Reading & the Good Life
Join the conversation! Every Friday at Noon EST, Perennial Meditations readers are welcome to gather for Reading & the Good Life (Register here), a space for connection, contemplation, and conversations on the art of living! This week continues our exploration into Taoism through Tao: The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts (initially published in 1975). Here is Part I and Part II.
What is Taoism?
Taoism (or Daoism) stands alongside Confucianism as one of China's two great religious/philosophical systems. Although traditionally traced to the mythical Laozi “Old Philosopher,” Daoism owes more to the “philosopher Zhuang” (Zhuangzi). Daoism is an umbrella that covers a range of similarly motivated doctrines. “Daoism” is also associated with assorted naturalistic or mystical religions. Consider listening to my conversation with Bryan Van Norden (author of Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto) to learn more.
Definitions of Daoism are controversial because of the complex twists in its development as it played a role in China's long history. Even the coining of the term creates ambiguity about what counts as ‘Daoism’. Three to seven centuries after they were supposed to have lived, historians of the Han dynasty (around 100 BCE) identified Laozi and Zhuangzi as Daoists. […]
Learn more: Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy
Selected Passages
The following passages from Tao: The Watercourse Way by Alan Watts will help guide our conversation at the next Reading & the Good Life (Register here).
‘The Tao does nothing, and yet nothing is left undone.’ These famous words of Lao-tzu obviously cannot be taken in their literal sense, for the principle of ‘nonaction’ (wu-wei) is not to be considered inertia, laziness, laissez-faire, or mere passivity. Among several meanings of wei are to be, to do, make, to practice, to act out. … Thus wu-wei as ‘not forcing’ is what we mean by going with the grain, rolling with the punch, swimming with the current […]
— Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way (Ch. 4)
