If someone attacks us, we immediately assume it to be that person’s fault and loudly call for someone to expel the intruder. Currently, if we are faced with a river too broad, we build a bridge to span it. This is directly at variance with a great deal of modern thinking. When confronted with the mysteries of the universe and the adversities of life, those who follow Tao think first to secure their own inner characters. Tao fundamentally assumes that an inner cultivation of character can lead to an outer resonance. We need to open ourselves to what is unique about contemporary times, throw off the shackles of outmoded forms and instead adapt them to our current needs. It is far better to turn away from dead scriptures and tap directly into Tao as it exists now. That is why the book constantly emphasizes meditation. The message of 365 Tao is that one can actually apply the open and accessible ideas of Tao directly to one’s life.ģ65 Tao encourages you to explore on your own. Traditional Taoism was often elitist and obscure, and translations have been infected with that arm’s-length attitude. Tao should not be viewed exclusively as scholarly metaphysics.
Occasionally, for the sake of variety, its translation as Way or Path has also been used. The only concession has been the word Tao, but even here, it is not written as the Tao, but simply Tao. In order to avoid any hint of esoteric wording, Taoism, Taoist, yin and yang, wu wei, and numerous other Chinese terms are not used at all. Rather, this is a book that searches for Tao in the immediate. This is quite clearly not a book of traditional Taoism.
Is it possible to see Tao in everyday life, regardless of place or culture? 365 Tao is an attempt to do just that. What sounds complicated in English is simple in Chinese. When Taoism is translated into English, these points of reference seem quaint, foreign, exotic, and esoteric. Taoism’s strength in Chinese culture-to the point that it permeates daily life even in the Asia of today-lies in its myriad ties to the culture at large. Such a book would have to capture traditional Taoism’s sense of lyrical mysticism while still making its concepts clear in English. What is missing is a book written for people who are trying to live the Taoist life today. If readers want to go a step further after reading the popular books on Taoism, they have very few alternatives. Translators usually have not had long training as Taoists, so their perspective is academic rather than practical. Readers interested in Taoism have undoubtedly seen most of these books, and yet articles written in magazines, questions asked at lectures, and the confusion many people profess about Taoist principles show that the current body of literature is insufficient support for applying Taoism to daily life.
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Other books available are translations of abstruse alchemical texts, scholarly histories, or manuals dealing with narrow subjects such as sexology, exercise, or legends. After all, the Tao Te Ching, I Ching, and Chuang Tzu, so widely translated and popular that they are found in almost every bookstore, were all written in the Zhou dynasty. Scholars credit Taoism with having had a significant influence on Zen Buddhism (thereby accounting for its difference from Indian Buddhism), Chinese classical poets such as Li Po and Tu Fu are widely acknowledged to have consciously included Taoist themes, and every major building in China-even today-is constructed according to Taoist principles of geomancy.īut if the English-language reader wanted to investigate more about Taoism, they might well be forgiven for thinking that nothing significant had been written since 300 B.C. Qigong (chi kung) and Tai Chi are taught at community colleges, and spiritually inclined people are investigating Taoist meditations. References to it appear in everything from art books to philosophy classes. There is tremendous interest in Taoism today.
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