Is philosophical Taoism the final redpill?

Maybe, but afaik taoists aren't pacifist nor very social for that matter. At least if they tend to assimilate they just do it on the outside basically.

Samadhi is the final redpill. Philosophy can only hint at the true nature of reality, but to truly know it you must go beyond thinking and perceive it directly
All is one. The mind gives birth to duality and the illusion of separation. Thinking is the greatest obstacle to understanding

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If nothing is permanent why bother to attain samadhi? Just eat your cornflakes when you're hungry and drink when you're thirsty.

Daoism is close to some forms of stoicism. It's just more connected to a bunch of religious bullshit.

As per usual when people take things from the eastern traditions they cut out a good half of the content, that being the superstitious nonsense and ritual that is just incomprehensible to the western mind.

But I don't get why people in the west are so enamoured with eastern traditions when they're ready to re-interpret them into something that makes more sense anyway. Because we already have that. It's called the western tradition. Meditation is called contemplation. Everything is more practical than the eastern counterparts, and amusingly when westerners market "ancient chinese wisdom" to the west, the first thing they do is make it more like the skeptic/agnostic school that already exists here.

We've just been so systematically shamed for thinking there's value in our own history, while also propping up everyone else's culture as if it's a goldmine, people have no fucking idea of what already existed here.

>Daoism is close to some forms of stoicism. It's just more connected to a bunch of religious bullshit.

I think the religious bullshit is a later manification.

Yep. So much white guilt that we have to dig up and rediscover everything we already learned so long ago

>But I don't get why people in the west are so enamoured with eastern traditions
It all comes down to the willing disattachment from christian traditions and mindsets that left a void that needed to be filled. There were all sorts of alternatives like full-blown positivism and scientism, but the eastern philosophies/religions had the advantage of having a spiritual reach without the strict elements of dogma that were rejected in christianity. It pretty much culminated with new-age spirituality and secular/western buddhism that grabbed all forms of eastern spirituality, removed a lot of the religious content as well as the moral elements (which incidentally is why that adaptation never worked with confusianism), that way you have a tailor-made form of belief that is entirely focused on the individual, that provides structure and meaning but does not impose any moral or social code of conduct.

Someone please 101 Taoism to me.

Go with the flow.

Chinese hippie thing that white people love and think will give them kung fu super powers.

What does a man do before enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water. What does a man do after enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water.

Things are neither right nor wrong, they simply are.
Actions are not right or wrong, they can at worst go against the natural order.
Don't go against natural order.
Know when to act or not to act.
And most importantly : don't fall for the "inaction" meme and never act by principle. Understand that sometimes, the proper action of one will restore order.
Also, don't eat too much meat and you'll live forever.

Well I've read the Daodejing and Chuangtze and while I get that it's hard to accurately translate from ancient chinese, these aren't practical guidebooks or even clear parables for adherents.

It's a lot more like poetry, and from what I can tell, that's true even if you speak Chinese and are from that culture.

Point being I'm unsure how easy it is to argue what was intended and what was tacked on when the source material is so vague. Maybe the superstition and cosmology of Daoism was just absorbing local myths, or maybe it was a vital part of how it propagated. We certainly know that the Daoism that's practiced in the real world spends more time on the ritual and religious parts than any lofty western interpretation.

That's another divider between east and west in this case. I'd argue that even the superstitious side of the western canon attempts practical instruction for the most part (excluding actual mystery religions where that's actively not intended).

Exceptions like the mystery of the trinity are notable precisely because they're uncommon, and they're a sticking point /because/ people expect it to make sense and have a hard time swallowing the "it's a mystery" non-explanation that's almost the default in eastern tradition.

There are essential principles to all nature and living accordingly to those will result in a minimum of suffering, but explaining those principles tends to be insufficient because the principles are constantly shifting and manifest themselves on a case to case basis. They can't be reduced to a set of rigid laws like shifting landscape can't be explained by still photograph.

>As per usual when people take things from the eastern traditions they cut out a good half of the content, that being the superstitious nonsense and ritual that is just incomprehensible to the western mind.
That's Folk Taoism. Everything becomes connected to the SPIRITS N SHIET in Folk Chinese Belief. Just look at Folk Confucianism and its apotheosizing of good Chinese Emperors, Generals, and Officials.

When all Confucius said of religion was:
>"Dude, I think observing religious rites is a moral act. But anyway, Idk , I'm a social philosopher, ask someone else."

Not the shit Philosphers were discussing. The rest of your tirade is needless.

Isn't zen a reformation of folk taoism?

Taoism is NOT about dissolute life such as promiscuity, drugs abusing, excessive drinking or fluid genders faggotory, if that's what you're implying.

Zen is just buddhism colliding with taoism and dropping a lot of the more indian elements like the borderline polytheism, and replacing it with bits and pieces of taoism

What is it about?

No. Zen is Japanese for Chan Buddhism.

Chan Buddhism is basically Buddhism made palatable to the Chinese/East Asians by sprinkling it with Confucian concern for community/family and Taoist Metaphysics. Because when Buddhism entered China, it struck the people as degenerate because it sounded socially irresponsible to Chinese ears. "Dude middle path, lmao, being concerned about material things like wealth and being able to provide for you family is bad." Fuck that.

And just like Taoism & Confucianism, Folk Buddhism happened and before you know it, Buddha is hanging out with Folk Chinese Gods.

Maybe you can go study it yourself?
sacred-texts.com/tao/taote.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching

I know what the texts say but I'm interested in your interpretation.

Except Taoism began without most of the religious bullshit you're thinking of. Taoism didn't dabble into alchemy, gods, mysticism, oracles, rituals etc. until later on in its history.

T. Jeff Bezos

>We've just been so systematically shamed for thinking there's value in our own history
This is true for much of latin america I noticed as well. Here in Mexico for example, we have a rich indigenous culture, but people have been indoctrinated to take in US and Japanese culture instead. Foreigners show more interest in our culture than our own people. I wish the west would stop shoving it's crap here tbqh.

The grass is always greener on the other side. If you grow up with something you don't really notice it I would say, which makes it easier to get into something that seems exotic. You perceive it in a different way. See the people who say the West doesn't have any culture because it's so ordinary to them they don't even notice it anymore and it becomes ordinary. Obviously France has culture and so does Germany, but you must be able to compare it to something.

>Tibetans practice Taoism
k e k

Food for thought, the rational tradition in the west, as passed on by Socrates, as he learned from the Pythagoreans, actually comes from a mystical tradition. Pythagoras himself was trained as an Egyptian priest. Do you just casually ignore when Plato speaks about the World Soul and Metempsychosis? How is the world soul different from Tian? How is metempsychosis not simply borrowed from the East? Not to mention that Pythagoras claimed to be the Hyperborean Apollo, only invented harmonic scales in order to more properly engage in musical worship, and represented a simply more Apollonian form of Orphism.

>As per usual when people take things from the eastern traditions they cut out a good half of the content, that being the superstitious nonsense and ritual that is just incomprehensible to the western mind.

That's a modern conception of spheres that were not opposed during antiquity.

Yes, because it preaches ego death

Would it matter? Taoism doesn't need to be known or spread by the sword or even discussed. It trancends those petty issues and acknowledges that
que será, será.

>average Veeky Forums post on anything Chinese

Do you anons ever take a moment to doublecheck your claims?

...

Hello /pol/

And no, you won't get a proper response for your unsubstantiated shitpost.

What is the endgame of Taoism? Or rather, what is one like when other Taoists would consider that person an advanced or masterful practitioner?

I don't really understand it all but it's mostly helped me overcome depression and cynicism.

Ego death AKA enlgihtmenment, when you trascend dualism

There are actually parables about that. In one some dude talks about a master who has nice things to say here and there, does stuff, but that's about it. Then other guy talks about one of his neighbours being an even bigger master, but he hasn't much of an opinion on anything, or at least it's hard to quote him on anything, nor does do anything special you could put your finger on. I'm butchering it probably.

Another one is about a farmer who stays calm in the face of change and always says something to the effect you never know how things turn out. Like first his horse runs away and his peers feel like he should be sad, then his his horse comes back accompanied by a few wild horses, so his peers think he should be happy. Then his son tries to tame one of the wild horses and breaks his arm, again he stays stoic. Later the army rides into town and drafts people where as his son is spared because of his injury. And so it goes on.

In context to injury I would point to other passages that talk about the usefulness of being useless. Like the straight tree gets choped down and made into planks, where as a crooked ugly tree might survive because nobody gains anything from pulling it. Or at least it's not worth the effort. If you take this in context of modern times you could draw parallels to people who can't catch a break because everybody is trying to gain something from them, where as an ordinary bloke living a quiet life can walk around without looking over his shoulder all the time.

So what? Enlightenment is nothing.

>go beyond thinking

There is no "beyond" thought. You already perceive reality directly, even if your perceptions are inaccurate.

>All is one. The mind gives birth to duality and the illusion of separation.

The mind gives birth to monism and the illusion of unity. Obstacles are just objects, the path you think they block doesn't exist.

>what is one like when other Taoists would consider that person an advanced or masterful practitioner?

The Tao that can be mastered is not the true Tao.

Pic related. Every above layer contains the layer underneath, but the lower layer doesn't automatically contain the above. This is vaguely connected to mindfulness I think but don't take my word on it. Essentially transrational means "you" perceiving "your" thoughts as they happen to you.

>witness

I know what you're trying to get at, but those layers are fucked. I'm not convinced by trans-rationality / pre-rationality.

>>the body is contained by emotions

Emotions are a function of the mind in relation to the body. The mind, body, and emotions might as well be the same thing in fact. Those terms are just useful compartmentalizations.

I would say emotions and mind are two separate things though. You can only control emotions indirectly like you can control your heartbeat. The witness for that matter can't control neither emotions, thoughts, or body. It's just another function of the brain that observes the combination of circumstances. Or rather an awareness of body functions including thoughts.

But then I reckon the same your heartbeat changes with emotions that might get triggred by thoughts, those might change if they focus on a void like presence that seems to go beyond thinking.

>The witness for that matter can't control neither emotions, thoughts, or body.
>just another function of the brain

oh yeah? What function does it serve?

I don't know if it fills a function necessairly or if it's just an accident that might occur under certain circumstances. Like it being some kind of backdrop on which perception is thrown upon with it having the potential to gain some sort of self awareness, given it's image is thrown upon itself again through the process of reflective thinking.

>it's just an accident

pure coincidence

"The reed that bends does not break"

If you want to create an apple pie from scratch you have to invent the universe first, so on and so forth.

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This is the correct answer.

What books would you recommend for someone who is new to Taoism?

I only know what I know because of Wikipedia.

Tao te Jing
Zhuangzi

This is most Veeky Forumstorians 2bh

To be fair, it's 100% strange that I didn't know where horses were first domesticated until after I found out about it on Wikipedia.

You would think something important like that would be covered in the public education system, but no.

Wikipedia is the most used source for this board no matter how much people look down on it. Someone posts an interesting fact and they link to Wikipedia or copypaste some info from it.

Good post

Drink pussy juices

What the fuck is this?

Live young cherubin and don't look back.
Floe and be like water my friend. Water in the stream first goes around the rock, but give it years and there'll be mo more rock. So eithet destroy obstacles or go around them.

I'd say its buddhism with Japanese warriorcode or bushido

What do you mean exactly?

The Japanese were fighters and buddhism helped them being more grounded. It was so similar that they were able to apply it to battle and training.

The result of someone having too much spare time

>So eithet destroy obstacles or go around them.
No, years of avoiding the obstacle will remove it.

Here's your well deserved (YOU).
Now go and play outside!

Many have asked themselves, how can we implement Buddhism to help society ? What did Buddha had to say about this ? And among innumerable ideas and long pages written about the subject, to my knowledge, nobody ever mentions the only thing Buddha had to say about the subject. He said only 1 thing, simple but very profound. Recently, I have tried analyzing different societies and the traits they have to see if it does fit with what Buddha said, and I have found that it pretty much does.

So what did Buddha had to say ? He said that whatever quality a society will develop, things will go in that direction for them. Lets take USA for example and try to apply this only principle that Buddha ever mentioned when it comes to society. A well known defect of US is narcissism. Ever since it was founded, people who were explorers moved to US. Explorer and non-conformist people in general are a little more narcissistic, and probably this explains the cultural trait of narcissism in USA. Protestantism is also associated with narcissism. Qualities of USA are being hard working, respect for intelligence and scientific pursuit, generosity and people being very calm.

According to this principle, wealth should be the result of lack of greed. But is lack of greed related to hard working ? I would say yes. The ability to be a hard worker is dependent on impulse control. It is dependent on the ability to keep yourself from eating a cake today, so that you an eat 2 cakes tomorrow. And from personal experience, hard working is directly dependent on impulse control. The protestant religion that developed in northern europe is the only religion in the world that highly promotes hard working and what some call "materialism", mistaking it as a defect when it is also a quality. But these things are like the chicken and the egg, religion interpretation being created and shaped by society, not the other way around. Society can interpret the same religous book in one way in Turkey or Lebanon, and in another way in Afghanistan.

According to the same principle, wealth should also be the result of generosity. Buddha said generosity and self-restraint are the 2 things that determine a person wealth. And even in this case it does apply, USA being one of the richest places in natural resources in the world and became even richer recently after the discovery of shell gas.

Now let's take a look at narcissism. USA is known for having the highest levels of political polarization in the developed world. Radicals on the left (extreme PC culture) and on the right (fundamentalism that is still a thing only in US, not really in europe) depends on puritanism. (or at least the bad effects of it) It is because of narcissism that people become self-righteous puritans. It is because of narcissism that people become very attached to their beliefs and become aggressive with information that contradicts them. Self-righteous puritanism is not a product of ideologies or religions, it is a product of narcissism. It is a chicken and egg problem. First there is attachment, then come the wrong views that justify and reinforce that attachment. That is what Buddha had to say about wrong views. It is like a chicken and egg problem. First comes narcissism, then comes a self-righteous puritan interpretation of christianity or of another belief system and set of values, and the behavior that is associated with it.

We can take a look at other countries too. For example indians are know for being peaceful. Latin countries (france, spain, romania, portugal, italy) are know for being honest and non-narcissistic, but lazy and corrupt. Muslim countries are know for being generous but violent. Out of top most generous countries in the world, 9 are muslims and the other is USA if I am not mistaken. And just 2 on that list did not have huge petrol reserves. These are big speculations, but generally they do seem to fit a patern.

So what does this mean for society ? It means that in order to reduce political polarization, debating to prove others are wrong is not really the way to go. It's quite strange for me to say this giving my history, but I really got to understand this is the case. B.Sujato has said this too, but I did not agree at the time. So in order to reduce such problems, one should reduce narcissism in himself and speak in favor of reducing narcissism in the society. If a person is surrounded by violent people, he will become violent too. If he is surrounded by narcissism, he will become more narcissist too. There are many suttas about this, Buddha has done his best to stress out how important entourage is for a person. He also said similar people always group together. The energetic with the energetic, the lazy with the lazy, etc. Maybe this is also what decides the country of our rebirth.

The first step in fixing a problem is identifying it. Identify witch are the main qualities and defects the country or region (there are big regional differences in my country) compared to others, and focus on the big ones. Encourage programs that are working to reduce a particular defect, or further encourage a particular quality. Speak in favor of that quality that is missing with people around you. The big holes in a boat should be fixed first, only then the smaller ones.

But what is most important is to start analyzing society and it's problems using this Buddhist principle. It is a simple and profound one. This is the only thing Buddha ever said about society. Lets analyse society in terms of qualities and defects and the individual specific issues will get fixed eventually by society itself. At least this is how Buddha said that it all works. And what is also important is not to get too attached to it, because it will all be gone eventually. Even the Roman Empire got destroyed at one point. But this does not mean we should have a nihilist mentality, cause things do matter for the well being of others in the short term. It just means we shouldn't get too attached.

/pol/tards BTFO

Shit happens. Roll with it. There are no hard and fast rules in life. If you believe that, get ready to get BTFO by the universe.

I could follow this creed desu
Is there a religion where we worship sex?

I kinda envy the east

Sure you may have the usual gods, demons and ancestor worships but so many religions within it have great philosophical foundations. Christian philosophy (aka theology) is basically Jewish superstition without much philosophy (hurr jesus is god, god is 3, god is 1, jesus is the way, jesus god god jesus jesus god).

inb4 i trigger some christcucks

I'd disagree. Paul was an insane Greekaboo/Romaboo and his theology is heavily influenced by pagan thinkers like Socrates. Then you have the GJohn and the Christology is markedly more developed than GMark.

>the western tradition is all about muh secular shit
People needed to look at the east because of people like you usurping power here, for starters. "religious bullshit", lol.

In order to identify complex and maybe subtle problems you have to talk about them. You're assuming discussion is about converting the other side, like the discovery of the truth would be a competitive contest, but it should be a cooperative effort. What's wrong is not that we are talking but the goal.

Talking about greeks and romans. Would be interesting to know to what extend philosophy travelled back and forth on the silk road, considering how greek architecture ended up in india or how the concept of 0 reached the west.

>There are no hard and fast rules in life.

Is that a rule? If so, is it not hard and fast?

Saying if you go into a conversation like the antifa maybe or some right group assuming you figured it out with the goal of converting others, you're not listening anymore. You basically cut yourself loose from any sort of feedback mechanism, leading to a detached state in terms of your perception of reality. But then some even celebrate their detachment as postmodernism and start arguing there isn't any reality in the first place. Which is nonsense in my opinion because you're going outthere protesting against it. I might be wrong.

I think was the other guy is missing is that you'll be getting BTFOed either way sooner or later and being able to cope with inpermanence of life relieves you from a lot of pressure.

>it struck the people as degenerate because it sounded socially irresponsible to Chinese ears

thats not what happened lol it was because buddhism was an indian religion and relied on ancient indian soteriology and philosophy to work. A lot of things in the doctrine didn't make sense to the chinese as they were not familiar with its concept such as nirvana and karmic rebirth. They didn't find it degenerate, they just didn't know how to interpret it and thats why they came up with things like buddha nature and ayylmao-emptiness.

>inpermanence of life

permanent impermanence? Sounds like a contradiction of terms unless you're suggesting life is impermanently impermanent.

80s rock.

Also features cocaine.

Something to do with those chinese magic oracle sticks

>permanent impermanence?

no, just impermanence

>contradiction of terms

contradictory contradictions?

You've got an infinite amount of time, there's a chance of [a] happening and a chance [b] it never happening. What happens?

if life is always impermanent, then life is permanently impermanent. Which seems strange to me.

How would permanent life look like? Would it be a rigid state or and up and down kind of thing of destruction and recreation? If life was permanent in a rigid state I suppose there wouldn't be life at all because there would be no reason to move, because your incentive to live (making love, to eat, to drink) is to avoid death. I can't explain it properly.

If it's just a dynamic with up and downs you could argue for it potentially going on forever already, at least in it's entirety. Even though individual components like you and me come and go like soap bubbles.

A time machine.