QUOTE(conxtion @ Mar 13 2017, 10:42 AM)
Tao ... Taoism
Sometimes spelt Dao ... Daoism
What are they? Let's discuss here.
1. Your understanding of what Tao and Taoism are
2. Your experiences of Tao and Taoism
3. What you heard from others / read from somewhere .. about Tao and Taoism
4. Various Taoism practices worldwide
5. Is Taoism a religion?
I just want to weight in on number 5
When I was growing up, people always tell me if house altar don't have buddha, u are taoist.
So basically most can tell the basics of most religion. Islam-allah muhammad quran. Christian - jesus bible adam eve. Buddhism - live of buddha , suffering, karma. Hindu-krishna , ganesh.
But I can't tell even the basic of tao.
So I googled and learnt the main books for tao are the TaoTeChing and zhuangzi. I'm very surprised by the secular content of these 2 books. It's philosophically oriented rather than god and superficial realm.
I deduce that both books are very secular and philosophical in nature.
Just like socrates , plato etc.
It explores concepts rather than supernatural (like creator etc)
I would think that if u have alters and u know that u are not a buddhist (not having the buddha statue of kuan yin or buddha related statues ) , u are more likely practicing chinese folklore religion rather than taoism. And chinese folklore religion has incorporated taoism in it because the taoism concept is a very influential school of thoughts at that time
This post has been edited by moonhowler: Mar 14 2021, 05:33 PM