Still not getting Taoism?

[TheDragon20]

I am still not getting Taoism I have tried doing research on it but it seems technical to me and its difficult for me to understand. Can someone tell me simply what Taoism is all about and what I can do to become apart of it?

[Non]

it's not even that its "technical".

 

It's all written in code language, and conflicting messages, that I wonder if there's really anything to it, other than to just really 'sound poetic' or keep things secret, or sound powerful.

 

Im sure there's something to it, but the deeper you go... the more "mysterious" it gets, to a point where it seems like they just want to keep it mysterious for some reason...

[Capital]

Or maybe they think words can't ever be enough, because they can only convey a blurry copy of anything they attempt to describe- there's a reason why this is the first thing Lao Tzu wrote in Tao Te Ching (in essence).

 

The deeper you go, the more mysterious it gets? I can't really say, as I've not gotten too deep in the literature and have no teacher. But perhaps you need a beginner's mind? Look for the simple, within the convoluted.

 

Also, if you want to do bloody Alchemy or even just Nei Kung, find a teacher! I'm not searching too hard, as I feel I've yet to grow up enough to deserve one, being only 19. But that's the reason why I've only been doing spontaneity meditations, with little real directing, and that's why I haven't been focusing on my third eye at all for the last few months that I've been seriously meditating.

 

On the original question: Meditate; you'll start to get it. Tao is just a name for it. 'Taoism' is a bunch of words and ideas trying to describe it. I won't try to describe it. Not even Taoisms own Lao Tzu could.

Edited December 20, 2009 by Capital

[fiveelementtao]

I am still not getting Taoism I have tried doing research on it but it seems technical to me and its difficult for me to understand. Can someone tell me simply what Taoism is all about and what I can do to become apart of it?

It will be difficult learning Tao through books or discussion forums. The Tao Te ching is a good book to start with but it is not just for intellectual contemplation. It is a practical textbook for living. Taoism is a very practical philosophy. One very good way to begin the study of Tao is through a taoist physical practice like Tai Chi or Qigong. Another good way to learn about Tao is by observing Nature. It is a good idea to seek out a teacher if you can.

[DalTheJigsaw123]

Or maybe they think words can't ever be enough, because they can only convey a blurry copy of anything they attempt to describe- there's a reason why this is the first thing Lao Tzu wrote in Tao Te Ching (in essence).

 

The deeper you go, the more mysterious it gets? I can't really say, as I've not gotten too deep in the literature and have no teacher. But perhaps you need a beginner's mind? Look for the simple, within the convoluted.

 

Also, if you want to do bloody Alchemy or even just Nei Kung, find a teacher! I'm not searching too hard, as I feel I've yet to grow up enough to deserve one, being only 19. But that's the reason why I've only been doing spontaneity meditations, with little real directing, and that's why I haven't been focusing on my third eye at all for the last few months that I've been seriously meditating.

 

On the original question: Meditate; you'll start to get it. Tao is just a name for it. 'Taoism' is a bunch of words and ideas trying to describe it. I won't try to describe it. Not even Taoisms own Lao Tzu could.

 

 

It will be difficult learning Tao through books or discussion forums. The Tao Te ching is a good book to start with but it is not just for intellectual contemplation. It is a practical textbook for living. Taoism is a very practical philosophy. One very good way to begin the study of Tao is through a taoist physical practice like Tai Chi or Qigong. Another good way to learn about Tao is by observing Nature. It is a good idea to seek out a teacher if you can.

 

 

Both great advices, start with these and you will get far!

[Marblehead]

Both great advices, start with these and you will get far!

 

I agree with you, Leon. Both good posts.

 

Once again I will stress the importance of understanding Taoist Philosophy. This understanding comes from reading and understanding the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.

 

Once the basic philosophy is understood one can go forward in any direction one wishes.

 

It is my personal opinion that Taoism is the best philosophy of life one can follow no matter the age of the follower and no matter where in the world the individual lives.

 

Taoist philosophy is simplistic. Keep it simple. The more complicated one make the philosophy the more difficult it will be to understand and to follow. And because of this understanding of mine, I must also include that life itself is simple as long as we allow it to be so. The more complicated we make life the harder it will be to find inner peace and contentment.

 

Happy Journey! (Happy Trails!)

 

Peace & Love!

[seththewhite]

Can someone tell me simply what Taoism is all about and what I can do to become apart of it?

 

I don't think we can become part of the Tao.

The word Tao loosely translates to 'the Way.'

I am a Taoist, and I recognize this underlying framework of nature.

Take a look at the link in my signature for Lao Tzu's ideas.

 

Tao Te Ching Chp. 21

 

"The Master keeps her mind

always at one with the Tao;

that is what gives her her radiance.

 

The Tao is ungraspable.

How can her mind be at one with it?

Because she doesn't cling to ideas.

 

The Tao is dark and unfathomable.

How can it make her radiant?

Because she lets it.

 

Since before time and space were,

the Tao is.

It is beyond is and is not.

How do I know this is true?

I look inside myself and see."

[宁]

@TheDragon20

 

The ancients say taoism is about the laws of the universe

 

You already know about:

1. social laws - they change frequently

2. political laws - the same

3. religios laws - the same

4. scientific laws - the same

 

But the universal laws were, are and will be the same. The oldest that we know of are 5- 10 000 years old, and work today as good as they worked back then... the same principles.

 

Knowing and following these laws can increase your:

- strenght

- perception

- wisdom

- soul and emotions

- mind and spirit

- make you a respectable person in your family and comunity

- grant you success in whatever you want to achieve in life,

either with material purposes, or with spiritual goals.

 

These laws are learned from a teacher, and the learning process implies:

- discussions

- practice

- meditation

- experimentation

 

Finding a teacher you need:

- clear purpose

- a good heart: if the heart is too closed, your teacher may be close to you, and you can't 'see' that

- a good mind: if your mind is too confused, you won't catch the subtleties of the taoism

- a close connection with the Heavens: you need to abandon too much focus on your needs, and start helping others too.

- a strong motivation: usually the best motivation is a serious problem you need to solve...

 

Let me know if these above helped, if something wasn't that clear, we can discuss it further

 

L1

[Hyrdo]

I am still not getting Taoism I have tried doing research on it but it seems technical to me and its difficult for me to understand. Can someone tell me simply what Taoism is all about and what I can do to become apart of it?

 

For me when i started reading Tao Te King I would basically read it, maby ponder on it in different ways but I always seemed to try to apply it to past experiences. That's what helped me mainly at first. You could try understanding them in lucid dreams, I'v only had one lucid dream and am starting to work on them again but they are superposed to be good for problem solving and what not because when you are dreaming your conditioned logic is thrown out the window. If you smoke bud , that helped me one night(think most people on the forum would disagree tho). Believe the tao talks about everyone having their own path, try to stay open to yours.

 

Maby your over thinking it? Like they said simplicity is good.

anyways heres some links you may find interesting

http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/

http://www.nonduality.com/asmi.htm

Iv kinda merged Taoism with them.

 

and this is the Tao translation that i use and is suposed to be pretty accurate

http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/English_Feng_TTK.html

[doc benway]

I am still not getting Taoism I have tried doing research on it but it seems technical to me and its difficult for me to understand. Can someone tell me simply what Taoism is all about and what I can do to become apart of it?

 

A few thoughts that may or may not help -

 

You don't 'get' Daoism and you don't become a part of it - you already are it.

 

I think Dao (Tao) has many meanings - it can mean the way as in the path you tread during life, it can also mean the way as the way things are in the universe. It intentionally connotes motion rather than stasis because it recognizes that existence is process and change, rather than form and stuff. It can imply the way one may choose to lead their life to be successful or content. It can mean the way to immortality.

 

Daoism is extremely complex because it contains elements of shamanism, indigenous religions, sociology, politics, Confucianism, Buddhism, magic, medicine, spirituality, philosophy and on and on...

 

 

A few basic ideas in Daoism from my perspective are -

 

- Don't try to understand everything intellectually, rather begin to live it and allow yourself to understand as much by doing as by studying. This is one reason why things like meditation, Qigong, and Taijiquan are valuable to begin practicing if you are genuinely interested in Daoism.

 

- Understand that there is a natural way of things and struggling against your nature (by that I mean not just you but the nature of all things) is counterproductive. It wastes energy and resources and ultimately gets you nowhere. Learn to feel the natural way of things and go with rather than against the current. That is called Wu Wei. This awareness is also facilitated by practice rather than study.

 

- Recognize the balance of forces in the universe. This principle is called Tai Ji. It basically states that existence is a consequence of balance - for every front (yang) there is a back (yin), dark (yin) goes with light (yang), up with down, beauty with ugliness, pain with pleasure, happiness with sorrow, and so on... Another way of stating this is the concept of mutual arising - the only way I can know happiness is in contrast to sadness, they define eachother. If I were happy every day of my life, I would not recognize it as such and it would be meaningless. This applies to all things. If every face you ever saw was beautiful, beauty would be meaningless. It is only in comparison to a less attractive face, that a beautiful face has meaning. This is the meaning of the Zhuangzi parable - when the shoes fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the waist is forgotten. This concept is extremely valuable and significant and has endless consequences when understood. This is the foundation for the martial art of Tai Ji Quan.

 

There are many other concepts that others may choose to comment on - these are the few core elements that are most fundamental and important to me.

 

Daoism is a very rich and complex thing. It is full of treasures and has its share of chaff as well.

I don't consider myself a Daoist but I practice Daoist cultivation and it is the closest thing, along with Buddhism, to my own system of values and philosophy.

 

The book that opened my eyes to its inner meanings was :

When the Shoe Fits: Commentaries on the Taoist Mystic Chuang Tzu by Osho.

It is full of Osho's ideas, which are quite fundamentally Daoist, but also helped me to begin to understand the much more archaic language of the Daoist classics which had me totally bored and stymied in the beginning.

The other readings that I find to be utterly Daoist from the perspective of experiential rather than intellectual are the works of Jiddu Krishnamurti. A great starting point is a book called To Be Human.

Many would object that these are not Daoist but, IMO, his work cuts directly to the heart and soul of the Dao.

Alan Watts also wrote some good stuff on Daoism that is very accessible to the Western reader.

 

Good luck on your path!

[DalTheJigsaw123]

I agree with you, Leon. Both good posts.

 

Once again I will stress the importance of understanding Taoist Philosophy. This understanding comes from reading and understanding the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu.

 

Once the basic philosophy is understood one can go forward in any direction one wishes.

 

It is my personal opinion that Taoism is the best philosophy of life one can follow no matter the age of the follower and no matter where in the world the individual lives.

 

Taoist philosophy is simplistic. Keep it simple. The more complicated one make the philosophy the more difficult it will be to understand and to follow. And because of this understanding of mine, I must also include that life itself is simple as long as we allow it to be so. The more complicated we make life the harder it will be to find inner peace and contentment.

 

Happy Journey! (Happy Trails!)

 

Peace & Love!

 

 

A few thoughts that may or may not help -

 

You don't 'get' Daoism and you don't become a part of it - you already are it.

 

I think Dao (Tao) has many meanings - it can mean the way as in the path you tread during life, it can also mean the way as the way things are in the universe. It intentionally connotes motion rather than stasis because it recognizes that existence is process and change, rather than form and stuff. It can imply the way one may choose to lead their life to be successful or content. It can mean the way to immortality.

 

Daoism is extremely complex because it contains elements of shamanism, indigenous religions, sociology, politics, Confucianism, Buddhism, magic, medicine, spirituality, philosophy and on and on...

A few basic ideas in Daoism from my perspective are -

 

- Don't try to understand everything intellectually, rather begin to live it and allow yourself to understand as much by doing as by studying. This is one reason why things like meditation, Qigong, and Taijiquan are valuable to begin practicing if you are genuinely interested in Daoism.

 

- Understand that there is a natural way of things and struggling against your nature (by that I mean not just you but the nature of all things) is counterproductive. It wastes energy and resources and ultimately gets you nowhere. Learn to feel the natural way of things and go with rather than against the current. That is called Wu Wei. This awareness is also facilitated by practice rather than study.

 

- Recognize the balance of forces in the universe. This principle is called Tai Ji. It basically states that existence is a consequence of balance - for every front (yang) there is a back (yin), dark (yin) goes with light (yang), up with down, beauty with ugliness, pain with pleasure, happiness with sorrow, and so on... Another way of stating this is the concept of mutual arising - the only way I can know happiness is in contrast to sadness, they define eachother. If I were happy every day of my life, I would not recognize it as such and it would be meaningless. This applies to all things. If every face you ever saw was beautiful, beauty would be meaningless. It is only in comparison to a less attractive face, that a beautiful face has meaning. This is the meaning of the Zhuangzi parable - when the shoes fits, the foot is forgotten; when the belt fits, the waist is forgotten. This concept is extremely valuable and significant and has endless consequences when understood. This is the foundation for the martial art of Tai Ji Quan.

 

There are many other concepts that others may choose to comment on - these are the few core elements that are most fundamental and important to me.

 

Daoism is a very rich and complex thing. It is full of treasures and has its share of chaff as well.

I don't consider myself a Daoist but I practice Daoist cultivation and it is the closest thing, along with Buddhism, to my own system of values and philosophy.

 

The book that opened my eyes to its inner meanings was :

When the Shoe Fits: Commentaries on the Taoist Mystic Chuang Tzu by Osho.

It is full of Osho's ideas, which are quite fundamentally Daoist, but also helped me to begin to understand the much more archaic language of the Daoist classics which had me totally bored and stymied in the beginning.

The other readings that I find to be utterly Daoist from the perspective of experiential rather than intellectual are the works of Jiddu Krishnamurti. A great starting point is a book called To Be Human.

Many would object that these are not Daoist but, IMO, his work cuts directly to the heart and soul of the Dao.

Alan Watts also wrote some good stuff on Daoism that is very accessible to the Western reader.

 

Good luck on your path!

 

 

Also very good posts.

Full of depth and insight.

Follow these.

Stack the bricks first

And then lay down the foundation

Of advancements.