Is the Dao a religion?

[Taojustis]

Some people consider daoism a religion. Some people consider it a philosophy and not a religion. What do you think, and why? What qualifies it as such, or disqualifies it as such, for you?

[rene]

4 minutes ago, Taojustis said:

Some people consider daoism a religion. Some people consider it a philosophy and not a religion. What do you think, and why? What qualifies it as such, or disqualifies it as such, for you?

 

Your topic title does not match your opening topic. Dao is not a religion.

 

A friend put it this way:

 

Tao is the spiritual space,

where one has complete freedom of mind,

but can still work to do what needs to be done.

It is a depth in which one does not get disappointed easily.

 

I yield to others to address your topic regarding daoism.

 

warm regards

[Marblehead]

Is the Dao a religion?

 

Only if you want it to be a religion.

 

But really, Dao cannot be defined.

 

So the only fair answer I can come up with is:

 

Yes, No, and Maybe.

 

[kpodhayski]

Is gravity a religion?

Edited June 19, 2017 by kpodhayski

[Kongming]

It's both.

 

The split of philosophy versus religion is a fairly modern and Western construction on the whole. In the ancient world philosophy was by and large a way of life, a means to an end, namely wisdom. An interesting work on this topic is Algis Uzdavinys' Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism.

 

Every religious tradition also has its own guiding philosophy and philosophers. In the vast majority of cases historically philosophy wasn't divorced or entirely separated from various cults, rites, priesthoods, and so on.

 

This also applies to Daoism. Daoism from the get go has had religious aims, namely the attainment of or union with the Dao, which is the production of sages, zhenren 真人 or "true/realized/perfected men", and/or xian 仙 or "immortals/transcendents."

 

Even earliest or so-called "philosophical Daoism" wasn't some standalone philosophy of figures like Laozi or Zhuangzi but rather represented the thought of various schools and lineages. An important point here is that what Laozi and Zhuangzi are describing are the sages or true men. The point is to become a sage yourself by attaining union with the Dao, not merely to emulate the sages (which certainly is helpful but isn't the end goal.) Thus to treat the contents of Laozi or Zhuangzi as a mere philosophy divorced from that aim or a way to live well in the secular world is to miss the point.

 

Daoism on the whole has a strong relationship with deities, heavens, the nature and destiny of the spirit/soul, mysticism/esotericism, magic, its own priesthood, rites, etc. and thus most certainly is a religion. Yet, reiterating the above, this doesn't mean it also isn't a philosophy.

 

[voidisyinyang]

Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism

 

I read this book - it's online - he has a "rationalist" bias view of Logos that is incorrect.

So it's a NeoPlatonic biased book without a real understanding of Pythagorean philosophy.

 

[Marblehead]

On ‎6‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 7:29 AM, kpodhayski said:

Is gravity a religion?

No, but it sucks just as much as religions do.

 

[Kongming]

7 hours ago, voidisyinyang said:

Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism

 

I read this book - it's online - he has a "rationalist" bias view of Logos that is incorrect.

So it's a NeoPlatonic biased book without a real understanding of Pythagorean philosophy.

 

 

Well that may be the case I am not sure, Pythagoreanism isn't an area I've studied much. I only referenced the work to give an example of how philosophy in the ancient world wasn't merely an entirely cerebral system of thought but rather a way of life geared toward wisdom, ideally true or transformative wisdom, i.e. gnosis.

[voidisyinyang]

Kongming - I went to that author's website - and his sources for Pythagorean philosophy are all later sources. He has not studied http://peterkingsley.com who did his Ph.D. on Pythagorean alchemy out of Sufi alchemy that preserved the Egyptian alchemy training and Kingsley in turn traces this to Central Asian shamanism.

 

So I agree with your intention but that book you posted - the author does not understand the real need to transform the body.

 

And even the term "gnosis" I think is quite Western. An easy way to fix this is just to sit in full lotus. haha. Egyptian pyramid power.

[voidisyinyang]

On 6/18/2017 at 10:02 PM, Taojustis said:

Some people consider daoism a religion. Some people consider it a philosophy and not a religion. What do you think, and why? What qualifies it as such, or disqualifies it as such, for you?

 

So with proper training after the pineal gland third eye opens up then we experience a new objective reality that is psychophysiological.

 

So for example if a person smells something new - then often the people around might not notice the smell since their cerebral mind already inhibited the smell - they adapted.

 

A new smell is a REM theta state of mind -which is why animals like bears or rats have such a greater sense of smell - like dogs - being in the REM theta waking dream state all the time.

 

So the large prefrontal cortex of humans focuses on vision instead of smell but to access the Dao is based on deep listening.

 

So religion as a philosophy is based actually on logical inference - no belief or blind ignorance is necessary.

 

This is called the I-thought that is self-referential and self-transcending - as our I-thought is the basis for all thoughts and yet our I-thought disappears in deep sleep.

 

So this logic is then applied mathematically in Taoism with the I-thought as the One - and where does the One go into?

 

This is then modeled as different meditation practices and in fact the secret of Taoism is based on understanding the One as complementary opposites of number - so One is a male number and 2 is a female number. This is very different than Western math and philosophy - until you discover "noncommutative phase" in quantum physics again.

 

I have a free pdf on this - https://www.pdf-archive.com/2017/04/10/idiot-s-guide-to-taoist-alchemy/

 

So the word "religion" means "to bind" just as yoga means "to yoke."

 

So someone who is serious about knowing the Self - as Socrates taught - will logically infer the source of the I-thought as an experiential change in reality.

 

This is called emptying out the thoughts but then an energy is experienced - and to go deeper when the thoughts are concentrated then requires a deeper listening experience as energy or frequency with a change in time as well.

 

So then finally we experience that neither our mind nor our body is the truth of reality but rather we exist within time as formless awareness or consciousness as the Emptiness.

 

So this is a change from within that causes a change from without at the same time - called "noncommutative phase" or the 5th dimension of space that we exist within, that is time-like, so changing eternally, creating 4D spacetime as energy-mass.

 

As physicist Gerard t'Hooft argues - we literally exist within micro quantum virtual black hole-white holes. This can be experienced through the Taoist training.

 

So all the religions also have this mystical secret but the problem with Solar-based religions is that the Lunar energy got lost which is the female pineal gland psychic energy - and so the Solar-based religions like Vedic Brahminism - and Judaic-Islamic-Christian - this is all based on symmetric math.