Traditional Ways
The Tao Te Ching — A Spiritual Path of Last Resort?
The Tao Te Ching (the core Taoist scripture) invites you to contemplate your innermost sense of reality. It doesn’t tell you what to do or think, but rather stimulates you to think and reflect.
- An Overview of Taoist Thought
- Understanding the Tao Te Ching
- The Tao Te Ching, Word for Word
- Tao Te Ching: The Literal Chinese vs. The Translations
Buddha — Where Science and Religion meet?
A Taoist world view can feel pretty ephemeral at times. Buddha nailed the cause of life’s trials and tribulations, and how to deal with it. These truths can help ground you, if you find them true for you. See Right state of peaceful mind for what I discovered to be a more accurate portrayal of Buddha’s Eight Fold Path.
- Buddha’s Four Truths with Commentary
- Understanding Buddhism . . . and Beyond
- Buddha’s Four Truths – Poking a Little Deeper
“Dummies” Helps Fill Out the Picture
A “Dummies” understanding of the other main religions helps give context to humanity’s overall spiritual quest. Seeing what elements all paths share can neutralize a lot of partisan overlay.
- “Hinduism for Dummies” ~ The Bhagavad Gita and Buddha’s Four Truths cover the essentials well enough.
- “The Bible for Dummies” ~ Three faiths, one root: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam diverge more in practice than in origin.
- “The Koran for Dummies” ~ A starting point for understanding a tradition often reduced to its loudest voices.
Try Your Hand at Some Actionless Action— Wei wu Wei
These methods give you an opportunity to integrate mind, breath and body in the ‘flowing moment’. It can be easier to notice awareness ‘leave the moment’ when you are doing them sincerely, compared with daily activities. Conscientious long term practice appears to increase such watchfulness.
- T’ai Chi: Flowing Mindfulness
- Hatha Yoga: Testing ‘Will’
- Blowing Zen: One Breath, One Mind
- Mountain Music: “Taoist Music?”
Contemporary Ways
Tools of Taoist Thought — Digging at the Root of Bias
Chapter two observes how “the good is only the bad“, “the beautiful is only the ugly” and “something and nothing produce each other“. Does this make sense? Correlations is a practical technique to help you deepen that perceptual leap.
Couplets help portray the co-generating dynamics of Nature. They also hint at an approach to life that helps moderate stressful extremes.
Core Issues of Human Nature — Zeroing in on Some Life Hiccups
We can improve our chances of seeing what makes us tick by considering human characteristics as symptoms of underlying causes. Naturally, such causes are likewise the result of yet deeper causes, right on down to…???
- Introduction: Fear, Need, and the ‘Meaning of Life’
- Free Will: Fact or Wishful Thinking?
- Belief: Are We Just Fooling Ourselves?
- Ethics: Do They Work Anymore?
Essays Archive Prior to CenterTao
- The Old Forum
- Do You Need A Teacher?
- Letters to Andy
- A Taoist View Vis-a-vis Evil
- Emails to Lynn:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.