Tao

[Walter Kovacs]

I recently got this book : Amazon.com: The Essential Tao : An Initiation into the Heart of Taoism Through the Authentic Tao Te Ching and the Inner Teachings of Chuang-Tzu (9780062502162): Thomas Cleary: Books...

...and I'm loving it. The problem is, I'm not understanding it, as I come from a background of Hebrew/Greek/Christian philosophy, which is pretty different than Chinese stuff. My question is, how do you read stuff like this? What's the contexts, thought processes, etc? What do I need to look for? Would you call Tao (or Tao-ism) a religion, philosophy, or both? I know there's genius in there, but I'm not sure I can see it yet.

 

[ToHoldNothing]

You have to learn to let go of preconceptions and attachments to those Western thinking (not that you have to abandon them entirely, but just let them be permeable, so to speak), which I think Zhuangzi/Chuang Tzu does a good job of in his approach to philosophy, attacking other people's beliefs and paradigms and even criticizing his own, since one could say he's a strong skeptic about the reliability or absolute applicability of any system to every individual instead of approaching every individual as they are on the Way, the Tao, the Path, the Course.

Dao De Jing/Tao Te Ching is more poetic I'll admit and I hope there's some commentary included with the text as a whole, otherwise you won't really understand it unless you read it with a significantly open mind. I actually did a class just this spring semester that featured both the DDJ and Zhuangzi, albeit different translations and not so comprehensively squeezed into a single text.

But to answer the question as to whether Daoism's a philosophy or religion, it's kind of inbetween, similar to Buddhism in many ways, especially with Zhuangzi's very skeptical approach that reminds me of Siddhartha's call to test things through practice that you see interspersed through the teachings as a whole, from what I understand.

 

[ElijahW]

I like Stephen Mitchell's translation. I'd read Tao Te Ching before but until I read that version, I hadn't seen it in a Christian perspective, as in Jesus personifying the Way/Tao/Logos.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I like Stephen Mitchell's translation. I'd read Tao Te Ching before but until I read that version, I hadn't seen it in a Christian perspective, as in Jesus personifying the Way/Tao/Logos.

I'd personally read such things with a grain of salt.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[ToHoldNothing]

Kind of like anything that proposes anything relatively specious like God inspired Laozi and Confucius to teach Christian morality, when it's hardly anything like that, not to mention ignoring anything about God and Jesus in the meantime; unless you think Jesus went over to Asia or something

 

[hikersong]

I'd personally read such things with a grain of salt.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Probably a good idea to read everything with that same grain. Why "such" things? (Not having read very much about Tao, but often having considered doing so).

BTW Mark. In answer to your question "Should the clay question the Potter?"

..Only if Hermione gave Harry the correct spell to use.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Probably a good idea to read everything with that same grain.

Nah, use a larger grain in this case.

Why "such" things?

Comparing ideas across cultures is always tricky business. Ideas that may seem similar at first blush may have such different cultural/religious/philosophical contexts that define their meanings that they really are very different.

BTW Mark. In answer to your question "Should the clay question the Potter?"

..Only if Hermione gave Harry the correct spell to use.

Good point!


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[bling]

I have always looked at Tao as a way to coping with the world and not feel bad. If a person is poor and hurting that means another is wealthy and happy so do not do too much for the person that is poor and hurting because you will be making someone else less happy and less rich. If you are rich and in good health you feel sorry for the person that is the opposite, since they are that way because of you.

Everyone appreciates equality and balance, you just do not feel all that good about being rich or all that bad about being poor.

 

[ElijahW]

I'd personally read such things with a grain of salt.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Nah, use a larger grain in this case.

Comparing ideas across cultures is always tricky business. Ideas that may seem similar at first blush may have such different cultural/religious/philosophical contexts that define their meanings that they really are very different.

eudaimonia,

Mark

This is great general advice but do you have an actual point you are trying to make about Taoism in comparison to Christianity? Ideas that seem similar can be very different, obviously, but what idea/s in particular do you think this confusion arises between Taoism and what Jesus was doing?

 

[vajradhara]

it took many years for me to finally be able to understand the cultural idioms used throughout Taoist teachings and even then my understanding of these terms is fairly limited to the Northern Reality School and it's point of view.

there are a few good books that can, as they say, break open the bones of dogma to reveal the marrow of truth in my estimation and i would highly suggest Awakening to the Tao and Secret of the Golden Flower, both Cleary transliterations are fabulous in my opinion.

i would suggest, however, that it is nigh impossible to understand a philosophical system outside of it's own frame of reference in anything other than an abstract sort of way which, given our subject matter, is the wrong sort of Way