I had to write a brief summary about Taoism way back and I recently discovered it, perhaps this may help shed some light on what "Taoism" is for those who know nothing about it and are looking for a general ideal of what it is. Tao itself can be roughly translated into English as path, or the way, however it is literally indescribable. It refers to a power that flows though all things, living and non-living. Tao embodies the harmony of opposites and regulates natural processes to provide us with a sort of balance in the universe. It makes the claim that without love there would be no hate, no light without dark and on an even more simplistic scale, no male without female. Taoism originated as a combination of psychology and philosophy but evolved into a religious faith in 440 CE when it was adopted as a state religion. The founder is believed to be Lao-Tse (Lao-Tzu), a contemporary of Confucius. Lao-Tse was searching for a way that would avoid the constant feudal warfare and other conflicts that disrupted society during his lifetime. The result was the creation of his book the Tao-Te-Ching. Death has no particular meaning to a true Taoist, perhaps because of the acceptance in the belief that we don’t know what we were before birth, just as we have no clue as to what we may become after death. Taoist’s general beliefs do not find modern scientific discoveries contradictory to Taoist thought, in fact the book “The Tao of physics” does an amazing job at reconciling science with Taoism and how it can help reveal to us bits and pieces of reality. The statement that all matter is a manifestation of the ultimate reality helps to explain this. Taoist have two different ways to look at evil, one is evil as a concept and the other is the reality of good and evil. As a concept, Taoists do not hold the position of good against evil, because when one labels something as good, one automatically creates evil. The reality of good and evil is that all actions contain some aspect of each. Taoist’s worship style is a constant practice; it’s a mode of living rather than an actual theology. One must focus on the world around them in order to understand the inner harmonies of the universe. This calls for the frequent participation in both mediation and contemplation. Salvation does not play a role in regards to their worship, as Taoism is not a salvific practice. There is nothing that one needs to be saved from, and belief in salvation would lead to the belief in damnation, in the same manner as belief in good leads to the belief in evil. Basically Taoists believe that everything in life is so beautiful that we do not need to come up with ways to explain our existence or non-existence, but rather ways to look at the reality of life all around us.
