Tfw Taoism might be the ultimate way to true happiness

>tfw Taoism might be the ultimate way to true happiness

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youtube.com/watch?v=j84Z_4IPbHk
terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness.pdf)
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go on...

Once you "get it", you are already happy.

I personally prefer Patanjali's Sutras, which has a similar vision but also tackles the "action vs. contemplation" duality of the Path.

Patanjalis prose sucks

>paganism

Would you give us a quick rundown about what it is that makes you conclude this?
I only know Taoism a bit through Watts speaking about it and having read (almost) everything of PKD.

Look, and it can't be seen.
Listen, and it can't be heard.
Reach, and it can't be grasped.

Above, it isn't bright.
Below, it isn't dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can't know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.

Thank you

tfw no jewish gif

dude just stop feeling things xd who cares

Growing up my mom was suburban Buddhist and while all my friends were having their teenage "Buddhism is way better than Christianity, mom!" moments I was having my "Taoism is way better than Buddhism, mom!" moment.
I hadn't even read the Tao Te Ching, just the Wikipedia on it.

Feeling about those things
>see pic
Have a song
youtube.com/watch?v=j84Z_4IPbHk

>might be

i think youre in for a nice surprise. but go ahead, the fun of it is the path, not its supposed goal.

I doubt it, but Taoism has really helped me in my life. If you're like , you really should be reading the Tao Te Ching and the Book of Chuang Tzu though. They're good reads and they'll give you more to talk and think about.

If you are trying to employ Taoism in your personal pursuit of happiness, then you are doing it wrong.

>tfw xiao is the ultimate way to harmonious peace for all people under the heavens

Taoism is great and all, but it's nothing compared to Islam. You should try reading the Qur'an, user.

Taoism is just an esoteric, blundering Eastern form of stoicism with more focus on faith than individualist freedom.

>Stoicism is just an obfuscating, blundering Western form of Taoism with more focus on abstraction than individualist freedom.

...

this is plain nonsense

I remembered something like those who speak about Tao knows shit about Tao.

Has anyone here practised Stoicism in a major way?

What do you do when you burnout or did you burnout at all?

Do you just pickup were you left off straight away after burning out?

the star translation is shit, be ashamed

pro-tip: it's not
also: ur gay LULZ

>happiness

you pleb

>tfw no jewish gif

tfw actually getting head once in a while

>The writings of Daoist sages are not concerned with the Dao but with how you can be happy
>The practices associated with the Way are not associated with the Way and the variety of dualities and forms that abide in it but about you being happy
>The endgame of any legitimate form of spirituality is as mundane as 'happiness'
Err...

>Patanjalis """prose""" sucks

I pitty you

I've felt this way for years. But then I'm a slacker who hates the thought of wasting effort.

Taoism is the most practical philosophy I've encountered. I've used profitably as an investing strategy, amongst other applications.

What is it with Jewish girls and sucking dick? I hooked up with a Jewish girl a couple of times and she got me off with her mouth more times over the course of the two days and nights that we spent together than any other girl I've fucked or who has given me head.

t. self-flagellating Protestant who hates the idea of earthly happiness.

I basically don't know anything about Taoism but one of the best Touhou characters is a Taoist so it can't be all that bad.

>protestants
>not autistically focused on the earthly pursuit of happiness
err

I lol'd.

Meet your local neighbourhood protestants.

Don't they look happy?

i think you mean "puritans"
protestant means wasp to me
secular protestantism is more protestant than protestantism itself

>Taoism
There's no such thing, you tard. What you call 'taoism' is a Western new-age invention.

The authentic 道教 is just a souped-up fengshui mostly concerned about gaining health and magical powers by eating magic cereal.

We look but don't see it and call it indistinct
we listen but don't hear it and call it faint
we reach but don't grasp it and call it ethereal
three failed means to knowledge
I weave into one
with no light above and no shade below
too fine to be named
returning to nothing
this is the formless form
the immaterial image
this is the waxing waning
we meet without seeing its face
we follow without seeing its back
holding onto this very Way we rule this very realm and discover its ancient past
this is the thread of the Way

>tfw I fucking hate earthly happiness (specially coming from religious people) yet I'm not religious

How do I deal with this?

What's the difference between Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Stoicism?

Don't forget the best companion text.

How about you read both and stop bickering over minute details?

Reminder that the Tao Te Ching is an eminently political document that explains how to rule one's subjects successfully.

Also >looking for happiness in a book

Don't forget about the 'hap,' i.e., luck or chance, in 'happiness.' You don't find it; it befalls you, and can just as soon go away.

bumping for based taoism

True, the Tao is even mentioned as one of the essential criteria for victory in The Art of War.

With the legend being he left the capital after diligently serving the Imperial House his entire life, without known reason, it can be argued that it was very clear he was discontent and that the Tao Te Ching is a rebellious document.

>Christianity

>legend

Sure, but we don't even know if he was real.

Yes. Hence the use of the word legend. What the fuck is wrong with you?

They're virtually the same.

Buddhism is to an extent based on a rejection of reality, Taoism is about accepting it.

I don't think you know the first thing about Protestantism or the Doadejing.

Come on, there has to be at least one Jewish girl in this thread who can explain to me why she enjoys sucking dick.

>no might about it bucko.

pagan cuck

Life is suffering.

tfw had a jewish gf
tfw I'm uncut and she didnt want to give me head because of that

was still the best sex I've ever had and also the only sex

I've been practicing and studying taoism for a year now.

I was about to kill myself, couldnt leave the house because of panic attacks and axiety.

It's all gone now, I am happy, I'm enjoying life, I havent had a panic attack or anxiety in at least 8 months

Damn. Do tell how.
I'm a nervous wreck.

Ingesting mercury.

My parents did that as kids and they're probably worse off than I am

I don't know, I bought the tao te ching, read it. Came back to parts that were relevant whenever I needed them.

I also read the Tao of pooh and it helped me quite a lot.

The most important part is the try to apply what you think you understand. Wu Wei was the hardest for me but it was the most helpful. I also stoped listening to music while I walked and started listening to whatever was going on around me, reduced my screen time to a bare minimum, started going to bed at the same time everyday and waking up early (10pm and 6 am) and started doing 10 minutes guided meditation sessions every morning.

I don't know if it will work for you but my life is changed forever.

I'm just wondering why you would even mention a legend as if it was aiding the conversation.

Different guy, same results (going from a mess to being content for the first time)

Also, strongly recommend The Miracle of Mindfullness (terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Thich Nhat Hanh - The Miracle of Mindfulness.pdf) - He's a Buddhist, and I can claim to understand the difference between Buddhism and Zen, but it helped me a ton.

Err, can't claim. I know nothing.

>implying you dont vomit after the cumshot
>if you dont think that its a thing you're sorely mistaken

>it's a '15 year old white kid watches an Alan Watts lecture on YouTube and thinks he has a good grasp on Eastern religious thought' episode

Ebin.

What's the difference between Catholics Jews and Baptists

I read the Daode Jing and Zhuangzi.

Zen in a nutshell is a more hipster version that tried to spice things up by wearing a scarf. A shit analogy I know, but that's just my western perspective

I read journey to the west. Am I in the same boat?

The complete Zhuangzi? Multiple translations of each? Any of the other contemporaneous schools of philosophy? Any other texts aside from those two?

You're kinda proving his point.


"I know about Christianity. I read Genesis and Paul."

Islam is pretty fucking cool and everything, but you should try reading Donald J. Trump's Tweets. This shit is mind blowing.

Awesome indeed.

I'm with you guys.

1/ Read the Tao Te King
2/ Compare all available translations
3/ ????
4/ Profit!

Trumpism is very cool men,but have you tried coming to Mexico?
Shit is next level

In addition to this Daoism splintered off into some weird, nonsensical cults. I took a course on it and the farther we got from the early texts the more it became ridiculous, though you have to take into account the time period, of course. But at that point you're reading purely out of interest and it has very little beneficial content.

Westerners can't 'get' Taoism. Taoism is little more than a channeling of primitive Chinese religious traditions into a more substantive and doctrinal form that was invented in the first millennium BC when other competing philosophies were being developed in China. Taoism is much less a philosophy than an outlet for the Chinese tendencies towards magic and dualism and so on, that the Confucian philosophies could not provide.

So why can't Westerners 'get' it? Seems like there's not anything to 'get.'

Try as we will to take the “cure” of ineffectuality; to meditate on the Taoist fathers’ doctrine of submission, of withdrawal, of a sovereign absence; to follow, like them, the course of consciousness once it ceases to be at grips with the world and weds the form of things as water does, their favorite element—we shall never succeed. They scorn both our curiosity and our thirst for suffering; in which they differ from the mystics, and especially from the medieval ones, so apt to recommend the virtues of the hair shirt, the scourge, insomnia, inanition, and lament.
“A life of intensity is_contrary to the Tao,” teaches Lao Tse, a normal man if ever there was one. But the Christian virus torments us: heirs of the flagellants, it is by refining our excruciations that we become conscious of ourselves. Is religion declining? We perpetuate its extravagances, as we perpetuate the macerations and the cell-shrieks of old, our will to suffer equaling that of the monasteries in their heyday. If the Church no longer enjoys a monopoly on hell, it has nonetheless riveted us to a chain of sighs, to the cult of the ordeal, of blasted joys and jubilant despair.
The mind, as well as the body, pays for “a life of intensity.” Masters in the art of thinking against oneself, Nietzsche, Baudelaire, and Dostoevsky have taught us to side with our dangers, to broaden the sphere of our diseases, to acquire existence by division from our being. And what for the great Chinaman was a symbol of failure, a proof of imperfection, constitutes for us the sole mode of possessing, of making contact with ourselves.

Deliverance, if we insist upon it, must proceed from ourselves: no use seeking it elsewhere, in a ready-made system or in some Oriental doctrine. Yet this is often what happens in many a mind avid, as we say, for an absolute. But such wisdom is fraudulent, such deliverance merely dupery. I am indicting not only theosophy and its adepts, but all those who adopt truths incompatible with their nature. More than one such man has an Instant India and supposes he has plumbed its secrets, when nothing—neither his character nor his training nor his anxieties—prepares him for any such thing. What a swarm of the pseudo-”delivered” stares down at us from the pinnacle of their salvation! Their conscience is clear—do they not claim to locate themselves above their actions? An intolerable swindle. They aim, further, so high that any conventional religion seems to them a family prejudice by which their “metaphysical mind” cannot be satisfied. To convert to India, doubtless that is more satisfying. But they forget that India postulates the agreement of idea and act, the identity of salvation and renunciation. When one possesses a “metaphysical mind,” such trifles are scarcely worth one’s concern.

Let me put it another way: non-Chinese can't understand it because they were not brought up with the traditions of which it is a part of. It only makes sense as a religion or whatever, if you have a very specific cultural heritage.

This is a good piece of writing. The thought he tries to convey, not so much. Did you write this?

>It only makes sense as a religion or whatever, if you have a very specific cultural heritage.
So does that mean that anyone who isn't a pre-Revolutionary Chinaman should just pretend that Daoism doesn't exist? I'm not sure what you want me to take away from this.

desu it doesn't seem to me to be the kind of thing that even involves 'understanding.'

I think he is meaning to say that Taoism implies a certain structuring of the universe that, coming from a western cultural heritage, may be difficult for Westerners to understand and fully internalize. I disagree with him, but that seems to be his argument.
I also disagree with your continued assumption that there's "nothing" to Taoism. It's a pretty rich religion with a lot of interesting concepts that are indeed complicated to truly understand.

>I disagree with him, but that seems to be his argument.
Then take it up with him, not with the person who knows what he's saying and also disagrees with him.
>I also disagree with your continued assumption that there's "nothing" to Taoism.
That's not what I'm saying, you illiterate faggot. I'm saying that it isn't a religion based around a rational understanding of dogma and that emphasizing an 'understanding' of Daoism is missing the point altogether. It's Chinese folk alchemy, not a math problem.

What I'm saying is that it's an indigenous (non universal) religion, similar to various types of shamanic, animist etc. religious traditions. The major difference being that it was put into a doctrinal and textual tradition. Like Shinto I guess (for want of a better comparison) it has little to offer for the non-native, and it does not make sense to approach it as a philosophy. I agree that it is not something that involves understanding.

Its a cool and readily accessible form of divination-like entertainment

I like the idea of how slim the odds are of any particular reading

The fact is that Western thought is ultimately about getting a one up on reality. What they might call a 'loss of control and understanding' is quite the opposite. I think if we all take a step back at what we really control, what we really choose, where we are really going, we'll realize it's not quite so comforting to live with the weight of reality pushing back at you.

When Taoist thought talks about doing what's natural, that's how I interpret it. We'er all 'victims' of entropy. It's not about 'giving up,' it's not about 'not feeling,' it's not about 'IN-action,' it's quite explicitly stated it's about 'UN-action!' The lack of action. A place where action isn't even an option. Everyone's so scared to give up on something that isn't going to happen. But I guess that's ultimately a matter of faith one way or the other. I myself will gladly forfeit my opportunity to become God-King if it means my days are peaceful.

>and it does not make sense to approach it as a philosophy.
Why not? I've taken classes taught by native Chinese who treated the Daodejing as a text that can be interrogated using the tools of philosophy--not as just a philosophy book, mind you, but certainly not as something 'outside' of the purview of philosophy.

>It's Chinese folk alchemy

OK, let me clarify. My point in saying that Westerners can't understand Taoism is that it is a misunderstanding of what Taoism is to approach it as a philosophy or a religion. In other words, we're in agreement on this whole thing.

Why only 2 days?

>It's Chinese folk alchemy,
Maybe in its formative stages, but it has advanced past that considerably into a religious internal and cosmological alchemy

We just haven't talked much since then, we still reply to each other on Twitter and favorite each other's tweets. We talked about seeing each other again but the summer we hooked up was also the summer I started posting on /pol/ so aside from my normal fears of rejection I'm also aware of differences between Jews and non-Jews now that weren't as clear to me before, and I know enough about her personally to know that she might be a toxic addition to my life Jewry aside. We have mutual friends and part of me just wanted to fuck someone from my friend's hometown to say that I did it. And then there's the fact that my penis didn't fit inside her vagina, because of the angle of my penis (it points straight up toward my head when erect) or the angle of her vagina (I didn't inquire into this because if a girl has a weird vagina then it's not something that I want to point out in bed). We tried a few positions and it didn't work out. So even if I hit her up again and we got together, we probably wouldn't be having sex, which kind of puts a damper on things. We spent 2 days and 2 nights together because the first day and night we didn't try to have sex and stuck to oral. After the second time we met up a few weeks later I just felt weird about not being able to have sex and the fact that she's probably kind of unstable on some level. I want a stable relationship at this point and I feel like she wouldn't be right for that, especially if sex is something that matters to us both, which I think it is.
But I haven't gotten laid in 13 months. I might talk to her again, but like I said I have a fear of rejection.

>Folk implies the opposite of internal or cosmological
hmm

Oh, cool. Just don't post on /pol/ and you'll be straight.

Yeah I mean post-Trump they're unbearable even for getting a perspective on the news, which was what I was doing there for the past couple years, other than learning about conservative and right-wing ideology. I don't post there anymore anyway. Still, like I said, there's more to her than just being Jewish, there are a few other red flags, and we might not be able to fuck because of the angles of our genitals. That would be a deal-breaker and I think it's already understood to have broken a deal. I don't know. If I ever see her again I'll talk to her about where we're at, anyway, just for clarity at least.

You're thinking of the I-Ching

Stop being a piece of shit?