Year of Faith

Christ I hope I get better at this.  It comes to my attention that my pride kind of got the best of me at the end of this month.  I basically pulled an Icarus, flying high and thinking I had everything well under control, but the moment my emotional landscape changes the glue in my wings gets runny and I tumble back down to Earth.  So yeah, lost some time there but I’m pretty sure that I’m back on the horse… the faith horse…

Yeah.

So, Taoism.  Once again, February didn’t end with the kind of climax that I would have liked, but it was a successful month, overall.  I’m happy with what I learned, even though I didn’t experience as much as I could have.  But let’s sum this up before things get too deprecating, shall we?

There is a central “schism” in Taoist tradition that I have really failed to address, and that is the difference between religious Taoism and philosophical Taoism.  Again, as with most things Taoist, this is going to be tricky to explain, and I don’t know whether or not I’m completely sold on the distinction being made, but it is still noteworthy.

Philosophical Taoism is where Taoism begins historically, it covers the Tao-te Ching, Chaung Tzu and some other texts, and makes up the foundations of all Taoist thought that was to follow, including religious Taoism.  It is concerned with cosmogony of the world and one’s place in it (Tao) and translating those thoughts into actions, a way of living, into virtue (te).  Philosophical Taoism is relatively unorganized, more like a kind of self-help program in which there are teachers rather than priests or monks.[1]  While it possesses a cosmogony and an ethics (sort of) nothing is set in stone, and as I have said before, things are more prescriptive than descriptive, or dogmatic.  There is still an awful lot of thought going on here, and I don’t think that I will be able to penetrate it all, now that I’m at the end of the month.  Suffice it to say, philosophical Taoism is more a philosophy than a religion… as one might imagine.  But possibly not in the way you expect.

This actually has a lot in common with a philosophical period that I much admire- the ancient Greeks, specifically Socrates and the Hellenistic period that followed immediately after his death, the Skeptics, Epicureans, Stoics, etc.  Much of what Socrates was on about can be found in the Tao-te Ching.  His epistemological approach, that one could call oneself wise only if one knew the extent of their own ingorance, is repeated almost word for word by Lao-Tzu,

To know you don’t know is best.  Not to know you don’t know is a flaw.  Therefore, the Sage’s not being flawed stems from his recognizing a flaw as a flaw.  Therefore, he is flawless. [2]

Only through admitting your own ignorance can you begin to live well and start being a virtuous human being.  Much like Socrates and the Hellenists, philosophy in Taoism is tailored to helping people lead better lives, rather than trying to analyze the world and our place in it.  There is some of that in Taoism, yes, but the emphasis is on living a good life, a life of ataraxia (free from anxiety or free from worry) rather than the accumulation of knowledge.

I think this goes a long way to explaining why I tend to shy away from philosophical study once we pass the Greeks, until we get to the existentialists, anyway, and why my academic career veered into religion rather than deeper into philosophy.  After the Greeks it seems that us Westerners became a lot more concerned with how we can know things and what those things are composed of, and how they came to exist, rather than ataraxia.  Religion deals a little bit more with this moral realm, and does so through incredible myths and powerful imagery.  Then again I might be trying to simply justify my abysmal grades in certain philosophy classes.  I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, that is philosophical Taoism.  Religious Taoism is what grew out of that fertile soil, with an emphasis on meditation and vital essence or qi (chi), movement of the body and filial piety.  This is where the cultural mishmash from Confucianism and other folk religions come in, and honestly things get terribly confusing.  The point I’m trying to make is that I sampled a very small part from a large body that can be called Taoism, a part that some people wouldn’t really call a religion, but was nevertheless what really interested me.

One thing you can say about Taoism though, is that there is no deity, or at any rate there is no theism.  Ancestors like Lao Tzu are deified and there’s a lot of spirits and Immortals running about, but a creator God who keeps track of you and knows when you’ve been naughty or nice?  No sir, not here, and that makes me extraordinarily happy.  Why?  Because this means that people who simply disregard religion because it involves the worship of a higher power no longer have a leg to stand on.  The typically cynical and skeptical atheist actually has to take pause when confronted with this kind of monster, because the familiar chink in the armor is absent.  Taoism cannot be written off as some folksy superstition held up on the Word of God, and do so reflects poorly on the detractor, and not on the idea.

This is one of my motivations for doing this project, because when I look out into the world to find people like me, which are people who are atheists but still like to talk about religion, all I see is a bunch of this, and that terrifies me.  All these people can do is scoff and feel self important and choke on their own bloody hubris as they speak of that which they do not know.  Taoism begins to show a trend that I hope to make apparent throughout the year, that atheism does not exist by itself, that like theism it is always a component of a much larger idea, and sometimes that idea is actually a religion.

Taoism occasionally felt so right.  It was like love, something that exists beyond words.  No matter how many times I try to describe it I fall short, like grasping at the sand, like grasping at water.  The path goes so much further than what I have written here, or what I have gone through this month.  It is a perfect pearl of wisdom born of the axial age, and I sincerely hope we will remember it for as long as we can, or at the very least, that I may carry it with me until I die.

[1] Huston Smith, The World's Religions, p. 200.
[2] Robert Henricks, Te-Tao Ching, p. 44

These last few days I have been extraordinarily content.  I have been going over the Tao te Ching and the Chuang Tzu, meditating, but still conducting my life mostly as usual.  It’s an odd thing to say, but I think that for all intents and purposes, I’m kind of exactly where I want to be with Taoism.  There’s always more to read and experience, and I still know that, but I no longer feel any pressure.  It’s like I have reached some kind of Goldilocks zone.  Everything is just right.

At the end of January I was fairly satisfied with where I was, but I was still hungry for more.  I was disappointed that most of my books hadn’t arrived in time, and there was still a lot to explore and experience.  I could have kept doing another two months of Satanism, there were so many desires, sins, and ideas to unpack and talk about.  But right now, I feel like I could stop Taoism tomorrow and be totally satisfied.

I don’t know if this is because of some kind of essential wisdom I have found in the Tao, because I fear I might also be using Taoism as an excuse to have a month off.  Compared to almost every other religion that I will be experiencing this year, Taoism is very light on the dogmatism- there aren’t a lot of rules that you have to follow.  It feels a lot more like the constant posing of questions and riddles, a bunch of invitations to think about things so that you have the freedom to find your own Way.  I can really appreciate this, but I’m concerned that I may have accepted this invitation and then put it on the back burner, not really giving it much thought.  Maybe I’m just being too hard on myself.  I’m quite happy with where I am, that doesn’t mean everything has to be perfect.

I suspect my suspicion stems from the fact that I have yet to really master my desires, and this is something that is definitely required befre on can genuinely find the Way.

Therefore, those constantly without desires, by this means will perceive its subtlety.  Those constantly with desires, by this means will see only that which they yearn for and seek.

Te-tao Ching, Chapter One, translated by Robert Henricks

Much thanks to Satanism I am completely aware of what my desires are, how I meet them and how they affect me.  But I don’t think I have really taken the time to step away from them so as to see how they drive me and how I see the world and react to it.  I am definitely comfortable with them, and with myself, but I cannot let this turn into complacency.  There is still a lot left to do, but right now it is so easy not to worry about it.

Well today was mostly horrible.

Work started with several failures at doing something simple, which made me feel useless for most of the day. That carried me through to after work, where I watched five full buses go by before I finally got my frozen ass onto the sixth one. As I worked my way home via the liquor store I reflected on how a crap day fits into Taoism.

Answer: pretty well. Much like Satanism, Taoism doesn’t punish failures or errors with guilt. When you make a mistake as a Taoist, you know, your whole day echoes with it. You are off track- it could be the way you woke up, the way someone spoke to you, the way your partner slammed the door, whatever. You are out of balance, and you will suffer it out for as long as it takes for you to find the Way, and then the world will bloom for you again.

There is no concept of sin here, no great principles that can be broken, no dogma. You do something wrong, you atone and you deal with it. You learn from it so that you won’t lose your Way again. You experience it for what it is, and then let it go.

Today started badly, but ended well.

The other day I witnessed something that struck me as particularly Taoist, and since I owe two posts today I thought I would take this moment to share. This is also the first post that I’m writing on my new iPhone through Wordpress’ handy application, so here’s to hoping for more frequent posts.

There is a bus driver who works a particular route that I take to work. Now, a lot of the drivers that I have interacted with here in Vancouver are very easy going. I guess you sort of have to be in some parts of this city. I don’t know if this is endemic in their particular occupation, having to deal with tourists and the homeless, or perhaps it’s part of our supposedly natural Canadian politeness. In any case, giving people breaks on their fare, especially on the first of the
month when people might have forgotten to buy a new pass, is fairly common.

But that isn’t true of this driver. This guy is firm. No, you can’t ride for free, and you can’t pay for only one zone if you’re just “passing through” the second zone. You pay the full fare, or you don’t ride. This driver has stopped the bus at the terminus of the first zone, walked up to people who got a one zone ticket, and insisted they either pay for the extra zone or get off. People don’t argue, they know that they won’t win this one.

This might not seem like a big deal, but it really falls to the sides of the bell curve of normal behavior that I have learned to expect from bus drivers. This is a man who obviously believes in the rules. Very black and white, and not very Taoist.

One morning a woman comes on and pays for one zone, even though she will be going through two. The driver informs her that she can’t do that, she disagrees claiming that she has done this before, obviously to no ill effect. They quickly come to an impass, she takes a seat and the driver calls transit security to get her escorted off the bus. So now we have to wait at the station until this is resolved. It is early in the morning, everyone has somewhere to go, and no one is impressed.

Then this young guy stands up. He’s around my age, mid-twenties, calm and collected as rain water. He walks up to the woman and offers to pay the rest of her fare. She is noncommittal about the offer. She doesn’t want to be dragged off the bus but she doesn’t want to admit that she is wrong either. The man then goes to the driver, explains his plan, pays, and gives the woman the new ticket.

She doesn’t thank him, but that doesn’t matter. We are on our way and we spent barely a minute waiting. Again, this may not seem strange, a random stranger doing a good deed. It was the way he did it though, like it was nothing to him. He showed neither pleasure nor displeasure in the act, no pride nor sense of good will. I had the impression that he asked permission from the woman to pay her fare not because he wanted to or thought it was proper to ask, but because if he hadn’t it would have been a hindrance to his solution. If he had just bought her a ticket and tried to give it to her without any prompting it might not have been as effective as going through the motions that he did. The fare needed to be paid, that was it.

This situation in and of itself wasn’t particarly Taoist, but the way this guy carried himself was. He flowed like water, seeking the path of least resistance. It was fascinating to watch.

I dont’ carry change with me, but if I had I probably would have done the same, as would other people on the bus had they the time to think it over. But all of us lacked the immediacy and effortlessness of this young man, the “doing without doing” characterized by the Way.

Or least that is what I told myself.

Sunday and Monday was my weekend.  No work, and only a few chores to do, it was great.  I like having free days like that, and it’s a chance to partake in my favourite pastime- video games.  I could spend days at a time with a controller in my hand and a decent title in the box.  It’s becoming such a passion that you might be seeing a post on religion and video games here in the near future. But with the Year of Faith project underway I feel like I need to be spending every moment in Taoism, or whatever religion of the month I will be in.  There’s a lot of books to read, a lot of people to meet, things to do, etc.  I’m constantly feeling like I’m missing something.  But on the other hand, I need downtime.  I hate it when I have no time during the week that is devoid of anything, a happy little blank expanse that is totally and completely mine to deal with.  So little of my time is my own, I get very protective of it.  So this weekend I realized that I need a day or two where I can leave my life behind and just unwind.  To this end I think the best schedule for me, writing wise, is to have a post up every weekday that I’m at work.  That means at least four during the week, maybe one or two on weekends.

I realize the futility of trying to shoehorn myself into a schedule, but I really do see the success or failure of each day in the Year of Faith project in terms of how much I update the site.  Updating means I had something to write about, having something to write about means I had a new thought, or a new experience, and that means I learned something new about the religion.  Or I just had a funny story.  Either way, I think it works as a good mechanism to keep me on task.

Next week I might have yet another plan of attack.  I’m definitely still playing this by ear.

I’m meditating regularly now.  Honestly it is getting kind of addictive.  It’s not that I’m craving it, rather I’m more and more curious about how it will progress.  Every time I come away calm, peaceful and focused and I can maintain that mindfulness for a few hours afterwords.  It makes interacting with people easier and feels more genuine, makes food taste better… no, that isn’t right.  Meditation has, so far, made it easier to focus.  That’s it.  Nothing else is really changing, I’m just better at being in the moment, isolating things and experiencing them one at a time.

This is why it feels like I’m high.  When you’re stoned, you become more sensitive, more receptive.  Similar effects, different causes. And this is only from a few sessions no more than half an hour long.  People in monasteries do this for hours.  I could also be completely on the wrong track, I don’t really have any idea right now.  Could just be all in my head.

Heh, “All in my head.”  What?  I thought it was funny.

Meditated for the first time this year yesterday.  Did about fifteen minutes, and it felt like I was reading the Tao-te Ching, only more so.  Calm, focused, and… well, slightly odd.  Without any external stimulus, without any distractions or movement, you only have one place to go- inside.  It felt much longer than fifteen minutes, and I would have done more, but I was antsy to eat something after getting home from work.  Will do more meditating after this post, I think.

I was planning on meditating at work, before I opened the store.  It’s dark and quiet and there are plenty of cushions, but the Olympic torch was heading through downtown, waylaying my transit plans, and making me late for work even when I left early.  I tried meditating on the way over, which was still calming, and certainly made the commute go by faster, but it wasn’t the same.  Harder to focus, harder to center.

I’ve started to read the Chaung-Tzu, a compilation of stories and Taoist wisdom from a man of the same name and a few other Taoist teachers.  It is considered one of the central texts of Taoism, alongside the Tao-te Ching, but it is very, very different.  Much like how Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is praised because of it’s timeless wisdom in the art of conflict, the Tao-te Ching is timeless in it’s easy to understand advice and observations on the human condition.  If The Art of War is good for battle, then the Tao-te Ching is good for the soul.

But the Chaung-Tzu is an enitrely different kind of animal.  Instead of simple allegory and common sense sayings, it relies on word games, paradoxes, and strange stories to convince the reader of the uselessness of words and definitions to work your way through the world.  Better just to be and let the world in unlabeled, without expectation.  To show you what I mean, here is how the Tao-te Ching begins:

As for the Way, the Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way.  As for names, the name that can be named is not the constant name.  The nameless is the beginning of the ten thousand things.  The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.  Therefore, those constantly without desires, by this means will perceive subtlety.  Those constantly with desires, by this means will see only that which they yearn for and seek.

Alright so maybe that doesn’t seem as straightforward as I thought it would, but it’s a walk in the park compared to what you find in the Chaung-Tzu:

In the northern darkness there is a fish and his name is K’un.  The K’un is so huge I don’t know how many thousand li he measures.  He changes and becomes a bird whose name is P’eng.  The back of P’eng measures I don’t know how many thousand li across and, when he rises up and flies off, his wings are like clouds all over the sky.  When the sea begins to move, this bird sets off for the southern darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven.

That’s how this book starts.  It hasn’t drawn me in the same way to Tao-te Ching has, but it’s still good.

Taoism doesn’t feel like a very big shift for me, behaviorally speaking. It’s not that I do tai chi and meditate all the time, it’s that I tend to be very calm and balanced. I assess things and take my time to understand them, I’m soft spoken and it’s very hard to raise my temper.  I listen closely to my own body to figure out what it is I want to do, what I want to eat, etc.

Taoism calls for all of these things, but the difference is that Taoism begins and ends with the Tao, the Way, from silence and emptiness.  This is the onus for all the actions of the Sage (the perfect Taoist).  I don’t really know why I am the way that I am, as far as I know I’ve been this way most of my life.  I discovered the Tao-Te Ching early in my life, before I started reading any other philosophical or religious text, and some of those passages have been with me ever since.

So the Tao-Te Ching may be the reason for me acting the way that I do, it may have influenced my behavior in some way, but it was not through any meditation or deep insight.  It just made sense, and it still makes sense.  More than that, it just feels good.

I read the Tao on my way home from work today and I started to feel… well, almost high.  Not like disassociated or elated or giggly or anything.  I was still very much in control of all my faculties.  But I felt warm, reassured, and happy.  Just reading this thing makes me feel at peace.  It’s like it is strumming the chord of my being, and all I can do is sit back and hum.

So to recap, I may have Taoist-like tendencies, but I don’t think that counts unless it comes from the right place.  Knowing my desires through and through does not make me the master of them, but I think it’s fair to say that I’m starting this from an advantageous position.

First off, I wish to extend my thanks to Professor Paul Crowe for sitting down with me this morning and talking about Taoism and his experiences living it and teaching it.  This post is a direct result of our talks and his past lectures.

Taoism is very hard to define.  It isn’t really a religion, and I don’t mean that in the same way that Satanism or atheism “aren’t really religions.”  Atheism is, strictly speaking, just a statement of belief, an idea that can be part of a wider whole, like theism.  Satanism is a religion, but it comes without the familiar myths and components of every other faith.

Taoism is more of a process, a word that can describe a very long trend through Chinese thought and history, which intersects with Confucianism, Buddhism, and various folks beliefs and practices.  Now there are certain texts that can be called Taoist, like the Chaung-Tzu and the Tao-te Ching, but these don’t contain prescriptions for living and for belief like other religions do.  Nothing is really codified here.  It is almost better to call it sage advice, wise words that can be picked up and tried out.  It’s not dogmatic, but it isn’t completely ambiguous either.

It is very hard to define, but basically Taoism, as I am going to treat it here, is a practice through which you learn to settle your own mind in order to listen to your body, to your surroundings, and the people around you, so that you can respond to them properly, and treat them as they need to be treated.  Taoism’s morality could be called a kind of virtue ethics, in which one strives to live up to certain standards and perform to the best of one’s ability, but no where are these golden rules dogmatically laid down.  Instead you try to be completely receptive to each given situation, so that you can respond in the best possible way.  The standard you are striving towards is not to be moral, right, virtuous, or good, it is to be.

This is going to be somewhat difficult to practice, as there are no set things that I can check off like ‘going to church’ or ‘read the Qur’an.’  Things like reading Taoist literature and doing things like sitting meditation or tai chi will certainly help, but none of them are necessarily required in order to be a Taoist.  I will still be doing all of these things, as I always want to be getting the most out of this month.  But when you get right down to it, Taoism is about balance within your own mind and body, and maintaining that throughout your daily life.  This can be awfully trying in average day to day existence, and so things like meditation help maintain that steady clam and responsiveness.

On the plus side this means I don’t really have to give up the things I learned that I enjoyed last month, or really do anything strenuous or out of the ordinary (unless I feel like testing my newly found Taoist resolve).  However, actually trying to explain Taoism is going to be difficult.

There are parts of Taoism that can certainly be called religious- there is a long history of hermitages, ceremonies, chants, priests, etc.  Separated from everything else, these bits of Taoism, if observed and practiced by a group of people, could be called a religion, and I don’t mean to discount that.  It just doesn’t fit our standard expectation of what a religion is and how it manifests in human thought and behaviour.  Or perhaps it does…

All that I’m trying to say is that I think I get it now, and am more confident in moving forward now than I was at the beginning of the month.

If Taoism is like water, then Satanism would be a fucking diamond.

The Tao itself is fluid, undefinable, able to fill in the nooks and crannies of every place, person, and thing.  It is the foundation and component of every proper being, flowing around obstacles, acting without acting, doing without doing.

Satanism on the other hand, was solid, definite, and obstinate.  Any barrier is shattered by it, every lie made humble.  It makes no excuses for itself.

It was a lot easier than this.  Taoism does not reveal itself bluntly, it does not state that it is ’so and so.’  What can be named is not the Tao, the Way is purposefully obscure- not impenetrable, but not definite either.

My inner Satanist is having a hard time with this.  This is a really big gear shift.

Cranky today.  These transitions are not going to be easy.

After what was overall an intense and wonderful final day of Satanism, this first day of Taoism feels less like a religion and more like rehabilitation.

Work was slow, so as I was nursing what was either sleep derivation or the remaining high from the night before, I read all of The Tao of Pooh. Now, it has been a while since I have studied Taoism, but from what I remember, this book succinctly explains that whole tradition.  It sounds a little reactionary and heavy-handed at times, but overall it is a fantastic introduction to Taoism and its place in Eastern thought.

I meant to cap off my month of Satanism by doing some more rituals, most notably a destruction ritual which I have yet to perform.  But at the end of the night, I couldn’t feel vindictive, I couldn’t feel anything other than amazement and gratitude.  I don’t know if I have exhausted my curiosity about this particular path, but this was an incredibly illuminating and rewarding experience, the fruits of which I will enjoy throughout my life.

More to come.