Rombald

OldSaint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dshin

A shrine to Koshin, the Blue Warrior, in Kyoto. Officially Buddhist, this is actually dedicated to the Taoist tradition, introduced from China, of the three "worms", which report one's sins to the supreme emperor every 60 days. The shrine holds all-night prayer sessions for forgiveness at 60-day intervals.

Well, if you look at the Three Treasures, the first is kindness, which would seem to push toward veg(etari)anism. Perhaps the third, not taking charge, does too, if one includes animals among those whom one should not dominate. On the other hand, the second one, against extravagance, could be read to mean eating as cheaply as possible, which would be supermarket stuff, probably including some cheap meat, etc. At least in Britain, when I was very hard-up, I found it possible to buy some reasonably healthy stuff very cheaply at supermarkets (e.g. wholemeal or semi-wholemeal bread, which is especially cheap when you buy sets of 3 and so on, tins of baked beans, etc.) That's looking at things at a very basic "moral" way. Obviously, Taoist health disciplines will have more detailed dietary advice as well as exercise advice. There's also the TTC passage about tastes deadening the palate, which could mean that it is best to eat simple, bland food. It's also worth looking into how much wild food you can pick, which is a bit sage-like. People have forgotten how to do that in much of Europe.

The Koshin cultus, a form of Taoism, was introduced to Japan from China in ancient times. It is a moralistic creed, involving belief in three demons that inhabit different parts of the body, and report to the Supreme Emperor about one's sins during the night every 60 days. People gather together to pray and repent on those times, and stay up all night to stop the demons leaving. It was always a sort of folk-faith, but in the 1870s the Japanese govt. had a clamp down on "superstition", and forced all traditional religions to define themselves as Buddhism or Shinto, in fairly narrow terms, so Koshin was classified as one or the other. The same happened to Shugendo - a school of Shinto-Taoist-Buddhist mountain mysticism - it had to define itself as Shingon Buddhist to avoid criminalisation. Many Buddhist and Shinto temples have Koshin statues or small shrines in their grounds, and I know of one actual Koshin temple - Yasaka Koshindo in Kyoto - but it is officially Buddhist, although clearly actually Taoist.

I'll have another go at attaching the photo!

The temple of Dainippon Daidokyo (Great Japan Great Taoism), in Fushimi, Kyoto. There are lots of Koshindo in Japan, which are Taoist shrines that are officially Buddhist or Shinto, and there are also a few ethnic-Chinese Taoist temples, but, to my knowledge, this is the only Japanese Taoist temple that falls into neither of those categories.

I speak Japanese, but not Chinese. 仙, usually in the form 仙人, has a slightly different meaning in Japanese from Chinese. I have never used it to mean "immortal", and it usually means a mountain-hermit, especially connected with shugendo (修験道), a blend of Shinto, Taoism and Shingon (semi-Tantric) Buddhism. It can also just mean an unworldly or reclusive person, especially in a remote place. I would have guessed 仙道 to mean something like 修験道 - sort of mountain yoga.

I think I'd go for Kindness Non-extravagance Non-dominance I don't think "humility" is all that good for the last one, especially as the English meaning of "humility" is also tangled up with the second one. The third one means "not trying to take charge under heaven", although that does not rule out taking charge if called to do so, like Cincinnatus, say. It seems to me the first means rejection of cruelty and callousness; the second means rejection of waste, showiness, and celebration of affluence; and the third means rejection of the will to power.

Hi, I'm a middle-aged Englishman, living between Kyoto and Nara - the heartland of historic Japan. I speak Japanese fluently, but not Chinese. I practise Shinto, but am increasingly drawn to Taoism, which has numerous points of contact with Shinto. Taoist-related things that appeal are, in no particular order, (1) celebration of nature and landscape; (2) more of a moral content than Shinto - I'm thinking of the Three Jewels, particularly; (3) the art, especially ink painting; (4) some of the celebration of health and longevity - I mean exercises and diet, rather than alchemy, etc.; (5) the architecture of Taoist shrines that I visited in Taiwan. Religious Taoism appeals as well as philosophical Taoism.