Daoism

11 Key excerpts on "Daoism"

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  China: Promise or Threat? : A Comparison of Culture

  • Horst J. Helle(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Brill

    (Publisher)

  The philosophical and religious concepts of Daoism have spread far beyond the borders of China, where they originated: They have thus become influen-tial as well in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. In recent decades, variants of Daoism have also been adapted to the life style of Western people resulting in the for-mation of small groups of Daoists in Europe and North America. Lagerwey points out that in the context of the academic field of sinology in China as well as in the West the distinction between Daoism as a philoso-phy and Daoism as a religion has been widely spread, however this approach belongs to the scholarly past. According to that dated point of view the early texts, supposedly written by the great sages, particularly by Lao-tze (who lived during the sixth century bce and was elevated by his admirers to being a de-ity) as well as texts by the great mystics and commentators following him were considered as philosophical Daoism. This scholarly approach may be seen in analogy to the study of the Hebrew Bible, and of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and other founders of early Western philosophy. Religious Daoism on the other hand, was erroneously considered to be a later development in the form of a neo-Daoist superstition. The research of recent decades, however, has been able to show convincingly that the ancient Daoist texts can only be understood against the background of religious prac-tices that were current during the life time of Lao-tze and the other authors of the classical texts of Daoism. The ancient scriptures contain reports of ecstatic states of sages, of travels into the beyond similar to that of Elija,2 and of expe-riences that came to the respective author while under conditions of trance. These reports place the earliest Daoist experience on the same level of reli-gious revelation as those in the context of shamanism that have been reported 2 Bible, 2nd Book of Kings, 2nd chapter, verse 11.

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  An Educator's Classroom Guide to America's Religious Beliefs and Practices

  • Benjamin J. Hubbard, John T. Hatfield, James A. Santucci(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Libraries Unlimited

    (Publisher)

  For instance, female wu represented the yin (female, water) element in nature when rain rituals were enacted. Religious Daoism Besides the philosophical Daoism engendered by Laozi and Zhuangzi, a number of developments occurred over the centuries that became subsumed under what is gener- ally known as religious Daoism. The connection between the philosophical and the reli- gious was maintained, however, in the primary objectives of Daoism: longevity, vitality, and a harmonious life. The regimen that took hold in religious Daoism included such techniques as alchemy, breath control and hygiene, magic, elixirs, and sexual techniques not unlike those of Buddhist Apocalyptic (Vajrayana) Buddhism. Although the ultimate origins of Daoism as a religion are partly located in the an- cient tradition and context of shamanism, the more immediate origins occurred during the first century B.C.E. Originating during this period was a popular movement dedicated to the culture hero Huangdi (the legendary Yellow Emperor) and Laozi. Known as the Huanglao philosophy, this movement divinized Laozi and raised to prominence the practices mentioned earlier, as well as those of astrology and divination. Many deities, including the divinized Laozi, were also introduced. This movement was formally orga- nized by the religious leader Zhang Daoling in the second century C.E. As the first to be given the title of Heavenly teacher—a hereditary title that persists to the twentieth cen- tury with the Zhang family—Zhang Daoling is regarded as the historical founder of the Daoist religion. The Zhengyi sect claims connection with him. 30 [ CHINESE RELIGIONS/Daoism Beliefs The philosophy of Daoism in the Daodejing, which is regarded as a political trea- tise for the ruler, may be summarized as follows: 1. The Daodejing is a vision of reality or the order of nature known as the Dao (Way). 2. The Dao is regarded as an infinite whole that cannot be measured by human standards.

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  China between Empires

  The Northern and Southern Dynasties

  • Mark Edward Lewis, Mark Edward LEWIS, Timothy Brook(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Belknap Press

    (Publisher)

  The history of Daoism in China went back much further, to cults and beliefs that had existed since at least the Warring States period. It formed orga-nized movements at approximately the same time that Buddhism entered China, but it did not develop temples, a hierarchy of clerics, and a canon until later, after Buddhism provided the model. 1 Institutional Daoism The idea that humans could become immortal emerged in the late War-ring States period and figured prominently in motivating the feng and shan sacrifices of the First Emperor of Qin and Emperor Wu of the Han. Immortality was also a major theme of Han tomb art, including depic-tions of the court of the Queen Mother of the West and of winged im-mortals soaring through the skies, riding on beasts, or playing the liu bo board game on the peaks of mountains. The idea that people could trans-form their bodies to attain longevity also appeared in some philosophical and macrobiotic hygiene texts, and was criticized in the first-century a.d. works of Wang Chong. 2 A second early idea that became fundamental to Daoism was that of the revealed text. In some accounts, a god such as the Mysterious Woman or the divinized philosopher Laozi presented a text to a sage-king or some other mortal who used it to bring order to the world. In an-other version, certain texts came not from anthropomorphic deities but emerged directly from the incipient patterns of the natural world. This idea appears most clearly in accounts of the origins of the Canon of Change, and also those of the “apocryphal” texts that emerged in the late Western Han and flourished in subsequent centuries. One such revealed text that emerged in the Eastern Han, the Canon of Great Peace ( Taiping jing ), became the foundational sacred text of the first organized Daoist movement. 3 A third root of religious Daoism was belief in an afterlife dominated by a celestial bureaucracy resembling that of the earthly empire.

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  RELG

  WORLD

  • Robert Van Voorst(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  3 Daoism [DOW-ihz-um] Religion of the natural Way Taiji [TIGH-jee] “Great Ultimate,” another name for the yin-yang symbol yin-yang [yihn yahng] Symbol of opposing cosmic forces such as passivity and activity, and darkness and light THE NAMES Daoism AND CONFUCIANISM 157 In this section, we’ll briefly trace the history of first Daoism and then Confu-cianism, from their earliest times to today. They com-peted with each other on an official level, especially when emperors favored one and tried to put down the other; more often they cooperated on a popular level. These two religions went with and against each other for more than two thou-sand years—almost like the yin and yang—and Chinese culture was deeply affected by this fluctuation. Before we discuss the founding of the two religions, we should look at their common background in Chinese culture. 7-2a China before the Rise of Daoism and Confucianism (ca. 3000–500 B.C.E.) Daoism and Confucianism arose in a civilization that was already ancient. In fact, Chinese civilization is so old that the foundations of Confucianism and Daoism are just as close in time to us today as they are to the beginnings of civilization in China. Civilization prob-ably began there before 3000 B.C.E., with scattered settlements along the Yellow River basin in northeast China, the “cradle of Chinese civilization.” This society seems to have been highly militarized, probably because of the necessity to defend its open northern borders. Religion at this time included the worship of many gods, poetry ins- cribed on pottery, use of animal bones and shells in divination, and use of clay phal-lic statues in ritu-als for the fertility of crops, animals, and perhaps humans. Some of these surviving arti-facts testify to religious beliefs and practices that would endure in both Confucianism and Daoism. Confucianism originated as a western term, not a Chi-nese term. Its first use was in the 1500s C.E. by Roman Catholic missionaries in China.

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  Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies

  • Cheng-tian Kuo(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Amsterdam University Press

    (Publisher)

  This model is an obvious imitation of the Western approach to religion (mainly Christianity), an approach that has reshaped modern Daoism. First, this approach emphasizes tenets and theology. However, the focus of Daoism has never been on its teachings. Historically, Daoism encountered many challenges in terms of what it teaches, some from Buddhism and some from Confucianism; Daoism has seldom gained the upper hand in these debates. The modern state’s ef fort to def ine Daoism in the way Western religions are def ined have led to a focus on classics, tenets, and organization, yet such an approach is limiting because it overlooks the practice of Daoism and how it manifests in daily life and in the various levels of society, which is where the core of Daoism lies. 7 I believe that the most important aspects of the practice of Daoism include individual cultivation and study, rituals, talismans, and the performance of spells. However, individual cultivation and study is the only aspect that remains in the realm of modern Daoism. The remaining elements have become watered down, or rationalized as part of the ‘national culture’ or ‘cultural heritage’. At the same time, Daoism has been closely connected with folk beliefs since the Song and Yuan dynasties, as part of the same network of faith. This has been a key link between Daoism and daily life. But after the founding of the Republic, the link has been gradually severed and Daoism isolated from the wider context of the general popula-tion’s beliefs. This reshaping and re-delineation of Daoism has occurred because of the modern state’s view of Daoism through the lens of religion. As China’s national religion, Daoism must adhere to the state’s standard for a ‘legal’ ( hefa 合法 ) religion. The state has therefore overlooked or belittled the practice of Daoism, believing that these elements are unworthy of a major world religion.

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  The Daoist Tradition

  An Introduction

  • Louis Komjathy(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Bloomsbury Academic

    (Publisher)

  They are rooted in colonialist, missionary and Orientalist legacies. Daoism in contemporary China The center of global Daoism remains mainland Chinese Daoism, followed closely behind by Taiwanese and Hong Kong Daoism. That is, Daoism as such remains predominantly an indigenous Chinese religion practiced by people of Han ethnicity in China and the larger Chinese cultural sphere. It is largely a Chinese religion rooted in traditional Chinese culture. The latter includes Chinese aesthetics, cultural values, food, language, worldviews, and so forth. The contemporary landscape of global Daoism is intricately connected to the history of modern China. As briefly touched upon in Chapter 2, the modern history of Daoism is one of turbulence, disruption, 306 THE DAOIST TRADITION and almost complete devastation (see also Schipper 2000). It is largely a history of loss: the loss of community, cultural capital, patronage, place, tradition, and actual material culture. Prior to the 1980s, the modern history of Daoism appeared to be one of geographical contraction, cultural diminishment, and spiritual dissolution (see Pas 1989; Overmyer 2003; Miller 2006). And yet, it is also a story of revitalization. Chinese dynastic history, with its corresponding emperors, ruling houses, aristocracy, and officialdom, ended with the Qing dynasty (1644–1911). This occurred in 1912 when the Republicans, also known as the Nationalists, established the Republic of China (ROC; 1912–49; 1949–). This government was subsequently replaced by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. At that time, the Republicans as well as many of the Chinese cultural elite fled to Taiwan, where they relocated the Republic of China. Unlike Hong Kong, which was reincorporated from Great Britain in 1997 as a Special Administrative Unit under the “one country, two systems” system, Taiwan remains independent from the PRC.

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  Confucianism and the Chinese Self

  Re-examining Max Weber's China

  • Jack Barbalet(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Lau’s reference earlier to the ‘philosophical’ nature of the Laozi—more critical-practical than doctrinal or propositional philosophy (LaFargue 1998), it should be added—is a reminder that in European languages the term ‘Daoism’ may refer to both a school of thought as well as a body of religious teachings. Chinese language, however, distinguishes between them with different names—respectively, daojia and daojiao (literally, dao- family and dao-teaching). Those who argue that the Laozi and the other Daoist classic, Zhuangzi, are ‘philosophical’ texts tend also to hold that daojia is itself without religious significance and at best only remotely, if at all, meaningfully connected with the cultist ritual practices and teachings that constitute daojiao (Chan 1963; Creel 1977; Welch 2003). Indeed, the historical and social circumstances of the development of daojiao or Hsien Daoism—as the American scholar Herrlee Creel calls it, in distin- guishing it from the ‘purposive’ Daoism of the Laozi (Creel 1977: 4–7)— are quite different. The practices of the folk immortality cults that contributed to the advent of daojiao entertain orientations and means ridi- culed in the Laozi (Creel 1977: 8–9), written some 500 years earlier. The historical circumstances generative of daojiao include the advent of a sinicized Buddhism domesticated through assimilation of Daoist and Confucian idiom which provided, in turn, a monastic organizational form to daojiao which was previously unknown in China. 4 Daoism 85 The distinction between daojia and daojiao is lost in much of Weber’s discussion of Daoism, as it was for many of the missionary sinologists of the nineteenth century who regarded the Laozi as a sacred text which was measured against Christian sources, as when de Groot (1910: 138) describes the ‘writings of Lao and Chwang … as the holy books of Taoism’.

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  Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

  Care of the Self

  • Gregory Bracken(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Amsterdam University Press

    (Publisher)

  5. Interpreting Dao ( 道 ) between ‘Way-making’ and ‘ Be-wëgen ’ Massimiliano Lacertosa Abstract This chapter is part of a wider research on Daoism in general, and the Daodejing ( 道德經 , c. 300 BCE) in particular, 1 which is, most broadly, attempting to establish a philosophy of comparison. 2 The thesis of this chapter is that philosophy ought always to proceed through comparisons. This is both a theoretical hypothesis and a methodological praxis (πρᾶξις, ‘practice’). These two aspects need to be conceived as a singular and yet multifarious movement of thoughts. It is, in fact, only in virtue of this philosophical process of comparisons that one can determine the reference systems that are necessary for the evaluation of one’s own pre-assumptions. The scope, therefore, is not to find equivalences between concepts, as 1 Xiaogan Liu explains that ‘Daoism is a complex term and dif ficult to define clearly. The Anglicized term was coined in the 1830s by Western scholars working from the pronunciation of the Chinese word dao [or tao ] 道 , which literally suggests a path or road, and is extended to indicate approaches, methods, and principles; dao has been used this way since antiquity in Chinese political and moral discourse. Aside from these common meanings, the word’s most striking early appearance is in the Laozi [ 老子 ] (or Lao-tzu, Lao-tze ) or Daodejing (or Tao-te-ching ) […] Through this work it became a new philosophical term and the seed of a new intellectual and cultural tradition. Sima Qian 司馬遷 (145-86 BCE), drawing on some version of this tradition, invented a new term, Daojia [ 道家 ] (literally “ dao -family,” indicating one of six schools of thought in early Han Dynasty), which first appeared in his Historical Record . The Laozi and a later work entitled Zhuangzi [ 莊子 ] are conventionally understood to be the most representative texts of Daoism—Daoist philosophy in particular.

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  Daoism in Early China

  Huang-Lao Thought in Light of Excavated Texts

  • Feng Cao(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Cao, Daoism in Early China, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55094-1_1 1 system of political philosophy. The Huang-Lao tradition moves the School of Dao “from the direct negation of authoritarianism to a new means of taking authority (or neo-authoritarianism),” 1 thereby realizing a shift from independent roots to imperially sponsored scholarship of Daoist thought. One might draw a parallel with modern times: the inclusive approach of Huang-Lao Daoism may be compared to a phrase often encountered in Mainland China today, that the country adopts a system, “led by Marxist theory and practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics” where Marxism takes the lead, notwithstanding that there are certain character- istics grafted onto it. That is to say that Huang-Lao Daoism had a real presence in its times; it was both a mode of thought actively adopted and practiced by rulers and a theoretical system that was highly influential, whilst also being a very complex mode of thought. Huang-Lao Daoism constitutes a thread running continuously through political philosophy from the Warring States and pre-Qin eras to the Han dynasty. As such, research into Huang-Lao thought is of key importance and holds an extremely important position in understanding the history of Chinese thought overall. 1 LOOKING AT THE BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF HUANG-LAO Daoism From a historical standpoint, Huang-Lao Daoism may be separated into three chronological periods: Early, Mature and Latter. Rulers at the beginning of the Han dynasty were devout followers of Huang-Lao and a firm inculcation into the classic texts attributed to the Huang-Lao tradition were a must for all echelons of the ruling classes; being well versed in the practical application of Huang-Lao ideas was also a must.

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  A History of the World's Religions

  • David S. Noss, Blake R. Grangaard(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  S2

  In these last sentences, of which many parallels could be cited, there is to be seen the reason for the power of the Daoist priests among the common people of China down to this century. They were notable geomancers, and doctors of miraculous effects (thaumaturgists). But to attain this power over the common people, these wonder workers had to have all of the sanctions of religion, and they obtained them, for Daoism must be regarded not only as magic and philosophy but also as a religion, a fact that we have not yet clearly seen.

  A Philosophical Revival: Neo-Daoism

  During the years of the breakup of the Later Han dynasty and the following Three Kingdoms and Six Dynasties (200–300 CE), there occurred the rebirth of philosophical Daoism usually called Neo-Daoism. One result of this revival was the reissue of the Daoist writings of the legendary Lie-zi (Lieh Tzu), an older contemporary of Zhuang-zi about whom we know very little. The reissue took such liberties with the original text that the present Book of Lie-zi is only partially authentic. Its amplification of the views of Yang Zhu (Yang Chu), whom we met on p. 269, is an example. The individualism of Yang Zhu is interpreted as having been based on a combination of fatalism and hedonism. If one is to let all things take their natural course, he is made to say, and not introduce any element of artificial control, then it would be well to obey one’s impulses and enjoy them happily. Any restriction placed on the senses cramps nature and is a tyranny. Therefore, seek rich food, fine clothing, music, and beauty. Enjoy life and pay no attention to death. “Allow the ear to hear what it likes, the eye to see what it likes, the nose to smell what it likes, the mouth to speak what it likes, the body to enjoy what it likes, the mind to do what it likes.”V

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  Learning to Emulate the Wise 中國哲學

  The Genesis of Chinese Philosophy as an Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China

  • MAKEHAM, John (ed.)(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • The Chinese University of Hong Kong

    (Publisher)

  These later Daoist texts cannot be considered relevant to the construction of the most philosoph-ical philosophy. 224 · Hans-Georg Moeller New Metaphysics also makes use of the term dao , but, once more, not in a Daoist fashion. As stated above, in the language of New Metaphysics the term qi comes closest to the Daoist dao . When the term dao is used in New Metaphysics , it is meant to denote more than qi , or “whatness.” Here, dao , or dao ti 道體 , is the “processual emergence” of everything: the mate-rialization of the world as a whole, the continuous actualization of “what-nesses,” the process of existence, and the coming into being of all that there is. 23 Dao is change; it is the process of flux of which all actually existing things and events are a part. The coming in and out of existence is what the Daoists called hua 化 , or da hua 大化 (“great transforma-tion”). 24 The notion of “returning” ( fan 反 ) in the Daodejing is also quite important in this context. Feng thus acknowledges in New Metaphysics that the Daoists did come up with a philosophical conceptualization of processual change in the realm of what actually exists. 25 3. Daoism in New Practical Philosophy In New Practical Philosophy , Feng presents a four-stage model of human development towards perfection. The four stages, or “spheres,” are, in Feng’s own words, moments of a “Hegelian dialectic development.” They are to be understood as different stages in the development of the idea of the self within consciousness. 26 The first stage is called the “natural realm” ( ziran jingjie 自然境界 ); it is characterized by a lack of the consciousness of the “self.” In the second stage, the “utilitarian realm” ( gongli jingjie 功利境 界 ), the self becomes the central aspect to which all conscious activity and action relates. In the next level, the “moral realm” ( daode jingjie 道德境界 ), the self is sacrificed for the sake of the social group; it is transcended for the sake of the non-self.

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