Taoism

Taoism has had a deep and long-lasting influence in many domains of Chinese culture including philosophy，arts，literature，medicine，cuisine，and has spread widely throughout East Asia.Taoism emphasizes freedomnature，cosmology，self-cultivation，retirement from social life and even the search for imortality.

Philosophy of Lao Zi

lao Zi was reputedly the founder of Taoism, which established the earliest ontology and cosmology in China, expanding the scope of man’s thinking from daily life to the universe as a whole. Lao Zi advanced the concept of the Tao (often translated as “the Way”), the central concept of lao Zi’s philosophical system and the core of classical Chinese philosophy. To be in accord with Tao, one has to “do nothing”(wuwei), but rather than advocating passivity it recommended a policy of perpetually succeeding by never forcing things against their na ture.

Through spontaneous compliance with the impulses of one’s own essential nature and by emptying oneself of all doctrines and knowledge, one achieves unity with the Tao and derives from it a mystical power. This power enables one to transcend all mundane distinctions, even the distinction of life and death. Lao Zi’s central principle is that the myriad things of the universe are all manifestations of what is really an interconnected organic unity (and thus an inseparable whole), which maintains its own balance and harmony. Everything arises from an essentially unexplainable source-the Tao itself.

Philosophy of Zhuang Zi

Zhuang Zi took the Taoist position of Lao Zi and developed it further. He took Lao Zi’s mystical leanings and perspectives and made them transcendental.A very new notion that Zhuang Zi brought into Chinese philosophy is that of self-transformation as a central precept in the Taoist process. Everyone has his own Tao. For Zhuang Zi, all things are relative. What is good for one individual might not be good for another, and the same goes for beauty, truth, usefulness, and so on.

Zhuang iis often nduly criticized for his passivity and pessimism in life. In fact Zhuang Zi advocates respecting life and nourishing life instead of being caught up by outside matters and being destroyed by desires. Zhuang Zi maintained that Tao was suggested by the concept of “nature”. The word “nature”was used frequently in the bookZhuang Zi.”Let nature take its course”is a very prominent philosophical idea advanced by Zhuang Zi.”Following the way of nature”or “Being natural”is how one attains happiness. To himthe perfect man or “zhen ren”is in perfect identity with the niverse and transcends all worldly anxieties about personal gains, misfortunes or even death.

The Tao is achieved through internal self-cultivation and external self-esercise, known as “Nei Dan”and”Wai Dan”in Chinese. The way of”Nei Dan”involves the way of meditation, tranquility, freedom from desire and worry, concentration of the mind, purification and brightness. The way of “Wai Dan”denotes the elixir medicines produced through alchemy with lead and mercury. Eating them was intended to produce immortality.

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