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My understanding of Taoism
刘冬明103001700053思想政治教育
I have been interested in Taoism for a long time.I feel that it is so fantastic, abstruse and mysterious.Every time when I read Tao Te Ching, I feel that I am enlightened.Taoism is our local philosophy and it has a longer history than Confucianism.Taoism was set up by Lao Tzu and carried forward by Chuang Tzu.Different to western philosophy, traditional Chinese philosophy, like Taoism, is not predominantly concerned with finding out the truth about reality, but is more practical as it is the concern about how to live one’s life.I think that as far as we put more effort into learning Taoism, we can get great inspiration in our lives.And I am fascinated into the thought of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu.There are two main schools of thought as to the origin of Taoism.One sticks to the point that Taoism is a development of early animism and magical practices.And to support this theory there is the legend of yellow emperor, who was regarded as our earliest ancestor and reputed to have been instructed in magic and mysticism.The other thought maintain that claic Taoism began with Lao Tzu though the doctrine of Tao existed earlier.Taoism was not so prosperous after Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and the element of magic was so prominent in later decadent Taoism.But in the teachings of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, the element of magic and mystery was expunged.Nowadays, as claic Taoism is mainly based on Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, the Book of Chuang Tzu and only a few
fragments before them, the Taoism that was developed by Chuang Tzu as a rarefied metaphysical teaching and a protest against magic and popular superstitions is more easier to be accepted by scholars.Similar to Confucianism, Taoism is the philosophy of the art of living and relationships;it deals with the whole of nature and Man’s place in it.But Taoism has a different attitude to life as to Confucianism.Taoists advocate that we should lead a life under the path of Tao and not to painstakingly fight for those plenty of things we want.What we thirstily need is to learn from the nature and let all the things go just like it wants to.Different to Taoists’ attitude that seems negative, Confucianism has a more positive manner to life.Confucianists want to build a moral society with strict manner and indiscriminate love.To achieve this goal, one should first cultivate one’s moral character and then establish a harmonious family, only after which can one rule a country and finally pacify the whole world.It is really easy to identify this difference when we return to history.For most part of Confucius’s life, he travelled round all the countries at his age and hoped that some of the emperors would hire him and accept his idea about how to rule a country.Unfortunately, he failed and determined to devote his life to teaching and pa down his thought.On the contrary, Lao Tzu just lived his commonplace life and didn’t even want to be a bureaucrat or let someone know and understand his thought.What he had paed down is only a five
thousand words book—The Tao Te Ching.As far as Jean Campbell Cooper, a scholar major in philosophy, can see, Taoism is the philosophy of the rhythm of life and simplicity of mind and spirit together with the absence of the calculated activities, as expreed in the doctrine of the wu-wei, and the presence of spontaneity, balance and harmony.The main topic of this idea is to rely on the power that everything have inside and not to try to have a hand in it.The more we do, the more worthle our effort is.In Cooper’s opinion, the basic aim of the Taoism is the attaining of the balance and harmony between the yin and yang, know as the Two Great Powers, the two poles between which all manifestation takes place.In the eyes of Taoists, everything consists of yin and yang.When yin and yang are resolved into one, they created everything.In Taoism, the primordial One becomes Two in creation and the Two becomes Three and so on in an ever-increasing multiplicity in the realm of phenomena and manifestation.The harmony between yin and yang is not easy to gain.It is usele to try to impose this on the world from outside.The only thing we can do is to reform ourselves and achieve total harmlene, both to self and others.Although one or two may have achieved the balance, they can’t help others, they can offer nothing worthwhile to the world.If they, or we can say the sages, try to help, they will break the equilibrium.The eential part of Taoism is “Tao”.Then, what is “Tao”? Tao
exists by itself and has no shape.Tao is permanent and metaphysical.It is the principle inside.With the influence of Tao, everything is born and goes under the path of it.There is a sentence in Tao Te Ching, human learns from the earth, the earth learns from the heaven, the heaven learns from Tao and Tao learns from the nature.So for the Taoist, virtue lies not in morality but in an inward quality of obedience to the Nature, in simplicity and spontaneity.Sages have no pursuit of anything;they just go under the path or the way.As Lao Tzu had said, the Tao is the most simple.Simplicity is required to deal with the complexities of life in human nature and in one’s self.But simplicity is rather difficult.We are easy to complicate things and involved in endle thinking, analysis, imagining and project, what is so-called monkey-mind.A large part of the problems of life are self-created by this monkey-mind.Wu-wei or motivelene can enable us to calm down and cease the futility of contrived action which leads only to separation, hardne, ethics, self-righteousne, and ultimate strife.For Taoism man is not the measure of the university but the mediator between the Two Great Powers, Heaven and Earth, and he should maintain the balance between them, physically, mentally, and spiritually.To achieve this, human should be positioned in the Middle Way, a position which enables man to communicate with both powers and avoid extremes.In Taoism, the primordial One becomes Two in creation and the Two becomes Three and so on in an ever-increasing multiplicity in the realm of phenomena and manifestation.So, the Tao is both the one and the All.It comprises both the unique and the commonplace in the world.It is the changele source of endle change and transformation in nature and the manifest world;it is the paive source of activity.With the cooperation of the One and the Many, yin and yang, Tao creates the whole universe.The ideal country in Lao Tzu’s mind is a small country with a small population.And the philosophy of Lao Tzu is the pioneer dialectical thought in china.I think the thought of Taoism is of great use and importance in our present life.Since we have always tried our best to complete with others, the moral degeneration of the world is getting worse day by day.To obtain a better life, we have spared no effort in changing the nature and extorting resources from it.We may be the most prosperous generation than ever before.But what we are doing is to destroy the whole nature, the whole world and the whole earth.If we continue our action to the nature, we may have killed ourselves one day.So what we should do now is to obey the nature and obtain harmony and balance between the nature and the manifest world.Only when we have achieved balance between yin and yang can we live a better life.Foot notion
Some sentences in my text are quoted from An Illustrated Introduction to Taoism: The Wisdom of the Sages
