China and the West

Heidegger, Martin. Grundsätze des Denkens [Vorträge Freiburg i.B. ID D19796].
Heidegger sagt : "Sterbliches Denken muss in das Dunkel der Brunnentiefe sich hinablassen, um bei Tag den Stern zu sehen. Schwerer bleibt es, die Lauterkeit des Dunklen zu wahren, als eine Helle herbeizuschaffen, die nur als solche scheinen will. Was nur scheinen will, leuchtet nicht. Die schulmässige Darstellung der Lehre von den Denkgesetzen will jedoch so scheinen, als seien der Inhalt dieser Gesetze und ihre absolute Geltung unmittelbar für jedermann einleuchtend."

Walter Strolz : Heidegger bezieht sich, indem er an die undurchdachte Herkunft der Denkgesetze aus dem fragwürdigen Logikverständnis der Metaphysik erinnert, auf den 28. Spruch aus dem Dao de jing : 'Wer seine Helle kennt, sich in sein Dunkel verhüllt'. Seine Denkbewegung mündet in die schon 1941 formulierte Einsicht, dass die menschliche Entsprechung zum Sein als Sein den Sprung in das Bodenlose ernötigt.

Otto Pöggeler : Laozi spricht im 28. Spruch von der Einfalt, der sich Männliches und Weibliches, Hell und Dunkel, Ruhm und Schmach fügen. Mit der Atombombe dagegen holen die Menschen im wissenden Verfügen der Technik Energien aus der Erde, ohne sie aus der Dankbarkeit für das Gewährte in die begrenzte Offenheit einer lebbaren Welt sinnvoll einfügen zu können. Die Helle wie Wissenschaft und Technik sie über die Erde bringen, ist in ihrer masslosen Entfesselung selbstzerstörerisch. Heidegger will aber nicht in eine vortechnische und vormoderne Welt zurück, wenn er Friedrich Hölderlins spätes Gedicht und Laozis Spruch miteinander verknüft ; er will vielmehr diese unsere heutige Welt auf einen begehbaren Weg bringen.

Ma Lin : Heidegger cites from chapter 28 of the Daodejing, translated by Victor von Strauss : "Wer seine Helle kennt, sich in sein Dunkel hüllt".
According to Heidegger, Western philosophical tradition has been searching for inappropriate brightness. For him, this kind of light is not 'Lichtung'. It is pure brightness without proper sophistication. One needs to keep away from this simplistic notion of brightness and look for the appropriate brightness that goes well with darkness. True light lies concealed in the darkness that is both the origin of the basic principles of thinking and the place of thinking these principles. Similarly, true darkness is not complete darkness without any light at all. It is pregnant with profound light. In this framework of thinking, Heidegger may have dound Laozi’s verse concerning the dialectic relation between white (light) and black (darkness) well-serving his purpose of delineating an other kind of light, a deeper and more concealed origin of thinking. He adapts the literally ambiguous verse to what he is trying to say in the relevant context.
Heidegger's charcterization of the origin of the basic principles of thinking in terms of true light concealed in true darkness resembles his description of truth (and of Being). Truth lies in the movement towards unconcealment which is continuously challenged or thwarted by the power of concealment. With Heidegger, the dynamic relation between the unconcealment and concealment, between light and darkness, is one in which each member of a relevant pair of contraries is indispensable. This appears to be similar to Laozi's idea about contraries as reflected in chapter 28.
However, there are two points of difference that set Heidegger away from Laozi. First, according to Heidegger's characterization of unconcealment and concealment, of light and darkness, neither member of the pair of contraries has a determinate external reference. They represent internal mediation achieved by a movement calles 'a-lethia'. 'A-lethia' is not a neutral, arbitrary movement. What can be unconcealed presumably is already unconcealed partially in the first beginning of Western historicality. Unconcealment is a movement that possesses historic necessity. With Laozi, the opposites are externally recognizable and determinable. The distinction between the opposites is not logical, but concrete. The white and the black in the verse 'know the white, yet safeguard the black' do not constitute two internal sides of a certain logical or historic unity. They refer to concrete whiteness and blackness, or to concrete light and darkness.
Second, sometimes Heidegger speaks of Being in terms of 'the single source', the 'origin'. This lend itself to the interpretation that he privileges a kind of metaphysical reservedness, a source that is inexhaustible, a super-concealment that makes possible any movement of unconcealment with concealment. In the last analysis, Heidegger's most original contribution to contemporary continental philosophy is his emphasis on a kind of dynamic movement named 'Ereignis', which features truth (and Being). No determinate way of being is taken as primordial and fundamental. What is primordial is none other than this momentary movement, or occurrence, or anticipation for this movement, which makes possible both unconcealment and concealment, both Being and man in each of their ownmost nature, both accomplishment and thwartedness, both authenticity and inauthenticity. The nature of 'single source' and of 'origin' rests upon this mode of founding act or movement. In contrast, Laozi does not seem to presuppose a singular movement in which opposites are enacted at the same time. His key word 'dao' can be interpreted in terms of movement. However, there are different kinds of 'dao' and thus different kinds of movement, for example, 'tiandao' (Heaven's dao), and rendao (humans' dao). Different kinds of things in the world also have their own 'dao'.