wandelaar

I hardly see any discussion about Taoism anymore. How come? And should we do something about it? Or would it be better to just accept things as they are?

Thanks! I know enough now. Sources proving the distinction to have been made by the Chinese themselves long ago have been given. But they don't fit in with today's fashionable postmodern biases, so the facts are ignored. We're living in Trumps post-truth world now, on the Right just as much as on (what used to be) the Left. Furthermore no interest in discussions about the Taoist classics appears to be left in this place. Time to move on...

That's why it's nonsense. I consider Kroll as a respectable source, while Taoist Texts clearly isn't. His links are usually interesting but besides the point. The link you quoted is to an early skeptical text, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunheng As I said before the Tao Te Ching and other Taoist classics contain mystical and magical elements, which is only to be expected given the time they were written. As usual Taoist Text is first setting up a straw man ("the hilariously ignorant notion that 道家 were some kind of rational philosophers") in order to shoot it down. Nobody here said they were rational philosophers. But they could be described as philosophers (for lack of a better word), that's all that is claimed. Better ignore Taoist Texts altogether. Which I have done by putting him on my Ignore List, but unhappily by you quoting him I'm reminded of the continuing influence of his machinations.

Thanks! Clear enough. Thus philosophical Taoism as practiced in the West stands in the tradition of 道家 dao4 jia1 and cannot rightfully be disqualified as a "fake construct" invented by ignorant western "cultural imperialists".

@blue eyed snake That's the kind of topics I was referring to. And those are no longer seen today....

This says it all. No use to continue.

The expressions for the two forms of Taoism are in the Kroll Dictionary. Cobie probably knows where to find it.

OK - for those who might be interested: the Taoist classics I was referring to are the Tao Te Ching, the Chuang tzu and the Lieh tzu. That's how it started. Later on religious Taoism increasingly diverged from the classics, but philosophical Taoism kept close to the classics. This distinction into two forms of Taoism was already made by the Chinese long ago.

Nonsense! What is a fake construct however is the fashionable claim that philosophical Taoism would be a fake construct. Better read the classics (as I did) and form your own opinion about it instead of parroting postmodern bullshit. There are mystical and magical elements in the classics, but the whole convoluted puppet show of Taoist gods, magic, ritual, etc. is clearly a later addition. Nice for people who like that kind if stuff. And I'm not saying that religious Taoism isn't Taoism. But it's absurd for adherents of religious Taoism to now disqualify the original kind of Taoism as found in classics as not being the real thing.

@Master Logray Correct. I don't like religious Taoism either, but there's also philosophical Taoism. There used to be discussions here on the Taoist Classics, and reviews of recent books on Taoism. And textual studies. But hardly anything of that is left now. And when nowadays somebody tries a new topic of that sort it quickly dies for lack of responses. Something similar happened at the end of Original Dao. There were not enough new members joining to keep the discussions going, so after a while people felt like everything they wanted to say regarding Taoism had already been said.

Thanks for all the responses. Apparently the drift away from Taoist subjects is not seen as something problematic by most Bums. And thus there is no hope for a return to Taoist topics as the main focus of The Dao Bums anytime soon. - Good to know.

Yes. Een grapje op zijn tijd moet kunnen.

@CobieA lot of philosophical Taoists did leave in the great schism. @Keith108 Haha! I was typing something similar as I saw your comment. It might be a problem that Taoists of the Laoist kind tend to turn away from debates the more they internalize the Laoist world view. But then again one would still expect younger people to join this forum and take over the debating part. But when they see that there is hardly any discussion about Taoism going on here, they won't stay for long.

Yes - same here.

@liminal_luke What do I suggest? I'm just curious if any interest at all in Taoist subjects still remains. One cannot and should not force the members here to care about Taoism. But if things really stand as it looks right now, than I have to conclude that The Dao Bums is no longer a place where you can discuss and learn about Taoism. Of course one can still try to start or join a topic about Taoism, but if (almost) nobody responds than nothing fruitful results. Dus helaas pindakaas...?

In my understanding religious and esoteric Taoism are very different from the early forms of Taoism as found in the TTC, the Chuang tzu and the Lieh tzu. There are wise and foolish people in the three classics, there are seekers, fantastic creatures, miracles, parables, etc. But there's no basis to be found in the three classics for the organized religious forms and rituals Taoism took on later. The (largely absent) relation between the three Taoist classics and later Taoism is somewhat comparable to that between the New Testament and the Catholic Church. Don't let yourself be fooled by those (post)modernists who want to obfuscate the difference between philosophical (or mainly early) Taoism and religious Taoism.

In this case it's very simple because there are only a few (Wikipedia names three) complete English translation, so there's hardly anything to choose from. The Lieh tzu is not the Tao Te Ching where you can choose from hundreds of translations. The question which translation to choose is a non-issue here. Asking for advise is sensible as long as you take into account who's giving the advise. The advise of a random person is worth almost nothing, but the advise of a Dao Bum with a known perspective on things is worth somewhat more. Translations are not good or bad in any absolute sense, but they are good or bad when measured along certain standards. That's why I said that Graham's translation is scholarly (meaning good as a scholarly translation) and Wong's translation is practical (meaning good as a guide to practical living). It's been some time ago since I read the translations so I don't remember the details.

There's not much to choose from in case of the Lieh tzu. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liezi#Translations I have the the ones by Graham and Wong. Graham is scholarly, Wong is practical. So both are interesting, but for different reasons. I don't know the one by Liang Xiaopeng.

Yes - here's where (Taoist) philosophy suddenly gets very practical.

The video by Sam Harris perfectly describes what I'm saying. It's possible to talk about these things without stirring up unnecessary irritation as a result of misleading terminology or even worse by creating even more irritation by subsequently "explaining" that irritation as a result of the delusions of those who have become irritated. Enough!

I still think a lot of the controversy here in this topic could have been avoided by more clearly recognizing the ego for what it is (a temporary fleeting something or process), and not as you do by a priori defining it as illusory. What is illusory is not the ego but the false sense of it as something substantial. Doing away with the ego itself will not work, or if it did work would result in a human plant or doormat. Not something to be applauded. That's why some members here got irritated.

Using the words self and ego synonymously is a huge cause of confusion, particularly when trying to understand Buddhism. However you're probably right about the Buddha not having said that the self doesn't exist. He didn't like to delve into philosophical questions with no baring on salvation. I have had an interesting discussion about that on Original Dao and it appears that the Buddha was silent about it. And thus that the anatta doctrine is a later interpretation, although an influential one. This is one of those cases where I had to change my original opinion. If you go by the words of the Buddha alone many a philosophical questions must indeed remain unsettled.

Maybe I (my ego) has something to add to this new turn of the discussion: The self is not the ego, the self (as a supposedly absolutely autonomous island of self determination) most likely doesn't exist, but the ego as something transient that gets born, lives and dies certainly (temporarily) exists, and we see ego's fighting with each other all over the place here and elsewhere. How could mere delusions fight with each other? In a sense tornado's or flames don't exist as substantial things either, for those are processes rather than substantial things. Just as our ego's. That's why trying to destroy the ego doesn't work. The best one could do is destroying the illusion of having a self, and this will take away a big chunk of our own supposed grandiosity. Which in turn will make it more likely that we appreciate the ideas of other people and get somewhat less obstinate in general (unless of course spiritual arrogance kicks in). In short: the self doesn't have to be destroyed because it doesn't exist in the first place (thus understanding that it doesn't exist is enough), and the ego doesn't need to be destroyed because its not the root cause of our problems. Epicurus in the West solved the problem of craving in a less convoluted way: Moderate Buddhists are more like Epicurus.

I wrote two further posts for this topic now and both times I deleted it by a silly mistake, so I take this as an admonition to my ego to quit with this topic. Enough has already been said.