially Being-towards-the-end.5 Again, there is room for a reasonable amount of creativity and ingenuity on Heidegger’s part; nevertheless, his turn toward the ideas and concepts of Being and Time appears out of left field. However, this is only sur- prising under the paradigm highlighted thus far of Heidegger as a Chris- tian-turned-philosopher––and yet this is precisely the wrong paradigm. Although Heidegger commonly wrote on traditionally “Western” dia- logues,6 he did have significant Eastern influences, especially Daoism. For instance, “Heidegger’s ‘A Dialogue on Language between a Japa- nese and an Inquirer’ (1959) confirms that this engagement [with Dao- ism] goes back to as early as 1921,”7 which is far before the publishing of Being and Time. Furthermore, at a dinner party in the 1930s,Heideg- ger asked his host for Parables of Zhuangzi (Reden und gleichnisse des Tschuang-Tse), which he then gave a garrulous speech on.8 In some of Heidegger’s later works, he created the word Weg to mean a path or way, and it has striking similarities to the Chinese Dao (note that Heidegger himself compared Weg to the Greek hodós).9 Additionally, he cited the Laozi 老子 many times throughout his papers. Not only this, but he was so well acquainted with Daoist texts that he intentionally utilized paral- lelism between his writing and early Daoist texts. In one text, “Heideg- ger’s ‘Geheimnis aller Geheimnisse’ is a reference to xuan zhi you xuan 5 Heidegger, Being and Time, 293. Here, Heidegger is discussing how Dasein relates with Being-towards-death and Being-towards-the-end, which is a bit out of the scope of this paper. Like the above excerpt, this is included strictly to emphasize the writing style of Martin Heidegger. 6 In terms of published works, Heidegger directly addressed Western philosophers in Kant and The Problem of Metaphysics in 1929, Nietzsche in 1961, Hegel’s Concept of Experience in 1970, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit in 1988, Parmenides in 1992, Plato’s Sophist in 1992, Heraclitus Seminar in 1993, Phenomenological Interpretation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in 1997, and Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle in 2001. 7 Eric S. Nelson, “Heidegger’s Daoist Turn,” Research in Phenomenology 49, no. 3 (2019): 363, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26843235?seq=5. 8 Ibid. 9 Tobias Keiling, “Way (Weg),” in The Cambridge Heidegger Lexicon, ed. Mark A. Wrathall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 813- 814; Nelson, “Heidegger’s Daoist Turn,” 363. 39Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That 玄之又玄”10 from the Laozi. All in all, there is significant evidence de- veloping the connection between Martin Heidegger and Daoism, espe- cially classical Daoism (to the extent that the Laozi and Zhuangzi 莊子11 are pillars of classical Daoism).12 § 1.3: THE SCREAM OF NATURE With an understanding of Martin Heidegger’s academic back- ground, I will now give a selection of passages from Being and Time that are useful in later understanding how he may have had “hidden” sources.13 Heidegger believed that the question of Being was central to philosophy. Thus, the primary concern for his philosophy was the pri- mordial question of Being and the lack of an authentic approach to this question. To understand this exigence: The question of Being aims therefore at ascertaining the a priori conditions not only for the possibility of the sciences which examine entities as entities of such and such a type, and, in so doing, already operate with an understanding of Being, but also for the possibility of those ontologies themselves which are prior to the ontical sciences and which provide their foundations. Basically, all ontology, no matter how rich and firmly compacted a system of categories it has at its disposal, remains blind and perverted from its 10 Nelson, “Heidegger’s Daoist Turn,” 365. “Geheimnis aller Geheimnisse” means the “mystery within the mystery”, however the meaning changes significantly depending on the base language. 11 It may be worth noting here that although the Zhuangzi is historically said to be written by a figure named Zhuangzi, historians actually consider it an anthology with many sections by different authors. I will herein refer to the authors of the Zhuangzi as the single person named Zhuangzi, because this is useful in discussing the book and is valid insofar as the authors can all be approximated by a single name. 12 It is worth noting that my use of Daoism, and even classical Daoism, in reference to Heidegger could be too broad. Explicitly, Heidegger interacted with the Laozi and Zhuangzi exclusively, leading Graham Park on page 13 of “Thoughts on the Way” to refer to Heidegger’s Daoist influences as the works of Lao-Zhuang. So, although I may reference Daoism and classical Daoism, when referring to Heidegger, I am more so talking about the Lao- Zhuang authors. 13 This is an allusion to an interesting book about Heidegger’s relationship with East-Asian philosophy called Heidegger’s Hidden Sources, East-Asian Influences on his Work by Reinhard May. 40 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College ownmost aim, if it has not first adequately clarified the meaning of Being, and conceived this clarification as its fundamental task.14 Essentially, the Being of beings is a concern for Heidegger, and the at- tempt to understand this is a nearly impossible task; as each approxima- tion of true Being is coming from a being and a web of presuppositions surrounding Being. Thus, an authentic mode or system of ontology is concerned with the Being of beings, while an inauthentic one would per- vert the meaning or purpose of ontology, often resulting in onticology.15 The lack of a sufficient answer to the questions of Being has, in Heidegger's account, been due to the lack of bias-free approaches to the question. The pre-Socratic philosophers such as Anaximander, Heracli- tus, and Parmenides had discourses in ontology which (at least in Heide- gger’s opinion) were free from negative linguistic and cultural assump- tions.16 Thus, in ontology, this meant that the pre-Socratics started from the point of view that we exist and built out what that means from there. However, following Socrates, and especially following Plato with his Theory of Forms, the assumptions philosophers made in ontology began to shift. Instead of considering what it means to exist right now, many philosophers started from the assumption that there is an afterlife, and found the meaning of existence to be a combination of the afterlife with the current life, the divine with the sublime, or something of that sort. This was only magnified by the growth of religions such as Christianity 14 Heidegger, Being and Time, 31. The emphasis in this quote is directly from the source, it is not mine. 15 The term “onticology” is a play on Heidegger’s distinction between the ontological and the ontic. Contrary to its popular use, Heidegger used ontic to relate something to a being, while ontology regarded the Being of a being. Thus, I am presenting onticology as the study of being, rather than Being. 16 See Glenn W. Most, “Heidegger’s Greeks,” (n.d.), 85, https://www.bu.edu/ arion/files/2010/03/Greeks-Most.pdf. Most highlights Heidegger’s pre- Socratic influence by describing the nature in which Heidegger adopted specifically non-Platonic and non-Aristotelian ideas from the ancient Greeks, going as far as calling the Greeks as Heidegger’s “Pagan Gospel”. 41Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That and Islam, which both further propagated this mode of ontology.17 For Heidegger, Being-towards-divinity or Being-towards- transcendence was necessarily skewing ontology; as he believed that ontology should start from the most fundamental aspects of Being, then build up. Due to the historical prevalence of the aforementioned religions (and their proselytizing nature), Western philosophers often interpreted divine and out-of-this-world notions as being fundamental aspects of Being - even when a more fundamental aspect would stem from simply Being-in-the- world, thus “polluting” Western ontology. Hence, the starting place of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy is his rejection of most of Western ontology and the need for a com- pletely new foundation of ontology. First, Heidegger’s philosophy requires a new word––Dasein.18 Dasein roughly translates as “Be- ing-there,” which represents the fact that a human’s understanding of Being only exists insofar as they understand Being through the lens of a human being’s Being. As a construct, Being itself is inaccessible.19 Thus, Dasein represents this underlying sense of Being-as-experienced, in contrast to Being proper: Dasein is an entity which does not just occur among other entities. Rather it is ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very Being, that Being is an issue for it. But in that case, this is a constitutive state of Dasein's 17 The Six Enneads by Plotinus began the thought-system of Neoplatonism, which led to the Western focus on forms of ontology which do not prioritize Being itself. Neoplatonism in Relation to Christianity: An Essay by C. Elsee is a good resource for understanding how Neoplatonism affected Christian theology during Christianity’s formative years. For Islam, see Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought edited by Parviz Morewedge to understand this dynamic. More precisely, John 3:16 of The Bible is a good example of Being-towards-divinity in Christianity; and for Islam, The Qur’an 29:64 likewise endorses Being-towards-divinity. In both cases, the holy texts advocate for the afterlife being the purpose of this life, and thus ontology from these frameworks starts with framing humanity’s existence in terms of pursuing the afterlife, when in fact there is a current life we could frame ontology in. 18 Though Dasein can be translated as “Being-there”, and it is translated as such once in the above text, I will leave it untranslated for the majority of the essay because a translation only serves to misrepresent the context for which Heidegger invented the word. 19 The inaccessibility of Being is still a topic in contemporary literature, as the incredible work of Thomas Nagel in What Is It Like to Be a Bat? emphasizes the limitations of ontology. No amount of scholarship could uncover the similarities in the Being of a human and the Being of a bat. As a fact, there is no basis for understanding what it is like to have wings, what echolocation as a sensory perception feels like, etc. 42 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College Being, and this implies that Dasein, in its Being, has a relationship towards that Being–– a relationship which itself is one of Being.20 Referring back to his critique of historical Western ontology, Heideg- ger would argue (and to an extent did argue this in other places)21 that the object of Being, whose subject is Being (Dasein), was omitted from most of Western tradition in exchange for studying ontic entities, simple modes of Being, and Being-towards-divinity.22 Being and Time, in addition to creating the framework for un- derstanding Dasein, also highlights complementary concepts in ontolo- gy, including Thrownness (Gerworfenheit), ready-to-hand (zuhanden- heit), as well as present-at-hand (vorhanden). Thrownness23 refers to the human condition in which a human being is “thrown” into existence without proper consent on entering this life and with no choice in where they are born, when they are born, their personality, etc. Given the mag- nitude of this condition and its universality, it is a key aspect of Dasein and is alluded to in context here: Dasein has forgotten itself in its ownmost thrown potentiality-for-Being. This forgetting is not nothing, nor is it just a failure to remember; it is rather a 'positive' ecstatical mode of one's having been––a mode with a character of its own.24 Thus, one consequence of the intensity of Thrownness is that Da- sein integrates the Thrownness to such an extent that it forgets to remember its more authentic Being, or as Heidegger says, po- tentiality-for-Being takes precedence. The concept of Thrownness also corresponds well with the classical Daoist text entitled the Zhuangzi, and that correlative will assist in deepening our understanding of Thrownness later. 20 Heidegger, Being and Time, 32. 21 See Heidegger’s Philosophy of Religion: From God to Gods by Ben Vedder for more details. 22 For the sake of brevity, I will have to skip over much of the characterization of Dasein given by Heidegger, and will assume this background is sufficient. 23 Geworfenheit is referred to as Thrownness because this is the academic consensus for the best translation of it. Some other translations include dereliction and dejection. 24 Heidegger, Being and Time, 339. 43Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That Next, the idea of ready-to-handness is also similar to ideas in the Zhuangzi, and thus a discussion of it is warranted. First, consider a person about to locomote to their nine to five job. They step into their car, presumably listen to music or a podcast, or per- haps just enjoy the present moment while driving, and they soon arrive at work. The car’s Being, though on one level is simply an ontical expression of car-ness, manifests to the person as an instrument of the immanence of soon being at work. The phaínes- thai (φαίνεσθαι) of the car’s Being to the person is hence not as a car-in-itself ontically but rather as the ready-to-be-usedness of a tool. This ready-to-be-usedness is what Heidegger calls ready-to- handness: The ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all, nor is it itself the sort of thing that circumspection takes proximally as a circumspective theme. The peculiarity of what is proximally ready-to-hand is that, in its readiness- to-hand, it must, as it were, withdraw (zurückzuziehen) in order to be ready-to-hand quite authentically. That with which our everyday dealings proximally dwell is not the tools themselves (die Werkzeuge selbst). On the contrary, that with which we concern ourselves primarily is the work––that which is to be produced at the time; and this is accordingly ready-to-hand too.25 By this, he means that the most authentic ready-to-handness (thus the best definition for the term) is an object which is fully with- drawn from one aspect of itself (namely the aforementioned ontic being) to be used as the essence of a tool. Meanwhile, present-at-hand also coincides with ready-to- handness. While something ready-at-hand is currently available as a tool, an object present-at-hand exists in the world simply as a being but is able to become ready-to-hand if an instrumental par- adigm sees it. This is because once someone with an instrumental view sees this present-at-hand object, it is no longer just ready to be or exist; instead, it is now ready to be used. Regarding objects present-at-hand: 25 Heidegger, Being and Time, 99. 44 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College To entities such as these, their Being is 'a matter of indifference' or more precisely, they 'are' such that their Being can be neither a matter of indifference to them, nor the opposite.26 Hence, the principal focus of an object present-at-hand is the isness of itself. More precisely, it is the pure isness, to such an extent that neither Being nor non-Being is a concern. With an understanding of a few Heideggerian concepts from Being and Time, I will now give a similar background of classical Daoism. § 2: OR NOT TO BE? “Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know.” –– Laozi 老子 in Laozi 老子 § 2.1: THE GOD OF SPINOZA Classical Daoism27 (4th century B.C.E to 9 C.E.)28 refers to the very beginning of the Daoist belief system in China. In this period, clas- sical Daoism was subject to two separate segments of Chinese histo- ry, existing during the Warring States Period 戰國時代 (from the birth of Daoism until 221 B.C.E.) then the Former Han dynasty 漢朝 (from 206 B.C.E. until the end of classical Daoism in 9 C.E.)29 During these two eras, classical Daoism is well- characterized by the wealth of liter- ature coming from this epoch, where essential texts included the Laozi, Zhuangzi, Guanzi 管子, Huainanzi 淮南子, Lüshi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋, and the Huangdi sijing 黃帝四經.30 Hereupon, I will take any practice or thought system focused on the cosmological idea of the Dao 道 to be relevant to our discussion 26 Heidegger, Being and Time, 68. 27 In the discussion of Daoism, the topic of translation is at the forefront of the conversation. For consistency, I will use the Hanyu Pinyin translation style over the Wade-Giles translation style for this essay. However, for the sake of clarity, I will also include any important terms from Daoism in Chinese the first time I use them. 28 Adrien Stoloff, “HU 3900 Mysticism Nei-yeh (Inward Training),” Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, 2024. 29 Stoloff, “HU 3900 Mysticism Nei-yeh (Inward Training),” 2024. 30 Ibid. 45Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That and moreover to be a reasonable approximation for Daoism.31 The Dao is often translated as “the Way” or “the Path”; however, to best avoid projecting preconceived notions for interpreting the Dao, I will simply leave it as “the Dao.” Hence, emphasis will be placed on how the early Daoist texts characterized the Dao and not on a linguistic translation. To this end, we can now characterize the Dao: The One is the most valued of all things. No one knows its source. No one knows its manifestations. No one knows where it starts or where it ends. Yet the myriad things take it to be their progenitor. The sage-king imitates it to keep his nature intact, to fix his life span, and to issue orders.32 Thus, as the Dao is one, any following characteristics will importantly be one aspect of a whole part, which when analyzing Heidegger, will be relevant. There is also a normative claim made here implying that a “good” person has a nature imitating the Dao, inasmuch as a sage-king is a good person. Additionally, the Dao is ineffable33 as seen in the Laozi here: The way that can be spoken of Is not the constant way; The name that can be named Is not the constant name.34 In this context, the Dao is not only ineffable, but its ineffability implies its divine essence, which connects well with the conception of the Dao as both transcendent and immanent. Next, the Dao has intimate connec- tions with the concepts of nothingness and creation. To begin to see this, consider the passage from the Laozi: Its upper part is not dazzling; Its lower part is not obscure. Dimly visible, it cannot be named 31 The idea of trying to separate Chinese concepts of religion and philosophy is yet another controversial issue; because there may be a tendency of Western academia to superimpose Western concepts (like religion and philosophy) onto Eastern belief systems, I will avoid characterizing Daoism and related concepts where it is unnecessary, and will choose more broad terms such as “belief systems”. This is all to say that the categorization of Daoism is not as important as the ideas present in Daoism, so Daoism is going to be conceived of as a belief system in pursuit of authenticity. 32 Lüshi Chunqiu, 111 as quoted in Adrien Stoloff, “Laozi 1,” Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, 2024. 33 Stoloff, “Laozi 1,” 2024. 34 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, tr. by D.C. Lau (London: Penguin, 2003), chap. 1. 46 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College And returns to that which is without substance. This is called the shape that has no shape, The image that is without substance. This is called indistinct and shadowy. Go up to it and you will not see its head; Follow behind it and you will not see its rear.35 First, notice how the shape is characterized as the shape that has no shape. Ontologically the Dao is the ontological entity that is comprised of the negation of ontological value; as in Being.36 The Dao is the mani- festation of the Being of non-Being. It is a real thing; it does have a head and tail, but the head and tail are not visible. If the Dao’s meaning is unclear, the idea of a shadow is illuminating. In many ways, a shadow is not a tangible thing, it is simply an absence of a tangible thing, that is light. Thus, in the same way that a shadow is a being distinguished by and composed of non-Being, so too is the Dao the Being of non-Be- ing. Although a philosophy or religion of nothingness, or the Nothing,37 could seem to be in vain, the Laozi also addressed this: Thus what we gain is Something, yet it is by virtue of Nothing that this can be put to use.38 In Daoism, the concern is not the uselessness of Nothing because of the existence of Something; rather, the concern is that Something is use- less without Nothing. Insofar as an essence for the Dao is uselessness, uselessness is affirmed as being a positive thing in the paradigm of the useless tree in the Zhuangzi: After Carpenter Shi had returned home, the oak tree appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘What are you comparing me with? Are you comparing me with those useful trees? The cherry apple, the pear, the orange, the citron, the rest of those fructiferous trees and shrubs - as soon as their fruit is ripe, they are torn apart and subjected to abuse. 35 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chap. 14. 36 Even when outside the Heideggerian framework, I am still going to capitalize Being to denote the context that the idea of Being requires as an ontological entity, and emphasize the difference between Being and the everyday use of being. 37 Similar to the convention for Being, I will capitalize terms like Nothing and Nothingness to emphasize their different meaning from everyday use, even when not discussing them directly in relation to Daoism or phenomenology. Furthermore, Nothingness as a concept can be likened to a religious ideal of God in the same way Being can, which is in part why the concept meontology exists. 38 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chap. 11. 47Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That Their big limbs are broken off, their little limbs are yanked around. Their utility makes life miserable for them, and so they don’t get to finish out the years Heaven gave them, but are cut off in mid-journey. They bring it on themselves - the pulling and tearing of the common mob. And it’s the same way with all other things.’ ‘As for me, I’ve been trying a long time to be of no use, and though I almost died, I’ve finally got it. This is of great use to me. If I had been of some use, would I ever have grown this large? Moreover you and I are both of us things. What’s the point of this - things condemning things? You, a worthless man about to die - how do you know I’m a worthless tree?’39 Here, the text carefully establishes the merit of uselessness while also taking care not to conflate worthiness with usefulness––part of the value of the Dao is in uselessness. Meanwhile, as the Dao is transcendent and immanent, it is paradoxically useful and useless. Thus, the usefulness of Nothingness is made manifest in Daoist cosmogony, which is explained by: The way begets one; One begets two; Two begets three; Three begets the myriad creatures.40 The Dao (“the way” in this passage) has already been shown as a cos- mological force that relates to Nothingness, so the fact that the Dao is the center of Daoist cosmology means that Nothingness is a pivotal part of Something; that non-Creation is a center of Creation; and later, that non-Being is a pivotal aspect of Being. We furthermore see it character- ized as xu 虛 (empty), yuan 淵 (deep), zhan 湛 (dark), jing 靜 (still), yao 窈 (dim), ji 寂 (silent) and liao 廖 (void); leading to the realization of the Dao’s essential action being wuwei 無為 (non-action).41 § 2.2: THE CREATURES OF PROMETHEUS Now engaged in the Daoist paradigm, we are prepared to begin tackling the core concept of wuwei. As mentioned earlier, wuwei is the 39 Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi Basic Writings, tr. by Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), chap. 4. 40 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chap. 42. 41 Stoloff, “Laozi 1,” 2024. 48 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College essential action of the Dao, which leads to many implications for the meaning of wuwei. First, wuwei is traditionally translated as “effortless action” or as “non-action,” both of which may necessitate some explana- tion. Although it more closely translates in English to “non-action” from a linguistic perspective, the phrase non-action has the wrong connota- tion for the meaning of wuwei (which is why I will leave wuwei untrans- lated). Instead, “effortless action” better depicts the idea that wuwei is still an action, but it is an action that is not forced and is in harmony with the Dao. Although wuwei will be left untranslated, it can be thought of as connotationally meaning effortless action and denotationally meaning non-action. In most of the aforenamed classical Daoist texts, wuwei is a staple for understanding the Daoist worldview and the relation of the Dao to humanity and existence. Similar to the Dao, wuwei is better un- derstood by seeing all the ways it is characterized rather than trying to fit it into a one-sentence definition. For instance, Xunzi 荀子 discusses wuwei as “an ideal way to ‘walk the path.’”42 From this definition alone, there is the interesting conclusion that the essential action of the Dao is the manifestation of the ideal way of experiencing the Dao (calling back to the definition of the Dao). Hence, using wuwei as an intermediary step, we learn that the Dao as a cosmological and mystical idea has an essential action of interacting with itself, further compounding its mysti- cal nature. The Laozi also describes wuwei by describing the never-act- ing of the Dao: “The way never acts, yet nothing is left undone.”43 At face value, this is a characterization of the Dao (the Way). However, as the way never acts, the text is characterizing the Dao as having wuwei, and by virtue of having wuwei, nothing is left undone. Thus, returning to the discussion of effortless action versus no action, wuwei must be asso- ciated with some action as nothing is left undone; however, it is also not excessive action - again lending credibility to the translation of wuwei as effortless action. Furthermore, wuwei is a virtue present in the sage: Hence the sage says, I take no action and the people are transformed of themselves; I prefer stillness and the people are rectified of themselves; I am 42 Adrien Stoloff, “Mind Like a Mirror: Toward a Modern Understanding of Classical Daoist Wuwei,” PhD diss., (Brown University, 2019), 115, https:// repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:918791/. 43 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chap. 37. 49Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That not meddlesome and the people prosper of themselves; I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple like the uncarved block.44 Here, there is an emphasis placed on the lack-of-action aspect of wuwei, or more appropriately, the lack of improper action, insofar as adjectives like meddlesome are included to develop the nuance of wuwei advocat- ing for a lack of improper action and not a lack of any action. This aspect of wuwei is present in sages, and thus the Laozi is making a normative argument for the value of acting in harmony with the Dao via wuwei. This harkens back to the passage on the Dao, which asserts that sage- kings are in tune with the Dao; thus, having a nature imitating the Dao is both good and wuwei. To leave the realm of abstractions, contemplate a more palpable illustration of wuwei. Suppose you are a Daoist, and there is a loud argu- ment on the train you are riding.45 The fight is actively escalating, and it appears increasingly likely that the man in the fight is going to physical- ly hit the woman he is fighting. Only a few options come to your mind. For one, there are plenty of other people on the train, and this argument is not your problem, so let the fight happen and move on with your day. Conversely, be a hero! Imagine the news clips showing a valiant paragon saving a woman from domestic abuse by gallantly fighting the abuser! But, what is the most Daoist way to react? How could you react with wuwei? In this exact scenario, a New York man responded by eating po- tato chips to de-escalate the scenario.46 Rather than reacting in a forced way (as in by picking a fight), which could put more people in danger, the bystander decided to step between the two people fighting; confusing the potential abuser enough to fully quell the situation. Furthermore, the bystander did not choose to do nothing, mirroring the fact that wuwei is not “doing nothing”. Instead, the man took action, but not excessively, and in turn, this man exemplified acting with wuwei. Briefly returning to wuwei as classical Daoists described it, wu- wei is the action of Tiān 天 (Heaven) and Di 地 (Earth), and therefore, it is the optimal life path, which is vital to lifelong health and happiness. 47 With such a broad definition, there are countless valid explanations and 44 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chap. 57. 45 Stoloff, “Laozi 1,” 2024. The idea of the ensuing narrative warrants full credit to Professor Stoloff. 46 See the video “Man breaks up subway fight while eating potato chips” by WPTV News - FL Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast at https://youtu.be/ hR5cfTVkf-0?si=rHAreMgFQVEebTea. 47 Adrien Stoloff, “Wuwei in the Zhuangzi 2” Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, 2024. 50 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College understandings of wuwei, not limited to the definitions provided herein. § 3.1: HOW MUCH LAND DOES A MAN NEED? The confluence of Being and Time with classical Daoism is a topic that has largely been both understudied and unacknowledged. Giv- en the breadth of ideas I would like to incorporate in this section, I will first make explicit the general formatting of this chapter. By and large, I aspire to unveil places where Being and Time exhibits direct proof of Daoist influence and to begin an open discussion on the similarity of certain concepts in Being and Time and classical Daoism. This will be accomplished by directly presenting the praxes of my argument in the implied order, where the beginning arguments are direct proofs of Heidegger’s Daoist influences, and later arguments become nuanced discussions showing how classical Daoist ideals arise in Being and Time, regardless of the intentionality on Heidegger’s part. To that end, the preponderance of evidence suggesting direct Daoist sources in Being and Time ought to establish the plausibility of the similarities between the Heideggerian and Daoist worldviews as stemming from Heidegger’s direct inspiration from Daoist manuscripts. § 3.2: TWICE TWO MAKES FOUR To set the stage for the magnitude of Daoist ideas in Being and Time, I will first present an excerpt which, even if hyperbolic, should help understand the view some of Heidegger’s colleagues had on his work: Ito Kichinosuke [伊藤吉之助], one of my teachers at university, studied in Germany in 1918 immediately after the First World War and hired Heidegger as a private tutor. Before moving 20 back to Japan at the end of his studies, Professor Ito handed Heidegger a copy of Das Buch vom Tee, the German translation of Okakura Kakuzō’s The Book of Tea, as a token of his appreciation. That was in 1919. Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) was published in 1927 and made Heidegger famous. Mr. Ito was surprised and indignant that Heidegger used Zhuangzi’s concept without giving him credit. Years later in 1945, Professor Ito reminisced with me and, speaking in his Shonai dialect, said, ‘Heidegger did a lot for me, but I should’ve laid into him for stealing’. There are other indications that 51Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That Heidegger was inspired by Eastern writings, but let’s leave this topic here. I have heard many stories of this kind from Professor Ito and checked their veracity. I recounted this story at a reception held after a series of lectures I gave in 1968 at the University of Heidelberg at the invitation of Hans- Georg Gadamer. Japanese exchange students attended these lectures, and I explained that there were many other elements of classical Eastern thought in Heidegger’s philosophy and gave some examples. I must have said too much and may even have said that Heidegger was a plagiarist…48 For context, the quotation above is from the point of view of a Japanese university student whose professor had hired Martin Heideg- ger as a private tutor. The student recounts that his professor gave Heide- gger a copy of The Book of Tea. When Being and Time was published, the professor was certain that Heidegger had used Kakuzō’s analysis of Daoism as the foundation of his philosophy, with the student later giving a lecture on this issue at an academic conference in Japan. In The Book of Tea, we directly read: “Taoism [is] the ‘art of being in the world.’”49 The implication here regarding Heidegger is clear as day, as there is no proof of Heidegger using the term “Being-in-the-world” before he had read the German version of The Book of Tea. With the publication of Be- ing and Time in 1927, Heidegger had already had access to this transla- tion as well as a copy of the Zhuangzi for many years. This fact has held up in contemporary philosophy, as the few modern scholars discussing this issue all say something along the lines of “he has been suspected of borrowing the expression ‘being-in-the-world’ (in-der-welt-sein) from the 1919 German translation of Okakura Kakuzō 岡倉覚三, The Book of Tea (Cha no Hon 茶の本).”50 Calling back to chapter one, recall that the majority of Being and Time is a characterization of Dasein in one way or another. Yet, the very term Dasein (Being-there) is derivative of Being-in-the-world, which itself is from the characterization of Daoism by Kakuzō. What then? Is not the entire web of Heideggerian concepts built outwards from the point of stolen intellectual property? As the evidence is pre- sented, Heidegger did find a niche concept, wrote it off as his own, and 48 Tomonobu Imamichi, In Search of Wisdom; One Philosopher’s Journey, (Tokyo, Japan: International House of Japan, 2004), 123-124. 49 Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea (Global Grey, 2014), 16, http://pdf- objects.com/files/Book-Of-Tea.pdf. 50 Eric S. Nelson, “Martin Heidegger and Kitayama Junyū: Nothingness, Emptiness, and the Thing” Asian Studies 11, no. 1 (2023): 30, https:// journals.uni-lj.si/as/article/view/10594. 52 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College then wrote a book on the concept. Thus, the most logical position main- tains the existence of Heidegger’s Daoist influences; any objection must first develop proof of Heidegger's conception of this concept before he interacted with East Asian culture. Moreover, Being-in-the-world from The Book of Tea attempts to describe the state of humanity as presented in early Daoist literature. Insofar as Dasein is the Being-there of con- sciousness, then Dasein in the setting of the world is best described as Being-in-the-world. Now, from an understanding that Heidegger assuredly took in- fluence from Daoism, it is reasonable to look at specific instances of Daoist ideas shining forth in Being and Time. In particular, the Dexter- ous Butcher of the Zhuangzi bears remarkable similarities to Heidegge- rian ideas: Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now — now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes…’ “A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone…”51 On a more fundamental level, Zhuangzi uses this parable to characterize wuwei by referencing scenarios any layperson could understand. How- ever, in doing so, he presents a novel view of tooling. The tool is not simply used and separate from the user; it ebbs and flows to and from the user in this passage. The tool’s Being as part of the user is made manifest through its inability to break, as the durability of the equipment mirrors the continued Beingness of the being using it, signifying a lack of dis- tinction between the two. This characterization is nearly unparalleled, not only due to the uniqueness of the idea but also the 51 Chuang Tzu, Chuang Tzu: The Basic Writings (Columbia University Press, 1964), Section 8, quoted in Bureau of Public Secrets, Chuang Tzu: “The Dexterous Butcher,” (n.d.), Section 8, https://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/ passages/chuang-tzu.htm. 53Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That specificity. Furthermore, up until modernity, there was really no impetus to prompt philosophers to think extensively about the relationship be- tween a tool and its user. And yet, we see for Heidegger that: Equipment can genuinely show itself only in dealings cut to its own measure (hammering with a hammer, for example); but in such dealings an entity of this kind is not grasped thematically as an occurring Thing, nor is the equipment-structure known as such even in the using. The hammering does not simply have knowledge about the hammer's character as equipment, but it has appropriated this equipment in a way which could not possibly be more suitable. In dealings such as this, where something is put to use, our concern subordinates itself to the "in-order-to" which is constitutive for the equipment we are employing at the time; the less we just stare at the hammer-Thing, and the more we seize hold of it and use it, the more primordial does our relationship to it become, and the more unveiledly is it encountered as that which it is - as equipment. The hammering itself uncovers the specific 'manipulability' ("Handlichkeit") of the hammer.52 He takes special care to characterize the nature of the equipment pre- cisely. His characterization likewise strays away from the convention of conceiving of equipment, tooling, or technology as external to humans. Rather, it is by the use of a hammer that the hammer’s Being is revealed. Although Heidegger elaborates his theories concerning instrumentality and technology later in his career, especially in The Question Concern- ing Technology, he has already laid the groundwork for the discussion at this point in Being and Time, presumably taken from classical Daoism. The emphasis on equipment as not existing outside of humans continues for much of the book: The ready-to-hand is not grasped theoretically at all, nor is it itself the sort of thing that circumspection takes proximally as a circumspective theme … That with which our everyday dealings proximally dwell is not the tools themselves (die Werkzeuge selbst). On the contrary, that with which we concern ourselves primarily is the work - that which is to be produced at the time; and this is accordingly ready-to-hand too. The work bears with it that referential totality within which the equipment is encountered.53 The tool becomes such a part of the person that only its ready-to-hand- ness is present, again painting an artistic flow between the user and the equipment. The equipment’s Being in conjunction with the user has no 52 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 98. 53 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 99. 54 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College medium, similar again to the Zhuangzi: “Confucius said, ‘A good swim- mer will get the knack of it in no time ––that means he’s forgotten the water … he sees the water as so much dry land.’”54 What could we infer about a good tradesman? Perhaps, he has forgotten the tool, and sees the tool as much as his hand. Moving forward, the paradigm Heidegger and classical Daoist authors share regarding equipment is most clear if we only take Heide- gger’s excerpts in a vacuum. In reality, much of Heidegger’s writing in Being and Time is in the context of Dasein, which turns out to be intricately related to wuwei. As already displayed, Dasein is an object of Being whose subject is Being. Likewise, considering wuwei under an ontological lens, we can make a few observations. First, wuwei is not an ontic entity because even if it is not necessarily an object of Being, it is undoubtedly closer related to Being than being. Whereas an ontic entity would be a statement of isness; an ontological entity is a statement of the isness of isness (deriving from the definition of ontology versus onticol- ogy). Furthermore, towards which direction does the ontological entity of wuwei turn? Given that it is the ideal path of following the Dao, wu- wei orients itself towards the Dao. And, inasmuch as the Dao has been characterized as both transcendent and immanent, as well as Nothing and Something, then wuwei is left with no physical direction to turn. This fact is only magnified as the Dao and wuwei get better and more precisely defined, because better definitions increase the mystical and ineffable perception of them. Hence, wuwei, in its possible ontological Beingness, must turn to itself as an essential action of the Dao, leading to its potential ontological Beingness shining forth in its subject of Being. Physically, this statement manifests in the idea that wuwei is generally accepted as being capable of occurring in nearly every hobby or work. Because wuwei has a subject of Being, or alternatively is a concept out- side of the paradigm of means and ends (or even within that paradigm, wuwei would have wuwei as its own ends), it can be as attainable in sports as it is in a trade as it is in an art.55 The only limitation on wuwei as an ontological Being exists in the classical Daoist emphasis of wu- wei manifesting in action. Then, whereas Dasein is simply Being-there, wuwei is a way of confronting Being-there authentically. Further, the relationship of wuwei to the Dao is that of Dasein to Being, where the former acts as a collapse of the potential ontological essence of the latter. Not only does Dasein exist as a relative of wuwei, but Heidegger 54 Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi: Basic Writings, section 19. 55 Stoloff, “Wuwei in the Zhuangzi 2,” 2024. 55Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That also more implicitly incorporates wuwei: Circumspection operates in the involvement-relationships of the context of equipment which is ready-to-hand. Moreover, it is subordinate to the guidance of a more or less explicit survey of the equipmental totality of the current equipment-world and of the public environment which belongs to it. This survey is not just one in which things that are present-at-hand are subsequently scraped together. What is essential to it is that one should have a primary understanding of the totality of involvements within which factical concern always takes its start.56 Here, the transformation of both the person and the equipment created because of the inherent goal of a ready-to-hand tool is similar to wuwei. Compared with the aforecited “The Dexterous Butcher” section of the Zhuangzi, in both cases, the user of a tool becomes more intertwined with their tool as they become better at using it. From this, a psycholog- ical flow state is produced, and given that a psychological flow state is similar to wuwei, Heidegger is at least demonstrating the production of an idea approximating wuwei. Next, there are strong parallels between Heidegger’s charac- terization of Dasein using Thrownness and the motif of fate in Daoist works. In the Zhuangzi, we read: “I was born on the dry land and felt safe on the dry land - that was what I was used to. I grew up with the water and felt safe in the water - that was my nature. I don’t know why I do what I do - that’s fate.”57 Here, the Being of the narrator is not justified as reasonable. There is no metaphysics presented to justify why they were born on the dry land, why they grew up with water, or why this is their nature. Instead, the narrator chalks this up to fate. Similarly, Heidegger’s ontology avoids normative ethics and metaphysical judgments. In the provided excerpts from Being and Time, none advocate for the reader to do anything (al- though one could argue his presentation of Dasein implies a method of living authentically). Hence, Heidegger too, does not care if there is an answer to the questions of Thrownness. Instead, he presents his argu- ment as a truism about the world, saying, “this is just how it is.” Thus, both Heidegger and Zhuangzi address the origins of certain determinis- tic mechanisms in life by illuminating the existence of said mechanisms 56 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 410. 57 Zhuangzi, Zhuangzi Basic Writings, tr. by Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), Section 19. 56 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College but ignoring why the mechanisms exist. Having considered both Dasein and Thrownness in the context of Daoism, it is imperative to realize that the majority of Being and Time is focused on Dasein, let alone the even larger spotlight given to both concepts to- gether. So, to rephrase, a majority of Being and Time is derivative of classical Daoist texts. Not only this, but the derivative aspects of Dao- ism in Heidegger’s work are not simply details, rather, they are entire metaphysical, epistemological, and ontological structures underlying the thought upon which the book is built. The shining forth of Thrown- ness from classical Daoism, for example, is not a trivial detail; it is an entire ontological structure, a web of presuppositions, which Heidegger and Zhuangzi both take for being true. As such, to say Daoism underlies Being and Time is not saying that Heidegger directly discusses Daoist ideals. On the contrary, he is extracting a more fundamental influence from Daoism in the form of the structures through which he views phi- losophy––these are: fate/Thrownness as a condition of Being, Dasein as a complex relationship with wuwei, and the relation of humans with the world as fundamentally integrated into the world lacking emphasis on instrumentality and equipmentality. However, there are limits to my arguments presented. First, the idea of Dasein being similar to wuwei is new, and thus, although its validity should be seen in this paper, there certainly are important dif- ferences between Dasein and wuwei. For instance, wuwei is first and foremost part of the Daoist belief system and is best understood in ref- erence to the Dao. By taking wuwei away from the Dao, so too does it lose meaning. Furthermore, Dasein is fundamentally a description of the world, whereas wuwei entails much more in a normative sense; it tells you how to act. So, although I was careful to avoid conflating the two ideas directly, this is still worth considering. Another limitation of my arguments lies in the possibility that Heidegger took Being-in-the- world from classical Daoism and then came up with all other ideas inde- pendently. But this is highly unlikely for a few reasons. First, Heidegger took the idea of being in the world and passed it off as his own; there is no denying this. His willingness to do so implies he had no qualms about taking ideas from Daoism and repurposing them as his own, and he may not have realized people would find his source. Second, the similarities I presented between Heidegger and classical Daoist texts were not minor details that could be recreated; they were entire philosophical structures of viewing the world. The best chance for Heidegger not stealing from 57Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That Daoism lies in the slight chance that he simply had the same epistemo- logical, metaphysical, and ontological presumptions as classical Daoists had. In the case a reader could still write off the connections between Martin Heidegger and Daoism as coincidental, then it is important to note that there are many more philosophical assumptions shared by Heidegger and Daoists. First, a significant connection between Heidegger and classical Daoist authors has already been developed regarding a few points. The discussion of utility’s relationship to usefulness, the interdependence of things on relationships, and the revelation of Nothingness in the world have all been discussed in David Chai’s Daoist Resonances in Heideg- ger, especially in the first chapter by Graham Parker. Furthermore, more connections still need to be discovered. For instance, Heidegger stems from the Husserlian tradition of phenomenol- ogy.58 In this tradition, there is a focus on studying consciousness by un- derstanding the first-person point of view of experience.59 For Heidegger specifically, “The interconnectedness of Experience serves as the point of departure for methodical study.”60 Clearly, then, there is a primacy of experience central to Heidegger’s philosophy. In comparison, the Daoist cosmology emphasizes the primacy of experience by claiming: The Way begets one; One begets two…”61 From the Dao comes oneness, and from oneness comes Yin and Yang, and everything else comes to Yin and Yang. Or, assuming that wuwei as the essential action of the Dao implies experience is present in this cosmology, then this short passage from the Laozi is an expression of the primacy of experience in the world. This is yet another structure un- derlying the worldview of Daoists and Heidegger alike. After this short digression, it should be easy to see the reasoning that can be utilized elsewhere in Being and Time to identify even more Daoist influences. § 3.3: WHERE DO WE COME FROM? WHAT ARE WE? 58 David Woodruff Smith, “Phenomenology,” Stanford.edu, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, November 16, 2013, https://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/phenomenology/. 59 Ibid. 60 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, 75. 61 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chap. 42. 58 Dianoia: The Undergraduate Philosophy Journal of Boston College WHERE ARE WE GOING? In conclusion, the blatant plagiarism shown in Martin Heideg- ger’s use of the phrase Being-in-the-world (derived from Daoism) opens the door for Being and Time being inspired by classical Daoism. From this position, a nuanced analysis of Being and Time reveals that Heidegger approaches philosophy from a similar worl- dview as Daoists approach the world, not limited to epistemological, metaphysical, and ontological presuppositions. The more analysis of Being and Time that is conducted, the more evident the similarities are. Some ideas I showed as derivative of Daoism include Dasein, Thrown- ness, and Equipmentality. Thus, in the context of Heidegger’s confirmed reading and use of Daoist terms, I conclude it is more likely than not that Heidegger’s presentation of Daoist ideas is due to his adoption of them, not mere coincidence. The recognition of Daoist sources in Heidegger’s work is imperative not only for historicity but also because it allows for future scholarship surrounding syncretism. Given the connections between wuwei and Dasein, could wuwei represent the most authentic Clearing in Heideggerian philosophy? Or is wuwei truly the most au- thentic experience for Dasein? In either case, discussions like these are essential for future scholarship in the history of philosophy and religious studies. 59Issue XII Spring 2025 Of Experience and Being: Apopos of This and That REFERENCES Berling, Judith A. “Daoism.” Asia Society. Accessed January 28, 2024. https://asiasociety.org/education/daoism#:~:text=Classical%20Daoist%20 philosophy%2C%20formulated%20by. Bureau of Public Secrets. n.d. “Chuang Tzu: ‘the Dexterous Butcher.’” Www.bopsecrets.org. https://www.bopsecrets.org/gateway/passages/chuang-tzu.htm. Chuang Tzu. 1964. Chuang Tzu: The Basic Writings. Translated by Burton Watson.Columbia University Press. Down, Bernard. 2000. “Death in Classical Daoist Thought.” Philosophy Now, 2000.https://philosophynow.org/issues/27/Death_in_Classical_Daoist_ Thought. Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. 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