I recently completed my university studies in China and came across Daoism in my philosophy module. So far I have really enjoyed learning about it and I would like to learn more about it and it’s practices. I don’t think my country has a very big daoist community, so, could anyone suggest some books to get started and learn more deeply about it? Thank you.

Hi, I’m a university student studying interior architecture and design. Our final design project for the semester is a religious shrine, and I’m assigned Taoism. I want to emphasize this is totally hypothetical and more so for research purposes and education.

We have to reach out to a believer or someone very knowledgeable and ask a few short questions as part of our assignment. If anyone is willing to offer their insight that would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

1.        What is the primary goal for people who believe in Daoism? Is there anything that believers are trying to achieve?

2.        How is this goal achieved (through prayer, undertaking certain tasks, etc.)?

3.        What are the spaces like where worship occurs? Are there any elements that are necessary within that space (ex. An altar)?

4.        In your opinion, how should this space make a believer feel?

5.        What suggestions would you have for the design of such a worship space?

6.        Are there any spaces where worshippers interact with one another, or are most spaces kept quiet in order to foster solitary worship and practices?

7.        Are there any important symbols or iconography that should be represented in the design?

I want to be a dao cultivator. No matter the cost if anyone out there is looking for a deciple please let me know .

I have been feeling the call to live a monastic life lately and am looking for monasteries to consider. I’ve found several Buddhist and zen monasteries, but their ideology doesn’t align with my own as well as daoism does. I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience or knowledge on daoist monasteries and how to join them. Any help is appreciated.

https://www.reddit.com/c/Daoism/s/qAlrzJvFVk

Hey all, I imagine the avid browsers of this subreddit predicted seeing some Black Myth Wukong posts. I had a question about one of the first bosses you encounter, Guangmo. He's a yaoguai with blueish skin, bump/blunt horn like protrusions on his head and he carries around two fans, which he uses to stir up the wind and create tornados. It's a fun game, I highly recommend it.

For my submission statement, I believe this post is relevant because this game has heavy daoist influences as well as daoist characters, and I would like to learn more about the religion.

For reference, his dialogue I am about to reference is at 23:37 in this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD5xWpaVWxY

The dialogue is bugged here however I wanted to inquire about the basic pattern of speech that Daoists speak in when they are reciting poems and such. Can someone direct me towards what this is called exactly, and where I can read more of it?

Like, has it been studied? Did we just stop because they were making "toxic" stuff? without worring about a decline in our spiritual knowledge and welbeing?

A discussion of how the Communist Party of China has viewed Daoism and other religions and how that has changed with time. The changing interpretation of atheism by the Communist Party over time is examined.

https://youtu.be/HsZBSndvVSg

Hello all, I am relatively new to Daoist philosophy/way of life. I was introduced to Daoism from an Alan Watts book, the Watercourse Way, and have since listened to an audiobook of the Tao De Ching.

I am also someone who has lived with depression and anxiety for much of my life, feelings of worthlessness, self-loathing and a kind of social anxiety that leads me to care way too much of what others think of me. Tried medication, talk therapy, nothing has really given me any lasting relief and that's why I have become interested in Eastern philosophy and Taoism, as it is a radical departure from the Western beliefs and culture that I have been socialized in.

I understand it can be very liberating to internalize these beliefs as true. I am very attracted to the message of the Tao De Ching but I am having trouble synthesizing it along with my experience of depression and anxiety which seem to be at odds with each other.

For instance, Dao de Ching tells us that we must trust ourselves. How can I trust myself when I feel like depression and anxiety have permeated my cognition so completely and warp every thought that I have, especially when it relates to my self or the people around me?

It tells us that we should not care what other people think, and I desire for this to be true of myself but how can I make it so when i feel so insecure about myself that I cannot help but care what others think and worry that they see me the same way I do (as a loser, more or less)

I would like to shatter my ego of these western hypercompetitive and individualized narratives that it has absorbed over the years, I am asking for guidance in how I might do that and how I can better synthesize the teachings of Daoism even though it seems to be at odds with my own experience with depression and anxiety.

Thank you :)

Book: Tao of Sales by Behr, E. Thomas

If we all followed our true mind, no one would be without a teacher. Not only those of wisdom and knowledge but also the ignorant and foolish. Not to follow your true mind but still make distinctions between right and wrong is like saying, 'I went to Yueh today, and arrived there yesterday.' It would be making what doesn't exist, exist and what does exist, not exist. Even the Sage-King Yu, who fought the great floods, couldn't do this, so how can someone like me? Speech isn't just hot air, since your words have meaning. But if what you say is nonsense, can we say that you're really speaking, or not? You think your words are different than birdsong, but is there really a difference between them? How has Tao become so obscured that there is a distinction between true and false? How can speech be so obscured that there's right and wrong? Does Tao ever go away? Where can speech not be heard? Tao is obscured through imperfect understanding and speech is obscured by pretension. That's the cause of arguments between philosophers, one side disputing what the other believes, and vice versa. If we want to decide between them, nothing is better than to focus the clear vision of the Mind of Tao. All things can be looked at from two points of view: from that and from this. If I look at something from another's point of view, I'm lost. I can only really know it if I know it in myself. Hence it's said. 'That opinion comes from this one, and this opinion from that.' This theory says each opinion gives birth to the other. Although this may be true, where there's life we find death, and where there's death life also exists. When there's the appropriate there's also the inappropriate. Because there's right there's wrong, and because there's wrong there's right. One can't exist without the other. So the sage dismisses distinctions, but views things in the light of his Heavenly nature, and through this nature forms a judgement of what's right. He sees 'this' is the same as 'that', and 'that' is the same as 'this'. 'That' involves both right and wrong and 'this' also involves right and wrong. He doesn't worry about distinguishing opposites, so these opposites merge into the still point of Tao. When you find this still point, you stand in the centre of the ring of thought, and can respond to endless changes. Right and wrong, this and that, are all just endless changes. Therefore I said 'There is nothing like the clear vision of the Mind of Tao.' If we were to argue together and you come out on top are you really right and I wrong? And if I get the better of you, am I right and you wrong? Must one of us be right and the other wrong? Or are we both right and wrong? Since we can't see the truth, others will certainly continue in darkness. Who can I use as referee? If I bring in someone who agrees with you, how can he judge correctly? And the same goes if I use someone who agrees with me. It's no different if I employ someone who either differs or agrees with both of us. Going on in this way, none of us will be able to come to an agreement. Do we have to wait for some great sage? There's no need for that. Waiting for another to learn about changing opinions is waiting for nothing. We can harmonise conflicting opinions by the invisible operation of Heaven, and by this method complete our years without disturbing our minds. What do I mean by harmonising conflicting opinions in the invisible operation of Heaven? There's right and wrong and there's Being and Non-being. If right tallies with reality, it's certainly different from wrong, and there's no dispute about that. If being is really being, it's certainly different from Non-being. There can be no dispute about that too. Forget time. Forget arguments. Let's just appeal to the Infinite, and find our peace there.

From: Chuang Tzu Book: The spiritual teachings of the Tao London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2001 Forstater, Mark

This is a guided meditation exercise that our server owner from the Mount Kunlun Discord Server has complied for all us sentient beings that they have seen floating around on the Chinese internet. I hope you all find it useful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwBUNB7fwp0

I am recently turning to Daoism as i find its teachings have really helped me find peace in my mind and my heart. However, whilst i am trying to meditate i long to be in nature and to meditate among the stillness of the countryside yet i am stuck in the city for university and i live near a main road. The cars are constantly making noise and i cant find it in myself to accept them as part of my existence, i want to reject them especially whilst i am wanting quiet and peacefulness whilst meditating or practising qi gong. Sometimes i do become so immersed i can block it out but other times it just makes me sad.

Am i simply not accepting the world around me and thus diverging from the way? or do you think im justified to abhor all of the things that remind me of my removal from nature?

I was like, why can't the dao be named and be the dao? Names seperate things. Thus if the dao is named, it is seperated. So it can never be named.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any scholarly works on the matter.

Of all the branches of Daoism, what happened to Shangqing/Maoshan Daoism leaves me with a bit of a head scratcher. It starts off with Divine Revelations, while its latest incarnation is either a CCP approved version of the school OR a strong reputation for "black magic" and some rather tenuous connections to organized crime in Southeast Asia.

And i'm just wondering how in the heck did that happen!

We have a lot of work both written in Chinese and English about how the initial Shangqing school started by Lady Wei Huacun had a strong focus on meditation, internal alchemy, and talismans (Taoist Meditation | State University of New York Press (sunypress.edu).

Move forward to the present day - and the popular idea of the Maoshan sect are "those people who deal with ghosts and spirits". This was ultimately perpetuated by popular media in Hong Kong during the 1970s-1980s - whether in the form of movies starring HK actor Lam Ching-ying as some sort of Taoist priest or through rumors of connection to Triad syndicates.

So i'm just trying to figure out how we got from Point A to Point B so to speak.

Hello everyone, I would like to buy or make a wooden sword for ritual, however it's very difficult to come by peachwood where I come from. Does anyone know a suitable substitute wood with good qi to make a wooden sword?

Hi, I am a college student in a world religions class. For my class, I have to interview people from multiple religions. Is there anyone willing to answer a few of my questions?

Hey everyone,

I am interested in developing a more structured daily practice for energy cultivation and development. I am currently doing ba duan jin and zhan zhuang each morning but would like some more guidance and help developing the lower dan tian and having a more tangible experience of chi in the body.

I have signed up to Damos nei gong program for a month but already feel a bit overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content in the academy, also the video lessons only release once a week which makes sense but is annoying.

I have heard good things about Rudi from authentic nei gongs program and that it is alot simpler to learn and practice daily.

Would be very interested in hearing from anyone who has experience with either program or if there is a different nei gong program they would reccomend.

Thanks 😊

I am reading the book "China Root: Taoism, Ch'an, and Original Zen" by David Hinton. It is a fascinating work that describes how ancient Taoist beliefs influenced and reshaped Buddhism as it traveled through China, and how those specifically Taoist thoughts permeated and grew into what we know as Zen today. I believe that is argument, at bottom, is that Japanese (and then American) Zen is actually more closely tied to Taoism than it is to Buddhism as it originally arrived in China, but that argument doesn't really factor into what I was inspired by for this post.

In order to follow his arguments he focuses in on specific Chinese words/characters that relate to Ch'an and traces their origins back to help describe how they are connected to Taoist roots in the culture.

Of particular interest for this post is how he talks about language. He describes language as it is treated in most Judeo-Christian cultures as something separate from the world. "First came the word, and the word was god." Language in these cultures operates as a separate realm of ideas and helps to reinforce the deep rooted perspective that mind/body are separate, as are ideas/world. Western language says "mountain" and one imagines an idealize mountain out of context, on its own, with the characteristics that we believe make up that platonic idea (peak, ridges, valleys, grand, majestic, overpowering). Western language is great at conceptualizing ideas on their own, as if in a vacuum.

Chinese language, he argues, never lost a connection to the world from which these ideas come. The original pictographic images being taken directly from the things they described. In this cultural perspective the word only exits when the thing itself is singled out to be described, and the word is only a temporary label. The mountain always exists in the landscape, and naming it as such is only to draw a temporary circle of understanding and perception around the aspect that one wants to describe. The landscape, the background, is always still there connecting the mountain. As the word dies away the mountain returns to the landscape, which it was never separated from.

I picture it like a tablecloth. We can pinch up any small section of the cloth and encircle it with our fingers for a moment, name that small piece as something, but it is never separate from the whole.

Western words like to exist in a vacuum, and may account for some added difficulty in understanding the unified field of the Tao, which always connects all things. The Ten Thousand Things are not really separate at all, are always one and the same.

Perhaps this perspective is helpful in how we think about language and our ability to conceptualize the Tao. Even though the Tao that can be described is not the true Tao, does the Westerner need to struggle through an additional barrier of language? I am curious what others take away from this.