What Is Taoism?

this video is sponsored by curiositystream get access to my video streaming service nebula when you sign up to curiositystream using the link in the description those who know do not speak those who speak do not know a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step these wise phrases which you've no doubt heard before are over two thousand years old they come from lautses dao de jing what many people consider to be the founding document of taoism this organized religious tradition is known for its care for nature peace and going with the flow but what exactly is daoism what do yin and yang and qi mean and what does it all have to do with obi-wan kenobi well let's find out [Music] first of all is it taoism or taoism well chinese is a complicated language to translate into english so the reason there is two taoisms is because of two different systems attempting to write chinese in the latin alphabet the wade giles system which spells dao with a t was popular during the 19th and 20th centuries but the chinese never really liked the system and so developed hanyu pinyon the system that gave us the d in the 1950s this is why tao is now down but many american publications still use the old wade guile system so you'll still see tao and taoism around either way with the t or the d it's pronounced dao daoism is an indigenous chinese religion but it isn't the religion of china china has three major religious traditions taoism confucianism and buddhism most chinese people practice all three apart from priests chinese people rarely identify with only one religion taoism first appears during an incredible time in chinese history the warring states period a period where states uh ward from the 5th to 3rd centuries bce during this period multiple philosophers such as confucius put forward ideas on how to control people armies and states but one philosopher stood on the sidelines and laughed at the idea that humans could even begin to know the correct way to do things when our minds and perspectives were so small this was wise old gray bearded lautsan or the old master his book the dauda jing and changsu's book the changsu spoke of a universal force known as the deo so what exactly is the dao dao something unformed and complete before heaven and earth were born solitary and silent stands alone and unchanging pervading all things without limit it is like the mother of all things under heaven but i don't know its name better call it dao better call it great dao de jing chapter 25 i guess you assume that taoism has something to do with the dell and it does but dao isn't a god and daoists don't worship the dao dao simply means the way the word for avenue in chinese is da dao wide way for example but in taoism the word is a tad more mystical the first line of the dou de jiang makes it clear that the tao cannot be fully understood the dao that can be told of is not the eternal deo the name that can be named is not the eternal name for lotsu it's impossible to explain the deo in words and only a complete and utter idiot would think they could explain it let me explain the dou is the flow of the universe it is the source of reality it's infinite yet empty yet complete and it creates and directs the endlessly diverse universe or in the words of obi-wan kenobi it surrounds us and penetrates us it binds the galaxy together but the dare was never created it exists by and of itself the universe was born from the dao but the dao has no interest in it it doesn't create for a reason it simply creates and constantly transforms any idea that the universe cares about humans only comes from our own human centeredness but even though the day was unknowable it has an order which can be recognized in nature this kind of order is called lee a word which meant the markings in jade or the grain of wood lee kind of means organic order the random yet perfect patterns of flowing water the shapes of trees and clouds and snowflakes it is by observing lee that we can see the workings of the dao lautsu and changsu point out that because the dao lies at the root of all existence the universe takes care of itself perfectly well of its own accord sun goes up sun goes down tide goes in tide goes out never a miscommunication the rhythm of life which rises from the earth grows matures decays and eventually returns to the earth it all happens without force or orders or effort change is the only constant but this change is regular recognizable and fundamentally good that is dow or at least how i understand it leotzu and changsu make it very clear that the dao cannot be expressed in words and this is an important part of taoism language is limited and based on our human perspectives which are narrow language puts ideas in boxes but you can't put the dow in a box in the same way you can't put a river in a bucket the aim of thousand then is to help people feel the doubt to see it in nature and to be able to move in harmony with it and one way to do this is through wu wei wu wei in its most basic sense wu wei means not doing or not acting lao tzu confusingly talks about wei wu wei about doing the non-doing which means that doing nothing requires the doer to do something one interpretation is that to weigh is to act on social or personal expectations to do things because you think that's what you're supposed to do to act within a rigid mindset since the universe is always changing if you try to navigate it with an unchanging mindset you're gonna have a bad time will way is to act but acting without intent so rather than not doing it kind of means not forcing not swimming against the stream of the dao so wu wei isn't doing nothing think of japanese judo where an opponent is defeated not by brute strength but by using the movement of their own force against them one of the recurring metaphors for the dow in the dow de jing is poo or uncarved wood this uncarved word captures what is so difficult to describe about the dow its simplicity and naturalness its lack of specific features and its creative potential uncarved wood can be anything but it can only be anything because it hasn't been carved up there was say that humans have been carved up by language forced morality and selfishness they've been processed from a humble raw material with infinite potential into a product sculpted by their environment so the only way to move with the dao is to get yourself out of rigid inflexible perspectives to stop thinking of yourself as separate from nature and as processes from thinking that you stand outside the stream and can dictate which way it will flow you're in the stream you can either row against it or sail along it texts the dodejing and changsu are considered by many non-taoists to be the two most important books in taoism the dota jing is a series of short poetic statements about the way dao and its power the it's very short you can read this book in an afternoon but it'll be a fairly confusing afternoon some of its sayings such as the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step are fairly easy to understand others like good nuts have no rope but cannot be untied and governing big countries like you cook a little fish are a bit trickier the deoda jing like many texts at the time was written to teach a ruler but laozi's advice was pretty radical he said that the best way to rule was to not rule like wu wei to let the world live according to its natural pattern and that would bring about harmony and peace the deodogen can be interpreted many different ways which is why it's been translated into english more times than any other book except the bible and it's fully made its way into pop culture you can now learn about the tao of meow the tao of dating the dev network security monitoring the dare of horses the dough of banjo and even the doe of bill murray next to laozi no other daoist commands more attention than jung-sun whereas the dau de jing was written to teach rulers chungsu is aimed more ordinary people in the jungsa the wise person is someone completely untroubled with regular concerns like politics and money they simply skip over life's obstacles without worries changsu constantly lets us know that our perceptions are unreliable how we see life and death and good and bad and beautiful and ugly depend on our life experiences and what we or our culture value but these are artificial constructs they hurt spontaneity and happiness chungsu compares life to when a drunken man falls out of a carriage he has no idea what's going on he doesn't even know he's fallen and so unaware and relaxed he bounces off the ground brushes himself off and is completely unharmed whereas a sober person who stiffens up upon falling would have broken several bones because the dough de jing and chungsu are easily the best known deos texts outside of china people imagine that they are also the most important taoist texts but they're not there are thousands of those texts they're just mostly unknown when was the last time you heard of the code of new king for controlling demons which lists 36 000 demons that can be warded off by knowing their names or poems made while beating the ground which includes a series of 135 poems each of which begins and ends with the line yaufu does not write poems merely for fun or my favorite deus text because it's apparently named after the youtube comment section the forest of opinions by my young taoists don't only read the dao de jing and changsu they function as ingredients not gospel in the complicated stew of taoism all the recognized dao scriptures are assembled in a massive collection called the taoist canon which contains about 1 500 texts there is so much information in these texts that tau u discovered a cure for malaria in adele's text called emergency prescriptions kept up one sleeve and won a nobel prize for it yin and yang the taoists see an order in the world things grow from the earth they mature they age they die and then they return to the earth in a recognizable pattern the name for this pattern is yin and yang to understand the meaning of yin and yang and daoism let's look at its original meaning which was the shady and sunny sides of a hill the shady and sunny sides of hills are always changing the side that is in the sun in the morning will be in the shade in the afternoon and vice versa and this goes to show how nothing in the world ever stays the same and that cycle goes on forever the shady side isn't better than the sunny side neither is preferable and neither can really exist without the other something can only be yin until it reaches peaky in and then it will transition into yang and that will go back and forth so there can be no growth without decline no joy without sadness and no life without death chi much like yin and yang the word chi has made its way into pop culture what is chi well in modern chinese the word means air the chinese term for balloon is chiba for example but just like the dao in daoist thought g is more complicated than its original meaning g refers to the stuff or energy that makes up and connects the universe solids liquids gases they're all composed of qi but so are less material things like energy thoughts and willpower chi flows through your body when the chi is flowing you stay alive when the chi stops you're dead everyone gets a certain amount of chi at birth and uses it throughout life by cultivating gucci through breathing exercises diet and meditation you can live longer and better connect with the dao that was see the heavens the earth and the body as reflections of each other so a stimulus in one area will ripple into all the other areas we're all interrelated parts of one organic network and she connects this network it's like the internet but for all of reality so daoist belief has just as much to do with ritual and faith as it does with physical exercise forms of meditation and diet this is why breathing and physical exercises have become kind of the face of taoism tai chi is probably the main thing non-chinese people associate with taoism so let's have a look at it its full name is tai chi chuan and i know i said that wrong it means the boxing of the great ultimate it's an inner boxing one that focuses on the internal circulation of chi rather than brood strength the philosophy of tai chi is not to resist an incoming force but to meet it with softness until the incoming force exhausts itself or can be safely redirected non-combat tai chi the one you see elderly people doing at parks is a slowed down version it stimulates blood circulation relaxation and helps qi flow more freely through the body tai chi is considered a great exercise for those with low mobility gods and goddesses while lauta is usually credited as the founder of taoism the person who most deserves the title is chang dao ling in 142 ce he received a revelation from the most elevated lord lao the god version of lotsu lord lao revealed to chang that the heavens were organized in a celestial bureaucracy like it says in the daodajing the earth is a reflection of the heavens so if there's a bureaucracy on earth it's because there was already one in heaven chang and his followers were given special access to a network of celestial bureaucrats who control the fates of people in this world and the next so for example if you had a family member that you were afraid might not get into heaven you could contact your local that was priest they would do a ritual and you could kind of state your case to the relevant celestial bureaucrat the group chang founded was called the way of the celestial masters and chang served as the first celestial master while lautsa and changsu wrote centuries before this group appeared this was the first time a group of organized people had got together and consciously did taoism many of the features you associate with organize religion like gods priests sacred texts and rituals show up first in taoism with the way of the celestial masters now the way of the celestial masters didn't last but their ideas influenced all future daoist groups many people believe taoism is a religion without gods that isn't true while the dao de jing does not mention gods taoism is full of them chinese religion in general has always included many gods local deities spirits ghosts and other beings local deities fill particular purposes like helping with rain and agriculture and they would occupy specific places in the world rural villages would often have their own gods and families might even honor the kitchen gods in their homes most deities were once people who earned god's status so ordinary humans can ascend to godhood or immortality like lao tzu who is now lord leo and is seen as almost an incarnation of the dough itself so which of these deities are the most important in daoist life well the top gods are probably the three pure ones one of which is the deified lao tzu the jade emperor and there's also the eight immortals you may be imagining that they get the most attention but actually no think of it like this whenever you need something from the government like getting a driver's license you don't call the prime minister instead you call the relevant government department for your particular problem the celestial government works the same way if you're having a problem with demons you're going to want to do an offer to this guy if you're having marriage problems you'll be looking for this fella to help out and if you want help in an exam then this nerd would be your best bet so those are the basics of taoism you might still be confused and you should be this is a very complicated religion and is inherently difficult to understand remember the tao that can be told of is not the eternal dao this video isn't even close to covering everything it would take much longer than 20 minutes to explain a religion which is why we've put an exclusive commentary on what we left out over on 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Channel: Cogito

Views: 152,292

Rating: 4.9343429 out of 5

Keywords: daoism, taoism, what is daoism, what is daoism/taoism, what is daoism philosophy, what is daoism in china, tao te ching, taoist philosophy, taoism (religion), lao tzu, taoism explained, what is buddhism, what is hinduism, ancient china, daoism explained, laozi, zhuangzi, chuang tzu, chuang tzu butterfly dream, yin and yang, chi, qi, tai chi, chinese religion, dao, tao, Daoism, daoism vs taoism, daoism beliefs, dao de jing, dao de jing explained, alan watts, taoism documentary

Id: U6hslRjGaww

Length: 20min 5sec (1205 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Slavicslice]

*Chinese People practice going with the flow by forcing themselves to by all the same clothes* 13:39

[u/feckweed405]

Thanks for posting, this is very informative and well done! Love the Dude’s accent too!!

[u/TheLemming]

Nice. I had no idea there were so many gods in Daoism!

[u/RealSinnSage]

LOVE this channel and just watched this the other day!

[u/FoxMystic]

I decided to vote (under the video and got kicked out of listening to here. Opps not the yt rule.

Over all very good. It covers a lot of ground and he doesn't pause for us to digest.