From Tai Chi Chuan to Philosophical Taoist

[BrainDance]

I guess for my introduction I'll just explain where I'm at and how I got here. I'm pretty sure I'm a philosophical Taoist, I'm really not into any religious aspect of it in the slightest. I don't think that there is anything wrong with that, and I am a religious person myself, it's just that that religion isn't Taoism.

 

My first exposure to Taoism happened a few years ago, I'm working on my degree in psychology and for some reason psychology professors seem to gravitate towards eastern philosophies. One of my professor has always worked in "Eastern psychology" into his classes. Not really about any specific religion, philosophy, or dharma, but just the eastern way of though. Although, he did seem to gravitate towards Buddhism.

 

Later on I took a class in Tai Chi and meditation both with the same professor, who also happened to be a Clinical psychologist. He's a Taoist, and I learned about the basis of Taoism from him. A detailed explanation of how Tai Chi changed my outlook on things would be pretty complicated, and I can't objectively explain the entire thing. I'm not sure what to make of the entire idea of "chi" and its relation to Tai Chi, but there certainly is something going on. I just can't really define it.

 

I work in a library as well, so putting books away one day I found the Tao Te Ching and started flipping through it, I always like to research things fully so I read through the entire thing, analysed it, moved onto the Chuang Tsu and did the same thing. The ideas in them seem to make a lot of sense that isn't just common sense, I don't really believe Tao is some conscious deity like energy, (and I'm not sure if anyone does) but it just seems the obvious cause of a world full of products, there has to be some force moving energy from big bang to heat death (if that's the correct theory so far, I'm not a physicist, I can only have a laypersons approach) and clearly humans have tried to make something more of their egos, bring them outside of the natural flow in a vein attempt at having value. My ideas on Taoism aren't fully formed yet or accurate, and I know I've got a long way to go, but that's where I'm at. I'm not really on board for any alchemy or magic, and personally don't think much of that really meshes with the philosophy. Why try and achieve physical immortality if you hold a philosophy that clearly says to accept death? I don't have anything against people who do though.

 

And so that's where I'm at, Taoism seemed to me to be a sensible philosophy that goes beyond stating the obvious, and doesn't go against an objective scientific worldview. The philosophy has had a lot of insight in it that's really helped me out, and hasn't seemed to be corrupted by Western commercialism (and I hope I'm not the first to do that!)

 

So hopefully I haven't completely missed the point of Taoism.