A few years ago I used to be a Christian as one point until Christianity have so much dogma and restrictions so I went to ask Earthsong Forums some advice to help find a religion that's right for me. One member told me about Taoism. I research Taoism and it's have so much information about the universe of Taoism, the philosophy of Taoism and the Yin and the Yang. I went to meet to join the Taoism group to convert and so I converted myself to Taoism. That's my story.
I have always considered Taoism as more a philosophy than a religion. Are there deities within the Tao teachings? I know (think I know) that Tao is "path" and that Do is "virtue" but I have not studied taoism extensively. There are Taoisms rooted in most religions but the philosophy is more "holistic" than most religions.
Perhaps you could share the diffences between the religion and the philosophy of Tao.
I know that the Jade Dragon is a deity of Taoism.Originally Posted by DragonsFriend
There are a number of deities in Taoism.
There are also several sects.
“You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom
“We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
"We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
"Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett
Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
Oh really? Wow! I didn't know that!
I am aware of some different sects in Taoism just as in Buddhism. I believe both began as philosophy and later became religion for some.
The term Daoism tends to get used in two ways: to refer to the philosophical thought based on the Daodejing and to refer to Chinese religion. It's a Western distinction rather than a local one, though, and the Chinese don't really differentiate between religion and philosophy. For that matter, they don't really differentiate between what appear to Westerners to be different belief systems: a student of Confucian philosophy will attend a Daoist temple.
There's a lot of intellectual snobbery in China. One Confucian wrote "Daoist priests are not highly regarded by the educated." Some Daoist priests take the same approach to their worshipers: one wrote of the "true gods" and the "popular gods" of the "vulgar cults". Whom the vulgar peasants have to look down on, I don't know!
There are a host of deities in religious Taoism... the Three Pure Ones, the Eight Immortals, Guan yu, Xuan wu, Jade Emperor, and many more who have been adopted from Chinese folk religion. http://www.taoistsecret.com/taoistgod.html
śivāya vishnu rūpaya śivaḥ rūpaya vishnave
śivasya hridayam viṣṇur viṣṇoscha hridayam śivaḥ
Here's an example of the worship of some Chinese Gods
http://weecheng.com/singapore/9eg/index.htm
This begs a couple questions though. Are you a Taoist when you've read the Tao Te Ching and the writings of Zhuangze and agreed heavily with them? Or are you a Taoist wen you join one of the sects or engage in traditional religious practices associate with the Han Chinese people?
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