Taoism, A Potential 'New' Religion? (priest, tradition, beliefs, translation)

[ChrisP]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

One book that might be worth looking at is 'The Taoist Manual' by Brock Silvers. It gives a glimpse into many traditional Taoist religious practices. I doubt many of them would migrate well to western lifestyles and attitudes, especially mine, but the book is fascinating and well written.

ChrisP I don't like to tell people I'm a Taoist either. If someone asks if I'm religious I usually tell them I'm strongly influenced by Taoism and Zen. Then they usually ask, "What the hell is Taoism and Zen?"

Hi SW,

I usually say I'm a seeker of gnosis, as opposed gnostic, which usually gets me called a mormon .

Gnosis : Intuitive apprehension of spiritual truths, an esoteric form of knowledge

Explains everything while saying nothing. Peoplesfaces scrunch up as their head goes round in circles. Oh well if all you're looking for in life is a plasma screen TV and a Skyline, then I suppose the spiritual is a passing subject destined for merriment.

[mr.guy]

4000ish years? I thought Lao Tzu run around 600 b.c.?

[ChrisP]

Originally Posted by mr.guy

4000ish years? I thought Lao Tzu run around 600 b.c.?

Depends on who you believe, as always . If you'd like we can go through all the various variantions of variance until we reach a completely irrelevant conclusion . The precursors of what we now call Taoism were around before Lao Tzu also.

[Master Vigil]

The concept of Tao has been in Chinese culture LONG before Lao Tzu. Not sure about 4000 years, but I wouldn't doubt it.

[munchkin]

hi approximatly as far as is known 4,800 years, Lau Tzu (whoever that was, ) referenced a sage called huangdi, who lived about 4,700 yrs ago, but we can find reference to Tao, in the works, and reference to fu Hsi, who was about a century before Hunagdi, putting it approximatly as far is is known to date 4,800 yrs ago,

Who, then, is the true founder of the Tao, if not Lao Tzu? Is it Huangdi? No, as it turns out, there was another figure who came before Huangdi by about a century: Fu Hsi (pronounced foo shee). He is not, and perhaps never will be, identified in Western reference works as the originator of the Tao. However, when we go deeper into research, we can see that the I Ching and the trigrams (Ba Gua, the basis of the 64 hexagrams in I Ching) are attributed to him. Fu Hsi was the first of the legendary emperors of ancient China. His reign marked the starting point of Chinese civilization, and the Tao concept that originated at the same time also reflected the spirit of Chinese culture from this ancient beginning. We can see the evidence for this when we get closer to Chinese culture. In this painting to the right, Fu Hsi is shown wearing furs. Below him on the floor we see the Ba Gua trigrams as well as a turtle. Legend has it that Fu Hsi divined the underlying pattern of the cosmos from the strange markings on the back of a turtle.

there re not that many western resources even online, that refer much to either hungdi, and especially Fu Hsi (pronounced Foo Shee) but there are plenty of resources in the Orient. One accesable source online is here,

Taoism.net

i know the author of this article and know he has researched this thoughrly, and been to many of the temples in China, relevent to the article, what he has written is in good faith and as true as can be proven at this time. He is the first to admit there may be errors, especially when dealing with so many years ago, what little research i've found, does back up this article, as well as other Taoists who have looked into this, have foudn the same info

it is certainly very interesting.
we must remeber of course that to look back at such figures alot of info is told in legends, and stories, whihc is how history was passe on in those ancient times, hence the popularity of bards/storytellers/mummers(actors) and thelike.

love and peace
becca

[ChrisP]

Wow. Thanks Munchkin.

[Master Vigil]

Good stuff munchkin!!

[Adam Hockworth]

Originally Posted by Scarlett Wampus

There are many pockets of such people popping up all over the place that I think its only a matter of time before they start to bunch together in large enough networks to form some kind of organised western genus of Taoism. What do others think?

Look up "Western Taoism" on the net.. there is already a loosely held organization out there. No actually churches, or meditation centers yet. Many Taoists go to Buddhist or Zen type meditation centers.

Is native Chinese Taoism any reflection of the teachings of Laozi?



chokmah

[Master Vigil]

Originally Posted by Adam Hockworth

Look up "Western Taoism" on the net.. there is already a loosely held organization out there. No actually churches, or meditation centers yet. Many Taoists go to Buddhist or Zen type meditation centers.

This is true. And nothing wrong with it.

Is native Chinese Taoism any reflection of the teachings of Laozi?

Definitely. Not 100 percent of native chinese taoism is derived from the Tao Te Ching, but alot of it is.