Taoism

"A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people's; but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not concious of riding in the cart; neither is he concious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear and the like cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existence. If such security is to be got from wine, how much more is to be got from the Tao ?"

~ Chuang Tzu

Rickie The Grey wrote: "Individuals in search of the truth can benefit the most, not by grasping or striving, but by means of a patient, accepting focus on natural patterns and influences that are worthy of being emulated"

"Idiot's Guide to Taoism" by Toropov & Hanson

I'm loving this Taoism stuff!

With no disrespect or intentions to start a rumble I'm not seeing a big difference between Jedism and Taoism except for some substantive choice of words?

Daoism is not a unified religious practice but is as varied a religion as Islam or Christianity. Over the past two millennia it has changed drastically and evolved into a diverse set of beliefs and practices. Starting out as an indigenous animist spirituality practiced by virtually every social class, in the 5th century bce the first collection of more ancient oral sayings was written down and assembled in the Daodejing for the literate elite and attributed to the legendary figure, Laozi. Today, Daoist priests perform for their congregation the same practices as any other clergyman (rites of passage, funerals, and weddings, etc). A Daoist can and will often share her/his spirituality and practices with tenets of Confucism and Buddhism without ever feeling any one of them is incompatible.

At the same time, there are Taoists who abhor Buddhist and confucian thinking. That's just how varied it is. lol.

I agree with you Rickie the Grey, there is very little difference in the basic philosophy of jedi and tao. Apart from the words we use to describe it, and if studying tao has taught me anything it's that words do not really suffice.

Alexandre Orion wrote: "A drunken man who falls out of a cart, though he may suffer, does not die. His bones are the same as other people's; but he meets his accident in a different way. His spirit is in a condition of security. He is not concious of riding in the cart; neither is he concious of falling out of it. Ideas of life, death, fear and the like cannot penetrate his breast; and so he does not suffer from contact with objective existence. If such security is to be got from wine, how much more is to be got from the Tao ?"

~ Chuang Tzu

So, if you're not in Tao, get drunk :whistle:
by the way, does humor belongs in Tao ?

What you said was funny. So why not?

Andy Spalding wrote: You only really need the first part of the Tao.

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

After reading this you might as well close the book and head out for a walk because the rest is just saying the same things in different, equally vague, words.

If you are looking for something with less Eastern wisdom(vagueary) you should look in to stoicism. Many of the same concepts presented for a western mind

i agree with andy. it reads as so much vagueness to me, which i guess is the point. in one of my last chapter reviews of biocentrism, after dr lanza mentions eastern religions again as clearly more favorable than western ones, i wondered:

'what it is about Westerners becoming enamored with Eastern religions. My guess is that the Eastern religions have the flavor of the new, the mysterious and the unknowable. ‘This religion/philosophy/whatever must be awesome because no one can understand it’ kind of thing.'

i started writing my own little taoisms a little while ago, after seeing the tao quoted all over the place here. my favorite one i posted, about the catfish. equally vague and meaningless as what i have been reading. o, i know, i know: 'desolous, thats the point.'

Desolous wrote: ...after dr lanza mentions eastern religions again as clearly more favorable than western ones, i wondered:

'what it is about Westerners becoming enamored with Eastern religions. My guess is that the Eastern religions have the flavor of the new, the mysterious and the unknowable. ‘This religion/philosophy/whatever must be awesome because no one can understand it’ kind of thing.'

By 'western religions' I presume, as most do, that you mean 'Christianity/Islam/Judaism' + their various forms. Even though Paganism/Wicca are also arguably 'western religions' but they just don't get the same level of publicity...

But with regards to the former three religions, they are typically about submitting yourself to a higher power (or at least are warped into that by some churches) "OBEY US AND BE SAVED!"

Whereas when people make the comparison to Eastern religions it is typically with the view that they are all about You yourself rather than submittance to a higher power.

It is down to the differences in philosophy based, a lot in the west, on Descarte (the world is a clock we can understand by taking it apart) as opposed to the holistic views you find in Eastern thought.

It is a good idea actually to read through it. Seeing as how they are small books, why not take them on your walk with you ?

Could we see your "taoisms", Des ?

You know, neither Lao Tzu, Chuange Tzu nor Lieh Tzu "copyrighted" anything at all. Some translators in recent years, say - the last couple of centuries- may have, but well ... screw them. I wouldn't say they have the flavour of the "new" (that is for those into exoticism), but they are relatively free of tyrannical dogmas - probably because they had enough tyranny in other areas.

As long as you are advocating effortlessness, non-resistance, non-interference, non-expectation and thus the purest, truest vision of love from within, your stuff may very well be every bit as good as the stuff dug out of old China.



Of course, if it is all about control issues and defending the right to kill people, we'll take the piss out of you ...

:laugh: