Taoist Puns

I feel at peace with the struggles of my individual life. I believe that both the positive and negative experiences of my life are meaningful and should be cherished with the utmost gratitude. However, I find myself struggling to broaden this way of thinking to the scale of national and global society. There are so many horrible injustices that people have to live through, and I cannot find contentment simply in trusting that harmony will find its way. I'm not suggesting that Taoists are socially passive and I know there are many Taoists who participate in activism and mutual aid activities.

How do Taoists find the inherent natural beauty in the fact that there are 40 million people who currently live in slavery? If I asked my mom, she would say that the most meaningful thing that I can do with this information is to play my part in helping these people. However, I have my own life to live and there are countless causes that also need my help. The most that I am able to do is partake in activism and reach out to help strangers in my community, but I know that most of these issues won't be fixed, especially the massive ones.

How do I meditate peacefully in my warm room knowing that 150 million people live homeless?

Some, such as this story of Liezi told by Alan Watts or the parable of the Chinese farmer are rather well-known.

Do you know of other Taoist (or possibly Zen) stories and koans with elements of humor?

Do or do not, there is no try.

Not trying to turn anybody into either obviously. My question was more like which one of the two do you disbelieve the most or is the furthest from your belief and hypothetically which one for you would be harder to accept if you had to convert into one of those two things.

I don't care if it's full of westerners I just want to make sure that what I'm reading isn't completely malformed and inaccurate

Taoists Let me clear up what i mean:

Could a follower of Taoism follow God if they chose to?

Not in the form of Christian, jewish, muslim, or anything like that.

Just follow a concept of God that agrees with Taoism.

For something a bit out of the Taoist corpus, I love Issa's poetry. The collection that I enjoy most is Issa's Best and includes 1,210 of his haiku. Of all the Japanese poets, he is one of the most Taoist. Here are a few of his haiku:

for them too
a New Year's feast
pigeons and sparrows

spring breeze
the great courtier
poops in the field

simply trust!
plum blossoms
flitting down

locked in a staring contest
me and...
a frog

I don't think much commentary is necessary, but I'll add a bit. First, he embodies a charming form of non-duality. Not one going on-and-on about oneness or how ineffable all this is and blah-blah-blah, but one I can see in his play with a toad or smell as he notices the powerful courtiers shitting - in spring wind. He also shows no pretense of being enlightened or perfect. There are plenty of poems about his own sorrow and frailty, but he lacks a sense of "Oh, poor me." Its more like how he describes the sparrow with a broken wing: sad the way it is. He's also one of the funniest poets I've read and there's a wry humor that shines through most of his poems.

Now, your turn.

I was reading David Mitchell's introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness and a line stood out for me.

When referring to the Hainish Cycle, Mitchell says "its influences are more Taoist and animist than they are Roman or Asimovian."

Can anyone think of any examples in LeGuin's works that exemplify this? Also does anyone know of any taoist/animist texts that could be read as an influence on LeGuin?

Hello! Do you think it is possible to be both a Taoist and a Pastafarian?

Pretty much what the title asks

Don't know about you, but I've long loved the eerie, soulful sound of the flute. After months of sitting on the decision, I finally decided to buy me one. Instead of watching a bunch of videos or hiring a teacher, I've just played around with it. I tried different positioning for the fingers, different ways of breathing, different ways to play the notes, different combinations, different transitions, and so on. All the while, I tried to keep it light, fun, and free. Every once in a while, I'd open up tracks, listen to them a couple of times, and play them on repeat while I tried to play along. Over the last two months of about 40 minutes of practice per day, I've become quite skilled and knowledgeable after coming at it with almost no training or background in music. To boot, I've enjoyed nearly every minute of it.

When I started, I didn't sit down and think, "Ok, how would Chuang Tzu play this thing?" but just did what I felt like I wanted to do. After all, this was my hobby. I didn't t want to force myself to be some master in something I'm doing in my down time. After a couple weeks, though, and some very fast progress, I realized that this was a good example of the power of a Taoist approach to learning.

Learning from zero without relying much on books or experts, I have direct, intimate knowledge of the instrument. For example, I can now easily hear a sound or track and play along with it without notes, but more just feeling into the music, trying out different notes, and then flowing into it. I can do also advanced techniques that I just found on my own through playing around with it. I also can easily translate my feeling into the notes themselves. If I want to play a sad song, I can feel into it and let it unfold naturally. I don't need to think of my list of songs, pick a song, and then try to play it from memory (although I can do that with some songs as well). If I want to play a cheerful song, I can do that as well just from the feeling. There're often some snags along the way, but after a few minutes I find my way and start to flow into the music.

This little foray into music shows me just how powerful a Taoist approach to life is, as I can see this same attitude and process applying to things like work, relationships, meditation, and so on. There are, however, some things that do require a more theoretical approach due to their limitations and/or the high-cost of hands-on experience. But when and if I can, I'm gonna g

Found this out playing as Haesteinn. Converting the British Isles to taoism under a han ruler was pretty funny. The han culture also has a very good archer unit

Who's a character or real life celebrity you see as having tao like qualities or qualities of an enlightened being. I was watching the show dexter and they very much paint the superstar fbi agent lundy as a zen master. And I thought about it even though they describe dexter as a sociopath he even has a lot of zenlike qualities

So as you know there are statues in game that you can give money to and they will upgrade your abilities depending on wich statue you pray to and each of these statues are based on the heroes each one except Taoist and Necromancer i know they were added after the statues were but still why didn't they get one? And also i wanted to ask maybe the legendary heroes should get ones too? Well maybe excluding beheaded

Hello I’ve recently become interested in learning about Buddhism and Taoism but I don’t entirely know where to start. Do you guys have any beginner Buddhist or Taoist books to help me start to understand the topic better?

Hi, a couple of questions about the Taoist Seed mechanic.

1. What exactly is it? Mine just says "Nameless" right now and has reached the "Perfection" stage but I don't know what to do with it
2. What is a quick/efficient way to progress it? I have debated tons but it doesn't seem to increase it by much
3. [EDIT] What is the benefit of passing it on to someone?

You're cool random taoist

I am currently reading ‘The Book of Chuang Tzu’ and I keep coming across different figures talking about heaven and earth in a very ambiguous way that I don’t really understand. They refer to earth as sustaining everything and heaven covering everything but I am not quite sure what that means.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

This is an extremely subjective topic open to opinion. Obviously many characters on a "path" with a story arc could argued to be representing wu wei.

The most accurate character I can think of would be Forest Gump. Step by step throughout the film we see him seamlessly transition from one adventure/tragedy/calling/direction to the next all without any strong sense of striving or ambition. Forest hardly frets about the past or future and when he speaks of either it is in direct relation to how it defines his present.

It would be really interesting and we could teach Quora juniors the "Dao of the CN Novels"

What quotes have you read/heard that are actually quite profound but not actually stemming from original Taoist work?

The internet has increased the spread of these false attributions, although I still see a lot of wisdom in what some of the quotes say.

Most seem to come from study of eastern philosophy and the attempt to translate those deep subjects into a rational instruction.

I’d be really interested in the quotes people have come across that are not Taoist yet still point to the Way, or at least offer good advice if it wasn’t blinded/confused with incorrect attribution.

hello to all in this subreddit, i am fairly new to Taoism but it has already been a great tool for understanding myself and living with less resistance

one thing i still really struggle with is coping with the knowledge of how much suffering there is in the world and how little i can do to change it. when i was younger, i was a follower of Buddhism, then became an atheist, explored a lot of philosophy and psychology, and recently also started exploring some aspects of spirituality. i'm a determinist and a materialist and to some extent a nihilist, and i feel like all those philosophical views have helped me improve *my* well-being. none of it really helps with the fact that the world is still full of pain and unfairness and suffering

is there any better way of coping with that knowledge other than doing your part to imrpove things and also trying to be in flow as much as possible and basically not thinking about it? i know this might sound silly but it is a legitimate source of distress for me and no amount of not watching the news or looking at the bright side of things is helping

thank you in advance for any responses or thoughts!

Hello everyone, I am currently in my junior year of high school. I’m very interested in Taoism, zen, and spirituality in general. I have decided that I want to take a gap year before going to college to focus on expanding myself spiritually. Does anyone know of any schools or programs that could help me do this. P.S I’m also very interested in visiting Japan, so a program there would be really great. Thank you in advance!!

"Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder, ‘Why, why, why?’ Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand." - Kurt Vonnegut

Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen in the dub version of the show without warning and use of the spoiler tag.

Heaven Official's Blessing - Episode 9 - "Scourge of Evil Taoist"

Dub Available Now on Funimation !

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Previous Discussion Threads:

• Episode 8
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• Episode 4
• Episode 3
• Episode 1 (PREMIERE) & 2

I was wondering if any of you have any good book recommendations for Taoist stories?

Hello I’ve recently become very interested in Taoism and Buddhism and I was wondering if you guys can tell me what beginner Taoist books you guys recommend