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<blockquote class="definition">'''Daoism''' (a.k.a. Taoism) is the oldest indigenous philosophic-spiritual tradition of China, an organized religious and contemplative tradition that has been continuously developing and transforming itself in China (and later Korea, Japan, and the wider world) for over two thousand years.<ref>Miller, James. ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide.'' Oxford: Oneworld, 2008. Preface; Littlejohn, Ronnie. ''Daoism: An Introduction.'' London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Introduction.</ref> Its roots lie in the classical period of Chinese civilization, with its two foundational texts — the ''Daode jing'' (c. 4th century BCE), attributed to the legendary [[Laozi]], and the ''Zhuangzi'' (c. 4th–3rd century BCE), associated with [[Chuang Tzu|Zhuang Zhou]] — emerging during the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BCE), and its organized religious forms beginning with the Way of the Celestial Masters in 142 CE,<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Timeline of Daoist history and Historical Introduction.</ref> with "the revelation of the Tao to [[Zhang Daoling]] by the personified god of the Tao, [[Taishang laojun]], the Highest Venerable Lord." The tradition takes its name from the ''dao'' (way, path), the mysterious, unnameable process that generates, permeates, and animates all of reality; its essential nature is not faith in an eternal, unchanging deity — Daoism has no supreme being — but the recognition and celebration of the profound creativity within the fabric of time and space itself, and the cultivation of harmony, spontaneity, and union with that process.<ref>Littlejohn, ''Daoism: An Introduction,'' "What Is Daoism?"; Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Preface: "Whereas Western religionists seek to place their trust in an unchanging and invisible stability... Daoists recognize and celebrate the profound and mysterious creativity within the very fabric of time and space itself."</ref>
<blockquote class="definition">[[File:Yin-yang.jpg|200px|thumb|right|Taijitu — diagram of the [[Taiji|Supreme Ultimate]]]]'''Daoism''' (a.k.a. Taoism) is China's oldest indigenous philosophical, religious, and contemplative tradition: a continuously developing family of texts, practices, communities, rituals, and cosmologies organized around the [[Dao]] — the unnameable Way that generates, permeates, and animates reality. Its classical foundations are the ''[[Dao De Jing]]'' and the ''[[Zhuangzi]]''; its organized religious history begins with the [[Celestial Masters]] in 142 CE and later includes the [[Shangqing]], [[Lingbao]], and [[Quanzhen]] traditions.The word itself means "way." "Its character consists of the signs for eye and walking plus a cross indicating direction."<ref>Livia Kohn, ''Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation'' (Routlede, 2020). 15.</ref> It refers both to a road and a "method and related explanations."<ref>Livia Kohn, ''Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation'' (Routlede, 2020). 15.</ref> Its recurring concern is transformation: the cultivation of harmony, spontaneity, longevity, and union with the Dao within a living cosmos.<ref>Miller, James. ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide.'' Oxford: Oneworld, 2008. Preface and Historical Introduction; Littlejohn, Ronnie L. ''Daoism: An Introduction.'' London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Introduction.</ref> In LP terms, Daoism is a major historical [[Connection Framework]] and [[Human Development Framework]], containing sophisticated accounts of [[Connection]], [[Alignment]], embodied cultivation, and social harmony, while also displaying recurring vulnerabilities to elitism, magical literalism, political capture, and institutional hierarchy.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
== Concept Map ==
== Concept Map ==
===Key Terms===
[[World System]] > {{#ask:[[Is a key term::World System]]|format=ul}}
=== Key Terms ===
[[World System]] > {{#ask:[[Is a key term::World System]]|format=ul}}
[[Human Development Framework]] > {{#ask:[[Is a key term::Human Development Framework]]|format=ul}}
[[Human Development Framework]] > {{#ask:[[Is a key term::Human Development Framework]]|format=ul}}
* [[Xinzhai]] / [[Fasting of the Mind]] > [[Connection Practice]]
* Sage (shengren) / Perfected Person (zhenren) > [[Perfection]]
* [[Zuowang]] / [[Sitting in Forgetfulness]] > [[Connection Practice]]
* Immortality (xian) > (often) a metaphor for [[Connection Outcome|connection outcomes]]
* Sage (''shengren'') / Perfected Person (''[[zhenren]]'') > [[Perfection]] and [[Full Realization]]
* [[Xian]] / immortality > transformed [[Connection Outcome|connection outcomes]]; not automatically literal personal immortality
* [[Great Peace]] > [[Harmonic Social Structure]]
* [[Yin]] and [[Yang]] > [[Formation]] and [[Force]]
=== Daoism Terms ===
=== The Three Teachings ===
{{#ask:[[Is a term::Daoism]]|format=ul}}
[[The Three Teachings]] > {{#ask:[[Is a::Three teaching]]|format=ul}}
===Key Figures===
=== The Six Schools ===
{{#ask:[[Is a key figure::Daoism]]|format=ul}}
[[The Six Schools]] > {{#ask:[[Is a::Chinese six school]]|format=ul}}
===Related LP Terms===
== Notes ==
[[Daoism]] > {{#ask:[[Is a related LP term::Daoism]]|format=ul}}
=== Historical Placement ===
===Non-LP Related Terms===
Daoism emerged from early Chinese religious and cosmological traditions, including ancestor veneration, divination, sacrifice, spirit mediation, the bureaucratic imagination of the otherworld, Heaven (''[[tian]]''), yin-yang thought, and the five-phase cosmology associated with the ''[[Yijing]]''. Its classical textual foundations appeared during the Warring States period: the ''[[Dao De Jing]]'' (c. fourth century BCE, with the Guodian bamboo-strip version dating to c. 300 BCE) and the ''[[Zhuangzi]]'' (inner chapters c. fourth–third centuries BCE).<ref>Kohn, Livia. ''Introducing Daoism.'' London: Routledge, 2009. "Background to Daoism"; Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Historical Introduction and Timeline.</ref>
[[Daoism]] > {{#ask:[[Is a related term::Daoism]]|format=ul}}
* '''142 CE''' — [[Zhang Daoling]] founded the Way of Orthodox Unity, commonly called the [[Celestial Masters]], after a revelation from the deified [[Laozi]] or Lord Lao. This marked the beginning of Daoism as an organized communal religion.<ref>Kohn, Livia, ed. ''The Taoist Experience: An Anthology.'' Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. pp. 3–5; Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Historical Introduction.</ref>
* '''Fourth–fifth centuries CE''' — The [[Shangqing]] revelations received through Yang Xi and the [[Lingbao]] scriptures associated with Ge Chaofu transformed Daoism through revealed scriptures, visualization, meditation, ritual, and a more elaborate sacred cosmology.<ref>Kohn, ''The Taoist Experience,'' pp. 4–5.</ref>
* '''Tang dynasty (618–906)''' — Daoism reached a high point of imperial patronage and institutional development. The ruling Li family claimed descent from Laozi, and Daoism functioned as a state-supported religion.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Major Schools of the Middle Ages."</ref>
* '''Song dynasty onward''' — Daoism increasingly interacted with Buddhism, Confucianism, and popular religion. [[Quanzhen]] or Complete Perfection emerged as the major monastic tradition, emphasizing internal alchemy (''[[neidan]]'') and the harmonization of the [[Three Teachings]].<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Historical Introduction.</ref>
* '''1445''' — The Ming court sponsored compilation of the ''[[Daozang]]'', or Daoist Canon, containing roughly 1,500 texts.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Timeline.</ref>
* '''Modern period''' — Daoism suffered severe institutional destruction, especially during the Cultural Revolution, followed by controlled revival in mainland China, continued vitality in Taiwan and the diaspora, and global diffusion through qigong, taijiquan, translation, and popular spirituality.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Historical Introduction; Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Daoism in China Today"; Goossaert, Vincent, and Xun Liu, eds. ''Daoism in Modern China.'' Abingdon: Routledge, 2021.</ref>
==Notes==
=== Three Dimensions ===
The first organized school of Taoism was the Orthodox Unity or Celestial Masters school, founded by Zhang Daoling in 142 C.E. after a revelation by "the personified god of the Tao, Taishang laujun, the Highest Venerable Lord" <ref>Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. State University of New York, 1993. p. 3.</ref>
Daoism has three basic dimensions or divisions, literati, communal, and self-cultivation. They are not mutually exclusive. To be a complete Daoist one must "follow all three paths: studying worldview and being socially responsible, performing rituals and praying to the gods, and undertaking self-cultivation for health and spiritual advancement."<ref>Livia Kohn, ''Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation'' (Routlede, 2020). 5.</ref>
"There were various precursors of this first organized school of Taoism. First, in terms of doctrine, there were the ancient philosophers of the Tao, Laozi and Zhuangzi with their major works Daode jing (Scripture of the Tao and the Virtue) and Zhuangzi (fourth and third centuries B.C.E.). Describing the world as created and sup¬ported by the Tao, encouraging people to pursue simplicity and spiritual cultivation in order to recover and realize this all encompassing force, and developing the ideal of the sage and the perfect human being, these works furnished the conceptual framework for the later religion."<ref>Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. State University of New York, 1993. p. 4.</ref>
* "'''Literati Daoists''' are members of the educated elite who apply Daoist philosophical ideas, usually in reference to the early thinkers, to create meaning in their world and hope to exert some influence on the political and social situation of their time."<ref>Livia Kohn, ''Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation'' (Routlede, 2020). 4.</ref> They are highly active in society, are closely connected with Confucianism and pursue self-cultivation through philosophical reflection as well as contemplative meditation.
* '''Communal Daoists,''' like Literati, are found in many different positions and levels of society. "They are members of organized Daoist groups, complete with priestly hierarchies, formal initiations, regular rituals, and prayers to the gods. Some organizations are tightly controlled fraternities with secret rites or monastic institutions with limited contact to the outside world. Others are part of ordinary society, centered on neighborhood temples and concerned with the affairs of ordinary life—weddings and funerals, protection and exorcism."<ref>Livia Kohn, ''Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation'' (Routlede, 2020). 4.</ref>
* Self-cultivation Daoists focus on self-cultivation or "nurturing life (yangsheng) utilizing various methods of personal refinement—diet, herbal remedies, sexual hygiene, breathing techniques, exercise, and meditation. They, too, come from all walks of life, but rather than philosophical inspiration or communal rites, their main concern is the attainment of perfect health, extended longevity, and cosmic oneness. They tend to pay little attention to political or community involvement, and their organizations depend strongly on the master-discipline relationships.<ref>Livia Kohn, ''Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation'' (Routlede, 2020). 5.</ref>
Early Taoist schools were formed around revelatory/mystical experience.
=== Foundational Texts ===
The first organized school of Taoism was the '''Orthodox Unity or Celestial Masters school''', founded by Zhang Daoling in 142 C.E. after a revelation by "the personified god of the Tao, Taishang laujun, the Highest Venerable Lord" <ref>Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. State University of New York, 1993. p. 3.</ref>
"There were various precursors of this first organized school of Taoism. First, in terms of doctrine, there were the ancient philosophers of the Tao, Laozi and Zhuangzi with their major works Daode jing (Scripture of the Tao and the Virtue) and Zhuangzi (fourth and third centuries B.C.E.). Describing the world as created and sup¬ ported by the Tao, encouraging people to pursue simplicity and spiritual cultivation in order to recover and realize this all-encompassing force, and developing the ideal of the sage and the perfect human being, these works furnished the conceptual framework for the later religion."<ref>Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. State University of New York, 1993. p. 4.</ref>
"The second major Taoist school was the school of '''Highest Clarity''' (Shangqing). It began with a revelation from the Heaven of Highest Clarity received by the medium Yang Xi in 364-70. Yang Xi was a member of a southern aristocratic clan, and the new scriptures and insights into the realms of the otherworld transmitted to him remained at first limited to this select group."<ref>Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. State University of New York, 1993. p. 5.</ref>
"A few decades after the Shangqing revelations, Ge Chaofu, a member of the Ge family, proceeded to develop his own vision of the otherworld. Calling his new understanding Numinous Treasure ( Lingbao), he integrated the Highest Clarity scriptures with Han dynasty thinking, Buddhist cosmology and doctrine, as well as the magico-technical practices transmitted within his family."<ref>Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. State University of New York, 1993. p. 5.</ref>
===Historical Placement===
* '''The ''[[Dao De Jing]]''''' (道德經, "Classic of the Way and Its Power") — c. fourth century BCE. Traditionally attributed to [[Laozi]], it supplies core vocabulary including Dao, [[De]], [[Wuwei]], [[Ziran]], yin-yang, the sage, emptiness, and simplicity. The oldest surviving version is the Guodian bamboo manuscript; the Mawangdui silk manuscripts provide another early witness. The received text contains eighty-one short chapters.
* '''The ''[[Zhuangzi]]''''' (莊子) — c. fourth–third centuries BCE. Associated with [[Chuang Tzu|Zhuang Zhou]]. Its seven inner chapters form the philosophical and mystical core, while the outer and miscellaneous chapters preserve later and mixed-author material. Its style is literary, humorous, paradoxical, and suspicious of fixed concepts.
Daoism emerges from the soil of early Chinese civilization, inheriting from Shang dynasty religion its belief in a bureaucratically organized otherworld, veneration of ancestors, the ritual centrality of written language, and possibly its shamanic-ecstatic tendencies; from the Zhou it absorbed the belief in Heaven (tian) as an impersonal cosmic process, and the yin-yang / five-phases cosmology of the ''Yijing'' (Book of Changes).<ref>Kohn, Livia. ''Introducing Daoism.'' London: Routledge, 2009. "Background to Daoism."</ref> Its classical foundations were laid in the Warring States period with the ''Daode jing'' (c. 4th century BCE; a bamboo-strip version excavated at Guodian dates to c. 300 BCE) and the ''Zhuangzi'' (inner chapters c. 4th–3rd century BCE).<ref name="miller-hist">Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Historical Introduction and Timeline.</ref>
* '''The ''[[Yijing]]''''' (易經, "Book of Changes") — not exclusively Daoist, but foundational to Daoist cosmology, divination, alchemy, and correlative thought.
* '''142 CE''' — Zhang Ling (Zhang Daoling) founds the Way of Orthodox Unity / Celestial Masters (Zhengyi / Tianshi), the first organized Daoist religious community, after receiving a revelation from the deified Laozi (Lord Lao).<ref name="miller-hist"/>
* '''4th–5th centuries CE''' — The Shangqing (Highest Clarity) revelations through the medium Yang Xi (from 364 CE) and the Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) scriptures compiled by Ge Chaofu (390s) transform Daoism into a revealed religion with elaborate meditation, visualization, and ritual systems.<ref name="miller-hist"/>
* '''Tang dynasty (618–906)''' — Daoism's golden age: the ruling Li house claims descent from Laozi, and Daoism functions as a state religion.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Major Schools of the Middle Ages"; Miller, Timeline.</ref>
* '''Song dynasty onward''' — Increasing syncretism with Buddhism and popular cults; Wang Zhe (1113–1170) founds the Way of Complete Perfection (Quanzhen), the major monastic form of Daoism to this day, devoted to internal alchemy (neidan) and the "harmonization of the three teachings" (Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism).<ref name="miller-hist"/>
* '''1445''' — Compilation of the Daoist Canon (Daozang), some 1,500 texts, under Ming imperial patronage.<ref name="miller-hist"/>
* '''Modern period''' — "A near-total catastrophe" (Miller): temples destroyed and public practice effectively extinguished during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76); since 1980 a gradual revival in China under tight state control, alongside global spread through emigration and the worldwide popularity of Daoist-inspired arts such as qigong and taiji quan.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Historical Introduction; Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Daoism in China Today."</ref>
=== Foundational Texts ===
'''1. The [[Dao De Jing]] (道德經, "Classic of the Way and Its Power")''' — c. 4th century BCE. Attributed to the legendary [[Laozi]]. Roughly 5,000 characters in 81 short chapters, it establishes the core vocabulary of the entire tradition: Dao, de, wuwei, ziran, yin-yang, the sage, simplicity, emptiness. The oldest known version is the Guodian bamboo-strip manuscript (c. 300 BCE); the Mawangdui silk texts (168 BCE) come next. It is one of the most translated books in the world — over 300 English versions alone, per Kohn.
'''2. The [[Zhuangzi]] (莊子)''' — c. 4th–3rd century BCE. Associated with Zhuang Zhou ([[Chuang Tzu]]). The seven "inner chapters" are the philosophical core — the mystical heart of the tradition (fasting of th1e mind, sitting in forgetfulness, the Transformation of Things) — while the remaining 26 "outer" and "miscellaneous" chapters are later, mixed-author accretions. Where the ''Daode jing'' is terse and aphoristic, the ''Zhuangzi'' is literary, paradoxical, and humorous.
=== Key Philosophical and Religious Positions ===
'''''3.'' The [[Yijing]] (Book of Changes)''' — not a Daoist text per se (it's a shared Chinese classic), but foundational to Daoist cosmology, divination, and later alchemy.
'''The Dao as unnameable process.''' The Dao is the generative Way or process that permeates and animates reality. It is not a supreme person or creator god. Daoist deities are manifestations, expressions, or agents within the Dao, not beings identical with the Dao (道) itself.<ref>Littlejohn, ''Daoism: An Introduction,'' "What Is Daoism?"</ref>
===Key Philosophical and Theoretical Positions===
'''Transformation is fundamental.''' Daoism treats change not as an accident within an otherwise static order but as the basic condition of existence. Bodies, societies, seasons, persons, and worlds transform. Religious cultivation means learning to participate skillfully in transformation rather than attempting to impose permanent form upon it.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Preface and ch. 2, "Way."</ref>
'''The Dao as unnameable process.''' The Dao is "the energizing process that permeates and animates all of reality to move in its ongoing process" — yet it "cannot be described in words" ("Dao can be spoken of, [but it is] not the constant Dao," ''Daode jing'' ch. 1). Crucially, the Dao is not a supreme being: "Daoism has no supreme being." Deities of the Daoist pantheon are expressions of the Dao in specific ''shen'' (spirits/gods), not identical with it.<ref>Littlejohn, ''Daoism: An Introduction,'' "What Is Daoism?"</ref>
'''Wuwei and ziran.''' ''[[Wuwei]]'' is often translated as nonaction, but it does not mean simple passivity. It means action without ego-driven force, coercion, or interference. ''[[Ziran]]'' means naturalness or "self-so-ness": the unforced condition of things when they are permitted to unfold according to their own patterns.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "The Dao That Can't Be Told."</ref>
'''Transformation, not stasis, is fundamental.''' "The human experience of change or transformation in our bodies and in the world around us lies at the heart of the Daoist experience in much the same way that faith in an eternal, unchanging deity lies at the heart of the Jewish–Christian–Islamic religious system." The universe is dynamic and alive, moving to a binary cosmic pulse of expansion and contraction; transformation is constant but regular and, in principle, understandable.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Preface and ch. 2 "Way."</ref>
'''Yin-yang and qi.''' Daoist cosmology understands phenomena through complementary processes of [[Yin]] and [[Yang]] and through ''[[qi]]'', the vital energy or subtle material force connecting living beings and cosmic processes. These are relational terms, not a metaphysical dualism of good and evil.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Cosmos, Gods, and Governance."</ref>
'''Wuwei (nonaction) and ziran (naturalness).''' The way to be with the Dao is through ''wuwei'' and ''ziran''. Wuwei does not mean doing nothing; it means "letting go of egotistic concerns... abstain[ing] from forceful and interfering measures that cause tensions and disruption in favor of gentleness, adaptation, and ease." ''Ziran'' — literally "self-so," the so-of-itself — names the unforced spontaneity of things when they are not interfered with.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "The Dao That Can't Be Told" (on ''Daode jing'' ch. 64).</ref>
'''Freedom through inner cultivation.''' The ''Zhuangzi'' develops a mystical path of release from conditioned values and social striving. Practices such as fasting of the mind (''[[xinzhai]]'') and sitting in forgetfulness (''[[zuowang]]'') empty habitual cognition so that the Dao may gather in emptiness.<ref>Watson, Burton, trans. ''The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Introduction and secs. 4, 6.</ref>
'''Yin-yang and qi.''' All phenomena arise from the complementary oscillation of yin and yang, and all existence is connected by ''qi'', "the subtle flowing force that connects all existence," a vital energy that is "utterly empty and matches all things."<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Cosmos, Gods, and Governance" and "At Ease in Perfect Happiness."</ref>
'''The body as a site of transformation.''' Religious Daoism developed dietetics, breath cultivation, healing exercises, sexual cultivation, visualization, ritual, laboratory alchemy (''[[waidan]]''), and internal alchemy (''[[neidan]]''). These practices aim at health, longevity, energetic refinement, and transformation rather than rejection of the body.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' chs. "Body" and "Alchemy"; Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "From Health to Immortality" and "Religious Practices."</ref>
'''Freedom through inner cultivation.''' From the ''Zhuangzi'' onward, the tradition's mystical core teaches liberation from the "baggage" of conventional values and union with the Dao through meditative emptying — "fasting of the mind" (xinzhai) and "sitting in oblivion/forgetfulness" (zuowang) — culminating in a state of open emptiness in which "the Way gathers in emptiness alone."<ref>Watson, Burton, trans. ''The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu.'' New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Introduction and secs. 4, 6; Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "At Ease in Perfect Happiness."</ref> See the SpiritWiki entry on [[Chuang Tzu]].
'''No simple philosophy/religion split.''' The older Western distinction between a pure philosophical Daoism (''daojia'') and a degenerate religious Daoism (''daojiao'') misrepresents the tradition. Classical texts, ritual systems, communal ethics, meditation, gods, healing, alchemy, and institutional forms overlap throughout Daoist history.<ref>Littlejohn, ''Daoism: An Introduction,'' "What Is Daoism?"</ref>
'''Longevity, immortality, and alchemy.''' Religious Daoism developed an unmatched repertoire of body technologies: dietetics, breathing exercises, healing gymnastics (daoyin), sexual hygiene, visualization of body gods, operative laboratory alchemy (waidan), and — dominant since the Song — internal alchemy (neidan), in which "the energies of the body are refined through breathing and other forms of meditation into ever subtler forms, thus promoting longevity and even, in a few rare cases, the possibility of totally transcending the ordinary finitudes of human existence."<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Historical Introduction; Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "From Health to Immortality."</ref>
=== What Distinguishes Daoism? ===
'''No philosophy/religion split.''' The once-common Western distinction between "philosophical Daoism" (daojia) and "religious Daoism" (daojiao) is now regarded by scholars as "false and without merit"; the tradition is a single living continuum in which practices and beliefs were always "ways to freedom and illumination."<ref>Littlejohn, ''Daoism: An Introduction,'' "What Is Daoism?" (following Isabelle Robinet).</ref>
'''From Confucianism.''' Confucianism emphasizes ritual propriety, relational responsibility, cultivated character, and moral governance. Daoism often criticizes excessive ritual artifice and conventional striving in favor of naturalness, spontaneity, emptiness, and wuwei. The contrast is real but should not be absolutized: Daoist institutions have also used ritual, hierarchy, moral codes, and political alliances.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Background to Daoism" and "The Nature and Study of Daoism."</ref>
===Key Terms and Definitions (Preliminary Reference)===
'''From Buddhism.''' Buddhism entered China from India and generally frames its soteriology through suffering, impermanence, and liberation from rebirth. Daoism is indigenous to China and tends to affirm body, longevity, nature, and transformation within the world. The traditions nevertheless influenced one another deeply, especially in Chan/Zen, Lingbao ritual, and medieval debate.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Preface; Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "The Zen Connection."</ref>
* '''[[Dao]]''' — the Way; the unnameable generative process underlying and animating all reality.
'''From Western monotheism.''' Daoism does not center faith in an eternal creator deity. Its ultimate is not a divine person but an unnameable process, and its sacred figures are transformations, manifestations, or perfected beings within that process.<ref>Littlejohn, ''Daoism: An Introduction,'' Introduction.</ref>
* The [[Great Peace]]
* '''[[De]]''' — "virtue/power"; the Dao as expressed or realized in a particular being.
* '''[[Wuwei]]''' — nonaction; action without ego-driven force or striving.
* '''[[Yin-Yang]]''' — the complementary cosmic forces whose oscillation generates all phenomena.
* '''[[Qi]]''' — vital energy; the subtle flowing force connecting all existence.
* '''[[Five Phases]]''' (wuxing) — the five dynamic modalities (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) of cosmic process.
* '''[[Daode jing]]''' — the foundational scripture, attributed to Laozi (c. 4th c. BCE).
* '''[[Zhuangzi]]''' — the second foundational text, associated with Zhuang Zhou ([[Chuang Tzu]]).
* '''[[Laozi]]''' — the "Old Master," legendary author of the ''Daode jing'', later deified as Lord Lao, a cosmic manifestation of the Dao.
* '''[[Zhenren]]''' — the "Perfected" or "True Person"; the Daoist ideal of the fully realized human being.
* '''[[Xian]]''' — immortal/transcendent; one who has transformed the limits of ordinary human existence.
* '''[[Neidan]]''' — internal alchemy; meditative refinement of body energies (essence, qi, spirit).
* '''[[Waidan]]''' — operative/laboratory alchemy; the compounding of elixirs.
* '''[[Tianshi|Celestial Masters]]''' (Tianshi / Zhengyi) — the oldest organized Daoist church, founded 142 CE; community-based priesthood to this day.
* '''[[Shangqing]]''' (Highest Clarity) — medieval revelation-based school emphasizing visualization and meditation.
* '''[[Lingbao]]''' (Numinous Treasure) — medieval school that integrated Buddhist elements into Daoist ritual.
* '''[[Quanzhen]]''' (Complete Perfection) — monastic order founded by Wang Zhe; dominant monastic form today.
* '''[[Daozang]]''' — the Daoist Canon (1445), c. 1,500 texts.
===What Distinguishes Daoism from Other Chinese Philosophies===
=== Lightning Path Contextualization ===
'''Versus Confucianism.''' Confucianism focuses on ritual formality (''li'') as its key method, sees society as hierarchically structured, and aims at the moral cultivation of the junzi (exemplary person) within social roles; it is "the basically optimistic and strongly political-minded philosophy" of the Zhou-lineage states. Daoism, by contrast, prizes naturalness (''ziran'') over ritual artifice, wuwei over purposeful social action, and — especially in the ''Zhuangzi'' — answers the question of how to live in a chaotic world not with a program of reform but with mystical freedom from the world of conventional values.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Background to Daoism"; Watson, ''Complete Works of Chuang Tzu,'' Introduction.</ref> The contrast should not be overstated institutionally: religious Daoism has throughout its history extolled Confucian virtues and worked closely with Confucian governance.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "The Nature and Study of Daoism."</ref>
Read through the LP framework, Daoism is a major historical system of [[Connection]], [[Alignment]], embodied [[Healing]], and social imagination.
'''Versus Mohism and Legalism.''' The Mohists and Legalists, like the Confucians, proposed "concrete social, political, and ethical reforms" based on a common-sense approach; the Daoist answer (in its classical form) "is radically different... It is the answer of a mystic."<ref>Watson, ''Complete Works of Chuang Tzu,'' Introduction.</ref> Daoists do not share the Legalist urge to punish, though religious Daoist communities later created Legalist-style rules and organizations of their own.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Background to Daoism."</ref>
* '''Dao and the Fabric of Consciousness.''' The Daoist Dao, especially as the unnameable source and process of the ten thousand things, can be read as a syncretic analogue of the [[Fabric of Consciousness]]. The mapping is strongest where Dao names the generative ground of existence, weaker where it means a human path, doctrine, or ethical practice.
* '''Union with the Dao and Connection.''' The mystical goal of union or identity with the Dao is a clear historical analogue of [[Connection]]. The ''Zhuangzi'' gives especially strong descriptions of release from bounded egoic identity into participation in the underlying unity of existence.
* '''Daoist meditation and Connection Practice.''' Fasting of the mind, sitting in forgetfulness, visualization, breath cultivation, and internal alchemy are historically developed [[Connection Practice|connection practices]]. They should be described with attention to preparation, procedure, integration, and safety rather than romanticized as exotic techniques.
* '''Wuwei and Aligned Action.''' Wuwei is a close analogue of [[Aligned Action]]: action that flows with deeper patterns rather than from the grasping, defensive, or dominating agendas of the disconnected [[Bodily Ego]].
* '''The body and the Physical Unit.''' Daoist body cultivation provides a sophisticated historical archive for understanding the [[Physical Unit]] as a participant in connection rather than an obstacle to be escaped.
* '''Great Peace and the Harmonic Social Structure.''' The Daoist [[Great Peace]] imagines a healed social and cosmic order in which human beings, institutions, and natural forces circulate without blockage. It is an important historical analogue of the LP [[Harmonic Social Structure]].
'''Versus Buddhism.''' Buddhism entered China from India in the Han; Daoism is China's indigenous tradition. Where classical Buddhism frames the human problem in terms of suffering, impermanence, and release from rebirth, Daoism affirms the body and the world: its soteriology aims at the refinement and transformation of the physical-energetic person toward longevity, harmony, and transcendence within nature, not escape from embodiment.<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Preface and chs. "Body" and "Alchemy"; Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "From Health to Immortality."</ref> The two traditions cross-fertilized deeply (Lingbao ritual, Chan/Zen's debt to the ''Zhuangzi''), and medieval Daoist–Buddhist court debates were a recurring feature of Chinese religious history.<ref name="miller-hist"/>
=== Cautions and Distortions ===
'''No single founder, no single message.''' "Daoism has no single founder, such as Jesus or the Buddha, nor does it have a single key message, such as the gospel or the four noble truths. Rather Daoism bears witness to a history of continuous self-invention within a vast diversity of environmental contexts."<ref>Miller, ''Daoism: A Beginner's Guide,'' Preface.</ref>
* '''Do not reduce Daoism to "going with the flow."''' Daoist practice includes discipline, ritual, communal ethics, technical knowledge, institutional organization, and sustained cultivation.
* '''Do not separate "pure philosophy" from "religious corruption."''' That distinction reflects later scholarly and colonial habits more than the lived tradition.
* '''Do not equate the Dao with God.''' The Dao is not a supreme being, creator person, or cosmic monarch.
* '''Do not literalize every immortality image.''' Some traditions pursued literal longevity and transcendence; others used immortality symbolically or soteriologically. The LP should distinguish connection outcomes from magical power-seeking.
* '''Name institutional capture.''' Daoist institutions have at times served imperial courts, reproduced hierarchy, excluded women, or accommodated coercive states. Modern Chinese Daoism also operates under conditions of state regulation. These are not incidental details; they are part of any LP analysis of tradition, power, and distortion.
* '''Avoid colonial wellness extraction.''' Qigong, taijiquan, and Daoist meditation should not be stripped from their cosmological, communal, and ethical contexts and repackaged merely as productivity or self-optimization tools.
===Lightning Path Contextualization===
=== Assessment ===
Read through the LP framework, Daoism is one of the world's great [[Perennial Philosophy|perennial]] systems of [[Connection]], and arguably the one with the most fully developed vocabulary for it.
Daoism's enduring contribution to the human connection archive is fourfold: its vision of ultimate reality as process rather than person; its disciplined technologies of emptying, alignment, and embodied transformation; its ethical preference for gentleness, flexibility, and non-contention; and its imagination of social harmony through the [[Great Peace]]. Its major limitations, from an LP perspective, are its weak account of systemic oppression, its occasional political quietism, its periods of institutional hierarchy, and its recurrent degeneration into elixir-hunting, magical literalism, or elite secrecy.
* '''The Dao and the Fabric of Consciousness.''' The Dao — the unnameable, non-personal, generative process "that permeates and animates all of reality" — maps naturally onto the [[Fabric of Consciousness]]: not a supreme being (Daoism has none) but the underlying unity in which all things exist and of which they are expressions. The ''Daode jing'''s insistence that the speakable Dao is not the constant Dao matches the LP caution that [[Connection Experience]] and its object are ultimately beyond linguistic capture.
== Quotes ==
* '''Union with the Dao = Connection.''' The classical mystical goal — the Zhuangzian sage who "merges himself with Tao, or the Way, the underlying unity that embraces man, Nature, and all that is in the universe" — is precisely what the LP calls [[Connection]]: the unification of the [[Bodily Ego]] with something larger than the boundaries of the physical body.<ref>Watson, ''Complete Works of Chuang Tzu,'' Introduction, p. 6.</ref>
<blockquote>...the term has been used philosophically to indicate the way of the universe, the way human beings are in the world, the best way of social integration, the way of rulership, and more.<ref>Livia Kohn, ''Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation'' (Routlede, 2020). 15.</ref> </blockquote>
* '''Daoist meditation = Connection Practice.''' "Fasting of the mind" (xinzhai) and "sitting in oblivion" (zuowang) are among the oldest clearly documented [[Connection Practice|connection practices]] in the world: disciplined, staged procedures for emptying the conditioned mind ("Don't listen with your ears, listen with your mind... listen with your spirit") so that "the Way gathers in emptiness alone." Later neidan (internal alchemy) constitutes a sophisticated, body-based technology of connection cultivation.
* '''Wuwei = Aligned Action.''' Wuwei — action without ego-driven striving, "not founded upon any purposeful motives of gain" — is a close classical analogue of [[Aligned Action]]: action flowing from concordance with the deeper Self rather than from the defensive, grasping agendas of the disconnected [[Bodily Ego]].
* '''The "baggage" = Archetypal Wrong Thought.''' Chuang Tzu's diagnosis that "man is the author of his own suffering and bondage," trapped in a self-created "web of values" (right/wrong, good/bad, success/failure), parallels the LP analysis of [[Archetypal Wrong Thought]] and the conditioned ego produced by [[Toxic Socialization]] — though classical Daoism lacks a sociological account of ''who'' manufactures the conditioning and ''why''.<ref>Watson, ''Complete Works of Chuang Tzu,'' Introduction.</ref>
* '''Cautions.''' Two LP-relevant qualifications. First, Watson's observation that Zhuangzian descriptions of the impervious, trance-wandering sage were later literalized into magical immortality cults is a textbook example of [[Old Energy]] degeneration: a connection teaching concretized into personal power-seeking.<ref>Watson, ''Complete Works of Chuang Tzu,'' Introduction, pp. 7–8.</ref> Second, institutional Daoism's entanglement with imperial courts, and its modern subordination to the Chinese party-state (state-owned temples, mandatory Marxism courses for ordinands), shows how vulnerable even a "freedom"-centered tradition is to capture by the [[Accumulating Class|accumulating order]] and its administrative machinery.<ref>Kohn, ''Introducing Daoism,'' "Daoism in China Today."</ref>
* '''Assessment.''' Daoism's enduring contribution to the human connection archive: the clearest ancient articulation that the ultimate ground of reality is process, not person; a sophisticated technology of inner cultivation aimed directly at union with that ground; and an ethical orientation — gentleness, non-contention, non-violence toward the natural flow — broadly consonant with [[Ahimsa|ahimsa]]. Its limitations, from an LP standpoint: an underdeveloped sociology (no account of systemic oppression as the source of disconnection), periodic degeneration into elixir-hunting and magic, and a classical quietism that could counsel withdrawal where the LP would counsel [[Aligned Action|engaged transformation]].
Daoism (a.k.a. Taoism) is China's oldest indigenous philosophical, religious, and contemplative tradition: a continuously developing family of texts, practices, communities, rituals, and cosmologies organized around the Dao — the unnameable Way that generates, permeates, and animates reality. Its classical foundations are the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi; its organized religious history begins with the Celestial Masters in 142 CE and later includes the Shangqing, Lingbao, and Quanzhen traditions.The word itself means "way." "Its character consists of the signs for eye and walking plus a cross indicating direction."[1] It refers both to a road and a "method and related explanations."[2] Its recurring concern is transformation: the cultivation of harmony, spontaneity, longevity, and union with the Dao within a living cosmos.[3] In LP terms, Daoism is a major historical Connection Framework and Human Development Framework, containing sophisticated accounts of Connection, Alignment, embodied cultivation, and social harmony, while also displaying recurring vulnerabilities to elitism, magical literalism, political capture, and institutional hierarchy.
Daoism emerged from early Chinese religious and cosmological traditions, including ancestor veneration, divination, sacrifice, spirit mediation, the bureaucratic imagination of the otherworld, Heaven (tian), yin-yang thought, and the five-phase cosmology associated with the Yijing. Its classical textual foundations appeared during the Warring States period: the Dao De Jing (c. fourth century BCE, with the Guodian bamboo-strip version dating to c. 300 BCE) and the Zhuangzi (inner chapters c. fourth–third centuries BCE).[4]
142 CE — Zhang Daoling founded the Way of Orthodox Unity, commonly called the Celestial Masters, after a revelation from the deified Laozi or Lord Lao. This marked the beginning of Daoism as an organized communal religion.[5]
Fourth–fifth centuries CE — The Shangqing revelations received through Yang Xi and the Lingbao scriptures associated with Ge Chaofu transformed Daoism through revealed scriptures, visualization, meditation, ritual, and a more elaborate sacred cosmology.[6]
Tang dynasty (618–906) — Daoism reached a high point of imperial patronage and institutional development. The ruling Li family claimed descent from Laozi, and Daoism functioned as a state-supported religion.[7]
Song dynasty onward — Daoism increasingly interacted with Buddhism, Confucianism, and popular religion. Quanzhen or Complete Perfection emerged as the major monastic tradition, emphasizing internal alchemy (neidan) and the harmonization of the Three Teachings.[8]
1445 — The Ming court sponsored compilation of the Daozang, or Daoist Canon, containing roughly 1,500 texts.[9]
Modern period — Daoism suffered severe institutional destruction, especially during the Cultural Revolution, followed by controlled revival in mainland China, continued vitality in Taiwan and the diaspora, and global diffusion through qigong, taijiquan, translation, and popular spirituality.[10]
Three Dimensions
Daoism has three basic dimensions or divisions, literati, communal, and self-cultivation. They are not mutually exclusive. To be a complete Daoist one must "follow all three paths: studying worldview and being socially responsible, performing rituals and praying to the gods, and undertaking self-cultivation for health and spiritual advancement."[11]
"Literati Daoists are members of the educated elite who apply Daoist philosophical ideas, usually in reference to the early thinkers, to create meaning in their world and hope to exert some influence on the political and social situation of their time."[12] They are highly active in society, are closely connected with Confucianism and pursue self-cultivation through philosophical reflection as well as contemplative meditation.
Communal Daoists, like Literati, are found in many different positions and levels of society. "They are members of organized Daoist groups, complete with priestly hierarchies, formal initiations, regular rituals, and prayers to the gods. Some organizations are tightly controlled fraternities with secret rites or monastic institutions with limited contact to the outside world. Others are part of ordinary society, centered on neighborhood temples and concerned with the affairs of ordinary life—weddings and funerals, protection and exorcism."[13]
Self-cultivation Daoists focus on self-cultivation or "nurturing life (yangsheng) utilizing various methods of personal refinement—diet, herbal remedies, sexual hygiene, breathing techniques, exercise, and meditation. They, too, come from all walks of life, but rather than philosophical inspiration or communal rites, their main concern is the attainment of perfect health, extended longevity, and cosmic oneness. They tend to pay little attention to political or community involvement, and their organizations depend strongly on the master-discipline relationships.[14]
Foundational Texts
The Dao De Jing (道德經, "Classic of the Way and Its Power") — c. fourth century BCE. Traditionally attributed to Laozi, it supplies core vocabulary including Dao, De, Wuwei, Ziran, yin-yang, the sage, emptiness, and simplicity. The oldest surviving version is the Guodian bamboo manuscript; the Mawangdui silk manuscripts provide another early witness. The received text contains eighty-one short chapters.
The Zhuangzi (莊子) — c. fourth–third centuries BCE. Associated with Zhuang Zhou. Its seven inner chapters form the philosophical and mystical core, while the outer and miscellaneous chapters preserve later and mixed-author material. Its style is literary, humorous, paradoxical, and suspicious of fixed concepts.
The Yijing (易經, "Book of Changes") — not exclusively Daoist, but foundational to Daoist cosmology, divination, alchemy, and correlative thought.
Key Philosophical and Religious Positions
The Dao as unnameable process. The Dao is the generative Way or process that permeates and animates reality. It is not a supreme person or creator god. Daoist deities are manifestations, expressions, or agents within the Dao, not beings identical with the Dao (道) itself.[15]
Transformation is fundamental. Daoism treats change not as an accident within an otherwise static order but as the basic condition of existence. Bodies, societies, seasons, persons, and worlds transform. Religious cultivation means learning to participate skillfully in transformation rather than attempting to impose permanent form upon it.[16]
Wuwei and ziran.Wuwei is often translated as nonaction, but it does not mean simple passivity. It means action without ego-driven force, coercion, or interference. Ziran means naturalness or "self-so-ness": the unforced condition of things when they are permitted to unfold according to their own patterns.[17]
Yin-yang and qi. Daoist cosmology understands phenomena through complementary processes of Yin and Yang and through qi, the vital energy or subtle material force connecting living beings and cosmic processes. These are relational terms, not a metaphysical dualism of good and evil.[18]
Freedom through inner cultivation. The Zhuangzi develops a mystical path of release from conditioned values and social striving. Practices such as fasting of the mind (xinzhai) and sitting in forgetfulness (zuowang) empty habitual cognition so that the Dao may gather in emptiness.[19]
The body as a site of transformation. Religious Daoism developed dietetics, breath cultivation, healing exercises, sexual cultivation, visualization, ritual, laboratory alchemy (waidan), and internal alchemy (neidan). These practices aim at health, longevity, energetic refinement, and transformation rather than rejection of the body.[20]
No simple philosophy/religion split. The older Western distinction between a pure philosophical Daoism (daojia) and a degenerate religious Daoism (daojiao) misrepresents the tradition. Classical texts, ritual systems, communal ethics, meditation, gods, healing, alchemy, and institutional forms overlap throughout Daoist history.[21]
What Distinguishes Daoism?
From Confucianism. Confucianism emphasizes ritual propriety, relational responsibility, cultivated character, and moral governance. Daoism often criticizes excessive ritual artifice and conventional striving in favor of naturalness, spontaneity, emptiness, and wuwei. The contrast is real but should not be absolutized: Daoist institutions have also used ritual, hierarchy, moral codes, and political alliances.[22]
From Buddhism. Buddhism entered China from India and generally frames its soteriology through suffering, impermanence, and liberation from rebirth. Daoism is indigenous to China and tends to affirm body, longevity, nature, and transformation within the world. The traditions nevertheless influenced one another deeply, especially in Chan/Zen, Lingbao ritual, and medieval debate.[23]
From Western monotheism. Daoism does not center faith in an eternal creator deity. Its ultimate is not a divine person but an unnameable process, and its sacred figures are transformations, manifestations, or perfected beings within that process.[24]
Lightning Path Contextualization
Read through the LP framework, Daoism is a major historical system of Connection, Alignment, embodied Healing, and social imagination.
Dao and the Fabric of Consciousness. The Daoist Dao, especially as the unnameable source and process of the ten thousand things, can be read as a syncretic analogue of the Fabric of Consciousness. The mapping is strongest where Dao names the generative ground of existence, weaker where it means a human path, doctrine, or ethical practice.
Union with the Dao and Connection. The mystical goal of union or identity with the Dao is a clear historical analogue of Connection. The Zhuangzi gives especially strong descriptions of release from bounded egoic identity into participation in the underlying unity of existence.
Daoist meditation and Connection Practice. Fasting of the mind, sitting in forgetfulness, visualization, breath cultivation, and internal alchemy are historically developed connection practices. They should be described with attention to preparation, procedure, integration, and safety rather than romanticized as exotic techniques.
Wuwei and Aligned Action. Wuwei is a close analogue of Aligned Action: action that flows with deeper patterns rather than from the grasping, defensive, or dominating agendas of the disconnected Bodily Ego.
The body and the Physical Unit. Daoist body cultivation provides a sophisticated historical archive for understanding the Physical Unit as a participant in connection rather than an obstacle to be escaped.
Great Peace and the Harmonic Social Structure. The Daoist Great Peace imagines a healed social and cosmic order in which human beings, institutions, and natural forces circulate without blockage. It is an important historical analogue of the LP Harmonic Social Structure.
Cautions and Distortions
Do not reduce Daoism to "going with the flow." Daoist practice includes discipline, ritual, communal ethics, technical knowledge, institutional organization, and sustained cultivation.
Do not separate "pure philosophy" from "religious corruption." That distinction reflects later scholarly and colonial habits more than the lived tradition.
Do not equate the Dao with God. The Dao is not a supreme being, creator person, or cosmic monarch.
Do not literalize every immortality image. Some traditions pursued literal longevity and transcendence; others used immortality symbolically or soteriologically. The LP should distinguish connection outcomes from magical power-seeking.
Name institutional capture. Daoist institutions have at times served imperial courts, reproduced hierarchy, excluded women, or accommodated coercive states. Modern Chinese Daoism also operates under conditions of state regulation. These are not incidental details; they are part of any LP analysis of tradition, power, and distortion.
Avoid colonial wellness extraction. Qigong, taijiquan, and Daoist meditation should not be stripped from their cosmological, communal, and ethical contexts and repackaged merely as productivity or self-optimization tools.
Assessment
Daoism's enduring contribution to the human connection archive is fourfold: its vision of ultimate reality as process rather than person; its disciplined technologies of emptying, alignment, and embodied transformation; its ethical preference for gentleness, flexibility, and non-contention; and its imagination of social harmony through the Great Peace. Its major limitations, from an LP perspective, are its weak account of systemic oppression, its occasional political quietism, its periods of institutional hierarchy, and its recurrent degeneration into elixir-hunting, magical literalism, or elite secrecy.
Quotes
...the term has been used philosophically to indicate the way of the universe, the way human beings are in the world, the best way of social integration, the way of rulership, and more.[25]
Citation and Legal
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Footnotes
↑Livia Kohn, Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routlede, 2020). 15.
↑Livia Kohn, Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routlede, 2020). 15.
↑Miller, James. Daoism: A Beginner's Guide. Oxford: Oneworld, 2008. Preface and Historical Introduction; Littlejohn, Ronnie L. Daoism: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris, 2009. Introduction.
↑Kohn, Livia. Introducing Daoism. London: Routledge, 2009. "Background to Daoism"; Miller, Daoism: A Beginner's Guide, Historical Introduction and Timeline.
↑Kohn, Livia, ed. The Taoist Experience: An Anthology. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. pp. 3–5; Miller, Daoism: A Beginner's Guide, Historical Introduction.
↑Miller, Daoism: A Beginner's Guide, Historical Introduction; Kohn, Introducing Daoism, "Daoism in China Today"; Goossaert, Vincent, and Xun Liu, eds. Daoism in Modern China. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021.
↑Livia Kohn, Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routlede, 2020). 5.
↑Livia Kohn, Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routlede, 2020). 4.
↑Livia Kohn, Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routlede, 2020). 4.
↑Livia Kohn, Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routlede, 2020). 5.
↑Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction, "What Is Daoism?"
↑Miller, Daoism: A Beginner's Guide, Preface and ch. 2, "Way."
↑Kohn, Introducing Daoism, "The Dao That Can't Be Told."
↑Kohn, Introducing Daoism, "Cosmos, Gods, and Governance."
↑Watson, Burton, trans. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. Introduction and secs. 4, 6.
↑Miller, Daoism: A Beginner's Guide, chs. "Body" and "Alchemy"; Kohn, Introducing Daoism, "From Health to Immortality" and "Religious Practices."
↑Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction, "What Is Daoism?"
↑Kohn, Introducing Daoism, "Background to Daoism" and "The Nature and Study of Daoism."
↑Miller, Daoism: A Beginner's Guide, Preface; Kohn, Introducing Daoism, "The Zen Connection."
↑Littlejohn, Daoism: An Introduction, Introduction.
↑Livia Kohn, Daoism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routlede, 2020). 15.
