Maddie

Whoever it might be applicable to 😉

I totally get that but it makes me wonder why is it that we don't like rules?

For the day's question I would like to ask between taoism and Buddhism what are your preferences and why? I think I'll start off by saying that I've been pretty seriously involved with Buddhism for several years now and while it does make a lot of sense to me theoretically experientially I don't know if I've noticed a whole lot of difference or not.

Good stuff, good stuff, thanks for the great replies everyone! So in my perpetual musings it occurred to me that Taoism and Hinduism seem to have a lot of similarities. Hinduisms gave us Yoga, Taoism gave us Qigong. Hinduism has Brahman, Taoism has Tao. Both have a wide pantheon of deities. I would be interested to hear about how they are similar and how they differ.

I personally don't think this is correct if you consider the eight fold path, especially mindfulness, but I do think this is a commonly held perception. I believe in Japan people go to the Shinto shrine for this life issues and the Buddhists specialize in funerals. Not sure how this perception came to be.

Question of the day: What is the purpose of chanting in Taoist temples? What does it do?

It's not disagreement that matters. It's disagreeing respectfully that does. 😌

I do know what you mean though about the emphasis on Right view versus delusion. The sutras are very much about that.

Ok I guess I see your point, but I think the reason I was surprised is because as a Buddhist one of the things that appeals to me the most about it is the compassion, kindness, and peacefulness. But perhaps that's just what I tend to emphasize.

You think of Buddhists as argumentative? Why is that?

Useful replies! 😊 What about how Taoism compares to Buddhism?

Since the primary school at the time that Lao Tzu was debating about Tao was the Confucians maybe it would be helpful to contrast what both the Taoists and Confucians said about the topic? Maybe even what the Mohists said? And later Buddhist.

Yes, my question is how does one verify the Tao for themselves?

Actually that's exactly what I was wanting to know when I asked a question about verification ☺️

I am not sure why it would be considered a strange position to want to be able to verify if something is true or not. Verification is a process of determining what is true. The scientific method shows gravity is true because it is verifiable by means of a scientific method that is repeatable. To try to prove something is untrue then opens infinite possibility of things to prove that are untrue. When the scientific method showed that gravity is verifiable and reasonable it didn't then proceeded to disprove that the planets are held in place buy an infinitely long chain of elves holding hands connecting the planets together with an elf chain. Although technically there is no way to definitively prove that an undetectable chain of cosmic elves don't hold the planets together. Yet it is reasonable to assume that infinite chain of cosmic elves do not exist because we already have a verifiable explanation by the way of gravity. So in summary verification is to prove what is true and not to prove it infinite possibility of things are untrue.

So another question I have about Tao and Taoism is is it verifiable? The primary reason I don't prescribe to any of the theistic religions is because there is no way whatsoever to verify if their claims about their gods are true. Is there any way to verify that what I said about the Tao is correct? And if so how so?

So it sounds like if one were to compare Tao to a Creator God it sounds more similar to the Hindu Brahman.

I capitalized God to frame the question of asking what is the difference between Tao and the concept of a Creator God, as they are both said to be there source of all things and the sustainer.

I didn't say I believed in God. It was a question to figure out what Tao is and is not.

So if Tao is the source of everything and does all things and is all things, how is Tao not God?

What is the effect of having the hand closed verses opened?

So static before moving. 🤔

It's probably deserves its own thread and I don't want to get to off topic but.... Can Kung Fu forms be done as a type of Qi gong? Do they have that effect?

1. Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.2. A name that can be named is not an eternal name. Obviously explaining what Tao is, is problematic.

So I think using that as a frame of reference I'm going to try to frame this cosmologically rather than philosophically. My understanding of Taoist cosmology is that Tao is the origin, then there was wuji or the "one" then yin yang or the "two" and so on and so forth. So I'm going to assume that whatever there was before the big bang or whatever there was that caused the big bang that is Tao. As well as the principles that continued to operate and form the universe after the big bang.