Encyclopedia
Taoism is the English name for:
- a philosophical school
...
based on the texts the
Tao Te Ching , roughly translated as
The Book of the Way and its Virtue is an ancient...
and the
Zhuangzi.
- a family of organized Chinese religious movements such as the Zhengyi or Quanzhen sects, which collectively trace back to Zhang Daoling
...
in the late
Han Dynasty;
- a Chinese folk religion.
The English word "Taoism" is used to translate the
Chinese terms
Daojiao and
Daojia . The character
Tao ? literally means "path" or "way", but in
Chinese religion and
philosophy has taken on more abstract meanings. The compound
Daojiao refers to Daoism as a religion;
Daojia refers to the activity of scholars in their studies. It must be noted that this distinction is itself controversial and fraught with hermeneutic difficulty.
Much uncertainty exists over the meaning of "Taoism," not least because of its often being confused with such seemingly similar disciplines such as
Zen. In some countries and contexts , the label has come to be applied to the
Chinese folk religion, which would otherwise not have a readily recognisable English name. However many, if not most, of its practitioners would not recognise "Taoism" as the name of their religion. Moreover, the several forms of what we might call "elite" or "organised" Taoism often distinguish their ritual activities from those of the folk religion, which some professional "Taoists" tend to view as debased.
Chinese alchemy, astrology,
cuisine, several
Chinese martial arts,
Chinese traditional medicine,
fengshui, and many styles of qigong breath training disciplines have some relationship with Taoism.
History
Depending on how it is defined, Taoism's origins may be traced to the prehistoric Chinese religion; to the composition of the Tao Te Ching" ; or to the activity of Zhang Daoling . Alternatively, one could argue that "Taoism" as a religious identity only arose later, by way of contrast with the newly-arrived religion of Buddhism, or with the fourth-century codification of the Shangching and Lingbao texts.
Other accounts credit Laozi as the teacher of both Buddha, and Confucius. They describe early Taoism to ancient picture writing, mysticism, and indigenous Ancestor worship. Symbology on tortoise shells predates early Chinese calligraphy and is the basis of written Chinese from artifacts dated from prior to 1600 BCE.
Han Dynasty
By the early Han, Laozi came to be worshipped as divine—either in association with or conflated with the
Yellow Emperor. A major text from this "Huang-Lao" movement would be the
Huainanzi, which interprets earlier Taoist teachings in light of the quest for immortality .
Zhang Daoling claimed to have begun receiving new revelations from Laozi in 142 CE, and founded the
Tianshi sect around them. He performed spiritual healing, and collected dues of "five pecks of rice" from his followers . Zhang Daoling's major message was that the world-order as his followers knew it would soon come to an end, and be succeeded by an era of "Great Peace" . In fact their activities did hasten the downfall of the
Han dynasty. The same could be said of their contemporaries and fellow Taoists, the Yellow Turban sect. Zhang's grandson set up a theocratic state into what is now
Sichuan province. Today's Zhengyi sect claims continuity with Zhang Daoling.
Laozi received imperial recognition as a divinity in 166 CE. The
Yin and Yang and "five elements" theories date from this time, but were not yet integrated into Taoism.
The name
Daojia comes from the Han Dynasty. In
Sima Qian's history it refers to immortals; in Liu Xiang it refers to Laozi and Zhuangzi.
Daojiao came to be applied to the religious movements mentioned above. The two terms were used interchangeably until modern times. The earliest Han commentary on the
Dao De Jing is actually that of Heshang Gong , a religious Taoist.
Three Kingdoms Period
The Xuanxue school, including Wang Bi, focuses on the texts of Laozi and Zhuangzi but not necessarily on the organised religion.
Six Dynasties
Taoist alchemist Ge Hong, also known as Baopuzi was active in the third and fourth centuries CE and had great influence on later Taoism. Major scriptures were produced during this time period, including The Shangqing and Lingbao scriptures received at Maoshan. The Shangqing revelations were received by Yang Xi, a relative of Ge Hong's; the revelations emphasised meditative visualisation . They spoke of the Shangqing heaven, which stood above what had been previously considered the highest heaven by Celestial Master Taoists. Yang Xi's revelations consisted of visitations from the residents of this heaven many of whom were ancestors of a circle of aristocrats from southern China. These Zhen Ren spoke of an apocalypse which was to arrive in 384, and claimed that only certain people from this aristocratic circle had been chosen to be saved. For the first century of its existence, Shangqing Taoism was isolated to this aristocratic circle. However, Tao Hongjing codified and wrote commentaries on Yang Xi's writings and allowed for the creation of Shangching Taoism as a popular religion. The Lingbao scriptures added some Buddhist elements such as chanted rituals, and an emphasis on universal salvation.
The
Huahujing claimed that Laozi went to India, where he taught less advanced doctrines under the name of Buddha. Buddhists found this claim objectionable, and emperors regularly condemned it. A similar claim is made in the
Xishengjing .
Tang Dynasty
Taoism gained official status in China during the Tang dynasty, whose emperors claimed Laozi as their relative. However, it was forced to compete with
Confucianism and
Buddhism, its major rivals, for patronage and rank. Emperor Xuanzong , who ruled at the height of the Tang, wrote commentaries on texts from all three of these traditions, which exemplifies the fact that in many people's lives they were not mutually exclusive. This marks the beginning of a long-lived tendency within imperial China, in which the government supported all three movements.
Emperor Tang Gaozong added the
Dao De Jing to the list of "classics" to be studied for the imperial examinations; hence the appearance of
-jing in its title.
Song Dynasty
Several Song emperors, most notably Huizong, were active in promoting Taoism, collecting Taoist texts and publishing editions of the
Daozang.The Quanzhen school of Taoism was founded during this period, and together with the Zhengyi Celestial Masters is one of the two schools of Taoism that have survived to the present.
The Song Dynasty saw an increasingly complex interaction between the elite traditions of organised Taoism as practised by ordained Taoist ministers and the local traditions of folk religion as practised by spirit mediums and a new class of non-ordained ritual experts known as
fashi. This interaction manifested itself in the integration of 'converted' local deities into the bureaucratically organised Taoist pantheon and the emergence of new exorcistic rituals, including the Celestial Heart Rites and the Thunder Rites.
Aspects of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism were consciously synthesised in the Neo-Confucian school, which eventually became Imperial orthodoxy for state bureaucratic purposes.
Yuan Dynasty
Neidan became a major emphasis of the Quanzhen sect, whose practitioners followed a monastic model inspired by Buddhism. One of its leaders, Qiu Chuji became a teacher of
Genghis Khan . Originally from
Shanxi and
Shandong, the sect established its main center in
Beijing's Baiyunguan . Before the end of the dynasty, the Celestial Masters sect again gained preeminence.
Nationalist Period
Guomindang leaders embrace science, modernity, and Western culture, including Christianity. Viewing the popular religion as reactionary and parasitic, they confiscated some temples for public buildings, and otherwise attempted to control traditional religious activity.
People's Republic of China
The
Communist Party of China, officially atheistic, initially suppressed Taoism along with other religions. Much of the Taoist infrastructure was destroyed. Monks and priests were sent to labor camps. This practice intensified during the
Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, nearly eradicating most Taoist sites.
Deng Xiaoping eventually restored some religious tolerance beginning in 1982. Subsequently, communist leaders have recognised Taoism as an important traditional religion of China and also as a potential lucrative focus for
tourism, so many of the more scenic temples and
monasteries have been repaired and reopened.
Taoism is one of five religions recognised by the PRC, which insists on controlling its activities through a state bureaucracy . Sensitive areas include the relationship of the Zhengyi Taoists with their sect's lineage-holder ; and the status of various traditional temple activities which have been criticised as "superstitious" or "feudal".
Adherents
The number of "Taoists" is difficult to estimate, partly for definitional reasons , and partly for practical ones . The number of people practicing some aspect of the
Chinese folk religion might number in the hundreds of millions. . The number of people patronising
Daoshi would be smaller by several orders of magnitude, while the number of literary
Daojia would be smaller yet. At the same time, most Chinese people and many others have been influenced in some way by Taoist tradition.
Geographically, Taoism flourishes best in regions populated by Chinese people: inland China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and various Chinese diaspora communities. Taoist literature and art has influenced the cultures of Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, and these countries' folk religions have many common elements. "Organized" Taoism seems not to have attracted a non-Chinese following until modern times.
Beliefs
Religious Taoism
Taoism is not a belief-centered religion, and there are no known Taoist creeds. At the same time, certain characteristic beliefs or assumptions can be identified.
Beyond the Chinese folk religion, various rituals, exercises, or substances are said to positively affect one's physical health ; align oneself spiritually with cosmic forces; or enable ecstatic spiritual journeys. These concepts seem basic to Taoism in its elite forms.
Philosophical Taoism
Philosophical Taoism does not refer to one Taoist school or group of philosophers. Philosophical Taoism is a part of Xuanxue and other lineages. Ultimately the distinction between "philosophical" and "religious" Taoism is as difficult to define as Taoism itself. "Religious" Taoists may never have read
Laozi or Zhuangzi or any of the Daozang, and being called a Taoist may even seem unfamiliar or artificial.
Philosophical Taoism emphasizes various themes found in the
Dao De Jing such as "nonaction" , emptiness, detachment, the strength of softness , and
The Zhuangzi such as receptiveness, spontaneity, the relativism of human ways of life, ways of speaking and guiding behavior. Most philosophical debate concerns dao--what way we should follow, but Taoists more directly question what a dao is, how or if we can know it and emphasize more than other schools the ways social daos depend on and presuppose natural daos. Their more detached discussion and their reluctance to formulate or advocate a social dao of their own means their discussions tend to be more playful and paradoxical than dogmatic. This makes their tone strikingly different from Confucian and Mohist texts.
Taoist commentators have been puzzled by the opening lines of the
Dao De Jing, which has usually been translated:
- The way which can be uttered, is not the eternal Way.
- The name which can be named, is not the eternal Name.
In Chinese, "?" or "Dao" is used both as a noun and verb. 'Way' works well for the noun, but the translation for the verb "to speak" seems unmatched in meaning, unless we think in terms of "to advocate, to preach, to formulate etc." Notice in the second line, the noun and verb use of '?' seem closer in meaning, "names" and "to name". Concretely, a road is a dao--a guide for where to go or how to get where we want to go. However, daos can be marked in other ways--e.g. simply by pointing or putting signs "along the way" etc. Daoists are intrigued both by how daos are made by our walking and by how we can read what way to go from natural signals . The verb probably would be something like pointing, marking, setting an example or otherwise signaling which way to go.
It should also be noted that while the above has become a standard translation, scholars have noted it is grammatically and conceptually problematic. Grammatically, it has no article so could be read "a/any dao can be dao-ed, this is not the constant dao-ing. A name can be named, this is not the constant naming". Conceptually, the character for "constant" is used philosophically to describe a dao that does not need to change in different times or societies and reliably guides behavior. Laozi later describes a dao as "reversing" and the texts emphasises opposites, i.e.: high and low, hard and soft, etc. The Mawangdui version of the text contains similar passages, vide: ch.1, 3, 40).
Thus, any terms we use to advocate a dao can be reversed and still guide behavior. The other term in the title is 'de' . It is "the dao within" which may comprise the capacity we have to learn a way of life and the result of learning/practicing it. De should interpret the learned "way of life" into a correct pattern of behavior--hence its usual translation as "virtue" or "excellence."
Other terms were later integrated into philosophical Taoism including
yin and yang and five elements theories, and the concept of qi. Originally belonging to rival philosophical schools, these themes entered Taoism by way of Han Confucianism which focused on cosmic cycles and portents to guide the ruler's deportment dress, and so forth. They blend into Daoism as examples of "natural" dao with which any viable human dao must harmonise.
- The way which can be uttered, is not the eternal Way.
While academic deconstructions of this phrase result in much confusion, there is also a much simpler interpretation by metaphor: The Way is like dancing. You can talk about dancing, but your talk about dancing isn't the dance itself. Nor does your description really teach someone else how to dance unless they figure it out how to apply it for themselves. No matter how complicated the description it always lacks the entirety of what is.
This interpretation shares
Korzybski's observation that "
the map is not the territory".
Deities
Religious Taoism
Traditional Chinese religion is determinedly polytheistic. Its deities are arranged into a heavenly civil service that mirrors the bureaucracy of imperial China. Deities may be promoted or demoted. Many are said to have once been virtuous humans. The particular deities worshipped vary somewhat according to geography, and much more according to historical period .
There is also something of a disconnection between the set of gods which currently receive popular worship, and those which are the focus of elite Taoist texts and rituals. For example, the
Jade Emperor is at the head of the popular pantheon, while the Celestial Masters' altar recognizes the deified Laozi and the
Three Pure Ones in that position. Some texts explain that Laozi has sponsored the apotheosis of various other gods.
Philosophical Taoism
While a number of immortals or other mysterious figures appear in the
Zhuangzi, and to a lesser extent in the
Dao De Jing , these have generally not become the objects of cultic worship. Academic commentators on Taoism are rather more likely to focus on the divinity of the Dao itself, which might be fruitfully compared to Western conceptions of God. Early texts describe Tao not as equal to "the One," but as a principle underlying both the One and the Many. One revealing phrase used to describe it is
huntun . In the wake of Wang Bi, philosophical Taoists have tended to describe it as "nothingness," which is the origin of "being."
Practices
Religious Taoism
All forms of Chinese traditional religion involve
baibai --bowing towards an altar, with a stick of incense in one's hand. This may be done at home, or in a temple, or outdoors; by an ordinary person, or a professional ; and the altar may feature any number of deities or ancestral tablets.
Baibai is usually done in accordance with certain dates of the lunar/solar calendar .
At certain dates, food may be set out as a
sacrifice to the gods and/or spirits of the departed. This may include slaughtered pigs and ducks, fruit, packages of snack foods, and/or pyramids of beer cans . Another form of sacrifice involves the burning of
Hell Bank Notes, on the assumption that images thus consumed by the fire will reappear--not as a mere image, but as the actual item--in the spirit world, and be available for the departed spirit to use.
Also at certain dates, street parades take place. These are lively affairs which invariably involve firecrackers and flower-covered floats broadcasting traditional music. Street parades may also include
lion dances and
dragon dances; human-occupied puppets ;
jitong who mutilate their skin with knives;
Bajiajiang, which are
gongfu-practicing honor guards in demonic makeup; and
palanquins carrying god-images. The various participants are not considered performers, but rather possessed by the god in question.
Fortune-telling--including
astrology,
palmistry,
phrenology, and
divination--has long been considered a traditional Taoist pursuit. Mediumship is also widely encountered. We may distinguish between "martial" forms of mediumship and more literary forms in which the possessed medium communicates messages from the spirit world by writing them with a special utensil.
Isabelle Robinet's book
Taoist Meditation describes various practices given in the Maoshan texts. These include controlling bodily fluids such as urine, saliva, and the breath; visualisation practices in which various internal organs are imaginally linked with corresponding gods and/or celestial bodies ; and heavenly journeys via the Great Pole, which is reached by a limping shamanic dance called the "Step of Wu".
Philosophical Taoism
The fundamental form of activity among philosophical Taoists seems to be the reading and writing of books. Taoists of this type tend to be civil servants, elderly retirees, or in modern times, university faculty. While there is considerable overlap with religious Taoism, there are often important divergences in interpretation. Wang Bi, one of the most influential philosophical commentators on the
Laozi was in fact a Confucian.
For many educated Chinese people , life was divided into a social aspect, where Confucian doctrine prevailed, and a private aspect, with Taoist aspirations. Night-time, exile, or retirement provided the opportunity to cultivate Taoism and reread Laozi and Zhuangzi. The Literati often dedicated this period of life to arts such as calligraphy, painting, and poetry, or personal researches into antiquities, medicine, folklore, and so on.
The Vinegar Tasters is a popular painting that explained Taoist ideals in relation to the Neo-Confucian school which began in the
10th century and gained prominence in the
12th century. The image depicts Laozi together with
The Buddha, and
Confucius. In these paintings the three are gathered around a vat of vinegar and the motto associated with the grouping is "the three teachings are one." However, see
The Vinegar Tasters for an alternate interpretation.
Scriptures
Religious Taoism
The Daozang is sometimes referred to as the "Taoist canon." It was compiled during the Jin,
Tang,
Song, and
Ming dynasties, and includes almost 1500 texts. Following the example of the Buddhist Tripitaka, it is divided into three
dong ? , arranged here from highest to lowest:
- The Zhen grotto. Includes the Shangching texts.
- The Yuan grotto. Includes the Lingbao scriptures.
- The Shen grotto. Includes texts predating the Maoshan revelations.
The
Dao De Jing , roughly translated as
The Book of the Way and its Virtue is an ancient...
constitutes an appendix to the first grotto. Other appendices include the
Taipingjing as well as various alchemical texts, and scriptures from the Celestial Masters tradition.
However, Taoism is not a religion which regards the scripture as the primary source of truth. Daoshi generally do not consult published versions of the Daozang, but use texts which have been passed down from teacher to student . The receipt of permission to do the ritual is considered more important than knowledge of the texts' contents.
The Quanzhen school does have a tradition of approaching Taoism through scriptural study, and the
Yijing features more prominently than any other scripture, owing to its relevance for cosmology.
Some Chinese movements emphasise newly-revealed scriptures. In Taiwan, one often finds Buddhist texts being chanted in Taoist temples.
Philosophical Taoism
Philosophical Taoism has focused on the
Dao De Jing and the
Zhuangzi, and to a lesser extent the
Liezi. This form of Taoism, more than any other, has influenced Western commentators. Much of the philosophy of Taoism is derived from the following passage:
The Tao is unknownAnd you need not know it.Taoist symbols and images
There are many Symbols and Images that are associated with Taoism. Like in
Christianity the "
cross", and in
Buddhism the "wheel", Taoism has Laozi, actual Chinese characters, and many other symbols that are often represent or are associated with it.
Many people associate the
Taijitu symbol ??? as well as the
Bagua ?? with Taoist symbolism. While almost all Taoist organisations make use of it, one could also call it Confucian, Neo-Confucian or pan-Chinese. The
yin and yang border should make a backwards "S" shape, with yang on top. One is likely to see this symbol as decorations on Taoist organisation flags and logos, temple floors, or stitched into clerical robes.
Taoist temples may fly square or triangular flags. These are not merely decorative but function as talismans, and typically feature mystical writing or diagrams. Often a tree branch is used as a flagpole.
One sometimes sees a zigzag with seven stars, representing the Big Dipper . Taoists see the North Pole as divine.
Taoist temples in southern China and Taiwan may often be identified by their roofs, which feature
Chinese dragons and
phoenixes made from multi-colored ceramic tiles. They also stand for the harmony of yin and yang . A related symbol is the flaming pearl which may be seen on such roofs between two dragons, as well as on the hairpin of a Celestial Master.
Relations with other religions and philosophies
The origins of Taoism and other philosophical schools are intimately related. The authorship of the
Dao De Jing is assigned to Laozi, traditionally thought to be a teacher of Confucius, yet appears to be reacting against Confucian doctrine . Zhuangzi , the other "defining" philosopher of Daoism, reacted both to the Confucian-Mohist ethical disputes and to related developments in theory of "names" . There is little evidence of a link between Laozi and Zhuangzi--whose most frequent interactions are with Hui Shi . However, the chapters of the Zhuangzi written after his death include dialogues between Laozi and Confucius that mimic the style of the
Dao de Jing, suggesting the first association of the two texts dates from around that time. The "history of thought" contained in the Zhuangzi cites Laozi as a prior step . It includes the Mohists by name and the Confucians by implication and a cluster of other less well known thinkers.
The terms
Dao and
De are shared terms of debate in this period. Most of the texts of ancient Chinese philosophy argued for some
dao or other and advocated cultivating
de in that favored
dao. While
dao was initially ethical-social norms, it quickly broadened to include the norms of language use and of claiming or attributing knowledge. This broadening dialectic about
dao is what warrants describing the views of Laozi and Zhuangzi as Daoism. Daoism represents the view that the norms for language, knowledge, ethics and society are grounded in and continuous with natural norms. So any discussion of
dao and
de involves us in reflections on the nature of human society and its place in the universe as a whole.
These early Taoist texts reject numerous basic assumptions of Confucianism, embracing instead values based on nature, perspectivalism, and spontaneity. They express skepticism of conventional moralities and Mozi's Utilitarian or Mencius' benevolence based revisions. Since politics was conceived by these traditional schools as a scheme for "unifying" all "under the sky" in their favored
dao, Daoists tend toward
anarchism, mistrustful of hierarchical social structures and particularly, governments. Although philosophical Taoist appear to be anarchist, it is clearly an over statement. Mitigated Anarchism would better catagorize the philosophical Taoists, they tend to believe in the idea that the government should act in a 'non acting' or 'wu wei' manner. This means that they should only act when necessary and their actions should not be felt directly by the people, nor should they be visible to the people. Chapters 57-81 of the Dao De Ching all deal with government, ruling, and appeasing the people.
The entry of
Buddhism into China was via its dialectic with later Taoism which transformed them both. Over the centuries of Chinese interactions, Buddhism gradually found itself transformed from a competitor of Taoism, to a fellow inhabitant of the Chinese cultural ecosystem. Originally seen as a kind of foreign Taoism, its scriptures were translated into Chinese with Taoist vocabulary. Chan Buddhism in particular is inspired by crucial elements of philosophical Taoism, ranging from distrust of scripture, text and language to its more positive view of "this life", practice, skill and the absorption in "every-moment". In the
Tang period Taoism incorporated such Buddhist elements as monasteries, vegetarianism, prohibition of alcohol, the celibacy of the clergy, the doctrine of emptiness, and the amassing of a vast collection of scripture into tripartite organisation.
Ideological and political rivals in ancient times, Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism have nevertheless deeply influenced one another, and eventually achieved a kind of
modus vivendi in which each has its own particular ecological niche within Chinese society. With time, most Chinese people likewise came to identify to some extent with all three traditions simultaneously. This became institutionalised by the time of the
Song dynasty, when aspects of the three schools were consciously synthesised in the Neo-Confucian school, which eventually became Imperial orthodoxy for state bureaucratic purposes.
Taoist thought partly inspired Legalist philosophers, whose theories were used by
Qin Shi Huang, founder of the Chinese Empire. The junction point can be found in the work of Hanfeizi, a prominent Legalist thinker who commented on the Tao Te Ching. Hanfeizi used some chapters of the book to justify a structured society based on law and punishment and on the undiscussed power of the Emperor.
Taoism may have inherited some
shamanic practices from ancient Chinese traditions. At the same time, Taoist leaders have sometimes viewed
Central Asian shamans as rivals.
In spreading Catholic Christianity to China, Jesuit
Matteo Ricci sought to ally the Church with Confucianism. In so doing the Jesuits encouraged the view that China lacked a high religion of its own . Until well into the twentieth century, Christians have tended to view religious Taoism as a hodgepodge of primitive superstitions, or even as a form of demonolatry.
In the last century or so, Taoism has become incorporated into the theology of the Way of Former Heaven sects, notably
Yiguandao. The same could be said with respect to Vietnam's religion of
Caodaism.
Western
New Agers have embraced some aspects of Taoism: the name and concept of "Tao", the names and concepts of
yin and yang; an appreciation for Laozi and Zhuangzi, and a respect for other aspects of Chinese tradition such as qigong. At the same time, Western appropriations differ in subtle ways from their Asian sources. For example, the word "Tao" is used in numerous book titles which are connected to Chinese culture only tangentially. Examples would include
Fritjof Capra's
The Tao of Physics, or Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh.
Taoism has also been a resource for those in environmental philosophy, who see the non-anthropocentric nature of Taoism as a guide for new ways of thinking about nature and environmental ethics. Some consider Taoism to fit naturally with the radical environmental philosophy of deep ecology.
Daoism and Ecology: Ways Within A Cosmic Landscape edited by N. J. Girardot, James Miller, and Liu Xiaogan is currently the most thorough introduction to studies done on concepts of nature and ecology within Taoism.
See also
References
- Chang, Dr. Stephen T. The Great Tao. Tao Publishing , 1985. ISBN 0-942196-01-5.
- Graham, A. C. . . Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, inc. ISBN 0-87220-581-9
- Lau, D. C. . Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044131-X
- Graham, A.C., Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China . ISBN 0-8126-9087-7
- Jordan, David K., Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion of a Taiwanese Village .
- Kaltenmark, Max, Lao Tzu and Taoism .
- Kohn, Livia, The Taoist Experience: An Anthology .
- Maspero, Henri, Taoism and Chinese Religion . ISBN 0-87023-308-4
- Schipper, Kristopher, The Taoist Body .
- Sivin, Nathan, Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies .
- Robinet, Isabelle, Taoism: Growth of a Religion .
- Robinet. Isabelle, Taoist Meditation: The Mao-shan Tradition of Great Purity .
- Sommer, Deborah, Chinese Religion: An Anthology of Sources . ISBN 0-19-508895-6
- Ni, Hua-Ching, Tao: The Subtle Universal Law and the Integral Way of Life . ISBN 0-937064-65-3
External links
- A free, online database containing many of the Chinese classics in both English translation and in their classical form. Especially useful for those who wish to read along with the original texts, but have little or no language training. Grammatical explanations and dictionary entries are provided.
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- : Comprehensive Taoist teachings that have immediate bearing and benefit upon everyday living.
- on sacred-texts.com
-
-
- — information on Taoism and original Taoist philosophic stories and writings.
- — Directory of sites with content related to Taoism and Taoism issues.
- — glossary, timeline, fast facts, etc.
-
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- — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- — Introduction to Taoism articles, other articles on Taoist topics.
- — The central documents that root the philosophical system known as Daoism.
- — Pinyin/Chinese + English + German
- — provides teachings on Taoism and related topics like tao, yin-yang, wu, wu-wei and the I-ching. Includes online courses.
- — online and onsite Daoist religion and Chinese medicine studies, research and information network
- Taoism mixed in with a modern lifestyle
- — website containing Taoist writings, including an interpretation of the Dao De Jing
- — Active discussion forum for Taoism as a living contemplative tradition.
- Ancient Wisdom explained for Modern people
