中国道家的风骨

[sunfarstar]

中国的最早的本土宗教是道家。老子的《道德经》开篇第一句就很吸引人：“道可道，非常道；名可 名,非常名"。这里面的简单而又朴素的哲学思想是很玄奥的。中国人一向很超脱，不计较世间的实在和虚名。中国人在道家的 熏染下过了五千年的淳朴自然的日子。崇尚自然无为无不为的精神深深扎根于中国人的心灵。如果你要理解中国人 的宇宙观世界观人生观，就不得不了解道家。我愿意在这里和同志们探讨交流。

China's first indigenous religion is Taoism. Lao Zi's "Dao De Jing" begins with the first one is very attractive: "The Way Road, very Avenue; names can be named very name." This is simple and plain inside philosophy is that profound. Chinese people have always detached, do not care about worldly reality and in name. China, he argued in the Taoist after a five thousand years, under the simple natural life. Advocating the spirit of the natural inaction were all deeply rooted in the hearts of the Chinese people. If you want to understand the Chinese people's conception of the universe world view of life, and will have to understand Taoism. I would like to explore here and the exchange of comrades.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This should be moved to Religion.

[Kléber]

Every Marxist should also read the classical Taoists Laozi, Zhuangzi and Liezi since their school had an early form of dialectical philosophy. In politics, they advocated what might be called laissez-faire policies, and they mocked feudal privileges, so their ideology had some progressive, maybe even bourgeois aspects, but they generally sought power through feudal means, advising feudal rulers and their ideological descendants (although there were many splits) sometimes set up Taoist theocratic states. Of course, believing that a new society could be set up by advising enlightened rulers was also a characteristic of early European bourgeois thought. The Mohists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohism) on the other hand were popular with guilds and had a less feudal organizing strategy, but Mohist ideology was not as anti-feudal as classical Taoism.

And I must temper my argument that classical Taoism had some revolutionary aspects by reminding people, what is referred to as "Taoism" as a mainstream religion that exists today is really Neo-Confucianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Confucianism), it contains not only many distortions of classical Taoism by hedonists and superstitious religious Taoists, but also elements of Confucianism and Buddhism which were forcibly grafted onto Taoism to make it into a more palatable state religion/philosophy in the Song dynasty. Like Christianity, anything that was once communist about Taoism is gone from the official religion and exists only in vestigial form and the classical writings.


I am interested to know to what degree if any the sect, Taiping Dao, which led the Yellow Turban Rebellion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Turban_Rebellion) was influenced by classical Taoism. As I understand it, the book of their teachings (太平要術) was wiped out. Some stories seem to describe this book as a magic spellbook that could summon spirit armies to do battle with the landlord forces. Sounds like a metaphor for a revolutionary text!


Nearly all of the religious practices of the sect were communal activities (collective trances, fasts). A typical worship service consisted largely of music and chanting, the burning of incense, and sermons or anecdotes that could be given by any member of the congregation including women and those perceived as barbarians. While many of the beliefs of the early Path of Supreme Peace have been lost, it is very likely that they had some relation to the Celestial Masters sect considering Zhang Jiao claimed to be a descendant of Zhang Daoling.