Religious Daoism

He had revolutionary ideas about new relationships and government, different from many things that the Chinese people had ever seen. Another major belief system in Classical China was Legalism, which was technically a branch of Confucianism, and was surprisingly extremely popular (Carr). Legalism was very strict and built a code of law. The laws were generally harsh and discriminatory to women. Confucianism was the more popular and long lasting of the two. Daoism was also a notable belief system in the Classical Chinese time period. A possibly fictional philosopher and thinker named Lao Tzu created it. Daoism is partially a philosophy, but partially a religious faith just like most belief systems in this time. Daoists were much like present-day hippies due to their firm belief in the spirit world. Much like Confucianism and Legalism, this new idea was absolutely revolutionary and the Chinese loved it. They believed that respectfulness to the forces in everyday life and respectfulness to ancestors was the secret to being happy and free. While Confucianism argued that order was the only way for true peace, Daoist thought that ancestral veneration was the way for peace (Carr). These religious

In another way, Daoism was based upon the teachings and writings of Laozi, whose views varied from the ideals of Confucianism. In summary, there has been a transformation in the Chinese culture due to founding contemporaries the philosophies workings of the three major social beliefs, Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. The three major social belief systems faced issues such as political order, humane treatment and how to unified society. Although there are distinct similarities and differences between the groups each established their own defined game plan or path in search of an optimistic future for china in order to solve or evict the many problems that plagued everyday

Daoism has everything to do with nature. It plays the most important role in human development and knowledge . It states that humans should help

Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism were the three main philosophies in ancient China for a form of government. I state that Daoism is the most effective form of government because it is based around balance: balance in nature and opposites of the universe. Daoism has the highest number of followers at around 20 million people among the three philosophies. Daoism is concerned with helping people live in harmony with their self.

Daoism is a daily guide to living so a person can experience the most of their own self. Daoism teaches the follower to look inside and to gain knowledge through self-exploration and to connect with our inner nature. The yin and yang shows the complementary sides of objects and nature, even the human body. The Taoist Sanctuary of San Diego states, “All is Tao. All opposites are in actuality part of one whole, giving rise to one another. Neither is

Chinese philosophies, like Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism, were brought in by the Chinese to help implement a strong and fair governing system in order to keep the citizens of China. They would use the different ideologies and find a similarity in all of them in order to keep together the empire. With Daoism, the government would put their trust in the people to self govern themselves and thought that political involvement and education were not needed. Confucianism would revolve around family values and order in the empire. Finally, Legalism would use fear to keep the people in check with harsh laws.

Deity, there is thus perhaps no real Deity with the capital letter to be equated with the God of Western religion. We have seen that Heaven eventually becomes the term customarily used for the Supreme Ruler, but we now know that behind or beyond heaven, there are the workings of yang and yin which have their source in tao (Thompson, 6). There is nothing distinctively Chinese in the way whereby the forces of nature were personified or the heavenly bodies were believed to exercise a direct influence in human affairs, or the way in which otherwise inexplicable occurrences of disease and other misfortunes were attributed to malignant spirits. The deification of human beings characteristic of both family and folk religion is somewhat more exceptional, although not unique (Thompson, 7). The founder of Taoism is Lao Zi and Chuan Tze, the school advocates the doctrine that the Dao is the course, the principle, the substance, and the standard of all things, to which all of them must conform. Based on the Dao De Jing, Taoism promotes the belief that a person should live a simple life, not to strive for wealth, fame or power, which will only give one worries and trouble. The school favors the political principle of “achieving good government through

Amidst the chaos of political instability and constant warring of the Zhou era, arose many intellectual thinkers that brought such a profound impact in the fields of politics, religion, and philosophy. Even to this day, their influence can be seen on the many matters of China. Confucianism became the paramount school of thinking and later significant philosophies such as Daoism and Legalism gained immense recognition as well. Each party had their own proposals for creating an idealistic political society where the many problems they faced in their everyday lives could be eliminated. All three approaches were very distinct but at the same time, they contained similarities as well. In my reasoning, I find that Confucianism and Daoism

Confucianism and Daoism are both chinese religions. They both incorporated religious practices with daily activities in a way that it pertained to philosophy as well as religion, making the secular sacred. Confucianism was grounded in ethics and virtuous socio-political conditions. Daoism, also known as Taoism, sought to establish the proper relation between humans and the cosmos through discernment of the Tao, or Way. Confucianists are more concerned with social relationships and Taoism is of a more broader nature and more mystically oriented and more philosophical. They both focused on relationships that humans had with each other as well as the relationships that humans had with nature. They were atheistic in a sense that they had no

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism are all religions that connect in more than one way. One major way that these religions connect is through the afterlife, otherwise known as the unconditioned reality. Hinduism and Buddhism have very similar views on the afterlife while Daoism has a slightly different view. In the end, they all have the same goal which is to achieve the final state that lasts forever. Even though this is true, that does not mean they do not differ in more than one way. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism rely strongly on theoretical, practical, and sociological standpoints. A large part of the theoretical standpoints, are myths about the gods and how things are. A large part of sociological standpoints are festivals, and temples. Lastly, practical is practiced through mediation, yoga, and payers. In Hinduism, there are various sects that worship a total of roughly 360,000,000 different gods. As you could imagine, this would be difficult to generalize in just one essay, so the branch of Hinduism I will go over just includes the basic trinity and Vedic gods. Along with this, this essay will include information on the two major types of Buddhism and how one attains enlightenment. Finally, we will go over how one is to attain immortality through Daoism, along with the beliefs of the traditional Chinese Folk religions.

While the Way can be considered an intangible idea of how to live your life, others believe it is an omnipotent force that shapes all things and cannot be named. Confucianists believe the former, where they have a superior chance of achieving a better life through ritual. Daoists, however, trust in nonaction, in not interfering with nature, to have a better and longer life. Conversely, the Daoist idea can only hold true in an ideal society, since it would be hard to employ. I will argue that a Confucianist society is better, because it relies on action in a society, the use of virtue with rituals to learn, and the overall betterment of the self to create order in the community as a means of reaching Way.

Over the ages, religion has been an important part of history and is used to understand the unknown. Daoism is a philosophical religion with Chinese origin. Laozi is thought to be the creator of Daoism and is often worshipped as a God. In Daoism, there are many different versions of the religion. Daoism is a easily influenced religion because of the beliefs, practices and history.

Daoism means “Followers of the way”, although Dao does not means only “way”. According to the BBC religion, the word Dao or Tao can include several concepts such as “the source of creation”, “the ultimate”, “the unnameable” ,“the way of nature as a whole”, “the natural universe as a whole” and “the inexpressible and indefinable.” In Taoism they believe in way of living in which there were not many rules and believes in the philosophy of inaction. They say that you can find happiness through nature and harmony. Also this is where yin and yang come from. As we can see, there are major differences between Daoism and Confucianism, but one of them is very important, the life after death.

Before parallels can be drawn between ideals and paths in Daoism, Daoist philosophy and Dao must be defined. It is hard to put Daoist Philosophy into a nice, neat sentence because of the complexity and vast amount of information on the subject. For the intent of this paper, Daoist philosophy is defined as a Chinese philosophy that takes a more naturalist approach to religion and way of living. It is the connection between imitating nature and harmony. Dao is defined in Chapter 1 as the constant moving “everything” that surrounds us. It is not tangible, it is just what it is, and you do not know exactly what this something is.

Daoism is synonymous with Taoism; in this religious philosophy, the way of nature is central theme of life. It was founded by Lao Tzu in 500BC in China. Lao is believed to have authored the “Dao de Jing”, which details the Daoist beliefs. Dao is a concept, a way, a principle that will lead a person to a happy, peaceful life. Dao can be achieved by incorporating the Three Jewel of Taoism that are humility, simplicity and compassion in one’s life. According to Dao, de Jing “The Way to Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure”.15 Further, there is no concept of good and evil, the Dao is simply the universe, which is perceived as a self- sustaining entity that generates energy called qi. Like other Chinese traditions, Daoist also have great reverence for the spirits of ancestors as well as spirits of nature that is plants, animals, rivers, etc. 16