Ultimate reality is to be experienced, not thought about in the abstract. As we have already noted, Eastern religions do not see reality as something that can be comprehended intellectually. One of the reasons to treat Taoism after Confucianism is that Chuang Tzu liked to poke fun at the Confucianists, and if we reversed the order, we would miss some of his jokes.Īs we will see, the Tao Te Ching is not always easy to understand, but in a very real sense it is not to be “understood,” at least with the mind. In this chapter, we will use parts of the Tao Te Ching as well as parts of the Chuang Tzu to come to an understanding of philosophical Taoism. Chuang Tzu, who wrote the Chuang Tzu, is usually credited with being the best interpreter of the Tao Te Ching. Lao Tzu had a disciple who lived about three hundred years after him by the name of Chuang Tzu (died 275 BCE). In five thousand Chinese characters and eighty-one chapters, Lao Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching, climbed back on his black ox, and disappeared into the sunset, never to be heard from again. As he arrived at the western pass, the gatekeeper stopped him, and when he discovered that Lao Tzu was leaving, he asked him to write down his thoughts.
Tradition holds that Lao Tzu mounted his black ox and left the city. Thus China was bordering on anarchy, and it seems to be this state of affairs with which Lao Tzu became disenchanted. As we have seen with Confucius, who was a slightly younger contemporary of Lao Tzu, China in the sixth century BCE stood on the verge of the Period of the Warring States. However, he became discouraged with society and decided to leave. It seems that Lao Tzu held a government position, perhaps keeper of the royal archives. Thus for the purposes of this chapter, we will accept Lao Tzu as the founder of the philosophical Taoist school, and we will accept him as the author of the foundational text, the Tao Te Ching (or Dao de Jing).Īccording to tradition, Lao Tzu was born in 604 BCE. It is the sense of the current author that this “doubting Thomas” attitude has gone too far.
This is true even of Jesus, many scholars claiming that the Gospels contain no historically accurate information about him.
Interestingly, modern scholars of religion have become more and more skeptical about knowing anything about the religious figures of the past. Philosophical Taoism, on the other hand, has several aspects which will feel familiar to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Īmong scholars there is debate about the founder of philosophical Taoism to the extent that some question whether Lao Tzu, the traditional founding figure, even existed. The kind of Taoism practiced in the world today is religious Taoism, a form closely allied with ancient Chinese religious life and somewhat foreign to Latter-day Saint experience.
We will treat both but will begin with philosophical. Taoism (Daoism) comes in two basic forms-philosophical Taoism and religious Taoism. A temple may be dedicated to one god, in this case Lü Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals, but also include figures of the Yellow Emperor, Confucius, Buddha, and Lao Tzu, as well as others. Taoism has in its philosophical form profound similarities with the Spirit-guided life which Latter-day Saints seek to live.Ĭhi Nan Temple, Muzha, Taiwan. Keller, "Taoism," Light and Truth: A Latter-day Saint Guide to World Religions (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012), 144–69.
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