Taoism: A Decolonized Introduction
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- Опубликовано: 2 июн 2024
- We’re still having audio-video syncing issues. Be sure to turn on Closed Captioning for the subtitles. That’ll help clarify any confusion caused by audio hiccups.
... If a techie witnessed the wholly inefficient Luddite way I cobbled this video production together, they would probably die of a brain aneurysm …
Timestamps:
00:00 Why another “Introduction to Taoism” video
00:19 Historical textual definition of and references to the Tao 道
01:29 Canonical statement defining the Tao “一陰一陽之謂道”
02:39 Cultural understanding and usage of the term 道 [Syncretic Taoism]
03:40 Formalizing Taoism 道教 during the Eastern Han
03:50 Scope of Taoism “道教” prior to the Eastern Han
04:42 Conflating Buddhist doctrine with the Tao 道
05:33 Institutionalizing Taoism in the Common Era
05:50 Taoist Beliefs - Four Cornerstones
---- Wu Wei 無為 and Zi Ran 自然
---- True Name 真名 and True Form 真形
---- Taoist Cosmology
---- Xuan De 玄德 (The Mysteries)
06:53 The Dàoshì 道士
07:15 Taoist Practice - Four Cornerstones
---- Invoking Spirits 崇拜鬼神
---- Divination 占卜
---- Ceremonial Rites 祭祀
---- Shamanic Witchcraft 巫祝
07:59 The Fāngshì 方士 (Methods Master)
08:14 Taoism is the indigenous Chinese tradition premised on three fundamental assumptions
08:24 [1st] Working with spirit entities (and what that means) [鬼神崇拜]
09:39 Classifications of spirit entities in Taoism (and Chinese folk beliefs)
10:23 [2nd] Studying cultivation methods for transcendence [神仙信仰與方術]
10:32 Inner alchemy 內丹術 and outer alchemy 外丹術
11:43 Taoist occultism during the Warring States period (472 - 221 BC)
11:55 The five mystical arts 五術
13:02 [3rd] The Huang Lao 黃老道 doctrine [黃老學說中的神秘主義成份]
14:53 Two Key Concepts to Huang Lao Taoism (the highest priorities of the Taoist)
--- Political doctrine of Lì Mín 利民
--- Philosophical doctrine of Wu Wei 無為
16:38 Historical uses of the term Huang Lao Tao
18:16 Mathematical Structure of the Tao 道 (mirroring the Yi 易, in I Ching 易經)
19:29 Taoism and the I Ching: the Tao referenced in the I Ching
20:23 Taoism from the Hundred Schools of Thought
20:48 Taoism as a school of philosophy
22:18 Western Thought: Taoist Philosophy vs. Taoist Religion
22:37 Eastern Thought: Taoist Beliefs & Taoist Practice
23:10 Evolving understanding of the Tao in Imperial China
23:58 First use of the term Taoism 道教 (Confucius)
24:14 Taoism is exemplified by the Six Ancestral Sage Kings [堯舜禹湯文武]
24:53 Dào Dé Jing 道德經 and Dào Dé Tiān Zūn 道德天尊
25:25 Religious personifications of the Tao Te Ching
26:08 Summary and closing remarks
***
Related Past Videos:
Wu Wei 無為 (Taoist Non-Action), • Wu Wei 無為 (Taoist Non-...
Your Inner Palace and the Akashic Records, • Your Inner Palace and ...
Three Mysteries of Taoist Scriptural Tradition, • Three Mysteries of Tao...
Tao Te Ching and Feminist Metaphysics, • Tao Te Ching and Femin...
What Does It Mean To Be Taoist, • What Does It Mean To B...
The Lo Shu Magic Square (雒書, Luò Shū), • The Lo Shu Magic Squar...
***
Playlist: Introduction to Taoist & Buddhist Mysticism, • Introduction to Taoist...
Finally! It is so difficult to find detailed, comprehensive first-hand information about Daoism in the languages I speak. There are good, even university grade courses, but they almost exclusively talk about the Dao De Ging and Zhuang Tse, and focus only on the philosophical aspects, which paints a very incomplete picture. Thank you for this and all the other videos you produce!
people pay for a couple pieces of the puzzle and careless omission of the full story in a "class"?
That's like paying for a whole car and only getting the wheels and frame. gross.
I read the I Ching when I was a young child and read the Tao in high school. I worked for a tibetan family that escaped china, then vietnam and eventually came to MN and opened a restaurant. That restaurant still exists in Mpls. It's name is Rainbow Chinese Restaurant. I love your channel. Thank you for producing and sharing and I hope many people will reference your work in scholarly papers.
Awesome. I used to live like 4 blocks from there by the Waldorf school. I know I went to Rainbow once or twice.
No disrespect that meant that you worked for a family or a class of Tibetans that used to own serfs, and enslaved their own people
@@DK-yz9xk the entire planet is under the spell of Capitalism. We're all slaves to each other. We have the entirety of all human knowledge at our fingertips, yet this is the best we can do.
@@DK-yz9xkbecause chinese never oppressed no one! Lol!
@@DK-yz9xk CCP sowing discord as usual.
As I listen to your explanations, I feel the weight of many centuries' understanding in every new concept. It is a joy to stumble across a new academic subject and a new way of thinking.
I know it will take many rewatches to fully follow everything you have discussed, but I have learned so much from even the few things i have understood.
Excellent video and excellent dissemination of academic and philosophical knowledge! Thank you
I really appreciate your commentaries. A teacher once told me, "The true magic of Tao is found between Wuji and Taiji." From limitlessness to polarity. As you explain, connecting Heaven and Earth is the essence of the Tao; therefore, being the foundation of both Shamanism and martial arts neigong/qigong. The 1 is the limitlessness, which immediately becomes 2 as soon as a limited 1 forms boundaries/limits for itself (1 and not-1) within that limitlessness. This is the classic philosophical expression of Nothing being Something, or "2 Shen born together that become Yin and Yang." The subconscious mind arises ("Heaven," that which is heaved up) from the dead sleep of unconsciousness, and seeks self-identity to "solidify" itself as something powerful. This is the pure Yang, a Something that is Nothing, arising form the chaotic Mother of all Things, or Nothing that is Something. This is how Yang became associated as "solid," or better described as "consistent/unchanging." Yin, however, is described as being fluidly changing, or unformed, yet she manifests in all forms once yang reunites to give her ever-changing nature a direction by which to make ANY form.
This is explained in the first 2 verses of Genesis; [1] "In the beginning cycle of expansion (B'reishit...Big Bang), the powers (Elohim..."Qi") shaped (bara...bar means "son of" which suggests birthing as giving shape to a form) the Heavens and the Earth." There are multiple Heavens, but only 1 earth, who is "void without form." [2] "Ruach hovered like a bird over the Deep." The ruach is the Holy Spirit, that power passed down in forms through the maternal genetics, which is why to be a natural born Jew your mother must be a Jew. Yet, it is this power of consciousness (the fire within the wind) that the earth, after the segregation, is apparently lacking which keeps her formless and chaotically confused...thus, unable to produce any form, since as she moves toward any form she is perpetually distracted toward another form. This is the psychological state known in Buddhist meditation as "Monkey Mind," and characterized as the Stone Monkey King in the Chinese epic, A Journey West. The ruach hovering is the state of Nirvana, "No Wagon," where the mind is "outside" its physical vessel, leaving an empty shell below. Such a state is often assumed to be positive, typical of gaining the Sky View of clear insight (Vipashyana/Vipassana) during meditative practice. It can, however, also be negative as during a traumatic event where the mind escapes the suffering experienced by the shell of the body.
This apparent segregation is an illusion, though. Spiritual practice reminds us that reunion is the cornerstone of solving the chaotic suffering in polarity where the opposing ends of a single pole appear to be 2 separate things. Like a thread holds several pearls together in one single necklace, the word Tantra means "continuous weave," as if 1 thread weaves the entire fabric of Life into a beautiful tapestry. Religion literally means "re-link," as -ligion gives rise to the word ligament as well. Heaven, the primal "Father," appears so far away from the Earth where "we" live that the dead ancestors are used as messengers through which we living here may connect. This is how ancestor worship developed across the very ancient world. Shaman can be derived from Sanskrit Sham-an (connecting spirit) as a shaman reconnects the spirits of sick people with themselves, or connects to the spirit of a sacrificial animal in order to ride it like a horse to a particular place/hall in Heaven. This is why calling any sacrificial animal a "horse" became common across the ancient world. A water-horse, therefore, could well be the turtle sacrifice in the Fuxi story of the Bagua/Luoshu. A highly interesting correlation is the Etruscan hippocampus, or water horse that a priest must conquer to ride across the river between living and dying. Norse Sleipnir is the 8-legged horse that is the only one who can ride across the river to the dead and return. The mandala is like a magical shield and the Bagua is an early expression of that cosmological paradigm of 8x3=24 that is also found in the earliest Runic order in the Germanic expression of letters which they received from Etruscans. The most common order of runes, however, has 16, and not 24, which I believe expresses the Etruscan cosmology which was a 16 "sliced pie" shape and they were the divination masters of the early Iron Age. 16 is also important in Bagua practice, as your pictographs here show the 2 arrangements relating to form the 64 Hexagrams of the Yi Jing.
Obviously, I'm fascinated with the common cosmological consistencies/homogeny within Bronze Age cultures through a shamanic priesthood, which was apparently dominated by women before men took over in temple based urbanization coming out in the Neolithic revolutions from nomadism toward settled agriculture. When I can afford to splurge on myself again I will surely be buying your books, because your videos are full of gems for my studies.
Wow, very informative comment. Your description of Ying and Yang reminds me of wave-particle duality, which is a proven physical property of our world. Ying being like a continuous wave function, while Yang being a discrete partical state.
I will have to listen to this video many times; there is so much information here. And it is all presented with clarity and focus. Much appreciated.
I couldn't agree more
I don't have words to display my gratitude to this presentation. It has taken me 12 days to make notes, process the information, cross reference with my other studies, watch, rewind and repeat. Your work and conduct is second to none. Thank you.
Seriously the most underrated channel on youtube
What a series of videos you've put out, Benebell! They are absolutely fantasticly informative, and at the same time they carry so much soul.
I learned about Tao from a wise Sensei in martial arts as a child, part of training was philosophical, part meditation, stretches, exercise, and kata. Thank you for this detailed elaboration on some of these more esoteric concepts. As a child I knew magic was real, the process of learning has been more like an intense remembering of times when I was unburdened by the past, and thought not of the future.
That was also my path to knowledge. Martial Arts, and a wise teacher. It sparked the quest for the philosophical, religious, and practical, in one martial flame. That has become a conflagration.
@@shannondavis3686 I thought as I was posting "I bet others have shared this experienced this as well" it is good to know that there are "Johnny Appleseed's" of wisdom so to speak, sowing the seeds needed to yield the fruits long after their passing.
A sensei or a shifu? “Sensei” is the Japanese term and “shifu” (from 師傅/师傅) is the Chinese.
@@addp4 he asked to be referred to as Sensei, which is just one who came before you. To honor their skills. I was in a Korean Kang Soo Do. Which shares a lot with Japanese Karate
@@addp4 he taught us verse 31 of Tao te ching as one of the first lessons in class
Looking forward to the Six Ancestral Sage Kings video! This video has been fantastic so far, thank you so much for making it!
Benebell, I so appreciate you sharing your vast knowledge with us ~ this is the first time I've heard such a comprehensive lecture on the historical basis for the Tao cosmology and its relationship to subsequent schools of thought. I have your first book on I Ching but not the latest one ~ and love that you are doing these instruction videos to help us out! We are lucky to get benefit of your years of study and experience of all the topics you have such an obvious grasp of and competence in, so many thanks for generously making this content, your books, and your decks for us! It's very generous of you. Really really appreciate it!
docwhammo She is literally Durga Ma.
docwhammo Wow, that's great to know! So much great history! Thanks for the comment!
Ohh, I'm glad i watched to the end. I think your last line was a response to my question a few days ago, which was "why learn this?"
I'm going to have to watch it again... most of it went over my head.
Your videos are so informative and well organized. This is a great way to get an overview before researching deeper. Thank you.
I want to thank you so very deeply Benebell. Your thoroughly authentic educational material on Chinese occultism is fantastic has helped me to settle somewhere I feel much more secure after a long time spiritually wandering. I have landed in Buddhism, but the things I've learned about Daoism thorugh your books and videos have also made a deep impact in my practice. Best wishes to you and thank you enormously once again. ☯🙏🏻☸
Im curious, so when u hwyt pipo learn about Asian culture do u suddenly feel less demonic or do u guys still feel innately hateful and wish harm towards other races? 🤔
So grateful to have discovered your channel. Thank you for this in-depth, clear-eyed, lecture regarding Taoism's origin(s) and evolution.
As a student of the Ageless Wisdom teachings, I have been lacking in my studies of Taoism for some time. I’m very excited to discover your channel and greatly appreciate your method of teaching. I also appreciate your pronunciation of Yang, as it is “the way” I have always been comfortable with and believed I was hearing it mispronounced in the west often 🙏❤️
Phenomenal break down , your video inspired me to dig deeper for this arcane wisdom
So grateful to find this - and your channel! It's easy finding scholars on western esotericism, but I had a hard time finding videos like this (detailed and honest ones, at least). I'll have to check out your books :)
Through these last few years on a great divine timing you have been with me so powerfulkly. So thank you much Great Lady!
Just pre-ordered your audiobook! So excited. Thank you for this research!!
This video was absolutely AMAZING! I resonated so much with every word you were saying, and I was becoming increasingly happy to see how much my natural feelings about existence were being affirmed and reflected by these spiritual understandings for so very many years 😄. This is such a beautiful multitude of ways to understand reality and it makes me just so happy to know how many paths of exploration have been taken with this as the core root or core exploration 😄. The essence of it all.
I love it! Thank you for your research and sharing such great information! 🥰
Thank you Benebell for providing these teachings in English 💜 I'm so grateful for your well researched resources allowing Asian Americans like myself to study more from reputable sources without the language limitations
Your words are concisely comprehensive to the point of poetry. What a fantastic overview of our endeavor to understand the ineffable. Please keep inspiring and may fortune shine upon you. ☀️
thank you so much for this, you put in so much effort for it and is much appreciated. I love that you included all the sorcery type information too.
This is the explanation I've been looking for over the last 25 years. Thank you so much!
Awesome. Thanks so much! Hope all is well. 🙏🌞
As someone with a large background in mathematical sciences, the idea of a "dao" presented near the beginning is quite appealing - it suggests the common concept used of a process connecting an initial state and a final state, i.e. a sequence of steps or transformations by which one can be converted into the other. Hence "Daoism" would be the study of all such processes by which one thing can become another. It is also interesting under this to note how that this would _include_ then today's "western" science as a _type_ of Daoism: it is that which seeks to find the _most reliable_ process, the one which is _most assured_ to convert or transform A into B. This doesn't necessarily mean though, that it is the "most correct" path - just the most assured one, so the one you should use when that assurance is important. Something like shamanic process (wu dao, the Dao of the SHAMAN) is not necessarily as reliable to causation, but it has other things it provides - it is more "negotiative" in that it sees nature as an active agent (animism): note that a scientific process will, without suitable indirection, often provide a destructive or harmful means c.f. eco destruction nowadays. It will reliably effect the transformation, but it may bring on costs.
And thus the way I see it is the ideal combination of them is that science determines the efficacy of different methods, while Shamanism provides what the constraints are under which that is to be done, by the creative interplay of the human spirit and nature's spirit to set them out. That is to say, a Shaman who is well in tune with "nature's spirits" would sense "these rocks do not want to be moved". Then, instead of challenging this by a "scientific" criterion (e.g. "how can rocks 'want' ..." instead of just considering this as a metaphysical dimension that is also awarded its own ontological merit), we first assess its worth on Shamanic criteria, and if it passes, we then input back _to_ science this as not a path but a _constraint,_ that those rocks must not move, and then use science to calculate another path that tries to avoid them while still being the most likely causally effective _given this new constraint._ Note that such a path may be longer, slower, etc. than the original, but then those become necessary burdens to be shouldered. Or to put still another way, we have "Hume's guillotine", which is the idea that you cannot reason from an "is" to an "ought". Thus we need two sciences, not one - one of "is"es, and one of "oughts", and Shamanism is the _observational_ method of "oughts" in the way that science is the _observational_ method of "ises". And then the two work together, one describing the is that most efficaciously serves the ought while the ought both constraints and enables the pursuit of ises.
As an example, consider building a telescope atop Mauna Kea, which was a famous controversy some time back. We would have that science first says "to most effectively observe the stars, place a telescope atop this mountain because it has much less atmosphere above it to cloud your view". But then Shamanism steps in to tell us to hesitate and points out risked costs and issues, both material and non-material, for doing so. We would or _should_ then ask science again, given this newfound constraint that such and such damages should try to be avoided, can we a) still place a telescope atop Mauna Kea, and if so b) what else needs to change given the new constraint, like the path to achieving it, the time required, etc. c) and if not, i.e. no building the telescope by any means, then can we achieve the goal with the same resources invested differently? And then when a new conclusion comes out, we once _more_ apply Shamanism again to answer the "should" of this new best-effective path, then the new constraints are added or updated, and science is run again to obtain the new most likely method. And then we go back and forth like this until agreement i sreached. It may be that science then ends up telling us there is no way to achieve it under these constraints - in that case, the project is dropped, and we consider that Shamanism has led us to the moral conclusion it is not worth the cost to pursue.
In this regard, with both working together, we succumb to neither pathology of an exclusive approach - whether that is expecting more out of a magic ritual than is reasonable (e.g. replacing using antibiotics with a ritual), _or_ simply crunching along with "science" to arbitrary ends and causing serious harm to living beings, human, nonhuman or both, as in the modern "secular" economy.
Balance arises from the interactions that form discernment so beautiful for itself.
Thank you for making such informative videos! I just received my copy of I Ching The Oracle and I am excited to go through your videos again with the book so I can follow along. Thanks again, I've been fascinated by your lessons.
The line about "seeking the same thing through different lenses" struck me. As did the parts about how syncretic beliefs are part of Taoism, then seeing that brilliantly simple illustration of _Taoist Religion_ and _Taoist Philosophy_ reconciled as simply _Taoist beliefs_ has really got my wheels turning. I guess I literally needed someone to spell it out it for me, and in animated text no less, for me to finally get it. Regrettably, I've kinda been a jerk about some of this stuff towards some people at times. I'll be definitely be more mindful from now on.
Tldr; This video was as enlightening as it was informative. A serious deep-dive. Just so much to like about the content. So glad I clicked.
What a wonderful video! I am an American trained in analytic philosophy, but when I read the Tao Te Ching and the Chuang Tzu many, many years ago, they blew my mind. I could perceive that there was a whole world of cultural context there that I could only dimly perceive. The more I learn about this context, the more my appreciation of those texts grows!
This is probably one of the most thorough taoist presentation in English? I am a follower the taoism, buddhism, and Confucianism from hong kong, who has been practising i Ching for more than a decade. Perhaps she should include 黄帝四經 ( four books of yellow emperor) for reference too when she talks about 黄老?
Your explanation is wonderful!!! I do not know why you get so hate in the comments.
"Decolonized" herr means clearly that you are trying to give the chinese understanding of it (instead of the New Age one).
I'm so happy I discovered your channel! Holistic Tarot is my fav book on tarot :)
Most informative video on Taoism I’ve ever seen. Great job!
Awesome video! I will be rewatching many times ✨
Glad to have found this channel, what a wealth of knowledge! Thank you for sharing!
This was magnificent for my purposes. I am writing an anthropology treatise, and this gave me all the direction in the world that I needed for what to read and reference.
And I look forward to gobbling up your coverage of those six sages. Having only read the Daodejing that was a magical enough experience for me to begin with. Cascades of pieces falling into place in every religion I've studied. When you read that the Dao is older than god, it shakes you when you see how numerology is underneath all of the archetypes, they couldn't be more right about psychology.
It's wild, and I'm salivating now over the prospect of the shamanic esoterics. Wondering how good Daoist psychotherapy is!
Thank you. Your videos are really good. Don’t stop.
This is such a comprehensive coverage of information. Thank you for putting this together!!
My curiosity is killing me. Is this taught in China as "history"? Or hushed ? Seen as "witchcraft"?
Thank you for connecting me with my heritage, as always. Very informative and my draw to these practices the way it happened makes so much sense within this context.
I'm so very glad to hear. Thank you!
Perfect Timing! Just what I needed!
Thank you for making this video. It is extremely insightful and helpful!
Wow! You are so amazing, I had no idea how ignorant I was and still am regarding the Tao. This is so deep I feel like I could study this philosophy for a hundred years and still not grasp it. there is fear too, because I know that every belief system can be miss understood miss applied and wrongly grasped. It's a dangerous thing to be alive, many many pitfalls put in place by those who came before me to obscure the path. One thing I'm sure of is that I can be fooled. I have been fooled many times. I don't feel good about that, but nevertheless it's true. Magicians are not to be trifled with.
I see so much influence by the Tao constantly and it's constantly changing.
What do you see?
One of my father’s friends gave me a copy of IChing when I was seven. I read it cover to cover and some of it seemed familiar. Now at age 51, here I am again, recognizing that the Tao has been a primary guiding philosophy of my life🌈
a kindred spirit indeed
Again, superbly presented & simply explained very well done thank you
Great video. Worth 1000 hours of studying books for "westener" interested in Tao. Thanks a lot from Poland.
My conclusion: A minute of practice is better than reading for an hour. Tao is everywhere. 🙏☯️🌞
I don’t mind sharing Asian culture but hwyt pipo are mostly evil and only want to hate or cause harm to others
Greetings from your neighbor Slovakia. :D Yes, it is. I can say it from my own personal experiences.
@@zoltanfabiansk5795 hello! 🌞☯️🙏
Curiously, Polish & “Mandarin” Chinese use at least 1 consonant in common.Chinese xi, xy + Polish
z+!?which??diacritical mark.
@@samaval9920 it wiłl be "zi" like in polish "zima" - more soft
And "ź" like in polish "źródło" shorter and sharper a bit
Great video, thank you for presenting all this info. Informative as always. When was Buddhism introduced to China?
Thanks for the direction toward Fu Peirong!
Glad to see someone who actually knows what the original text says about Taoism rather than a westerner who has only ever read translations or is working from other translations to make their own “translation”! Taoism has always seemed to me like a very interesting religious/philosophical movement and viewpoint, less harsh than Buddhist non-attachment, which is very hard to put into practice.
Do you have any thoughts on Chuang-Tzu and the significance of the book attributed to him in the Taoist tradition?
Awesome! Can do one decommunisted one too? A more recent and more horrendous destruction of TMA, TCM Chi Gun and Taoist ideas than any prior colonialization. Thanks!
This was very helpful presentation. Thank you!
Interesting from so many perspectives. For example, I never heard of Huang-Lao political philosophy. I always thought of Confucianism as dealing with social issues, and Taoism as metaphysics. For me, Taoist politics just meant the anarchic individualism of hermits and ordinary people, for whom "the emperor is far" and they're just getting on with their lives. But at 15:00 you present this chain of being, Heaven to Earth to States to People. It's very thought-provoking and maybe there's even an echo in Xi Jinping's modern slogan of harmony?
Another moment for me was 10:00, since the translations were reminding me of the mythology of Er Gen's popular web-novel "I Shall Seal the Heavens". It's a cultivation novel and, besides being full of all kinds of "Tao", it specifically has five figures in it which are rendered in English as God, Ghost, Devil, Demon, and Immortal.
I always learn so much from Taoism. No man steps in the same river twice... It is a beautiful reminder that we are always the student ❤
Wow, this is so dense! love it. Thanks!
So info-packed it made my head hurt, but it was a delightful agony. Thank you, wise and charming lady from the East.
Do you know the works of Eva Wong, Fabrizio Pregadio and Jerry Alan Johnson? I regard them as good, but are they really?
I truly hope we can chat together about how this implies simple applications for business, strategies, marketing, economic development and a lot more. I hope to be reurning to China later this year. I love your channel,
Looking forward to the sage-kings video! :)
I am struck in your explanations by similarities to western occult practices/beliefs (although the western are much younger and less well-documented). The yin/yang, inner/outer dichotomy is reminiscent of the "as above, so below" core tenet of many esoteric/occult belief systems. It is fascinating to me that cultures as different in time and place as ancient china and medieval europe would arrive at similar beliefs about reality, life, and the nature of the world. thank you for this most illuminating lecture!
Thank You for your tireless work and your mission to share this timeless wisdom of ancient Occult esoteric knowledge of China. Wisdom is wealth
Wisdom is worth more than silver; it makes you much richer than gold. Wisdom is more valuable than precious jewels; nothing you want compares with her. In her right hand Wisdom holds a long life, and in her left hand are wealth and honor.
So glad to see a new video!!
I really struggled with the organization for this one. 😅 Thank you! ❤ Your kind words mean a lot to me, Dr. Gao! (Funny note: my brother-in-law has the same surname as yours! 😊)
@@BenebellWen I love this video. I am surprised how much you covered in this short video and how deep you dived in the philosophical and religious significance of this topic!! Glad I share the same surname with your brother-in-law. It is said people with the same surname were families five hundred years ago!! We might be cousins although a bit distant!
❤
Thanks for sharing 👊🏾😎👍🏼
This helped bring understanding to a complicated topic
Be wellness 🙏🏼😇🙏🏾
Thanks for the video! I’ll have to watch it a couple of times. My first impression was that Taoism seems to be so fluid and all-encompassing. I wondered if that’s because everyone taps into the Tao and gives the same essence a form. Forms differ so it’s warning that we can’t cling too much to the correctness of a form (even though it’s the first way we start to grasp the essence), but need to pay more attention to the essence it expresses. In short, it describes an essence that can and can’t be captured. Am I making sense? 😅
This might be a dumb reason to learn about this subject, but I recently really got into Xianxia/Wuxia novels and hearing the origin of a lot of these concepts is maing me appreciate those stories even more.
This puts together how aspects, ideas, and traditions, together I noticed seemed to overlap. So Krawley just showed how witchcraft and Asian religions/😮traditions went togethwr already? Or just Toast beliefs? Just curious. ❤❤❤ Thank you so much!
this is fascinating! TY for this video
Greek logos means speech, speaking. I believe the "in the beginning was the word" is one of a myriad of mistranslations making the modern bible almost incomprehensible. Tao means path way speaking. So logos was correctly translated.
The tao teh ching striikes me as a far more ancient shamanuc tradition finally written. The legend of the work being put to writing when Lao Tse was passing through a mountain guard station I suspect is a reference to the act of finalky transcribing the far more ancient teachings.
But like all serious spiritual texts it serves as a pointer to help seekers avoid error and to cross the river.
Ch'an was simply the merging of pragmatic Taoist methods and the more flowery Buddhist sutras trickling into China and other regions at the time from India.
The proof is in the pudding however. As a manual it is meant to be used.
The Secret of the Golden Flower is also an extremely useful manual.
If you're looking for intellectual understanding of course you've made a navigation error. People love the byways, always a trap.
This was beautiful! I really appreciate the time, effort and love you placed in this. This religion has been in and out of my life as thought fate or the Dao itself had hinted it would be where I ended up in my spiritual quest from Christianity to Gnosticism, Stoicism, Nihilism, Buddhism, Taoism and Brahmanism. It's also the only spiritual bracelet that I have that has never broken lol the taoist bracelet and my Buddhist bracelets last the longest and my Christian bracelets last the least. Its actually reminiscing of my quest and perhaps another hint.
I am learning Mandarin now so that I can read more text untranslated and I really appreciate people like you bringing this to me where I would never have been able to read it as a mere guy from America. Sucks I have no relation to the yellow emperor lol I am mixed with many things predominantly central American, Indian, and Caribbean Africans but no Asian in my recent heritage. Oh well, that just means I need to focus harder on the Dao lol
I look forward to the video about the Sage Kings.
have u ever made a video about or touched on fusang?
Thank you for the wealth of information and perspective that will give more chance for a better future for all living and unliving. These ancient systems may be applied to the present to create a more prosperous and peaceful resonance in harmony with Dao, heaven, earth and huemankind. Descendant here of the 季 clan Zhou dynasty no wonder why I am so invested into ancient eastern esoteric science and technology.
I deeply thank you for this commentary. From my studies this pretty much explains all that I had learned. Is from a Western perspective, Explaining it all seems so muddy and confusing That we simply needed a audio explanation so we can hear it over and over again.
As an aside it seems to me that the highest Christian Mystics were doing the same thing. Unfortunately the lower forms of Christianity also muddied the whole thing. Richard Rohr has tried to clarify it all to christians. But you can get a little bit lost in his books as well. His 6 audio lectures on "True Self False Self" are the best.
What a wonderful video, thanks!
Tao as "the way," can also be understood in an anecdote where a student asks a master "why...?" The teacher answers, "That's just the way it is." LOL
The unfortunate nature of modernity, influenced so strongly by Western spiritual materialism, identifies "different" religions in materialist categories. The traditional nature of most tribal cultures, well-expressed in India as well, is naturally syncretic but modern materialism wants to segregate things in self-righteous manners. We, humans, are the "chosen people to see God," only because we are the special animal that overthinks things to the point of symbolic conceptualization. When Laozi was demanded to write his wisdom down, he complained, "being forced to name it, I call it Tao." Once we accept that all expressions are essentially less than the mysterious truth, then we can see all human expressions as potential tools to reconnect us to that primordial mystery. Dogmatism is essentially spiritual imperialism, an exaggeration of spiritual materialism just as political imperialism is an exaggeration of material territorialism.
Again, I truly find your presentations quite inspiring and uplifting.
The True Name concept at 6:05 reminds me a lot of Plato's forms. Anyone know the subtle differences between the two?
its the same mistake, same miss step on a different hill
You spoke about your mother, but how about you? Did you inherit that ability or do you have some own experiences? Thanks
Thanks for give us a simple breakdown. I thought I knew but didn't know. P.E.A.C.E
Very cool Mrs.Wen!
A well laid out and detailed explanation that enlightens the web that bogs down most westerners in their attempts at self teaching of The Dao. Thank You.
Appreciate this. Hard to get this level of understanding in English.
Hi Benebell! Could you do a Video on Confucianism? Is it still popular today? Or it’s Taoism more popular?
If you're not familiar with the Hermetic Principles then I have listed them below. It's origins date back to ancient Egypt and the god Thoth around the 2nd millennia BC, then later in Greece with Hermes Trismagistus. Today seen as the teachings of the occult and the freemasons, following satan but this is largely miss information by the Christian empire builders. There are also many similarities with Taoist and Hindu teachings. There is speculation, confirmed partly by DNA, that black north Africans were the original tribes of Egypt and the Kermit people, they had migrated across the Eurasian continent to share their knowledge far and wide. India is also considered the mother of religion, so not sure which represents the historical truth.
We live in a fascinating world with many hidden gems, I'm grateful to Taoism and Tai Chi for showing me the way to truth.
Principle of Mentalism
- The all is mind
- The universe is mental
Principle of Correspondence
- As above so below
- As below so above
Principle of Vibration
- Nothing rests
- Everything moves
- Everything vibrates
Principle of Polarity
- Everything is dual
- Everything has poles
- Everything has its pair of opposites.
- Opposites are identical in nature with differing degree.
- Extremes meet
- All truths are but half truths.
- All parodixes may be reconciled
Principle of Rhythm
- Everything floats out and in
- Everything has its tides, all things rise and fall
- The pendulum swing manifests in everything
- The measure of the swing to the left is the measure of the swing to the right.
- Rhythm compensates
Principle of Cause and Effect
- Every cause has its effect
- Every effect has its cause
- Everything happens according to law
- Chance is but a law not recognised
- There are many planes of causation
- Nothing escapes the law
Principle of Gender
- Gender is in everything
- Everything has its masculine and its feminine principles
- Gender manifests on all planes
Thanks!
I'm sure she is, she speaks on ceremonial magick in other videos
10:13 I wonder since english is mainly latin, could you find the latin definitions for the missing words and then create a new english word?
Reading Chinese is truly intimidating, I hope we invest in translation technology soon
Wow so interesting that the Taoism is in and surrounds everything including Logos. You are so knowledgeable, thank you for sharing your insights master teacher.
Thanks! I never knew my previous introductions were colonized.
6:04 is multiplicity an real (e.g everything has a distinct/discrete existence) or illusory (e.g. emergent from Tao and fundamentally the same) in Taoism, then? This brings Plato’s Theory of Forms to mind, but this is obviously a distinct tradition and this line makes me question my current understanding. I had previously thought that Taoism was nondual and, thus, every “thing” was a different expression of the Tao; another eddy current in a Cosmic River.
Howdy! Can you do a video on Zi Ran like you did with Wu Wei. I have been saying all my life that "no action" is still action (Wu Wei), nothing is something, etc. and now I am saying "it is what it is" quite often. Thank you for the videos and I love your channel!
Learned the cliff notes on topic in china on 3 1/2 week private tour. It was amazing
Transformation follows yet leads, so the path is a functional option to the Way.
She just ment from the point of view of the people who created they system. Aka not from the colonizer’s view point (as a lot of occult practices are); aka decolonized
Do you have a source list? Beyond prior videos?
it feels like this video is made perfectly for me yhaha its so good.
I don't know anything about this topic. This was very interesting and I'll have to look into it more at a later time
Wow. I have been studying all these topics my whole life. I didn't think there were any others that had come to this realization. When I met my true self I was sharing something that I found interesting and shared it with everyone.In essence I share. I learned that over a decade ago. Weird. I am saying all this now. How is it that I get the same conclusion without being exposed to so much of the context.
I'm not a Chinese. So I'm no authority to speak on it. However, being an Indian, If I have to syncretise I interpret Tao(ism) as living without upsetting the economy/balance of Nature. In a psychological sense It could be, living without holding/latching onto any particular world view. Buddha when asked to describe him, is supposed to have said, "Call me Tathagatha". Tathagatha is someone who (simply) came & went (leaving no trace). It could very well have been inspired by Taoism!! Whatever be the history, these two philosophical schools are fascinating to say the least!!
Please write a book on Taoism ,meditation ,meridians, etc...
Thank you!!!