Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST, Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (Register here), a space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living! This week continues our exploration into Taoism through Tao: The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts (initially published in 1975). Read Part I here.
What is Taoism?
Taoism (or Daoism) stands alongside Confucianism as one of China's two great religious/philosophical systems. Although traditionally traced to the mythical Laozi “Old Philosopher,” Daoism owes more to the “philosopher Zhuang” (Zhuangzi). Daoism is an umbrella that covers a range of similarly motivated doctrines. “Daoism” is also associated with assorted naturalistic or mystical religions. Consider listening to my conversation with Bryan Van Norden (author of Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto) to learn more.
Definitions of Daoism are controversial because of the complex twists in its development as it played a role in China's long history. Even the coining of the term creates ambiguity about what counts as ‘Daoism’. Three to seven centuries after they were supposed to have lived, historians of the Han dynasty (around 100 BCE) identified Laozi and Zhuangzi as Daoists. […]
Learn more: Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy
Selected Passages
The following passages from Tao: The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts will help guide our conversation at the next Reading & the Good Life (Register here) meetup.
At the very roots of Chinese thinking and feeling there lies the principle of polarity, which is not to be confused with ideas of opposition or conflict. In the metaphors of other cultures, light is at war with darkness, life with death, good with evil, and the positive with negative, and thus an idealism to cultivate the former and be rid of the latter flourishes throughout much of the world. […]
— Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way (Ch. 2)
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