2006-01-17
Taoism and Confucianism - differences
I've posted this here, because it is (to me, anyway) a clear and very helpful outline of many aspects of what Taoism is and what it isn't.
Taoism as Hermit Philosophy
From: Hermitary.com
Taoism and Confucianism
Briefly put, Taoism is the near opposite of Confucianism. Confucianism established social and political norms in ancient China. A thorough reading of the Confucian writings, such as the Analects and Mencius, is essential for the understanding of philosophical and ethical thinking in ancient China. However, Taoism derives its ethics from nature and the universe, not from the authority of tradition or a body of scholars and gentlemen.
Confucianism is based on the preeminent contrivance of humanity: society. Just as Aristotle defined humans as social animals, Confucianism saw society's needs as overriding nature and the individual to assure order and continuity. This made authority, tradition, and institutions the source of ethics and not mythology, folk wisdom, or philosophy. Confucianism posited a Way to be followed, a Way which governed the universe. However, because the earth was the immediate and practical expression of the Way, Confucians considered the earth's highest product, human society, to be the source of authority.
In contrast, the reputed founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu, the "old man," realized that government and society are not intrinsically ethical. As contrivances of humans in particular eras and places, they are the whim of their rulers, not ordained by heaven, i.e. by the universe or nature. Lao Tzu developed a philosophy that identified the nature of the universe and the Way or Tao that transcended human thinking. Only such a concept of the Tao would permit humanity to break free of contrivance.
The Tao
The Tao is a way or path to living as optimally as possible in accordance with the nature of things. In contrast to Confucians, the Tao did not ordain humans as the apex of the universe. The universe is a flux of forces (yin and yang), of paradoxical opposites. Humanity is only part of this whole. People must find their rightful place in it, but human contrivances not in harmony with nature (i.e., the universe) must be examined and rejected. Simplicity, non-contrivance, and non-action are derived from how nature functions.
Clearly this is not the Western notion of nature as the "contrivance" of God. This is nature in its totality, including all of the universe, all of existence, and all Emptiness, Tao as All. At one extreme of contrivance was the state and society. At the other was the soul or consciousness of humans (and anything higher, presumably, though there is no metaphysics or speculation in Taoism). The Tao is full of all things extant, but also empty because all these things are parts, not wholes, they are forces not things.
The experience of solitude, of the trembling beauty of a swaying pine or twinkling star, or a bird call, is our self reflecting the infinite Tao and becoming, in that moment, conscious of being part of it and not apart from it.
meyamind at 7:30 p.m.
