Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Calligraphy of Tao (道)The word "Tao" has a variety of meanings in both the ancient and modern Chinese language. Aside from its purely prosaic use meaning road, channel, path, principle, or similar, [2] the word has acquired a variety of differing and often confusing metaphorical, philosophical, and religious uses.
Taoist theology can be defined as apophatic, given its philosophical emphasis on the formlessness and unknowable nature of the Tao, and the primacy of the "Way" rather than anthropomorphic concepts of God. Nearly all the sects share this core belief. [63] Arguments do exist the monotheistic concepts in Taoism. [246]
In religious Taoism, the theory of how Tao produces One, Two, and Three is also explained. In Tao produces One—Wuji produces Taiji, which represents the Great Tao, embodied by Hundun ( Chinese : 混沌無極元始天王 ; pinyin : Hùndùn Wújí Yuánshǐ Tiānwáng , "Heavenly King of the Never-ending Primordial Beginning") at a time of pre ...
Chinese theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the Chinese classics and Chinese folk religion, and specifically Confucian, Taoist, and other philosophical formulations, [1] is fundamentally monistic, [2] that is to say it sees the world and the gods of its phenomena as an organic whole, or cosmos, which continuously emerges from a simple principle. [3]
Chinese folk religion that incorporates elements of the three teachings in modern times and prior eras sometimes viewed Confucius and the Buddha as immortals or beings synonymous to them. [35] In Taoism and Chinese folk religion, gods and xian [36] are often seen as embodiments of water. [37]
Shendao is a religion based on the way of ghosts and gods, which is from the Tuan Chuan of the Zhou Yi (I Ching). [ 12 ] [ 13 ] [ 14 ] The common term for witchcraft and divination is "Shendao", which is different from the original meaning of the Zhou Yi.
The Tao Te Ching describes the Tao as the source and ideal of all existence: it is unseen, but not transcendent, immensely powerful yet supremely humble, being the root of all things. People have desires and free will (and thus are able to alter their own nature). Many act "unnaturally", upsetting the natural balance of the Tao.
The term Tao means "way", "path" or "principle", and can also be found in Chinese philosophies and religions other than Taoism. In Taoism, however, Tao denotes something that is both the source and the driving force behind everything that exists. It is ultimately ineffable: "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao." [1] Also called Daoism.