Why do you think Taoism hasn't caught on as much in the west?

Just curious why you think (or if you think) Taoism, which in MY opinion answers more of my questions than Buddhism, hasn't caught on as much as Hinduism, Buddhism or the Abrahamic Religions have in the West?

I think it's because Taoism doesn't really offer an ultimate goal that Westerners like to work toward. Buddhism has enlightenment and escape from Samsara, Christianity has Heaven and Hell, etc.

What do you think? I'm still learning more and more about the Taoist philosophy so I'm very much a n00b, but I've been surrounded by the Tao my whole life and I'm finally starting to realize it.

Be well,
Eric

 

Probably because Taoism is both complex and simple.. simple being "wu-wei", complex being explaining what wu-wei IS. "The Tao that can be spoken of is not the Eternal Tao".. it's a hard concept for westerners to bend their heads around.

 

In a sense it has and always has. I know that in the area I live in, people refuse to learn about anything else but christianity. I guess they do not want "god" to view them as evil for being interested in something other than christianity.... Sadly.

 

Western philosophy is more about striving, and materials, and plans. Tao is not striving, having pretty much only the nessecities, and being spontaneous. Also, there is nothing that really gets Tao out into the public because it's more of a solo path than learning from a teacher.

 

I think part of it is that Western beliefs are closely intertwined with Western philosophy, and in particular Greek philosophy. This world view tends to work on the basis of "if you do A & B and don't do C & D, then you'll get what you want".

Eastern philosophy, and particularly Taoism, are not like this and so are difficult to understand and offer no easy answers.

 

I think its because Taoists dont go around preaching their beliefs to everyone.
As Loa Tzu once said- Those who preach, do not know.

 

Well, at the high point of my teaching career I had about 50 people taking my Taoism classes. When I looked down the street at the Catholic church, they had that many people just setting up the Bingo tables.

So, I think that's what keeps most Westerners from embracing the Way - there's no Bingo.

 

i think a lot of people who turn to belief, do so looking for an excuse to lie to themselves. taoism, more then any other belief, with the possible exception of some indiginous traditions, refuses to give it to them.

=^^=
.../\...

 

People want to be part of a club or group. The tao shows we needn't be any kind of "...ist" nor subscribe to any form of "...ism".

 

I think part of the reason it hasn't become prominent in the west is that unlike a lot of other things - eg. some Buddhist schools, some Hindu schools and gurus, as well as stuff like scientology, it has never been 'packaged' for the western consumer. I think many people have become so dependent on media and on sound bite culture etc that anything which isn't so presented to them simply doesn't get a look in.

Also some religions are bit like football teams, with their noisy and usually not particularly intelligent supporters. It's hard to get worked up into a kind of emotional state over Taoist teachings. There's no clearly identifiable taoist 'tribe' to identify with.

 

Most of the popular Western religions rely on a "okay, teach me what I should believe" ideology, where your thoughts are supposed to stay within the region of your mind the philosophy says is moral. Instead of instructing a young one to think about why say, something like abortion is to be considered immoral, they simply say "abortion is wrong, don't do it, don't think about it". So young ones in the West are largely limited to being comfortable believing as instructed, as opposed to stepping out there and trying to contemplate existence on their own (not that all can't do so, most don't try to). They become comfortable with philosophy taking the backseat to what they do in everyday life, they don't have to worry about contemplating religion, the answers are right there, where their parents put them. Now go to soccer practice.
Buddhism, of the Eastern philosophies, has caught on a good bit because it's at least a good bit more material thought than Taoism, in that it has particular stances or conducts, and a figurehead, a sort of physical symbolic manifestation that Westerners can relate to. Taoism can't really be taught from a textbook; Buddhism can't completely either, but Taoism more so, I feel.

 

I think everyone is right---but the answer is more taoist than anyone has been able to answer. The truth is Taosim has not been embraced as much as the others. The truth is it has been embraced as much as the others (of course, Im talking about my generation).

Back in the 60's and 70's, partly thanks to the writings of Alan Watts, it seemed if you asked almost any hippy with half a head on his shoulders what religion he followed, the answer was 8 times out of 10, Taoism.

Maybe today there are fewer (I don't know)----maybe it didn't stick----because what you are talking about here is the philosophical side of Taoism, and just like any indigenous animistic spirituality, it lacks the structure of the institution---no codes, no ethics, no rules. On the other hand that makes it a philosophy many could follow without ever considering participation on a site like this. Just like all my hippy friends from back in the day.

But you are ignoring the other side of Taoism---Taoism of the masses. This is the more institutional side of Taoism and is filled with shrines and temples, Gods of all sorts, rules, rituals, etc. and that has hardly been embraced outside of the Chinese world. Granted there are elements of it----Fung Sui, Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, the I-Ching. I think it is interesting that as popular as these are, and as popular as the Tao Te Ching is, as popular as polytheistic Hinduism is, no one really embraces the popular Taoism.

Part of the problem is I think Chinese are a bit embarrased about it. They think it would sound too superstitious to non-Chinese. There is very little written on it. I used to have a book that listed many of the different Taoist Gods and the temples for each one, but it was written in Japanese, so not many Westerners could ever read it. Would any of you know how to find your fortune in a Taoist temple? Which statue is for what? Would you know how to take care of your ancestors?

There is far more written on the objectivistic philosophies of Confucius, than there are of the practices and deities of popular Taoism. Of course it is a very very broad subject, with not much in the way of written records, but...

In the West most of all these traditions are buried in the corners of Chinatowns that are in our bigger cities. Outside of that, any discussion of Taoism is almost exclusively of the philosophical side.

In Manila, my wife and I used to always go to the Taoist temple on Sundays. There was lots of free Chinese food, and there was a temple maiden that in ancient shamanistic traditions of Taoism, would speak through a spirit for purposes of divination. She answered numerous questions we brought to her. She not only answered the questions of the Chinese but healed many of them too.

 

Western society finds it very difficult to accept the fact that the human experience and all of life (the 10 000 things) are by nature paradoxical. In the west we believe everything must be named and defined and credit must be received for naming and defining. To accept the fact that the names we call things are not their names would never cross the minds of most people in their lifetimes. Even once exposed to this concept most would mock it, which is of course necessary for the Tao to exist, and would only confuse them further.
I mean really, How can you desire to be desireless? How do you learn what can't be taught? How do you love your people if you are to treat them as straw dogs? How do you share your wisdom if you remain silent? How will you be defined if you do not define yourself? How is it that eternity exists only in the moment?
This is barely scratching the surface, but it would leave most people thinking you are crazy for believing this is the truth.

 

When you studied Taoism, it always seemed to you to be more of a philosophy than a religion. It doesn't really offer the same message of hope as religion or give you a higher being to put your faith into.

Sort of apples and oranges really.

 

yes.

 

Well put bluesafire, change IS a tune we dance to. That it ain't looking for friends is also true. Like the Tao change cannot be known but only experienced. Change does not require changing things but accepting things as they are. Change does not require determining right and wrong but occurs through detachment from determining right and wrong. But enough of that, I'm ranting.
Through rejecting judgement, rejecting the desire to change things (as they are already exactly as they are supposed to be regardless of how we would try to manipulate them) and rejecting the illusion of power in opinions and material things, you find you ain't got many friends. However I believe there is hope.
I know the process of change itself is done in solitude. But through the process of change do we not become the example? Change does not look for friends, but does the example of that change attract them?

 

See----this is exactly what I am talking about----the Taoism of the masses is not the Taoism of the Tao Te Ching (Kind of like the Tao that can be named is not the real Tao). The popular Taosim is a religion (as opposed to the philosophical Taoism of Lao Tsu that is a spirituality). It does have higher beings in the form of the many Taoist Gods, which have their own shrines. There are many rituals to achieve good luck and a happy long life, as well as to make the afterlife happy for your descendents. And you can put your faith in it. There was a period in China where Taoist monks fought buddhist monks----so you do have all the institutional elements of a religion (granted it may not be as institutional as a western religion, but that is because it is closer to its former shamanistic roots than are the western religions).

On the other hand, the philosophical Taoism is comparable in the West to Christian mysticism and Sufism. In other words, the philosophical spiritualities that lie within these Western traditions, that are not neccessarily tied down by the fetters of the institutional side that makes up the religion of the masses. And for that matter, Western philosophy is founded upon early ideals that were not so alien to Taoistic concepts of reality either. I remember back in college, one of my papers in an early philosophy class discussed the similarities of Plato's philosophy to Taoism.

On the other hand, do the participants of this thread consider zen buddhism as something that has caught on in the west? Here we see a combination of Taoist philosophy and buddhism---which served to replace part of the institutional (religious) element of buddhism with the spiritual (or stronger philosophical) aspects found in philosophical Taoism. I ask this because the focus on non-Western religion has changed quite a bit from the 60's and 70's---and I don't know how younger people see this bit about what has 'caught on.' (and I think that ties into why it hasn't caught on).

Back in the 60's and 70's if you walked into a bookstore, and went back to the section on religion and philosophy, you saw tons of books on Eastern religion. Books by D. T. Suzuki, Alan Watts, and many others. Numerous translations of the Tao Te Ching was also there. Both Suzuki and Watts had books that compared Zen (and Taoism) with Christianity, and so forth. There were books on Islam, and 1 or 2 on Sufism, and the Bahai faith----and occaisionally you would find things on other spiritualities as well---but mostly Eastern religion (Wicca and pagan stuff was in a dark alleyway, and you had to fear the Spanish inquistion, or a stoning, to purchase it--------no, just kidding, but it was tucked away in 'occult' and there was nowhere near as much stuff as you have today).

I think the Eastern philosophies (mainly Hinduism and Buddhism) gained popularity because of the Western colonialism which opened up a window into the mysteries of India and it's neighbors. Carl Jung and others wrote quite a bit on the positive aspects of these exotic belief systems.

In other words, in regards to Hinduism, and its child, Buddhism, it was given a lot of exposure. It had a lot of good marketing---especially from the 1800's on. So did the Tao Te Ching----but not the Taoism of the masses. No one really wrote about this, it was overlooked in the west, like almost all the other indigenous belief systems----it was silly superstitious stuff, and after all we never did set up shrines for our ancestors, and few of us had Chinese ancestors, so there was no need to look after them.

Soon you had Buddhist temples and ashrams sprouting up in major metropolitan cities----just about every one had a copy of the Tao Te Ching back then----but the Taoism of Lao Tsu doesn't really need a temple so much----a hermitage up in the mountains maybe------so none of the organized Taoism left the China Towns around the world----just like that unique Chinese version of the Credit Union that enables so many Chinese businessmen to embark on a well funded business venture throughout the world's Chinese communities.

An institution needs funding, it needs members, it seeks a certain amount of power---this is all necessary so it may expand, maintain its places of worship, teach, and even prosyletize. With all the exposure of Eastern religion and philosophy, buddhism and Hinduism were able to expand this very way. But a philosophy or spirituality does not need this. Indigenous belief systems are also spiritualities, not religions, therefore you will never find an Igorot place of worship, or a Dayak shrine, or a place to worship in the shamanism of the Tungus people, or even an Inuit place of worship anywhere in America. We do not have kivas built in our major cities either. On the other hand, they are not marketed or exposed to potential believers either. Do you know of any books on the indigenous shamanism of Tibet (bon)? There are no Bon shamans I am aware of serving our metropolitan cities. Yet Bon is a part of Tibetan Buddhism, much like Taoism is part of Zen Buddhism---and you can find plenty of stuff on Tibetan Buddhism. Look how big the Dalai Lama is.

If popular Taoism (in addition to the Taoism of Lao Tsu) had been written about and studied as much as Hinduism and Buddhism, perhaps it would have left the Chinatowns, and would have served as a vehicle to more extensively disseminate the philosophical Taoism that is buried within it. Because there would have been more Taoist temples built around the country, there would have been more places to go and study. More books to read.

Today however, the sections devoted to Eastern religions in book stores is smaller than in the past. Now you have more variety----all kinds of directions from the pre-christian European traditions, to native American spirituality, Wicca, etc. In business terms we can say that the market share of Taoism has been threatened and it's exposure has been cut back.

PS: Something else to ponder----Taoism is truly native Chinese. Hinduism on the other hand is actually an Indo-European belief system that absorbed the Dravidian Goddess cults of the Indian subcontinent. It shares common elements of its mythos with the Greeks and ancient Germanic tribes, and so forth. Buddhism was born out of Hinduism and carried the philosophy further. Is it possible that there are archetypical elements that make the Hindu/Buddhist complex easier for Western man to relate to from an unconscious or collective conscious level, as compared to other non-Western belief systems, including Taoism?

 

Taoism hasnt caught on because Its hard for people nowadays to stop and think like one man back in the 4th century did.. I know a few niche hippie types that are all about the I-Ching and the Tao Te Ching and Hua Hu Ching

 

Yeah, The Earth, that's a good point. If only we had Lao Tsu, Jesus, Siddhartha, Plato, or Isaac Newton around today. Then we could try to figure out what they were trying to say. And what is up with this crazy Benjamin Franklin guy and that stuff about 'democracy?'

Besides, today we have quantum physics to let us peak into reality, and evolution has rendered our brains larger than those of people even as far back as the 1800's. How could Lao Tsu ever understand any modern concepts such as the Akashic Field that seems to be the foundation of the universe, upon which all reality exists and that reality as we know it is really an illusion. An illusion built upon quanta particles that are matter but not matter, wave but not a wave----for the quanta that can be named, is not the real quanta! In fact any solid object is not really solid but is composed of particles that are always in a vibrating motion between + and -, and that where we percieve mass, is really made up of more empty space than mass in a ratio that is akin to a football field to a marble. How could Lao Tzu understand that?!

Ok-----I'm being a little harsh----but I thought it sounded good so I went with it. I know that you are really saying that someone in the modern world would probably not take the time to sit back and try to figure out what Lao Tsu's message was. In truth---who in the 4th century would have done that either?

The peasant class back then was less sophisticated than the peasant classes of today----and if you ever travel through a 3rd world country you will see what I mean. I don't mean this in a bad way---that they are stupid. They are uneducated, but that is not their fault and there are a lot of good people, and smart in their own ways---but their focus is not on the meaning of reality, it is on trying to put food on the table for their families for that day.

He did not write for those people, but for the older people who had retired from that life, and were willing to give up everything to go off into the mountains and contemplate on such matters. He also wrote it for the Imperial leisure classes who had time to concern themselves with such matters, and hopefully would take the time to understand it. The Taoism of the masses I speak of was for everyone else----just like any organized religion today---most people will not have the urge to become the aesthetic mystic. But they gain what they can through the institutions that are provided for mass consumption.

But today there are more academics, more people with the free time to contemplate such matters and sit down and debate over things on threads like this. There are philosophy students, there are psychonauts, there are many people who are willing to learn, through eyes that are untainted by the prejudices of their grandparents, and older generations. There are people who are unsatisfied spiritually and on a search for meaning. Others that are just plain curious of things different from their own.

Granted, I am speaking from the perspective of my generation growing up in the '60s and '70s. I was not raised on video games and pc's. And that is a whole new issue for the younger generations----the internet is an incredible tool that we didn't have---but if you are a 17-year old male looking for something to do on the internet----are you going to spend hours researching some philosophical mind-expanding notion, or are you going to play games and look at porn? Sure we had diversions---but my Playboys didn't move, and two or three months later, I was still looking at the same pictures. And today you still have many of the same diversions I had growing up---only today you have far more.

But I do only hope that what you are referring to by some 'hippy niche' is not a true observation (unless it refers to the fact that there are so many more avenues of philosophy and spirituality as I pointed out in the previous post), because if the younger generations have given up the search for meaning, then we truly are entering the decadent phase of the decay of civilization!

 

Thanks,Mountain Valley Wolf I enjoyed you're posts!

My own studies started with Japanese martial arts which led me back through Buddhism to its Hindu roots then eventually to Lao Tsu's Taoism.

The hardest thing about ancient Taoist texts is translating them.
From what I have studied, even Chinese linguistic scholars have great difficulty....The language form is some of the earliest pictographic style.

The only option for The curious westerner is to read as many different translations as possible. But don't just pick the one you like...

Always choose the middle way


P.S Mountain Valley Cloud, How long have you been in Arvada? I went to high school there.


ZW eace: