Dao House... The Basics

Dao House...

The Basics

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Basics

Taoism, by Fritjof Capra

Laozi

www.shotokai.com/ingles/filosofia/tao.html

Zhuangzi

A chapter from Capra's The Tao of Physics, from the Shotokai Encyclopedia site. They also have the chapter "On Chinese Thought." And the True Tao site has Capra's chapter on "The Way of Eastern Mysticism."

Metaphysics

Early

Later

"From the notion that the movements of the Tao are a continuous interplay between opposites, the Taoists deduced two basic rules for human conduct. Whenever you want to achieve anything, they said, you should start with its opposite... On the other hand, whenever you want to retain anything, you should admit in it something of its opposite."

Tao: The Watercourse Way [Alan Watts]

Art

http://chippit.tripod.com/watercourse_way.html

Poetry

And check out this lyrical excerpt from Watts's book.

Literature

"Because tao is the course, we can also call li the watercourse, and the patterns of li are also the patterns of flowing water - we see those patterns of flow memorialized, as it were, as sculpture in the grain in wood, which is the flow of sap, in marble, in bones, in muscles."

www.beliefnet.com/story/80/story_8050_1.html

Jeff Rasmussen (Purdue University) sets forth the results of the "Belief-O-Matic" questionnaire for Daoism. Complete the 20-item questionnaire to see if you're a Daoist at heart (take with grain of salt.) Hint: a number of questions are "not applicable" to Daoism, which has no dogma or creeds. [Popup alert.]

"Taoism is not a salvific practice - there is nothing that one needs to be saved from and belief in Salvation would lead to belief in Damnation..."

Philosophical Daoism [Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

www.rep.routledge.com/article/G001SECT5

Okay, let's get serious. David L Hall (University of Texas at El Paso, Philosophy, deceased) and Roger T. Ames (University of Hawaii, Chinese Philosophy) elucidate the basic tenets of "Lao-Zhuang" Daoism. See also the entry on "correlative thinking."

"In fact, the name 'dao-ism' itself is an abbreviation of the earliest designation of this tradition as 'dao-de-ism,' reflecting the core question which pervades the Daoist texts... What constitutes excellence (de) and how does one achieve it within one's particular place (de) in the world (dao)?"

Taoism (Daoism) [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/taoism/

Chad Hansen's (Hong Kong University, Philosophy) comprehensive entry analyzes the varieties, development, terms, and texts of Daoism. Meta-reflections from the pre-eminent Lao-Zhuang scholar (or is that Zhuang-Lao?).

"The underlying distinction between the philosophical and religious poles is an epistemic issue. Both species of Daoism start from a common critique of 'ordinary' knowing of dao [way: guide]. From this mildly skeptical or relativist base, philosophical Daoism tends toward pluralism, perspectivalism, skepticism, political equality and freedom. Religious 'mysticism' professes to control of an esoteric way of overcoming the skepticism and typically claims some 'superlative' or direct access to a single correct dao [way: guide]. As the special insight cannot be justified to those with 'ordinary' perspectives and/or cannot be put into language and argument, it tends to generate esoteric, hierarchical and authoritarian forms."

Taoism [Encyclopedia Britannica]

www.taijiquan.info/TaoismBritannica.htm

Lengthy excerpts from the Britannica entry, by noted Daoist scholars Anna K. Seidel (1938-1991) and Michel Strickmann (1942-1994). On Manuel Joseph's (Barcelona) Taijiquan site.

"Both Western Sinologists and Chinese scholars themselves have distinguished--since Han times (205 BC-AD 220)--between a Taoist philosophy of the great mystics and their commentators (Tao-chia) and a later Taoist religion (Tao-chiao). This theory--no longer considered valid--was based on the [mistaken] view that the 'ancient Taoism' of the mystics antedated the 'later Neo-Taoist superstitions'..."

Daoist Philosophy [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/daoism.htm

Ronnie Littlejohn's (Belmont University, Nashville, Philosophy) clear-cut overview of the development of Daoism "privileges the formative influence of early texts" while accepting "contemporary Daoists' assertion of continuity between classical and post-classical" Daoism.

"Daoists take their hands off of life, and Confucians want their fingerprints on everything. Imagine this comparison. If the Daoist goal is to become like a piece of unhewn wood, the goal of the Confucians is to become a carved sculpture. The Daoists put the piece before us just as it is found, and the Confucians polish it, shape it, and decorate it."

Chapter Four: Early Daoism

www.east-asian-history.net/textbooks/PM-China/ch4.htm

Chapter Seven, Later Daoism

www.east-asian-history.net/textbooks/PM-China/ch7.htm

Two chapters from Gregory James Smits's (Pennsylvania State University, History and Religious Studies) online textbook, Topics in Pre-Modern Chinese History (do read the introduction). Excellent overviews include an abundance of inner links to great graphics, texts, and sites.

"Confucians regarded their man-centered Way as fully describable in words... One reason the Daoist Way cannot be described in words is that it is not human centered like the Confucian Way. The Daoist Way is the entire cosmos and all its workings. How could mere words describe something as vast and profound as that? Within this Way, human beings are just one of many kinds of living things."

Lau and Ames, "The Chinese Worldview"

http://academic.udayton.edu/WilliamRichards/Eastern%20essays/Lau%20and%20Ames,%20Chinese%20
Worldview.htm

Excerpt from D. C. Lau and Roger T. Ames's lyrical introduction to Yuan Dao: Tracing Dao to its Source, their translation of the first chapter of the Huainanzi, a Han-era Daoist text. From Bill Richards's (University of Dayton, Philosophy) website.

"The water analogy that is so often evoked in explanation of dao is deliberate and provocative. Is water one or many? Does water have a formal coherence that is persistent? Can water be meaningfully separated into 'things,' and if so, do such things persist? Is water noble, or is it base? Is it a thing ('water') or an action ('to water') or an attribute ('watery') or a modality ('fluidity')?"

Daoism: A Short Introduction

www.oneworld-publications.com/samples/daoism.htm

James Miller's (Queen's University, Ontario, Religion) excellent account of four historical periods of Daoism: proto-Daoism, classical, modern, and contemporary Daoism. This is the introduction to the 2003 book of the same title, from the Oneworld Publications site.

"...one thing is clear: Daoism is hard to define. It has few essential characteristics that remain constant from one generation to another. It has disparate origins, has borrowed extensively from other religions and our understanding of it has been further complicated by the effects of Western colonialism and Western-inspired communism. All this flux is reflected in the current debate in Western scholarship about Daoist identity."

Taoism [Taoist Restoration Society]

www.fengshuitimes.com/article/detail.asp?aid=93&cid=9&pg=1

Article by Brock Silvers (President, Taoist Restoration Society) from Feng Shui Times explains "the West's misunderstanding of Taoism" in terms of the historical suppression of institutional Daoism - and lauds current restoration efforts.

"Taoism is an ancient religious tradition, rooted in traditional Chinese culture, with a large canonical body of ritual, liturgy, prayer, magical practice, meditation and related cultivations, a extensive pantheon of deities, etc. How did we miss all this?"

Tranquility, Tumult, and Transformation: Practice of Lao-Zhuang Taoism

www.apophaticmysticism.com/tttpractice.html

Long essay by Raymond Sigrist (El Cerrito, CA) on Laozi and Zhuangzi as empirical guides, plus some Daoist terms illustrated. See his other pages on Daoism here.

"I find a phrase I learned from a Taoist named Kun Hock very useful: Yi xing lian Shen, 'from form extract spirit.' One develops a practice, a form. And then after much concentrated effort what one needs to thrive is realized spontaneously (Zi ran). Just why one is at last satisfied, and what one has reached, is an exquisite but unspeakable knowledge."

Taoism and the Arts of China

www.rightreading.com/writing/taoism-and-the-arts-of-china.htm

Article by Thomas Christensen (Director of Publications, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco), occasioned by the groundbreaking 2001 art exhibit, provides a basic overview of Daoism, illustrated by artworks from the exhibit.

"How can we understand Taoism? It appears at first to be a school of philosophy, but then... a religion... a system of alchemy, of medicine, of geomancy, of astrology..."

The Yin and Yang of Nature's Way

http://seekingwisdom.com/dunbar.html

Lengthy article by Dirk Dunbar (Okaloosa-Walton College and University of West Florida, Interdisciplinary Humanities), subtitled "Daoism's Ecological Legacy," covers the full panoply of Daoist practices, arts, historical development, and "contemporary relevance."

"The notion of 'letting things be,' of recognizing and trusting a force that could--if allowed--help create a harmonious balance between human and nature, is the heart of Daoist teachings."

Daoist Alchemy in the West: The Esoteric Paradigms

www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVI/Dao.htm

2004 article from the Esoterica Journal (Michigan State University) by Lee Irwin (College of Charleston, Religious Studies) traces Daoism's journey to the West via esoteric teachings of the Theosophical Society, Aleister Crowley, Mantak Chia, and others. Fascinating - and good refs.

"...Daoism may prove to be far more amenable to synthesis with Western esotericism than other traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism due to its very strong connections with nature, magical techniques, martial arts, living a healthy long life, and a thoroughly magical and transcendent, detheologized cosmology."

Notes on Taoism

www.enlightened-spirituality.org/Taoism.html

Timothy Conway (Santa Barbara, spiritual educator, author) provides extensive "notes" on Daoist history, Basic Terms, and "Important Persons in Taoism and Modern Quasi-Taoist Qigong Movements," including Hua-ching Ni, Zhang Hongbao, Li Hongzhi, "Kwan Saihung" (Deng Ming-dao?), and Mantak Chia, plus suggested readings.

Taoism and Beyond

http://la.znet.com/~mt/tao.html

Writer M. F. Taylor addresses questions about some seeming contradictions of Daoism. From his Radical Consciousness site.

"Taoism does not deny 'Good and Evil' in the world, just as a river recognizes two banks as it flows toward the ocean. Taoism suggests that an awareness of a whole problem transcends the duality within which it is composed... Taoism speaks to the inner conditions, for the outer is only a reflection of that."

A Glimpse of Taoism With Dr. Ken Gardiner

www.taichiacademy.com.au/magazine/interview6.htm

Interview by Lis Hoorweg of a retired lecturer in Chinese histroy at Australian National University. From the Tai Chi For Life online magazine.

"When I asked Ken if he could sum up the philosophy of Taoism for me in a sentence, he thought for a few minutes and then said, 'It's tuning into the essence of things; not getting hung up in the irrelevant.' He quickly added, 'The best way of understanding it is through stories.'"

The Story of the Taoist Farmer

www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/Taoist_Farmer.html

Three versions of the well-known story, plus a similar African tale, from inventor/educator Duen Hsi Yen's (Honolulu) site.

"This farmer had only one horse, and one day the horse ran away. The neighbors came to condole over his terrible loss. The farmer said, 'What makes you think it is so terrible?'"

[Excerpts from Daoist works]

http://members.tripod.com/~wa8914/tao.htm

Selections from Laozi (D. C. Lau) and Zhuangzi (Burton Watson), plus Livia Kohn, John Blofield, Thomas Cleary's translations, and others. From Timothy Walden's (system analyst) site. [Popup alert]

"The path of cultivating essence is embracing the fundamental, keeping to unity, all things empty, like a hen incubating an egg, like an oyster embracing a pearl. When this work reaches its consummation, one becomes ultimately truthful and has prescience; the mind of wisdom opens up, and one develops instantaneous comprehension." [from Understanding Reality, translated by Thomas Cleary]

The Modern Taoist Sage

http://taoism.net/theway/sage.htm

Jos Slabbert (Namibia) discusses aspects of Daoism, such as "Traveling Light," "The Outsider," "The Non-striver," and "The Detached One," introducing each section with an interpolation of a Laozi verse. See his home page for more. From the True Tao site.

"The Taoist sage consists of paradoxes that would mortify most people, but do not seem to bother him at all."

365 Tao -- Daily Meditations

http://members.fortunecity.com/danemead/library/365/365date.htm

The Danemead Library provides a Daoist mini-lesson for each day of the year from Deng Ming-Dao's bestseller. Includes a Keyword index. [Popup alert]

Taoist Cosmology

www.taoism.net/articles/mason/cosmo.htm

The True Tao site also has a number of articles by Bill Mason, including this one on logic and intuition, Ego, God, and Dao, this and that.

"Since nature is circular instead of linear, there is the illusion that you're going in a straight line with your logic because on an infinitesimal level (which is our relative size to the universe we're conceptualizing), a circle looks like a straight line. But then we find ourselves where we started and we say, 'that doesn't make sense.'"

A Little Bit of Taoism

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~chrislees/Taoism/taoism1.html

First page of a 20-page essay by Christopher Lees (chairmaker, UK). Reverie, lament, polemic, with stories, Laozi verses, quality quotes - and wonderful artwork and photographs. From his site The Tao of Chairmaking.

"Consider, do you ever have time just to gaze up into the sky? Do you experience a sense of wonder, of awe, of mystery? If the answer is 'no,' then you have lost a fundamental attribute of being human, something every little child inherits as a birthright. Something must have happened to you, to cripple that intrinsic faculty. Something has died, withered, been lost, been eroded away. Can you recall a time in your life when it was not so?"

A Personal Tao

www.personaltao.com/index.htm

Free new online book of essays, poetry, and art by Casey Kochmer (programmer, poet, "patterner," Olympia, WA). Beautifully conceived and executed.

"In Taoism, the goal isn't a practice to achieve mastery. Taoism instead concentrates upon a personal set of practices which together move with harmony to achieve balance within a person's life. This is a fine difference. Western culture is most definitely into being the best. Being the best is all about balance. Learning balance often comes from a practice teaching stability. Being the best isn't a very stable position to be within, as the process of becoming the best tends to come at the price of limiting personal development of other important traits."

Cultivating Nature

www.traditionalhealtharts.com/papers/nature.html

Article from Qi Journal by Sean Fannin (Center for Traditional Health Arts, Petaluma, CA) introduces the energetic principles of Daoism, as modeled by nature.

"Our charge in life is to protect our jing, keep the flow of qi smooth and even, and retain our shen. This is preserving the Three Treasures. Doing this we begin to express our essential nature."

Guide to Practical Taoism

www.sonshi.com/the_tao.html

Article by Rick Matz (Livinia, MI) from the Sonshi site focuses on the dynamic apsects of philosophical Daoism as applied to everyday life.

"Once you 'get it,' that doesn't mean that you'll always have green lights, or, that you won't have to rotate your tires. 'Getting it' doesn't mean you can kick back and goof off because everything is going to go your way from now on. The Taoist is constantly observing and adjusting."

Tao [fUSION Anomaly]

http://fusionanomaly.net/tao.html

By "Atomjack... vegetarian, agnostic, left-handed Pisces." The outer reaches of Daoism. A fun site.

"A proposal: the new theory of taoist dialectics. Think of the yin/yang disc, with a spot of black in the white, and vice versa -- separated not by a straight line but an S-curve. Amiri Baraka says that dialectics is just 'separating out the good from the bad' but the taoist is 'beyond good and evil' (xref Friedrick Nietzsche). The dialectic is supple, but the taoist dialectic is downright sinuous."

An Analysis of Dao

www.hku.hk/philodep/ch/Dao.html

Chad Hansen (University of Hong Kong, Philosophy), on defining Dao.

"Western philosophies analyze a cluster of common words, e.g., 'good,' 'right,' 'being' (to be), 'know,' 'believe,' true' - and so forth. One looks in vain, however, to find a philosopher showering her analytic attention on 'Way'... Dao, by contrast, was the center of Chinese philosophical discussion."

Nietzsche on the Will to Power

www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/315/willpower.htm

This section of a book by Nicholas F. Gier (University of Idaho, Philosophy) compares Nietzsche's will to power with the Daoist concept of de. Here's another chapter.

"The principle difference is that the Daoist sage can... transcend all perspectives and attain a state of illumination of the Dao as a whole. The Daoist would disagree with Zarathustra's 'Daoism': '"This is my way; where is yours?" Thus I answered those who asked me "the way." For the way--that does not exist.' Both the Confucians and the Daoists believe in the way, a single, broad path..."

T'ai Chi, Yin/Yang and the Concept of Refinement

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~ddiamond/tao.html

Chris Lofting discusses yin-yang and the "template of wholeness."

"Using the creation of an alloy as an analogy for the mixing of yin and yang, the intended alloy is T'ai Chi [Great Change]. If the mixing is a total failure then we have the two pure fundamentals - yin and yang... The purest mixture is a perfect blend. This is not observed since when it happens the result disappears; it becomes T'ai Chi... Once established, both yin and yang then seek balance through merging trust with confidence and thus achieving wholeness".

Yin and Yang and the I Ching

www.friesian.com/yinyang.htm

Kelley L. Ross, PhD, from the Proceedings of the Friesian School, Fourth Series online journal. This is the first section of a long page that goes on to discuss aspects of the Chinese language.

"Since trying to be in control is a yang (or Confucian) attribute, Taoism sees Not Doing (and Taoism itself) on the yin side of things; but since Not Doing does not literally mean doing nothing, Taoism can use the language of passivity and receptivity to mean something that is actually quite active."

Yin and Yang

http://home.earthlink.net/%7ejeettek/Philosophy/page3.html

By Bruce Lee (1940-1973), the "Ultimate Martial Artist." See also his essay On Wu-hsin (No-Mindedness). From the Jeet Kune Do Today site.

"The common mistake of most people is to identify this Yin/Yang symbol, T'ai Chi, as dualistic; that is Yang being the opposite of Yin, and vice versa. As long as we separate this 'oneness' into two, we won't achieve realization."

Yin-Yang, The Principle of Harmony and Change

www.jadedragon.com/archives/tao_heal/taopart3.html

Part 3 of a series of articles on Daoism by Ted Kardash (Taoist sanctuary of San Diego).

"We perceive experiences to be either positive or negative and we expend much energy in trying to eradicate what we consider to be negative. From a Taoist point of view, this is like trying to erase the negative current from electricity because it is not positive."

Taoism - The Wu-Wei Principle

www.jadedragon.com/archives/tao_heal/wuwei.html

Here's part 4 from the same series by Kardash.

"Wu-wei refers to behavior that arises from a sense of oneself as connected to others and to one's environment. It is not motivated by a sense of separateness."

Wu-Wei

www.hku.hk/philodep/ch/wuwei.htm

Chad Hansen's wu-wei page.

"The problem arises when we try to not-wei. We must interpret or dream something to count as wei and something else as not-wei. Laozi's philosophy thus can only work like Wittgenstein's ladder. When you have seen the point, you have to throw it away."

Wei-wu-wei: Nondual Action

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/loy3.htm

Journal article by David Loy (Bunkyo University, Chigasaki, Japan, International Studies) from the Digital Buddhist Library and Museum, considers various interpretations of wu-wei, and argues:

"...that they are incomplete without the more radical understanding of wu-wei as nondual action--that is, action in which there is no bifurcation between subject and object... When one is the action, no residue of self-consciousness remains to observe that action objectively."

The Way of Wu We

http://homepage.mac.com/shentzu/Tao/wuwei.html

A wu-wei tale by Solala Towler about how the emperor decided between Confucians and Daoists. From Shane Smith's (Shen) site.

"Once upon a time, in the Land of the Middle Kingdom, there lived a great emperor. This mighty lord lived in a magnificent castle... But he was not happy..."

Wu-Weifarer

www.oocities.org/wu_weifarer/

Three pages of scholarly Daoist quotes, excerpts, and poems, many focused on wu-wei.

"Affairs constantly manage themselves; for this reason I do not act.
Be at rest, hidden, and do not move: what comes, arrives by itself, what goes departs by itself...
-- From Robin D. S. Yates, Five Lost Classics"

Wu Wei

www.sacred-texts.com/tao/ltw/ltw85.htm

Henri Borel's (China scholar, 1869-1933) fictional 1919 account of a Western seeker and a hermit sage. Laozi's wu-wei, with a Buddhist twang.

"By strifelessness--Wu-Wei--Laotzu did not mean common inaction,--not mere idling, with closed eyes. He meant: relaxation from earthly activity, from desire--from the craving for unreal things. But he did exact activity in real things. He implied a powerful movement of the soul, which must be freed from its gloomy body like a bird from its cage. He meant a yielding to the inner motive-force which we derive from Tao and which leads us to Tao, again. And believe me: this movement is as natural as that of the cloud above us."

The Tao of Star Wars

www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7657_1.html

Two-page adaptation from John Porter's (Surgeon, University Medical Center, AZ) book looks at wu-wei "through the lens of the Star Wars series." [Popup alert]

"Wu wei doesn't think. It isn't about effort. But the ego forces. Humans try. On Dagobah: / Luke: I'll give it a try. / Yoda: No! Try not. Do. Or do not. There is no try."

You-Wu (Being-nonbeing)

www.hku.hk/philodep/ch/You-wu.htm

Deep thoughts from Chad Hansen on the pair of terms.

"In Laozi's analysis, the puzzle is trying to think of the two names 'emerging together.' Supposedly to do so is to think of making a distinction in things. However, if we divide anything off from being, it appears that we then 'have' whatever has been divided off so it must count as part of you rather than wu. Thus it seems impossible to imagine the pair of 'names' emerging from a single distinction. Laozi declares this the 'gateway to a myriad of mysteries.'"

Wu chi, empty fullness

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2005/04/wu_chi_empty_fu.html

Writer Brian Hines (Salem, OR) explores the concept in his blog, Church of the Churchless.

"That 'emptiness' inside my head isn't really empty if it is inhabited by a self that gazes upon an inner inkiness and thinks, 'Here I am, looking upon nothing.' When there is still a here, an I, a looking, and a nothing, that's pretty conclusive proof that wu chi is some distance away."

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