Does anyone follow the "Way"? ☯

[Sanfeng]

Hey some of you are chinese spirituality inclined and follow the Tao? (living in harmony with oneself and nature). 

I find the concept very interesting, there is no right or wrong but just consequences to our actions. The purpose being to leave the least track of our passage on earth...

[Gwaithmir]

Well, I live in the country and respect nature. I don't know if that counts.

[Dom]

I don't like rituals and such myself. But I also live in nature and respect it.

[Szuchow]

I'm not interested in any kind of spirituality. Also if tao says that there is no right or wrong then I find it abhorrent.

[TonyAnkle]

Living in harmony with oneself is impractical for a married man with 4 kids.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I remember back when Yugoslavia was disintegrating and everybody was fighting everybody else. You had to ask a person their name to know if you hated them or not. At one point some guys from Side A fired off a dozen mortar rounds at a cluster of people from Side B. Twenty-six people killed. All of them school age children. Side A knew they'd have a juicy target because the kids were lined up to get their school books for that year. Classes were canceled.

That was just fucking wrong. There is a right and wrong that transcends our petty quibbling.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I strive for balance and harmony in my doings, but I don't follow any dogma from any culture.

I'll add my voice to those arguing that there is indeed right and wrong.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The worst thing about "right and wrong" is that you have to think about it. Most people aren't good at that. (waves to cousins, those that survived the New Years Eve superspreader shindig.)

[Dānu]

I have been a follower of Taoism most of my life. I don't explicitly practice Taoism anymore, but it's still very familiar. The reason I became a Taoist at 17 was because it resonated with so many things that I had already been thinking. I don't know that I'd identify Taoism so much as following nature as positing that reality has a nature, and things like nature reflect that basic character. As such, it's far from without right or wrong, but rather that what is right and wrong according to the Tao doesn't align with traditional morality. Though there is some sense in which Taoism might be said to be advising, "going along to get along." But that's because the principles of non-opposition and harmony are so central to Taoism.

[Phaedrus]

I prefer to follow my way.

[SYZ]

Hey some of you are Chinese spirituality inclined and follow the Tao? (living in harmony with oneself and nature). 

I find the concept very interesting, there is no right or wrong but just consequences to our actions. The purpose being to leave the least track of our passage on earth...

Mate... this is the third thread you've started about Eastern Asian traditional
methodologies both spiritual and medical.

But... you've not been prepared to engage anybody else or respond to the
many comments discussing these matters.  To ask atheists if we're inclined to
follow any so-called "spiritual" pathway is really a waste of time—yours and
ours.  Of course we're not so inclined, in the sense you're asking.  Tao is a
religious/philosophical tenet that promotes the essential energy of actions
and existence that're in harmony with the natural order. So I guess—very
loosely speaking—that many atheists would agree with its practical, non-spiritual
tenets.

But... let's hear your views on these topics.  It's pointless to raise these questions
without responding appropriately.     It makes you look like a drive-by troll.      

[mordant]

I quit shopping for a belief system almost thirty years ago. When I left the Christian faith, I went through a phase where I evaluated other religions on the assumption that surely they can't all be the same. But I found that, at bottom, they actually were. It was all unsubstantiatable assertions, and the details weren't ultimately even all that different when you really unpack them. Taoism and Buddhism were the only ones that stood out as different to me, but that is because they are more practical self-help systems than dogmatic religions. I have borrowed ideas and concepts, but not rituals or cosmology, from both.

[Dānu]

It occurs to me that one may need to separate out which Taoism one is speaking of. Western Taoism is more philosophically oriented, and Taoism itself went through different periods, some of them more religious in character.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[Dancefortwo]

[Finite Monkeys]

I don't exactly follow them but I am aware there are in fact six different ways -

[Aliza]

Hey some of you are chinese spirituality inclined and follow the Tao? (living in harmony with oneself and nature). 

Nope. Would you care to engage us in conversation by sharing what you like (or dislike) about this lifestyle?

[Dom]

I have been a follower of Taoism most of my life.  I don't explicitly practice Taoism anymore, but it's still very familiar.  The reason I became a Taoist at 17 was because it resonated with so many things that I had already been thinking.  I don't know that I'd identify Taoism so much as following nature as positing that reality has a nature, and things like nature reflect that basic character.  As such, it's far from without right or wrong, but rather that what is right and wrong according to the Tao doesn't align with traditional morality.  Though there is some sense in which Taoism might be said to be advising, "going along to get along."  But that's because the principles of non-opposition and harmony are so central to Taoism.

I don't know anything about Taoism, but I do agree that what is right and wrong in nature is not the same as traditional morality.

[Aroura]

I quit shopping for a belief system almost thirty years ago. When I left the Christian faith, I went through a phase where I evaluated other religions on the assumption that surely they can't all be the same. But I found that, at bottom, they actually were. It was all unsubstantiatable assertions, and the details weren't ultimately even all that different when you really unpack them. Taoism and Buddhism were the only ones that stood out as different to me, but that is because they are more practical self-help systems than dogmatic religions. I have borrowed ideas and concepts, but not rituals or cosmology, from both.

I suffer from severe anxiety and depression, and the only treatment that helped me is dialectical behavioral therapy, which is basically Taoism turned into a treatment.

I agree, it has some great concepts that are actually quite useful to use in a practical way.

[Free]

Hey some of you are chinese spirituality inclined and follow the Tao? (living in harmony with oneself and nature). 

I find the concept very interesting, there is no right or wrong but just consequences to our actions. The purpose being to leave the least track of our passage on earth...

No thanks.

Any type of belief system regarding spirituality is nonsense.

[Aegon]

I quit shopping for a belief system almost thirty years ago. When I left the Christian faith, I went through a phase where I evaluated other religions on the assumption that surely they can't all be the same. But I found that, at bottom, they actually were. It was all unsubstantiatable assertions, and the details weren't ultimately even all that different when you really unpack them. Taoism and Buddhism were the only ones that stood out as different to me, but that is because they are more practical self-help systems than dogmatic religions. I have borrowed ideas and concepts, but not rituals or cosmology, from both.

I would push back on the idea that Christianity and Buddhism are not all that different when you unpack them. One immense, glaring difference is that Buddhism encourages pulling back from one's ego and developing a degree of self-awareness that is rarely taught in secular western society, while Christianity operates from the assumption that the ego is real and is actually all that matters (i.e. you must sculpt your soul to be a certain way to achieve salvation, humans are at the center of attention in the universe, etc). Of course that's just one major difference but they are such fundamentally different outlooks on life and our place in it. I used to see them as the same because they're both religions, but I've recently found that is far from true.

[Aroura]

I quit shopping for a belief system almost thirty years ago. When I left the Christian faith, I went through a phase where I evaluated other religions on the assumption that surely they can't all be the same. But I found that, at bottom, they actually were. It was all unsubstantiatable assertions, and the details weren't ultimately even all that different when you really unpack them. Taoism and Buddhism were the only ones that stood out as different to me, but that is because they are more practical self-help systems than dogmatic religions. I have borrowed ideas and concepts, but not rituals or cosmology, from both.

I would push back on the idea that Christianity and Buddhism are not all that different when you unpack them. One immense, glaring difference is that Buddhism encourages pulling back from one's ego and developing a degree of self-awareness that is rarely taught in secular western society, while Christianity operates from the assumption that the ego is real and is actually all that matters (i.e. you must sculpt your soul to be a certain way to achieve salvation, humans are at the center of attention in the universe, etc). Of course that's just one major difference but they are such fundamentally different outlooks on life and our place in it. I used to see them as the same because they're both religions, but I've recently found that is far from true.

I'm pretty sure he said that Taoism and Buddhism were the only ones that stood out as different from Christianity. 

[julep]

Hey some of you are chinese spirituality inclined and follow the Tao? (living in harmony with oneself and nature). 

I find the concept very interesting, there is no right or wrong but just consequences to our actions. The purpose being to leave the least track of our passage on earth...

Are you offering us crumbs of ancient wisdom or balls of aged dung?  


Nope, not a taoist.   "Spiritual" has never felt to me like a useful or relatable concept.

[airportkid]

... The purpose being to leave the least track of our passage on earth ...

Terrible philosophy.  The natural earth teems with discomforts: predators, weather, fire, floods, tsunamis, volcanos, thorny bushes, poisonous berries, landslides.  Man is the first species with the wit and manual dexterity to be able to blunt most of those sharp edges, and an insignificant few of us would abandon the comforts of civilization to live naked in the jungle.  Leave the world better than you found it - that's the principle that has us surviving entire centuries our health intact, expiring in bed instead of diseased and dismembered at age 25 at the foot of a cliff.

Naturally we disagree about which improvements should be given priority, or whether something is actually an improvement; those disagreements will never end.  But on balance after several thousand years the track record is solid: the outcome is a world always unquestionably more pleasant to inhabit today than yesterday.

[Dancefortwo]

Hey some of you are chinese spirituality inclined and follow the Tao? (living in harmony with oneself and nature). 

I find the concept very interesting, there is no right or wrong but just consequences to our actions. The purpose being to leave the least track of our passage on earth...

No thanks.

Any type of belief system regarding spirituality is nonsense.

I agree.  Our mind and body is made up of materials/chemicals which react to the information around us.  There is no woo-hoo spirit wafting around in the body. It's funny to me that trillions of neutrinos pass through the human body every second and science has been able to indirectly measure them but somehow science can't find any "spirit" in the human body.  Probably because it doesn't exist.

I do think one can control, to a certain extent, how the intake of information effects the body.  It's often called mindfulness and I can do this a little bit by listening to classical music or sitting in a warm sunny window or diverting my attention elsewhere.