Abstract
Daoism is a complex religious tradition of manifold levels that encompass philosophical speculation, ritual and organizational structures, as well as self-cultivation and personal spiritual practices. Itself a multifaceted religion, Daoism has always lived and worked in an environment of religious diversity. Even the ancient philosophers formed but one school of many in pre-Han China, and the first organizations that arose in the second-century CE were surrounded by Confucian officialdom and popular religious practices. Over the centuries, Daoists of all kinds continued to interact variously with other creeds and had an especially stormy relationship with the incoming foreign religion of Buddhism.
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Notes
See A. C. Graham, Yin-Yang and the Nature of Correlative Thinking (Singapore: The Institute for East Asian Philosophies, 1986). 3. A good introductory discussion of this concept and its practical application is found in
Xiaogan Liu, “Naturalness (Tzu-jan), the Core Value in Taoism: Its Ancient Meaning and Its Significance Today,” in Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching, ed. Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 211–228.
Livia Kohn, Health and Long Life: The Chinese Way (Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2005), 11–12.
An easy-to-understand outline of the quantum universe in relation to Daoist worldview appears in Imke Bock-Möbius, Qigong Meets Quantum Physics (Dunedin, FL: Three Pines Press, 2012).
For the Chinese understanding of resonance, see in particular Charles Le Blanc, “Resonance: Une interpretation chinoise de la réalit é,” in Mythe et philosophie a l’aube de la Chine impérial: Etudes sur le Huainanzi, ed. Charles Le Blanc and Rémi Mathieu (Montréal: Presses de l’Universitéde Montréal, 1992), 91–111. A general introduction to the notion of the holographic universe appears in
Michael Talbot, The Holographic Universe (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).
A complete translation of this important early document on Celestial Masters worldview is found in Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 186–228. On the organization and practices of the early Celestial Masters, see
Terry Kleeman, Great Perfection: Religion and Ethnicity in a Chinese Millenarian Kingdom (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998). For their development and social situation in the fifth century, when the text was compiled, see
Peter Nickerson, “The Southern Celestial Masters,” in Daoism Handbook, ed. Livia Kohn (Leiden: E. Brill, 2000), 256–282.
See Paul Wheatley, The Pivot of the Four Quarters: A Preliminary Enquiry into the Origins and Character of the Ancient Chinese City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).
This text is translated in Anna Seidel, La divinisation de Lao-tseu dans le taoïsme des Han (Paris: Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1969).
For more details on these mythical figures, see Anne Birrell, Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).
On the differences between the philosophical and religious modes of Daoist thinking, see my study on the development of Lord Lao: Livia Kohn, God of the Dao: Lord Lao in History and Myth (University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1998).
This threefold division evolved first at a conference on Daoist identity in 1998. It is explained in more detail in Livia Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture (Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2001), 5–6. Earlier discussions of the differences of philosophical and religious Daoism appear in
Nathan Sivin, “On the Word ‘Taoist’ as a Source of Perplexity,” History of Religions 17 (1978): 303–330; and
Masayoshi Kobayashi, “The Establishment of the Taoist Religion (Taochiao) and Its Structure,” Acta Asiatica 68 (1995): 19–36.
On the administrative organization of the different forms of Daoism today, see the forthcoming work by Adeline Herrou, A World of Their Own: Daoist Monastics and Their Community in Contemporary China (St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2013). This is based on her dissertation, which appeared first as La vie entre soi: Les moines taoïstes aujurd’hui en Chine (Nanterre: La Société d’ethnologie, 2005).
The longevity tradition is the subject of various articles compiled in Livia Kohn, ed., Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies Publications. 1989). A comprehensive collection of longevity materials recently appeared in
Livia Kohn, A Source Book in Chinese Longevity (St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2012).
For details of the impact of the ancient state cult on the formation of Daoism, see Anna Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies, edited by Michel Strickmann (Brussels: Institut Belge des Hautes Etudes Chinoises, 1983), 291–371. For the relation of Chinese medicine to Daoist, see Kohn, Health and Long Life. The specifics of how and what Daoists adapted from the Buddhist religion are discussed in
Erik Zürcher, “Buddhist Influence on Early Taoism,” T’oung Pao 66 (1980): 84–147.
Haruji Asano, “Offerings in Daoist Ritual,” in Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual, ed. Livia Kohn and Harold D. Roth (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), 281.
Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China (Leiden: E. Brill, 1959), 298–299.
This work is translated and discussed in Florian C. Reiter, Leben und Wirken Lao-Tzu’s in Schrift und Bild: Lao-chün pa-shih-i-hua t’u-shuo (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1990).
On the debates between Daoists and Buddhists in the middle ages and their overarching political context, see Livia Kohn, Laughing at the Tao: Debates among Buddhists and Taoists in Medieval China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
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© 2013 Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Joachim Gentz
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Kohn, L. (2013). One Dao—Many Ways. In: Schmidt-Leukel, P., Gentz, J. (eds) Religious Diversity in Chinese Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318503_5
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