What is Taoism

[dawei]

5 hours ago, dmattwads said:

 

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.

 

Dao is not a thing.

 

When it is put prior to One, it is a kind of theoretical One.  

 

I'm with Starjumper here but Flowing Hands has explained it too.

[Maddie]

2 hours ago, GSmaster said:

 

yeah, one should spend some time in ZZ to get the proper qi flow before going into moving forms, they usually do the opposite

 

So static before moving. 🤔

[Maddie]

4 hours ago, Starjumper said:

 

Definitely, but if done very slowly and mindfully, with variations.  The slower you do it the more it makes it like zhan zhuang, and in the more advanced levels my chi kung is done very slowly.  One difference is that it should all be open hand, any chi kung done while making a fist is just some crude calisthenics.

 

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

[GSmaster]

4 hours ago, dmattwads said:

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

 

palm is the point of qi entrance / going through

 

where does it go if you have fist closed?

[GSmaster]

11 hours ago, dmattwads said:

Obviously explaining what Tao is, is problematic. 

 

It is actually not, saying that tao cannot be explained is an explanation of Tao.

 

Tao is a force in universe and it can be observed, felt, experienced through "practice".

 

Unlike bookworms and their made up terms, descriptions and useless rituals. If you have solid teacher / master he could project you into the state of Tao directly for you to experience and learn it from the Source.

Edited April 4, 2020 by GSmaster

[ReturnDragon]

55 minutes ago, GSmaster said:

 

palm is the point of qi entrance / going through

 

where does it go if you have fist closed?

Your nose.

[Earl Grey]

43 minutes ago, GSmaster said:

Unlike bookworms and their made up terms, descriptions and useless rituals. If you have solid teacher / master he could project you into the state of Tao directly for you to experience and learn it from the Source.

 

Wang Liping in his Dragon Gate book and Chen Tuan both experienced this, when in dream state meditation, they were taken by a green woman who brought them into a private chamber for learning to understand what the TTC actually meant as too many commentaries and scholars from both established schools and self-taught idiots were no closer to truth and understanding what was actually said than someone's finger on earth is when believing that they are pointing towards Alpha Centauri but upon closer inspection is pointing at Mercury. 

[GSmaster]

32 minutes ago, ReturnDragon said:

Your nose.

 

You will be crushed by Qi Field before even coming close to me.

[Maddie]

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

[Starjumper]

9 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

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

 

First of all there is no 'one' god, that's a myth.  Even in the bible it says: "Our god is going to kill your gods" (with our help, of course).

 

You have an overinflated concept of what gods are.  Gods are just some powerful spirits who won popularity contests, and they still have their attachments.

[Starjumper]

8 hours ago, dmattwads said:

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

 

Closed hand blocks interaction with external chi.  It's fine for mental circle jerkers though. (MCO)

Edited April 4, 2020 by Starjumper

[Maddie]

2 minutes ago, Starjumper said:

 

First of all there is no 'one' god, that's a myth.  Even in the bible it says: "Our god is going to kill your gods" (with our help, of course).

 

You have an overinflated concept of what gods are.  Gods are just some powerful spirits who won popularity contests, and they still have their attachments.

 

I didn't say I believed in God.

 

It was a question to figure out what Tao is and is not.

[Starjumper]

2 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

I didn't say I believed in God.

 

Then I suggest not capitalizing it.    That's good, it's best to have no beliefs, it's just the way you stated it implied that concept of god.  Maybe some day, if you meditate a lot, do your internal cultivation, and have a good heart, you will meet some god in some way.

[Maddie]

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.

[SirPalomides]

1 hour ago, dmattwads said:

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

 

It’s a big question and some would argue it is God. It really depends on how you define that though. In the classic theist position of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam God is supremely transcendent and distinct from his creation ~as well as~ totally immanent and pervading it. That is, while everything that exists is contained by and totally contingent on God, God himself is utterly beyond being; or to put it another way, God alone is true being and everything else is like a shadow of that being. Also this God speaks and manifests directly to his creation; the Dao operates through emanations which, however awesome and supreme like the Three Pure Ones, are not the single, definitive expression of Dao. Direct and final revelations like the Torah and Quran, or the unique incarnation of Christ, don’t seem to have a place (or need) in Daoist theology. As Mencius says (and the Confucian “heaven” is more or less analogous to the Daoist Dao) “Heaven does not speak but shows its will through affairs.” 
 

It might be worth noting though that in Chinese translations of the New Testament the word Logos is translated as “Dao,” so from a Christian perspective, the Dao is indeed God. The question is whether this is the same Dao of Daoism. 

[Maddie]

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

[GSmaster]

1 hour ago, dmattwads said:

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

 

Tao is the source of Tao. Thats what I meant.

 

As for all things. There are other powerful principles people on this forum don't know about it as it focuses on Daoist Studies.

 

Those principles are equal level to Tao and they run our world together.

[Rara]

On 02/04/2020 at 4:45 PM, SirPalomides said:

Again, to speak in very general terms, Quanzhen is more ascetic/ monastic, with higher emphasis on meditation in seclusion and inner alchemy. The early Quanzhen movement had an interesting quality of demanding very rigorous, some might say harsh, asceticism while opening Daoist teachings to the public in a way that hadn't been done in a while.

 

However Quanzhen Daoists can be trained to do the same public rituals as Zhengyi, and Zhengyi monastics are not unheard of.

 

 

I know you said "generally", but I want to add that they spawned very good martial artists too

[Rara]

19 hours ago, dmattwads said:

 

So while not Taoism these other religions are "a way" so are they not a Tao?

 

They are also Dao.

 

I know this gets confusing haha.

 

Practicing any other religion, as RD said, is not Daoism because they are labelled differently, (often) worship other sorts of Gods via prophets etc etc.

 

But all this happens within the Dao. Because the Dao is ultimate, religion falls below this in the rankings...

Edited April 4, 2020 by Rara

[Rara]

19 hours ago, dmattwads said:

 

To me chapter one makes it seem like defining Tao is impossible. 🤯

 

Yep. I think your work here might be done.

 

Thread closed 🤣

Edited April 4, 2020 by Rara

[Rara]

2 hours ago, dmattwads said:

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

 

Because gods are constructs.

 

Although, some academics have said that Zhuangzi's Dao is akin to God.

 

Whatever. No one's out there worshipping Dao, but if you want to go and call it "orgin" or something to help make some sort of sense of it, that'll do. But it's not really accurate at all.

Edited April 4, 2020 by Rara

[Maddie]

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?

[gatito]

23 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

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.

 

 

That's an extremely strange position, albeit extremely common.

 

Do you have any "way whatsoever to verify if their claims about their gods are" untrue?

 

If not, the only sane position to hold is neither theism or atheism but agnosticism (unless/until you find a method that yields a definitive answer to this conundrum).

 

[Maddie]

8 minutes ago, gatito said:

 

That's an extremely strange position, albeit extremely common.

 

Do you have any "way whatsoever to verify if their claims about their gods are" untrue?

 

If not, the only sane position to hold is neither theism or atheism but agnosticism (unless/until you find a method that yields a definitive answer to this conundrum).

 

 

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.

Edited April 4, 2020 by dmattwads
Spelling

[Starjumper]

41 minutes ago, dmattwads said:

So another question I have about Tao and Taoism is is it verifiable?

 

Tao is not verifiable, it is a word for a concept, yet, like a good theory of physics it is replicable, which is a kind of verification that the concept is correct.  Taoism is verifiable, a thousand million practitioners can't be all wrong.

 

Quote

Is there any way to verify that what I said about the Tao is correct? And if so how so?

 

Tao is not verifiable, but the existence of gods is verifiable, but only by those who have the experience.

Edited April 4, 2020 by Starjumper