Daoism
- Living in harmony with Dao
- Dao = the way
- Dao, as described by daoism itself, = the way of Nature; ultimate source/principle of order in the universe
- An unseen force; less like a God, more like an energy
- The origin of the universe
- Story of Lao Tzu, “founder” of daoism
- Born in 604 BCE after being conceived by a shooting star
- Born 82 years old → very wise
- Age is a mark of wisdom in China
- Sought out during his time for his wisdom
- Worked as a government archivist
- Eventually got frustrated with corruption → left
- Came across Han-Ku Pass, told to write down his teachings:
- Tao Te Ching = foundation of daoism text, supposedly written by Lao Tzu
- Brief to read, hard to dissect
- Filled with many paradoxes
- Name = “book of the way”
- Helps with te → virtue acquired by being harmonious with dao
- Chuang Tzu, “second founder” of daoism, 369-286 BCE
- Wrote the text Chuang Tzu → filled with stories and lessons
- Mainly about relativity of different things
- Balance of yin and yang = daoism
- Yin = negative, feminine, dark, weak, passive
- Yang = positive, masculine, light, strong, active
- Need both for balance
- Advocates more of a need for yin since yang is found more often in sages (since they were all male)
- One cannot exist without the other
- Depicts death as one’s return back to dao
- Sage = master of daoism; sees the basic foundation/unity of nature, not distracted by the complications of it
- Wuwei = the act of harmony by not doing anything
- Teaches to embrace the passive side of yin, suppress the active side of yang
- Requires humility and noncompetition
- Naturalness = being the way nature intended, not being pressured by social or personal standards
- Naturalism = resisting the urge to meddle with nature
- Nonagression