The 5 Commandments in Taoism

[Mak_Tin_Si]

As requested from the moderator of TaoBum, I have moved to this forum : http://www.daoismworld.com right now.

 

So if you want to talk to me or ask me anything about Taoism, please feel free to go over to this forum and enjoy the new forum. New members for discussion are also welcomed.

 

http://www.daoismworld.com

 

Mak Tin Si

Edited January 8, 2009 by Mak_Tin_Si

[Xienkula1]

There are 5 basic code of ethics or commandment that a Taoist must follow in any branches of Taoism. Here I am listing these for others who are interested to follow and see if you can make it! It seems easy, but when I go into details, maybe alot of you will find it very fun and challenging!!

 

First, I will list them in Chinese with the cantonese pronounciation, then I will explain them in English.

 

五戒　Ng Gaai - The five commandments

不殺 But Saat - no killing

不盜 But Do - no stealing

不邪淫 But Che Yum - no sexual misconduct

不妄語 But Mong Yue - no false speech

不妒嫉 But Do Gei - no jealousy

 

If you want to go for this challenge, you can first memorize these in mind, and then try to see if you did anything wrong in your daily life according to these commandments. In Taoism trianing, every taoist will go through a ceremony to accept these commandments, so when they break these commandments, they get instant reaction, but here, I can just do my best to share it and so you can try to see if you get it in your daily life. Maybe you will find it very re-stricting. But in Taoism, you will first go through LOTs of stress and restriction because you have been polluted by your daily life bad habbits. Now you are going through this process to purify yourself. So after the period of stress and restriction, you will feel FREEDOM gained! fun!

 

Interesting these Ethical Injuctions are equivalent to the moral restraints (yama) of ashtanga yoga, the first step of yoga as described by Patanjali in his famous yoga sutras. Other schools of yoga include 5 others.

 

The corresponding list is

 

1.Ahimsa -non-violence or non-harm which is broader in application than no killing

2.Asteya - non-stealing - same.

3. Brahmacharya - sometimes transilated as sexual continence or abstinence, though sometimes translated as sexual moderation/righteousness. if it is followed strictly as no sexual activity it is more restrictive than no sexual misconduct, unless no sexual misconduct implies no sex period.

4.Satya - truth - is interpreted as no lying whatsoever, and always speaking the truth and is relatively equivalent to no false speech or attitudes, no fakeness- doing what you say and following through

5. Aparigraha - means non-covetousness, non-possessiveness, non-attachment to things, non-greed, which would somewhat correspond to non-jealousy and in fact it is sometimes interpreted as such.

 

Yogic injunction also includes the 5 niyama or the moral prescriptions

1.Santosha - Contentment - being contented with whatever one has

2.Svadhyaya -self-study - studying ones own mind - studying the scriptures to improve the quality of ones character.

3. Saucha - purity - being pure in thought word and deed.

4. Tapas - ascetism - practicing extreme self-discipline that often involves discomfort ie. practicing under harsh conditions of hot or cold.

5. Ishvarapranidhana - complete surrender to the divine, giving up ones egoic attachments to self-agrandisement in service of a greater purpose that transcends the self, offering of practice to benefit all beings.

 

I wonder if these niyama exist in Taoism too. some scriptures of yoga, ie. the hatha yoga pradipika have 5 additional yama, moral restraints:

 

1. Kshama - patience with ones development and that of others

2. Dhriti - steadfastness to the task, eliminating obstacles of fear, doubt, frustration, finishing what is started.

3. Daya - compassion, generosity - being big hearted, eliminating ones own cruelty and insensitivity towards other beings.

4. Arjava - being direct and honest eliminating wrong-doing to oneself and others.

5. Mitihara - moderation of appetite - eating the perfect amount for the body, neither more nor less, avoiding eggs, fish, seafood, and meat.

 

Sometimes these rules can be broken unconsciously.

Thanks very much for posting these ethics, if we truely want to progress, these are helpful tools to purify ourselves. I would appreciate more advice from you Mak Tin Si on how to implement them. What tips do you have?

Edited December 2, 2008 by Xienkula1

[Xienkula1]

ok I think I get it tip #1:

 

Make a checklist, making a mental checklist? It seems better to make a journal.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Xienkula1

[Tao99]

Edited December 3, 2008 by Tao99

[Mak_Tin_Si]

[Anabhogya-Carya]

Please do more research on history and see which religion comes out first. Buddhism and Taoism have the same system, they are going the same way, just train in a different way. But I am sure to tell you that Taoism comes out first because you can see the history is much much earlier than buddhism.

 

These are just laws of nature, ethics of nature. Nothing to be so surprised.

 

How the hell are these laws of nature?

[Pietro]

Please do more research on history and see which religion comes out first. Buddhism and Taoism have the same system, they are going the same way, just train in a different way. But I am sure to tell you that Taoism comes out first because you can see the history is much much earlier than buddhism.

 

These are just laws of nature, ethics of nature. Nothing to be so surprised.

 

Hello Mak,

here is Pietro,

it was nice to meet you in Toronto.

 

I don't think the problem is so much on which one came first, but if the Taoist tradition is unchanged.

 

If a person refuses to accept (as practically every westerner would do) that the same immortal came physically down to teach in two different occasions, (and thus the continuation would be coming from this metaphysical connexion); then what prove do we have that Taoism was indeed unchanged through those times (2 thousand years!) of great political turmoil?

And since the people you are reasoning here are not your disciples, you cannot use the mystery card ("oh this is a mystery!"), nor the immortal card ("an immortal told me so"). And then you need to use only reasoning, observations and hard proves to show your point.

 

So let us look at the hard proves. The first signs of Taoism are around 300 BC. Taoist tradition (i.e. ZhuangZi), claims that Lao Zi is older, but of the same generation of Confucious.

 

Most historian now agree that while Zhuang Zi was an historical figure, and Confucious was an historical figure, the Tao Te Ching was written by a series of teachers (for references on this see the introduction to the Tao Te Ching from Victor Mair). Various different versions of this book has been found in tombs, before it congealed in the final, actual version. And that the story of having Lao Zi being an older person in the same generation of Confucious is thus part of an inter-religious dialectic between Taoism and Confucianism. If Lao Zi was seen as older than Confucious, his teachings were thus seen as more valid, or more true.

 

In any case, even accepting the historical existance of Lao Zi (1), and the Zhuang Zi dating (2) you can push the origin of the Tao Te Ching back to 600 B.C. , but not before. Before that we are in mythological time, and nothing has been proven (yet, at least) about a Taoist tradition. Yes, I personally suspect that there in fact was such a tradition, but matter of fact, we don't know. And it is important to divide between own desire and wishes, and the hard facts we know. The historical Buddha was around 500-600 BC. So in any case historical Taoism as we know was there did not predate Buddhism by a whole lot. But then there is another important element.

 

Even if Taoism predated Buddhism (3), you assume that Taoism remained unchanged in those two thousand years. What most people here seem to agree is that yes Taoism was there. But it changed a lot in those years.

 

The fact that something is a law of nature (even assuming that it is) does not make it obvious that it was discovered in 600 BC in China. There was a strong influence of Buddhism in China for hundreds of years, in fact for more that a millenium. And in China, as you surely know, the situation was that the three religions were competing for the favour of the emperor.

 

But more than that, Buddhists and Taoists would often have dialectic fights on their respective traditions (for a great example of one of those please refer to "laughing at the Tao"). In those fights the buddhist trained in the Indian school and indian universities would routinely win. In such a situation it is not strange that Taoism started to have an ethics that so much resembles the Buddhist one.

 

I think you could still at this point appel to your tradition, which I think it is fine, but the tradition you belong to is unfortunately (apart for metaphysical continuations) not unbroken. In fact you refer to yourself as starting a new tradition.

 

As such I think you can say that "in our tradition we say that". But you cannot go as far as saying that "this is so". To do this extra step you need to have the solidity of proven facts. And unfortunately the facts seem to fail you here.

 

 

Yours,

Pietro