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Essay On Daoism

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In many religions, there is often an infinite being or creator of all nature and everything that resides in it, even including the soul and patterns in life and death. For example, the Hindu notion of Brahman is the divine reality of all things, and the Buddhist notion of shunyata is “emptiness,” or rather the ever changing and impermanent reality of the life. In Daoism, their notion of the Dao can be placed in the same broad category as Brahman and shunyata. But based off of the information from Chapter 6 in Molloy’s text, the Daoist account of the Dao is more like the Hindu notion of Brahman because of the individual’s experience with the notion and its relationship to the creation of reality. In Hinduism, Brahman is the Supreme Spirit, or the “divine reality at the heart of things.” (Molloy, 83) Although Brahman is not a god, it is still something that can be known and experienced, not just believed in. According to the knower, Brahman is reality, pure consciousness, and bliss. Overall, the notion of Brahman is that it is the creator of all, and there is no one true form of Brahman but everything that is experienced and known. These concepts are extremely similar to the notion of the Dao in Daoism. The Dao is often called the “way” or “existence” or “process.” The Dao is not an …show more content…

They both hold similarities to the Daoist concept, but the major difference was the Brahman and the Dao are both eternal concepts that the follower must try to unite him or herself with. Shunyata, on the other hand, is not something that the Buddhist wants to untie him or herself with. Shunyata is the concept in which as reality is empty or impermanent; all things are ever changing and always taking new forms. The Buddhist does not want to be united with shunyata because it is inevitable and all things exist

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