Taoism

Taoism at a glance

Taoism is an ancient tradition of philosophy and religious belief that is deeply rooted in Chinese customs and worldview.

Taoism is also referred to as Daoism, which is a more accurate way of representing in English the sound of the Chinese word.

Taoism is about the Tao. This is usually translated as the Way. But it's hard to say exactly what this means. The Tao is the ultimate creative principle of the universe. All things are unified and connected in the Tao.

• Taoism originated in China 2000 years ago
• It is a religion of unity and opposites; Yin and Yang. The principle of Yin Yang sees the world as filled with complementary forces - action and non-action, light and dark, hot and cold, and so on
• The Tao is not God and is not worshipped. Taoism includes many deities, that are worshipped in Taoist temples, they are part of the universe and depend, like everything, on the Tao
• Taoism promotes:
  • achieving harmony or union with nature
  • the pursuit of spiritual immortality
  • being 'virtuous' (but not ostentatiously so)
  • self-development
• Taoist practices include:
  • meditation
  • feng shui
  • fortune telling
  • reading and chanting of scriptures

Before the Communist revolution fifty years ago, Taoism was one of the strongest religions in China. After a campaign to destroy non-Communist religion, however, the numbers significantly reduced, and it has become difficult to assess the statistical popularity of Taoism in the world.

The 2001 census recorded 3,500 Taoists in England and Wales.

Relating to the Tao

Many Taoist ideas come from other Chinese schools of thought. It's not always easy to draw accurate distinctions between ideas that are fundamentally Taoist and those that Taoism took in from elsewhere, especially Buddhism.

The Tao cannot be described in words. Human language can only give hints that may help the mind to form an idea.

The most important thing about the Tao is how it works in the world, and how human beings relate to it. Philosophical speculation about what the Tao actually is, is less important than living in sensitive response to the Tao.

The most useful words to stimulate an idea of the Tao are found in the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu:

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the mother of all things.
......
There was something undifferentiated and yet complete,
Which existed before Heaven and Earth.
Soundless and formless it depends on nothing and does not change.
It operates everywhere and is free from danger.
It may be considered the mother of the universe.
I do not know its name; I call it Tao.
......
All things in the world come from being.
And being comes from non-being. (form comes from formlessness)?

Tao Te Ching

The Way is to man as rivers and lakes are to fish,
the natural condition of life.

Chuang Tzu

The Tao is not a thing

The Tao is not a thing or a substance in the conventional sense.

It cannot be perceived but it can be observed in the things of the world. Although it gives rise to all being, it does not itself have being.

Although it's conventional to refer to The Tao, some writers think that the "the" should be dropped because it isn't in the original Chinese term.

They feel that using 'the' gives Westerners the idea that the Tao is a metaphysical reality, by which they mean a thing (in the widest sense) or an absolute being like a god.

But even the name Tao can lead Westerners to think of Tao in the same way that they think of objects.

That sort of thinking is misleading: Thinking of the Tao as some sort of object produces an understanding of the Tao that is less than the reality.

It might be more helpful to regard Tao as a system of guidance. And if one does this one can translate 'achieving union with the Tao' into 'developing oneself so as to live in complete conformity with the teachings of the Tao' which is easier to understand, and closer to the truth.

Glimpsed only through its effects

A good way of avoiding the Tao-as-object error is to see the various concepts of the Tao as doing no more than describing those effects of the Tao that human beings are aware of. They do not describe its reality.

The Tao is not God

The Tao is not God and is not worshipped. Taoism does include many deities, but although these are worshipped in Taoist temples, they are part of the universe and depend, like everything, on the Tao.

The Tao includes several concepts in one word:

• the source of creation
• the ultimate
• the inexpressible and indefinable
• the unnameable
• the natural universe as a whole
• the way of nature as a whole

Taoist pantheon

Westerners who study Taoism are sometimes surprised to discover that Taoists venerate gods, as there doesn't seem to be a place for deities in Taoist thinking.

Taoism does not have a God in the way that the Abrahamic religions do. There is no omnipotent being beyond the cosmos, who created and controls the universe. In Taoism the universe springs from the Tao, and the Tao impersonally guides things on their way.

But the Tao itself is not God, nor is it a god, nor is it worshipped by Taoists.

This may seem surprising as Taoists do use 'God-talk' to refer to the Tao:

The Venerable Lord, the Tao, was at rest in open mystery, beyond silent desolation, in mysterious emptiness... Say it/he is there and do not see a shape; say it/he is not there, yet all beings follow him for life.

Taishang laojun kaitian jing, in Livia Kohn, The Taoist Experience: An Anthology, 1993

And they conventionally revere Lao Tsu both as the first god of Taoism and as the personification of the Tao.

Nonetheless, Taoism has many gods, most of them borrowed from other cultures. These deities are within this universe and are themselves subject to the Tao.

Many of the deities are gods of a particular role, rather than a personal divine being and have titles rather than names.

Books often describe the Taoist pantheon as a heavenly bureaucracy that mimics the secular administrations of Imperial China. Some writers think that this is the wrong way round and that the secular administrations took their cue from the structure of the heavens. Since the Imperial administrations and the religious culture of the time were closely intertwined this would not be surprising.

The One

The One is the essence of Tao, the essential energy of life, the possession of which enables things and beings to be truly themselves and in accord with the Tao.

Taoist texts sometimes refer to the Tao as the mother and the One as the son.

Wu and Yu

Wu and Yu are non-being and being, or not-having and having. Wu also implies inexhaustibility or limitlessness. Some writers suggest that Wu can be directly experienced by human beings.

Te

Te is usually translated as virtue, but this translation uses some Confucian ideas and can be confusing.

Another way of looking at te is an awareness of the Tao together with the capabilities that enable a person to follow the Tao.

Professor Victor Mair suggests that a better translation is integrity. He writes:

There is something fundamentally honest and psychologically healthy in being oneself and striding forward with one's vision facing directly ahead, instead of trying at every turn to satisfy abstract standards of goodness established by a reigning orthodoxy. This is what te/de is all about.

Professor Victor Mair

Tzu Jan

Tzu Jan is usually translated naturalness or spontaneity, but this is rather misleading.

One writer suggests using the phrase 'that which is naturally so', meaning the condition that something will be in if it is permitted to exist and develop naturally and without interference or conflict.

The Taoist ideal is to fulfil that which is naturally so, and the way to do this is Wu Wei.

Wu Wei

The method of following the Tao is called Wu Wei. This can be translated as uncontrived action or natural non-intervention.

Wu Wei is sometimes translated as non-action, but this wrongly implies that nothing at all gets done. The Tao Te Ching says:

When nothing is done, nothing is left undone.

Tao Te Ching

Wu Wei means living by or going along with the true nature of the world - or at least without obstructing the Tao - letting things take their natural course.

So Taoists live lives of balance and harmony. They find their way through life in the same way that a river flowing through the countryside finds its natural course.

The world is a spiritual vessel, and one cannot act upon it;
one who acts upon it destroys it.

Tao Te Ching

This doesn't stop a person living a proactive life but their activities should fit into the natural pattern of the universe, and therefore need to be completely detached and disinterested and not ego-driven.

Perfect activity leaves no track behind it; perfect speech is like a jade worker whose tool leaves no mark.

Tao Te Ching

This implies that Taoists take an attitude akin to Voltaire's (satirically intended) doctrine that "All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

And certainly pure Taoism requires individuals to live on the basis that the world is working properly, and that they therefore should not interfere with it.

Yin Yang

Yin Yang is the principle of natural and complementary forces, patterns and things that depend on one another and do not make sense on their own.

These may be masculine and feminine, but they could be darkness and light (which is closer to the original meaning of the dark and light sides of a hill), wet and dry or action and inaction.

These are opposites that fit together seamlessly and work in perfect harmony. You can see this by looking at the yin yang symbol.

The yin yang concept is not the same as Western dualism, because the two opposites are not at war, but in harmony.

This can be seen very clearly in the symbol: the dark area contains a spot of light, and vice versa, and the two opposites are intertwined and bound together within the unifying circle.

Yin and yang are not static, the balance ebbs and flows between them - this is implied in the flowing curve where they meet.

The Taoist body

Taoists view the body as a miniature of the universe, filled with the Tao. The parts of the body have their counterparts in physical features of the universe, and:

The body, as much as the larger universe, is ruled and lived in by the gods - the multifaceted manifestations of spirit, the visible and accessible aspect of the Tao on earth.

Livia Kohn, The Taoist Experience: An Anthology, 1993

Ch'i

Ch'i or qi is the cosmic vital energy that enables beings to survive and links them to the universe as a whole.

Qi is the basic material of all that exists. It animates life and furnishes functional power of events. Qi is the root of the human body; its quality and movement determine human health. Qi can be discussed in terms of quantity, since having more means stronger metabolic function. This, however, does not mean that health is a byproduct of storing large quantities of qi. Rather, there is a normal or healthy amount of qi in every person, and health manifests in its balance and harmony, its moderation and smoothness of flow. This flow is envisioned in the texts as a complex system of waterways with the "Ocean of Qi" in the abdomen; rivers of qi flowing through the upper torso, arms, and legs; springs of qi reaching to the wrists and ankles; and wells of qi found in the fingers and toes. Even a small spot in this complex system can thus influence the whole, so that overall balance and smoothness are the general goal.

Human life is the accumulation of qi; death is its dispersal. After receiving a core potential of primordial qi at birth, people throughout life need to sustain it. They do so by drawing postnatal qi into the body from air and food, as well as from other people through sexual, emotional, and social interaction. But they also lose qi through breathing bad air, overburdening their bodies with food and drink, and getting involved in negative emotions and excessive sexual or social interactions.

Livia Kohn, Health and Long Life: The Chinese Way

Immortality

Immortality doesn't mean living for ever in the present physical body.

The idea is that as the Taoist draws closer and closer to nature throughout their life, death is just the final step in achieving complete unity with the universe.

Spiritual immortality, the goal of Daoism, raises the practices to a yet higher level. To attain it, people have to transform all their qi into primordial qi and proceed to refine it to subtler levels. This finer qi will eventually turn into pure spirit, with which practitioners increasingly identify to become transcendent spirit-people. The path that leads there involves intensive meditation and trance training as well as more radical forms of diet and other longevity practices. Immortality implies the overcoming of the natural tendencies of the body and its transformation into a different kind of qi-constellation. The result is a bypassing of death, so that the end of the body has no impact on the continuation of the spirit-person. In addition, practitioners attain supersensory powers and eventually gain residence in wondrous otherworldly paradises.

Livia Kohn, Health and Long Life: The Chinese Way

Knowledge and relativity

Human knowledge is always partial and affected by the standpoint of the person claiming that knowledge. There can never be a single true knowledge, merely the aggregate of uncountable different viewpoints.

Because the universe is always changing, so knowledge is always changing.

The closest a human being can get to this is knowledge that is consistent with the Tao. But this is a trap because the Tao that can be known is not the Tao. True knowledge cannot be known - but perhaps it can be understood or lived.

Religious and philosophical Taoism

The word Taoism is used to refer to both a philosophy and a set of spiritual doctrines as well as an extensive ritual hierarchy and monastic institution. Although textbooks often distinguish between 'religious' and 'philosophical' Taoism, this is an artificial distinction, and is no more than the difference found in all religions between the practices of the faith, and the theological and philosophical ideas behind them.

Chinese and Western Taoist philosophy

A more useful distinction might be between Chinese Taoism and Westernised Taoism because some forms of Westernised Taoist philosophy add unauthentic new age and other faith elements to Taoism, while removing much of its religious content; and few Western 'Taoists' include Taoist gods and goddesses, liturgy, worship, or specifically religious meditative practices in their religious life.

Religious Taoism

Taoism in the West today is not at all like Chinese Taoist religion. Very few Westerners have adopted its gods and goddesses, although there are a few organizations... that have installed altars in their centres, worship Taoist gods, and celebrate Taoist (and Buddhist) festival days.

Livia Kohn, Michael Lafargue, Lao-Tzu and the Tao-Te-Ching, State University of New York Press, 1998

Taoism is often taught in the West as an atheist or agnostic philosophy, but in China and Taiwan particularly, Taoism still functions like any conventional religion, and not like an abstract philosophy of life.

There are Taoist temples, monasteries and priests, rituals and ceremonies, and a host of gods and goddesses for believers to worship. These are as vital to the survival of Taoism as individual understanding and practice.

Taoism's rich palette of liturgy and ritual makes the Tao more real to human beings and provides a way in which humanity can align itself more closely to the Tao to produce better lives for all.

The religious elements of Taoism draw much of their content from other Chinese religions (including many local cults), and so enfold a very wide range of culture and belief within the wings of the Tao.

The many traditions within the Taoist framework gives priests the tools to carry out the conventional tasks of any religion: worship, healing, exorcism, intercession, purification, divination and so on.

Most Taoist temple practices are designed to regulate the relationship between humanity and the world of gods and spirits, and to organise that relationship, and the relationships in the spirit world, in harmony with the Tao.

Religious Taoism traditions

Two traditions

Religious Taoism follows two main traditions. Each has a clear hierarchical and well-organised structure with special headquarters, rules, guidelines, ordination rites and registration procedures.

The celestial masters (Tianshi or Zhengyi) - Temple Daoism are centred in Taiwan. The monastic branch of the Complete Perfection School (Quanzhen) has its headquarters in Beijing.

The Complete Perfection School ordains people and provides monastic communities as a focus for Taoist practice and rituals.

A simple, ascetic lifestyle is the norm in Daoist monasteries. They are ruled by a strict hierarchy, with the abbot at the head, the prior as the key manager of personnel (assisted by an overseer and several scribes), the provost as main administrator (assisted by a superintendent, treasurer, cellarer, as well as several vergers and cooks), and the meditation master in charge of spiritual practice (assisted by an ordination master, manager of offerings, and several overseers).

The time schedule is very rigid: a typical day begins at 3:00 A.M. and ends at 9:00 P.M. It consists of several periods of seated meditation, worship, meals, and work, including- musch as in Chan Buddhism-work in the gardens and the fields. Everybody is kept busy at all times, and all movements throughout the day are exactly prescribed and have to be executed with utmost control. Usually meditation, sleep periods, and meals are times of complete silence, and even at other times words are to be used with care and circumspection. Daoists, moreover, observe the natural cycles of the seasons and often eschew the use of artificial lights, so that their winter days are a great deal shorter than those in summer, allowing for more extensive rest in the darker phases of the year.

Livia Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture

Taoist priests

Taoist priests undergo long and intense training to acquire the necessary skills. They must study music, liturgy and ritual, as well as meditation and other physical practices; and they must learn Taoist theology and the spiritual hierarchy of the Taoist deities. During this training they are required to live highly disciplined lives.

Shamanism

Taoist experts believe that they can journey in spirit to higher realms of being - in much the same way that Shamans can journey out of the body.

The Taoist traveller makes such journeys through ritual, meditation, and visualisation which separate them from this world and harmonise them with the energy flows of the universe. The journeys gradually move them closer and closer to the Tao itself.

Information Taken from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/taoism/