Shan Tao

People in Wei-Jin period advocated the Taoist mysticism , being fond of spontaneity.The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were the typical character in that time. Generally speaking, the seven sages escaped from the stifling political life and felt great shame at being an officer or a minister in the imperial court. But Shan Tao, one of the seven sages, betrayed his friends and his belief, becoming a minister who was trust by the emperor. Ji Kang(Xi Kang), friend of Shan Tao, was angry and felt disappointed at his friend’s behavior. He wrote a letter to blame Shan Tao and split up with him. Unfortunately, the criticism of what Shan Tao behaved were not only from Ji Kang, but also from many people in the past, even in the present.





Nevertheless, in my opinion, Shan Tao was not a rotten man who capitulated the corrupt government and was not a greedy person who wanted to obtain right and wealth.





What the notion of Taoism is always go with nature. However, what on earth does nature mean? Abandoning the noble position and withdrawing from the society? Or living in the woods for closing to the nature and ignoring what happened in your country, not caring the world you live? All these are not the answers. For me, going with nature is just do yourselves and do not do something bad or harmful. Isolating from the society or not is not related to going with nature and is an illusion that many people always make.





In Wei-Jin period, the nation was going worse, because of the wrong illustration of the Taoist mysticism. Shan Tao was a good politician, having great ability of solving many political and financial problems. If he hadn’t left his friends and withstood the criticism from people, his country would have been destroy quickly by itself. Shan Tao was really a sage in the Taoist mysticism and never betrayed the belief of Taoism.