How to learn Chinese philosophy? This seems like a daunting task at first glance. However, it need not be so difficult if you have a good approach to learning it. I will give some recommendations and provide some of my own experiences on how I approached learning Chinese philosophy that I hope will be helpful to you on your path.
1. Recognize that Chinese philosophy is not composed of one school. Rather, it is composed of many different schools. The most common schools are Confucianism and Taoism. Less obscure schools like Mohism and the School of Names are fascinating to learn about as well, although not as influential. Later, Buddhism spread into China from India, which Chinese society embraced as well. There is the notion of the Three Teachings in Chinese philosophy, where Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism are harmonized together and each are practiced to a certain degree by many Chinese worldwide.
2. Start finding a book that has a brief overview of all the different schools of Chinese philosophy. When I was in college, I found a book at the college East Asian library called The Chinese Mind by Wang Gung-hsing who spent several pages for each famous philosopher in Chinese history. While this book really helped me grasp the basics, I do realize that this book is probably hard to find outside of an academic setting. In the likely case you cannot find a copy of The Chinese Mind, you can try going with A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Feng Yu-lan, which is also a very good comprehensive review of famous Chinese philosophers.
3. By the time you are done reading A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, you will likely have a good overview on all the major Chinese schools of thought. You probably also have a school that you find fascinating and want to read more about. In that case, you can try reading the primary texts of the school you are interested in. At this stage, if you pick up a text like the Tao Te Ching or I Ching, it will probably be hard to understand the majority of what these texts are talking about. Fret not, this is normal. Even most Chinese do not fully understand these texts the first time they read them.
4. You will likely have to find a commentary to start understanding more of these primary texts. Commentaries can provide helpful context and analysis that you might not get from directly reading the primary text. Different commentators will likely approach the text in different ways, so before reading a commentary, do some research on the commentator beforehand so you can expect any biases that may be present. There are a lot of commentaries on Chinese thought out there, and there can be modern commentaries on these commentaries as well. For example, I am currently reading a modern commentary on an older commentary of the Cantongqi, an important text on Chinese alchemy.
5. Read and learn more about Chinese history and culture. Doing so allows you to understand the contexts different philosophies arose from, as well as how Chinese philosophical concepts are applied to everyday Chinese life, such as yin-yang, five elements, etc. Rather than treating Chinese philosophy as purely an object of study, find out ways you can incorporate some of the teachings in your day-to-day life. Doing so will help you feel and understand some of the concepts better.
For example, you might often read about the concept of wu wei (inaction) when reading Taoist texts. This does not mean that you can slouch on your couch or sleep on your bed all day and not do anything productive. I admit I’m still in the process of fully understanding what wu wei is, but I think it’s one of those concepts you will comprehend from experiencing it in your life, rather than just reading about it and taking the meaning of the term literally.
6. Sooner or later, you will likely end up in a xuanxue rabbithole. Xuanxue is a bit like Chinese metaphysics/mysticism/spiritualism, and is related to concepts such as Feng Shui and the Chinese zodiac. This gets into more superstition territory, so your interest in it will likely depend on how superstitious you are. These topics are usually heavily inspired by concepts from the School of Naturalists, such as yin-yang and the five elements. If you are interested in a further elaboration of xuanxue, I can write another blog post on a guide to this topic.
7. Start learning more about the broader scope of Asian history and culture as well. This allows you to see how different cultures reacted to different schools of thought. For example, when Buddhism spread from India to China, there are Chinese influences to Buddhism that cause there to be some differences from Indian Buddhism. Then, when Buddhism spread from China to Korea to Japan, there were interesting developments that occurred in Japan that caused it to be a bit different from the Buddhism practiced in China.
8. Even if you have a favorite Chinese philosophy at this point, don’t forget to branch out as well. Different schools of thought have influenced each other throughout the history of China. Some Buddhists read Taoist texts, and some Taoists read Buddhist texts. Even though the Neo-Confucians were often critical of Buddhism and Taoism, they nevertheless took inspiration from these two schools of thought. Other schools of thought have probably played a significant role in the development of your favorite school of philosophy as well.
9. Somewhere down the line, it is worth it to start learning Chinese and eventually Classical Chinese. This will be a very complex task, but it will greatly aid in comprehending these texts, since translation can only help so much. For example, the character 道 can have numerous definitions, not only meaning “the way” (the English term that is commonly used when translating the Tao Te Ching). Learning Classical Chinese also allows you to appreciate the structure of the texts more. In the future I might write an article on my (ongoing) path to learn Classical Chinese.
10. Realize that learning Chinese philosophy is a lifelong activity. You might end up reading the same text multiple times, each time at a different stage of your life, where you will gain newer insights that have not occurred to you before.