Taoists: Could you explain....

[Lovedtodeath]

Taoism as a religion? When I have looked at Tai Chi and Taoism it looks like taking care of every aspect of your health.

 

I am mainly wondering why someone would consider Tai Chi practicing Taoism.

 

Thanks.

[buddhabelly]

No, I can't explain Taoism in one post on a homeschool education board! But I can reassure you that practicing tai chi chuan will be excellent for your health and will not detract at all from whatever religion you currently practice. Here's the way I explain it in my classes: this is the Cliff Notes version, mind you!

 

There is a life force, called "prana" by the Indian yogis, "xi" (chi) by the Chinese, which when in balance and moving throughout the body with no blockages leads to emotional and physical health. (If you are familiar with Chinese medicine, physical health and emotional health are not distinguished and illness in the emotional realm can cause physical illness and vice versa -- so both must be evaluated and treated.) There is nothing spooky about chi or prana: it exists in the physical realm. But it is not the same as your breath, despite what some yoga teachers may have told you. It is, however, affected by one's attention to the breath. Chi (or prana) flows through nadis (that's the Indian yoga name), called acupuncture meridians by the Chinese. It flows at a slower rate than electric impulses. If you watch tai chi, the movements are about the rate that chi flows. Chi also extends outside one's body (at the sei points) approximately 2-10 inches depending on the person and the activity. So ankle and foot health and also the health of the head and neck encourage this continual exchange of chi from the outside world to the individual. I have actually been able to see chi at times, but only after weeks of intensive practice on retreat. My teachers have developed machines that measure its flow and can diagnose illnesses.

 

Tai chi chuan encourages chi flow. You don't have to believe in chi for tai chi chuan exercises to improve your health. That's the good news. But there is one important thing: your attention must remain on each movement you make, and nothing else. That is what makes the exercises effective: your attention on the movement, not the movement itself. But you don't have to "believe" in any aspect of Taoism or even believe that chi exists for these practices to help you. As you've probably noticed, tai chi chuan practitioners maintain excellent range of motion well into their golden years. Taoists would say this is because it maintains the mobility and sufficiency of chi. (Every illness can be attributed either to stagnancy in chi flow or insufficiency of chi flow.)

 

I have not really touched on the main tenets of Taoism here, but if you do enough Google searches you'll get the idea. It's not terribly theistic, so often people have no trouble being Taoists and Buddhists. It's not atheistic either, though, so one could conceivably be a Taoist Christian (IMO).

 

More than you asked for, I know. I teach Taoist yoga and I study Tai Chi. If you had a few more hours I would go into "yin" and "yang." Just don't let anybody tell you that yin is negative and yang is positive. Yin qualities are cool, lower, still, hidden (think ligaments & bones), feminine, appreciating the way things are rather than always changing them to suit us. Yang qualities are warmer, higher, more mobile, more elastic (think muscles), more obvious, and changing existing conditions to fix problems. One cannot exist without the other, and good emotional and physical health involves balances these qualities in our physical life and in our behavior. One is not better than the other.

 

Edited to add one more important thing about the concepts of yin and yang. They are absolutely interdependent and one cannot be described or conceived without reference to the other. Picture the symbol. The concept of "white" or light is difficult if you don't know what darkness is. One is defined by the other. How do you know what "high" or "up" means if you don't know what "low" or "down" means. Warm, if you have never experienced cool? You wouldn't have a word for "warm" or "hot" if you'd never experienced anything else. My teacher also emphasizes that they are not nouns.

 

Julie

Edited April 15, 2009 by buddhabelly

[Lovedtodeath]

Thanks. I already know about Chi and believe it is scientific. (After all, accupuncture, etc.) I am having trouble understanding Taoism as a religion. Is it just making maintaining a balance of Chi the primary importance in life, and that is why it is a religion?

 

I have done a lot of google searches and cannot find an answer.

Edited April 15, 2009 by Lovedtodeath

[buddhabelly]

Thanks. I already know about Chi and believe it is scientific. (After all, accupuncture, etc.) I am having trouble understanding Taoism as a religion. Is it just making maintaining a balance of Chi the primary importance in life, and that is why it is a religion?

 

I have done a lot of google searches and cannot find an answer.

 

No. I thought you were concerned that somehow practicing tai chi would make you a Taoist, LOL, so I just addressed that. Taoism is (I think) one of the most difficult thought systems to get a handle on, but I'll get back to you, OK? As far as branding something a religion or not, I don't consider Buddhism a religion (I am a follower of these teachings), so that's a toughie for me to answer.

 

EDITED: Here's my favorite. I know it's simple, but Taoism texts are extremely simple and (some say) deliberately challenging. "What we mean by Tao is the way or course of Nature. This way has nothing good or bad, it is a mere flowing of things following the development and decline attributes of the moment." It is from this page. http://www.taopage.org/quotes.html I think each and every one of these quotes is helpful. I did read some very scholarly detailed papers about Taoism but they just sucked the soul right out of it. I didn't realize how much overlap there is between Buddhism and Taoism (there are historical reasons for that, involving Chinese Zen Buddhism, but my eyes sort of glazed over). Here's another quote from the same page that is helpful: Daodejing (Tao Te Ching) doesn't translate into "The Way of Virtue", you know. Te means "virtue" as in something's manifestations. Like the Te of a rock is that it is hard. It being hard is "by virtue of" it being a rock.

 

 

 

Julie

Edited April 15, 2009 by buddhabelly

[Lovedtodeath]

 

No. I thought you were concerned that somehow practicing tai chi would make you a Taoist, LOL, so I just addressed that.

Well, that was a concern of mine as well. Thanks for the help.

[Rosie_0801]

I'm a Western Taoist and consider "The Tao of Pooh" to be the best text, so check that at the library. I don't know that I'd call it a religion, more of a world view really. But that could just be my Western Taoistness. I'm the only one here being it. If there was a whole community, I guess ritual and whatnot would turn it into a religion. That wasn't really very helpful, was it? I suspect it's all a bit too flimsy for a Christian to comprehend. Not because you are dopey or anything, just because Christianity is much more defined and it seems a lot of the Christians around here have trouble dealing with lack of definition. I'd say Taoism is aiming to be in harmony with the Tao, the flow of nature. I don't do Tai Chi. It would annoy the heck out of me and certainly wouldn't help me be in harmony with anything.

 

I wouldn't say doing Tai Chi is practising Taoism any more than having a Bible in your house makes you Christian. You may or may not be. You could be doing Tai Chi as a form of physical prayer or because you like the exercise. There's nothing religious about it unless you choose it to be.

 

Rosie- who first learned she was a Western Taoist from a Catholic-Taoist-Buddhist. Funky mixture, huh?

Edited April 15, 2009 by Rosie_0801

[Lovedtodeath]

 

I'd say Taoism is aiming to be in harmony with the Tao, the flow of nature.

Okay, so it is like being a Jedi, :lol: it is all becoming clear to me now.

[Laura Corin]

Thanks. I already know about Chi and believe it is scientific. (After all, accupuncture, etc.) I am having trouble understanding Taoism as a religion. Is it just making maintaining a balance of Chi the primary importance in life, and that is why it is a religion?

 

I have done a lot of google searches and cannot find an answer.

 

In China, if you go to a Taoist temple, you will find it filled with statues of gods and guardian spirits. It's my understanding that these are not essential to Taoism, but rather an agglomeration of folk religion, stuck onto the philosophy of the Dao (or Tao) and the idea of qi (chi). You may even find a Buddhist statue in a Taoist temple.

 

In general, Chinese people have traditionally not been exclusive in their religious beliefs: they might go to a Taoist and a Buddhist temple, as well as dropping by an animist shrine. Indeed, this is one of the things that Christian missionaries have always struggled with in China: instilling the idea that Christianity could not be observed alongside other beliefs.

 

Best wishes

 

Laura

[Rosie_0801]

In China, if you go to a Taoist temple, you will find it filled with statues of gods and guardian spirits. It's my understanding that these are not essential to Taoism, but rather an agglomeration of folk religion, stuck onto the philosophy of the Dao (or Tao) and the idea of qi (chi). You may even find a Buddhist statue in a Taoist temple.

 

 

Yeah. That's why I'm a Western Taoist. It's what I got when I took all those Chinesey bits out.

 

:)

Rosie