Very much looking forward to this session, so have bought my ticket and set my reminder. I've been fascinated by the Dao for decades, but I had no idea the size of the canon. I'll need to spend some time with the Laozi in preparation. Love the work you do here, thankyou.
In fairness to Christianity, particularly Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, if we included the same categories that you mention here, it would be just as if not more unwieldy than the Daoist Canon. Similarly, if you were to do the same for Judaism (Torah, plus the writings, plus the Mishnah and Talmud, the Zohar etc), and Islam.
Isn't there a part on Chunag-tze, in which it was advocated for burning all the books, canceling laws, destroying musical instruments and banning art. It's radical, but there is a point
@@faithlesshound5621 Well, yes and no: during some dynasties (Wei, Tang, Song and Yuan) Daoist Classics were also part of the curriculum. The idea of an "unadulterated" Confucianism is an invention of Neoconfucians. Ironically, some Confucian Classics like the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean are very Daoism-leaning .
The Christian equivalent of this wouldn't really be the bible, but more like if at some point the Catholics gathered up not only the stuff they considered authorative, the writings of the Church Father, the words and biographies of various saints, texts on the stardard way to performe certain rituals and prayers and so on, but also Orthodox writing, the Talmud, writings of those heretics the church fathers were responding to and so on. Then when the Protestants came along instead of removing anything that conflicted with their view, just added the writings of Martin Luther, John Calvin and even Thomas Müntzer.
The saddest part is that historic Daoism is rarely studied in the West, but instead, we have massive amounts of new agey self-help butchered interpretations of the Tao Te Ching flooding the market
@interferis6252 The exploitation of East-Asian cultures here in the West honestly made me apprehensive about reading up on Taoism, but I'm very glad to have finally sat down and read the Tao Te Ching! It was Le Guin's rendering of it, so I don't know if that counts as a butchering, but I'm also checking out some older translations and they're quite nice :]
@@HeavyWeapons52 Lin Yutang's translation and Dan G. Reid's 2015 translation are two of my favorites. Dan translates the 10,000 creatures as "all creatures and things."
@Vroomerz That's very interesting, because people are always looking for the most "accurate" translation- but both of these translations would be, technically, accurate. In China (and other parts of East Asia), "the 10,000 things" is/was a common phrase used to mean either "everything" or "infinite things ". So, I guess the question in choosing a translation is: Do you want it accurate to the word or to the spirit?
It's interesting to hear that individual study of the Daoist texts will vary depending on the needs or interests of the reader, so that two different Daoist readers may end up reading entirely different portions of the texts. Whether admitted to or not, this is commonly done with those who study the Bible.
Yeah hearing it from a bunch of different biases would be super interesting. A great example of the problem with translations of the Bible is how King James removed the word tyrant from it.... How expedient
@@rick2402 Not really. It's done by all Christians because the Bible is also too large for most people to actually read through in its entirety and study with any meaningful depth. Most Christians are exposed to the Bible through short snippets selected by their minister / paster / priest, expanded upon during the lecture session where the speaker relates that passage to the current lives of the listeners. They rarely even read entire books, let alone the entire canon. Growing up, I regularly heard about people who believed they could read through the entire thing, start to finish. And how they all foundered on the rocky shores of the Book of Numbers. It was kinda funny. We were all nerds, those of us who tried.
Ironic that some Buddhist scriptures are recognised as canonical by some Daoist lineage and Daoist scriptures have a section in all sinitic Mahayana Tripitaka.
That's most/all of the major religions today. But when you actually look at some of the holy books that _weren't_ they're, well... The Book of Mormon comes to mind.
I understand it as a: "You cannot really talk about Tao for what it is, but for what it is not. So we are going to talk about Tao but keep in mind it's the opposite of everything we are describing."
Really ? Do you actually realise how utterly absurd that is ? As someone said it is equivalent to the "unkown unknown"... yet people (like Bhuddists etc) think it is profound ...
@@Tinil0 The absurdity of religions ? and the ridiculous "profound" sentences that are utter nonsense, and sadness that people actually cannot critcally think even to the level of if P then Q, P therefore Q... Name a single contribution to humanity from any religion, that was not already available and devised by secular enlightened thought ?
@@tariq_sharifDo you understand what the meaning of "The Way" is? If you do, you're way beyond me. If you don't, it's absurd to say the sentence is absurd without knowing what it's referring to
Really ? Do you actually realise how utterly absurd that is ? As someone said it is equivalent to the "unkown unknown"... yet people (like Bhuddists etc) think it is profound ...
It’s more like the way which you walk on (the physical path/roads) is not the “way” that I am going to talk about in the book (the way how the society and universe works). As a Chinese I find the translation is too pretentious.😂 It makes sense, but can be confusing for anyone just trying to learn about the dao.
@@tariq_sharif It is absurd, but true. Once you speak it, once you think it, you're no longer on the flow state. Words are merely reflections of things, and if you think it's trite, it is just the first step.
@@tariq_sharif - Yet: _"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."_ Is thought by 1,000,000s of people to be profound. People! Gotta love 'em!
I find eastern religions and philosophies to be incredibly fascinating to learn more, it makes me wish I could read the scared texts of Taoism, Buddhism, confucianism, and Hinduism.
Most of the major and many minor scriptures have been translated into English by now. Many of the older translations are outside of copyright and free online. Many newer translations are also free online from religious sites or piracy sites.
Don't. When you can read Chinese is way way quicker than when you can read the sacred texts. And when you can read the texts, you'll wish someone can translate and notarise the whole mess. When you can understand the mutiple intepretations of each text, you'll know they can be polar opposites in phnectics, punctuations, understandings and general philosophies.
Fortunately the Tao Te Ching, Dhamapadha, and Baghavat Gita are widely available for translation and are relatively quick reads with understanding only taking a few thousand lifetimes 😉.
You can read all the sacred texts and not understand them (or understand them only partly), but it would be more beneficial to read one set of sacred texts and take the time to understand them fully. Just read the Pali Cannon! It's not too daunting really. Buddhism is somehow both very simple and complex at the same time.
I mean, aren't Baptists essentially Christians that believe that their connection with god is personal and some interpret that as therefor they can worship and practice however they wish? What about just the differences between the many sects of Christianity to begin with? It's always flexible enough for someone to make something up, you just need to get enough people to believe it so that it becomes accepted.
Finally I can relate to this because in Xianxia genre, where most of the protagonist are Daoist and the Chapter have reach from 4,000 to 10,000 chapters and the protagonist have live from hundred millennium years to myriad millennium years. In a novel “A Record of a Mortal's Journey to immortality” have reach 2400 in the mortal world and 1400+ chapters in the Immortal World Arc. and there's Martial God Asura, and of course my favorite 'Reverend Insanity' by Gu Zhen Ren.
@@currypikacurta3011 Hey! Any recommendations for a complete newcomer to Xianxia? I have been wanting to get into it but I end up watching CDrama instead because I'm more familiar with it.
@@user-zv8li7eu1w My Golden Core is a Star, Do you Still Call This Cultivating. Xian Ni Five Frozen Centuries My Descendant Begged Me To Help Him Just After I Became A God Is That a Wisp?(not really a xianxia though) Cultivator vs Hero Society Martial Peak Apotheosis
@@user-zv8li7eu1wI can’t see my previous comment so I’ll write again: Xian Ni Five Frozen Centuries Is That a Wisp? My Golden Core is a Star, Do You Still Call This Cultivating My Descendant Begged Me To Help Him Just After I Became A God Evolution Begins with a big tree Coiling Dragon Martial Peak Apotheosis The Charm of the Soul Pets Your Talent is Mine Desolate Era 40,000 years of cultivation 100,000 years of Qi Refinement 10,000 layers of Qi Refining Fig Hill of Five Elements Emperor’s Domination
@@FFC231A lot of these are probably not the best for a new reader since they’re more targeted at people who are already fans of the genre. I’d personally just recommend Er Gen’s works to anyone looking to get into the genre, since he writes more traditional Xianxia novels that are staples of the community. Of his novels, I Shall Seal the Heavens is probably the most well-rounded, Renegade Immortal if you want something more intense, and if you want something more light-hearted, A Will Eternal. All of them are good picks though.
In college, my favorite professor was a Daoist philosophy professor, but my path of study led me more towards Hindu Tantra and Yoga and Vedānta, which have similarly massive canons. So does Tibetan Buddhism, as I witnessed during an extensive scroll procession on the Buddha's birthday at a Nyingma monastery in 2012. Some Hindu and Buddhist scriptures are considered to have been revealed by deities or disembodied bodhisattvas, and others were written by people viewed as enlightened masters who often specialized in a particular area of traditional study (e.g. medicine, astrology, meditation, alchemy, philosophy, aesthetics). Abhinavagupta was one of the first Śaivas to put his own name on tantric scriptures, rather than attributing his work to Śiva. Given the profound phenomenological transformations of consciousness related to Tantric or Daoist practices that work with chi or prāṇa and kuṇḍalinī that I and many other people have experienced, I am confident in the veracity of these mystical systems.
That's why I roll my eyes when people say Buddhism isn't a religion. I am like, if think the bible is long, you think you can comprehend the hundreds of Buddhist manuscripts filled with liturgy, rules, Vedas, etc. So many people Buddhism is a "feel good" ideology, but it's very much a religion with hundreds of texts
Wouldn't technically let's say catholic canon be larger than just the bible? Catechism of the Catholic Church, writings of the church fathers, papal encyclicals, documents of councils and so on are all also considered authoritative. Same with mormons and more or less everything that any of their prophets ever published.
Absolutely, it's just a different understanding of the word "canon." The "Christian canon" would be just as massive if it included every theological or scholarly commentary, every testimony of contact with god/angels/etc
@@billbadson7598Yet, for some reason he shows us images of the KJV Bible and The Book of Mormon as though they're comparable, twice. The Christian Bible is a similar size, it takes up several shelves in Hebrew. The Bible as people know it is a very condensed and edited version specifically designed to be portable. Likewise you can also get the Tao in a book that fits in your bag, but it obviously isn't complete.
It's important to disquish religious Taoism from philosophical Taoism when speaking of the Taoist Canon. The Taoist Canon is primarily a religious Taoism mechanism. While it includes Toaist philosophical texts, the majority is about subjects primarily religious in nature. The philosophical Taoist primarily use the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi as their "books".
@@user-oj8rg6vd7q I´m genuinely curious, how do they not differenciate? Like two parts of a book, not worth seperating from one another or as literally the same exact thing?
Can you include Chinese characters with Chinese names? Latin alphabets might be good enough for western audiences with little knowledge of east Asian culture. But many east Asians like me(Korean, not Chinese) would understand this content a lot better. I had hard time recognizing Zhu Xi even though I know him very well when written in Chinese characters.
Keywords mentioned in this video, written in Traditional Chinese 0:54 Daodejing 道德經, attributed to Laozi 老子 1:18 Daozang 道藏 2:27 Qingyang Gong 青羊宮 in Chengdu (also spoken about around 6:20) 2:37 Zhuangzi 莊子 2:42 Baopuzi 抱朴子 by Ge Hong 葛洪 2:49 Taipingjing 太平經 / The Scripture on the Grand Pacification 3:44 The Triplex Unity 參同契 4:04 Lu Xiujing 陸修靜 4:14 "true scriptures" 真經 4:17 "yet-to-be-revealed" 未出 4:26 The Three Caverns 三洞: Cavern of Perfection 洞真 (Highest Clarity 上清 school), Cavern of Mystery 洞玄 (Numinous Treasure 靈寶 school) & Cavern of Spirit 洞神 (Writ of the Three Sovereigns 三皇文) 4:48 Four Auxiliaries 四輔 5:18 Emperor Huizong of Song 宋徽宗 5:51 Zhu Xi 朱熹 7:37 Zhengtong Daozang 正統道藏 8:26 Zhonghua Daozang 中華道藏 8:32 Dunhuang 敦煌 10:00 Mozi 墨子 11:12 Lord Lao 老君 11:16 Celestial Masters 天師道, Upper Clarity 上清 (just another translation of Highest Clarity, mentioned above), Numinous Treasure 靈寶 (this one's translated consistently) traditions 12:05 External Alchemy 外丹 and Internal Alchemy 內丹
If you really wanted to compare this to comparable Christian literature it would make more sense to include the patristic and liturgical canon as well. Once you add up the Bible, plus the Patrologia Graeca, plus the Patrologia Latina, plus the various Liturgical texts, you're easily well over 400 volumes in total.
@@offduty23 I'd have to look, but I suspect the Rule of St. Benedict could likely be found in the Patrologia Latina. But, you make a good point, the texts I referenced just refer to the Greek and Latin tradition prior to about 1500, there's the Slavic patristic and monastic traditions, the Georgians have a religious literary canon in their language. Then there's the various non-Chalcedonians, the Copts, especially, have a rich literary tradition, as do the Armenians. And then there are the protestant traditions, they don't seem to hold their literary traditions in quite the same regard as the more traditional churches, but they certainly exist, especially with respect to some like the Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterian/Reformed traditions.
@costakeith9048 I think you could lump the majority of the protestant literary tradition together. Especially regarding the Reformed and Anglican wings of the protestant movement, CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and John Calvin's Institutes of the Christan Religion are two of those benchmarks.
I'm sure that Religion for Breakfast knows this, and so I feel that the thumbnail and several images comparing the Taoist canon to the King James Bible are dishonest. I don't think there's an agenda behind it, except maybe to make the subject seem more exciting. To me the texts are interesting not because they are long, they're interesting because they're ancient and have had a huge influence on human history. Just like the Christian bible, the average Taoist has a condensed version if the texts, and just like Christianity, the extended canon is only studied by people who dedicate their lives to the religion, like monks and other teachers.
Medical secrets too! A few years ago a researcher named Youyou Tu won a Nobel Prize for rediscovering a malaria treatment from an old Daoist medical text.
Can I selfishly request a video on Journey to the West? Its a novel and not exactly a religous text but it has themes of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism and it's main character has become a figure that is revered. The historical and mythological influences are fascinating also.
Ticket booked! I consider myself Taoist, but I haven't read much of the Canon and I need to improve my Chinese to read more. Thank you for covering this, I feel more affirmed that I fit more with the wider practice, even if I've not been able to participate in liturgical practice. Going in for a big surgery on Monday, and this has brought me comfort. I appreciate your work 😊
My new favorite youtube channel. Wonderful. I know a tiny bit more than Zero about Daoist scriptures and Daoism. I frankly hadn't even considered the various religions traditional and native to China. We hear more here in the west perhaps about Confucianism or Buddhism, than Daism (Taoism). I have always loved the book the "Tao of Pooh".
Instead of being like the Bible or the Koran, the collection seems to be like the Catholic collection of the Doctors of the Church. They are considered to be magisterial teachings, and consist of thousands of volumes.
If it’s anything like Buddhism, it’s a compression problem. Repetition was used before writing to encourage memorization. “And the Buddha asked his assembled disciples Alice, Bob and Cody, “Alice, Bob and Cody, after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, how many ways can you come to know the valley you are looking over.” And Alice replied “after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by descending the mountain and traveling the valley.” Then the Buddha replied “while it is true after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by descending the mountain and traveling the valley, is there another way to know the valley.” And then Bob says “after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by looking closely from the mountain peak.” And then the Buddha replies: “while it is true after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by descending the mountain and traveling the valley, and it is true that while it is true after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by looking closely from the mountain peak, is there another way to know the valley?” And then Cody says… It’s like imagine how long the Bible would be if every time they mentioned a characters name they repeated the entire genealogy, and the history of each person in it. Original religious texts are many things but pithy is not one of them.
Daoism was created after writing was a thing, so that shouldn't be the case? If anything, classical Chinese was very concise and efficient, designed to use as few characters as possible to save space. 1000 characters for a passage was considered long. Repetition exists but that's mostly for 語錄體: "A style of ancient Chinese prose. It is often used by disciples to record the words and deeds of their teachers, and sometimes it is also used in Buddhist missionary records. Because it focuses on recording only fragments of words, is short and concise, does not emphasize literary talent, does not pay attention to chapter structure, and does not pay attention to the connection between paragraphs and contents. It has not yet formed a single, complete chapter, so it is called quotation style." 顏淵問仁。子曰：「克己復禮為仁。一日克己復禮，天下歸仁焉。為仁由己，而由人乎哉？」 顏淵曰：「請問其目。」子曰：「非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動。」 顏淵曰：「回雖不敏，請事斯語矣。」 （《顏淵》第十二 ）
Also here's 5 passages of Tao Te Ching for reference. 道德經 道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名天地之始；有名萬物之母。故常無欲，以觀其妙；常有欲，以觀其徼。此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄之又玄，衆妙之門。 天下皆知美之為美，斯惡已。皆知善之為善，斯不善已。故有無相生，難易相成，長短相較，高下相傾，音聲相和，前後相隨。是以聖人處無為之事，行不言之教；萬物作焉而不辭，生而不有。為而不恃，功成而弗居。夫唯弗居，是以不去。 不尚賢，使民不爭；不貴難得之貨，使民不為盜；不見可欲，使心不亂。是以聖人之治，虛其心，實其腹，弱其志，強其骨。常使民無知無欲。使夫知者不敢為也。為無為，則無不治。 道沖而用之或不盈。淵兮似萬物之宗。挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵。湛兮似或存。吾不知誰之子，象帝之先。 天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗；聖人不仁，以百姓為芻狗。天地之間，其猶橐籥乎？虛而不屈，動而愈出。多言數窮，不如守中。
yeah as he was talking i realised how this compares with eastern orthodoxy, that afaik actively rejects Sola Scriptura and even Prima Scriptura (correct me if i'm wrong) his description of christianity is definitely more aimed at a protestant audience, or at least one that is familiar with protestant doctrine nonetheless, the comparison is not the meat of the video, and the conclusion seems to be that monks have too much time on their hands, no matter the faith or creed /j
@@aiocafeaits not so much as too much time but like its the compilation of all the good texts. Like one could talk of a political cannon for the USA & itd be like yeah the founding documents but also the library of congress & all the presidential libraries. A future scholar of america would trawl through all those documents to understand the egregore that is America
Jacques Paul Migne’s Patrologiae cursus completus contains anywhere from 306 to 386 volumes (depending on whether you include Latin translations of Greek texts) of Patristic writings
Yeah, I think the idea that only a small number of books should be elevated as unquestionable canon is mainly a Protestant concept. With a broader definition of canonicity you can easily end up with an enormous amount of writing
The 13th Article of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expresses " if there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy we seek after these things"
I learned something new today! Since there are no or rarely any English translations of these texts, it really makes me hungry for more learning and Im kept up at night as to what kind of knowledge I’m missing out on!
The Three Caverns system is clearly inspired by the Three Baskets (Tipiṭaka / Tripiṭaka / Sanzang 三藏) of Buddhism. Not surprising: syncretism with Buddhism was undergoing since the emergence of Numinous Treasure (Lingbao 靈寶) school / lineages / traditions...
Louis Komjathy has done a good job translating some texts into English in his bilingual, scholarly but also practice-oriented Chinese-English Handbooks for Daoist Practice. He is both a scholar and Daoist priest.
As a taoist from hong kong, I thought the canon is just collections of taoist books that serves as a backup in case the books are lost in the future wars when dynasty changes every few hundred years or accidentally burned in fire? It s not right to compare the bible to taoist canon. I.e most taoist practitioners would NOT have access to these books throughout history until now, which is similar to saying most Catholics in medieval era would not have access to the private library of Vatican. Rewatched the video and actually he said it s only widely available to public for the first time in history 8:13
@@crazy808ish he is describing what modern taoist would do when there s a taoist canon. I am stating the canon has never been available to the general public until modern library is available in the last few decades. Hence it s like all the pdf backup in a USB drive and so there s little need to "harmonise" the teachings.
You'd probably be comparing this to a larger library of Christian works including sayings of the desert fathers, Didache, works of Origen, Cappadocian fathers, etc etc etc. And what is Daoist, Daojia or Daojiao? The latter is more like catch-all for vastly diverse Chinese folk beliefs and the former may be a philosophy but had no continuity as an sect of any kind
It is interesting that these "differences" between Christian and Daoist attitudes toward 'scripture,' as described in the vid, reflects the historical and socio-economical backgrounds each 'religion' was set in. As we've seen in prior videos about Daoism, Daoist texts are notoriously difficult to understand, feels almost counter-intuitive, and it's definitely not just the laymen who get the feel, "... isn't this just occult/mysticism bullshi?" at times. Which is one of the reasons why, as explained in the vid, there exists vastly different interpretations and hard to pin down "what was the author really trying to say." What this meant, in the historical context, was that despite the seemingly very sophisticated nature of Laozi or Zhangzi's philosophical musings, in actual practice Daoism has become fused with a variety of mystical, superstitious traditions that differ from region to region, to take on the form of popular mysticism. So common people, would light incense to ward off bad spirits, buy warding scrolls from Daoists and ritualistically burn it, put up figurines, arrange "magic circles" and wish for good luck, throw fireworks and burn papers, spread chicken blood in festivities, do prayers at altars to commemorate their dead and etc etc... NONE of these, were originally a part of anything about Laozi or Zhangzi. But now it's just infused in popular culture, as a highly-decentralized "everyday religion" which at times is hard to tell apart from just shamanism, superstitious practices or traditional rituals. (Like how modern Japanese habitually going to shrines in the New Year to wish for good luck, or give a small ritualistic prayer to home-shrines, does not necessarily mean they're "devout" in their "religiosity.") This, is in stark contrast to Confucianism, which has become much more highly structured, with strict canonical set of texts and authoritative interpretations from the key scholars of Confucian history. And that reflects the historic/social reality that Confucianism became engrained as a part of governance and ideological core of bureaucracy in East Asia. So Confucianism is a system, highly organized, and strictly enforced as core values of morals and ethics of the upper ruling class of people. In contrast, Taoism, has become dominant in the lower-middle classes of people as a cultural, life, everyday tradition. But it's not as if Taoism and Confucianism has necessarily "split" the religious beliefs down the middle of East Asian societies -- but more of "different categories" where Confucianism takes on the form of legal, moral, ethical frameworks, while Taoism takes on the form of everyday practice. Although, Confucian scholars actually have spoken against "too much superstition" in regions where Taoism has become so dominant as to affect regional bureaucracies or policies. But so long as that does not happen, and Taoism "keeps to its lane" as popular practice, they viewed it "unsatisifying, but harmless" and it was allowed to persist. Hence, thousands of years without central authority, or deep connections with the ruling powers, Taoism has spread to the point that it's now impossible to really narrow down and compile what it is supposed to be, and the incredible amount of texts in the Zhonghuadaojang show that.
Which is interesting, given how much of the Daodejing is concerned _specifically_ with governance and can be seen as a straight-up takedown of Confucianism.
@@Just.Kidding I'd say realistically it's more of a "governance through non-governance," and perhaps the form of governing might feel somewhat familiar to anarchists. Of course, no kingdom/empire can ever have that, so Taoism actually went through an altered form of compromise in attempts to appeal to the rulers and upper classes -- in the form of "Huanglao" schools which tried to sort of re-imagine the role of the Emperor as a symbolic being.
On the basis of how the texts comprising the Daoist Canon can and have come to be regarded as canonical, one reckons we can put together a Christian Canon as well which could be at least just as massive, by taking in the complete works of Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther and even the Christian mystics, and perhaps the Apocrypha and Kabbalah as well. It would incidentally seem kind of ironic that the Daoist Canon should be so massive despite the very first sentence in the _Daodejing:_ 'The Way that can be put in words is not the true Way.' (EDIT: I wonder if they've digitized the whole Daoist Canon and stored it into a DVD? One that's commercially available? :) )
It seems like the Daoist canon would be better compared to an Abrahamic canon than just the Bible. Add the Koran, Talmuds, Josephus, Nag Hammadi Library, Kabbalic works, Agrippa's Three Books, the Book of Mormon...
That's not canonical. It is literally just like the bible. Imagine every book of the bible was written in big characters. You'd have around 40 books or maybe 3 to 4 tomes. The problem is since Taoism is much less unified it has a very flexible Canon, kinda like early century Christianity were certain books were considered canonical but not by everyone
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One reason for the large volume is the way of writing in Chinese. If you open the book, you will see one character is as large as the largest letter in the headlines in an English newspaper. And more importantly, size does not matter.
I'm told that in Chinese bibles, the first words of John's gospel ("In the beginning was the Word") are translated as "In the beginning was the Dao."☯️
Agreed. This is what confuses me about videos like this that frame the eastern religions as more dense, and somehow better than the bible . Ok cool so let’s talk to the government of the country where ancient China existed…. - oh wait they had a communist revolution that repudiated, and did away with traditional, ancient, and spiritual practices…. They changed language characters, obliterated spiritual practices, waged incredible iniquities in their neighboring countries and abroad… Oh right so they’re sinful just like everyone else??… and they don’t care enough to let the world know how to live a better life. No they simply dunk on the crazy kooky bible folk…
@@1surfpesca_ nowhere in this video does he imply any of the things you are talking about. You are just projecting because your are insecure about your own beliefs.
@@asagoldsmith3328 what beliefs am I insecure about and what exactly am I projecting 🤣 that’s a lot of things you said that have nothing to do with my comment
@@1surfpesca_bro literally never dunked on western religions or said it's better, where does he say that? Give me a timestamp. that's what the other commenter meant when they said you are projecting.
Thanks for a great informative video. My meaningful introduction to Taoism/Daoism came about when researching a report assignment I had to do for a subject, Science in a Social Context: The History of Science, that I enrolled in for an 'easy' credit in a Bachelor of Business I was doing as a mature age student in the late 1970's. I came across Joseph Needham's many volumes on China in which he also described 'The Way'. Though labelling, what I realised was, feng shui, 'geomancy' threw me a bit at first.
I’m a Dudeist Priest from The Church of the Latter Day Dude, which is a sect of Western Taoism that throws The Big Lebowski movie in there with the Lao Tzu teachings. Taoism has no heresy so it is expected that it’d get weird when it reached the West.
4:38 This division isn't too dissimilar to the division in Tanach. The Chumash is the law. The Navi are the prophets and the Ketuvim are the writings which have a more theurgical bent.
The concept of canon is very much a Christian one and even Christians argue about what belongs. For Muslims the Quran is central but what about the Hadith? Shi'i reject them yet they are vitally important to many Sunni though they might disagree on whether they are canon. Some Sufi orders place their internal texts in very high regard but does that mean they should be included?
i think it’s more a Greek concept than a Christian concept. the word canon is a Greek word, as he explained. We know that historically, Greeks were writing books and had canons of books before the rise of Christianity. Because early Christianity had a major presence in the Roman empire which was heavily, heavily influence by Greek Hellenistic culture, Christians easily adopted the concept of a canon into the religion. But again the Greek word, canon, existed for Greek culture before Christianity came about in the world. So, you are incorrect. But it’s ok!!!
@@nozrep The concept as it refers to religion is Christian. The church took the Greek idea and spent 1500 years crafting it to fit it's own use. This is just as it did with the word religion, in English it's indistinguishable from how protestant Christianity defines itself.
honestly, it sounds a bit like the complete Jewish canon. we have the Tanakh, but then we also have the Mishna, which is essentially commentary on the Bible, then the Tosafta, which is additions to the Mishna, then the Talmud, which is commentary on the Mishna, and so on and so forth. the Tanakh is considered the most important and the most holy, but the whole collective is what actually makes Jewish law.
Exactly. And it covers all aspects of life, philosophy, history, law, agriculture, economics, etc. and not just things that are strictly “religious” in nature
Well, I'm a Buddhist. The Scriptures of Theravada Buddhism or the "Tipitaka" is about 45 volumes recorded in ancient Pali (the language the historical Buddha speaks). It was compiled around 2,100 years ago.
@@TheWorldTeacher I like Daoism because I was grown up, like many people who may be reading this, in a secular household where religion was for old timers who didnt have their heads on straight. Daoism taught me the failures of atheism, you cannot ignore the spiritual even from a logical standpoint. There will always be mystery, and learning and discovery can only create more mystery. By embracing this you can see the world in a much less anxiety-prone way, and I learned how to be kinder to others, live in the moment, and generally make better choices without succumbing to the abstractions or ideologies that have alot of people in their grip at this moment in history.
@alphachicken9596 Couldn't have said it better myself! I wouldn't call myself a proper Taoist out of respect for its long-standing cultural and folk-religious aspects (and my lack of knowledge thereof), but I don't think I've had a more fulfilling experience with a religious text than with the Tao Te Ching :]
Sounds sort of more equivalent to compar to the Bible, plus Christian liturgical texts, plus the Church Father's, and later theologians thana. Direct 1:1
@charlesiragui2473 yeah, but like the Philokelia plus the Office of Hours (Byzabtine and Latin), and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and like wvery biblical commentary from the middle ages on, plus every book on chemistry written by Monks. Seriously different internal logic, like the video says.
When you also count the Talmud as part of the ancient Jewish canon then you get another 2,711, very long, double sided pages (not including commentary). A regular Hebrew Bible has around 2100 pages. Much less than the Daoist text. Neverththless an average Daoist page has around 1/15 of the average amount of words in the Bible and about 1/23 of that of the Talmud. This would make the amount of words in both canons as not that different with the Dao having around as three times more words than the Jewish canon (not including the Mystical texts of the second Temple period, the early Medieval Midrashim and the lost, ancient Hebrew texts).
How can we find these scriptures online say? Perhaps with translation software we can start to get some insights. Incredible we in English have so very little available on such a major religion!
They're very hard to translate, and they might contain a character that literally means one thing like "air", but in this text that is being used for something more philosophical. Machine translation will just sound like nonsense
Please cover more polytheistic traditions. I would also love to see a vid covering differences between Indian, Chinese, and Japanese branches of Buddhism.
This is why when I see Westerners say, "I'm not religious, I'm more like a Taoist", I laugh, because I know they have no idea whatsoever what Taoism really is. And how filled with gods, and rituals, and magic, and traditions it actually is. They have at most read the Tao Te Ching.
I just say I have Taoist influences in my beliefs. Which is true, but doesn't overstate things. I've read the Tao Te Ching in translation a few times over the years, and always get something new and interesting out of it. But it would be sheer pretention to call myself Taoist because of that. (Or, for that matter, I also have Christian influences, from being in a Christian family. "Influences" is a nice descriptor, I think.)
@@user-kp1js6cb2s and almost all Westerners have very little knowledge of that either. The Taoist canon is filled with philisophical writings that unless they can read Chinese: I guarantee you most Westerners have never read.
I am Chinese but I never went really deep into Taoism. Thank you for this video! Recently I have been having your videos in the background when doing chores and I learned a lot! I have been thinking about how different a faith or religion came into being in east and west. I would say Confucious is like Plato in the east. Each culture has its own Plato-like figures whoes philosophy is the fundamental of, or contributes significantly to, the morality standard and guideline of that culture and people of such culture. But Confucious and Lao Tsu and other local and regional heroes have temples and people worship them, with a collection of ritual and ceremonies. The Western don't worship Plato and Philosophers. So the "worship" of those heros are very different from the worship of the god and the god's son and outstanding followers(saints). If we have to pick a perspective to start with, lets say the god in Christrianity and Judaism is the creator of the world. I think Confusicous rarely cover the origin of the world/human beings/nature/society. But Tao Te Ching might mentioned this, like yhe quote you mentioned. I interpreted this like the origin or the world and the foundation of a lot of things in the human society have some axioms as the beginning of everything and we don't think we will ever fully understand what they are, even if we manage to view them, we definitely would not be able to fully understand, no menton have a deep dive into them.
I'm pretty ignorant about daoism. Every thing i know about it i got from kung fu panda and the big Lebowski And the original star wars and big trouble in Little china
You have no idea at all. Classical Chinese is so different from modern Chinese. And these text usually lean into ambiguity so that the interpretation is flexible.
@@nihilisticgacha Don't even get me started on how some texts in there are also encoded/encrypted in scrambled paragraphs, or half a text is just covering "scribbles" of heavenly seal script...who wants 54 iterations of the word for "sky/heaven" and none of them look the same?
The book " Mormon Doctrine in the Apocrypha" has taught me that Eternal principles can be found anywhere. I'd love to see the earliest copies of the Daoist text to look for parallels.
After the communist cultural revolution of mao's , many religious books were destroyed. Religious scholers had to go to other countries like Japan and some in the west to relearn what the CCP destroyed. 😮😢
The shorter a canon, the more weight attached to each sentence or clause within it. For example, the Jews read the Torah, which is but the first five books of the Tanakh, at every synagogue service. Muslims very strongly revere the Qur'an, which is about as long as the New Testament. The inverse is also true, as this video suggests. Even the Bible was too long for common use by Christians during the Middle Ages, and priority was placed on certain smaller chunks of it like the Psalms or maybe the Gospels. And it de facto had to share authority with non-canonical but highly esteemed works like the writings of the Church Fathers and later theologians. It wasn't until the Protestant Reformation and the invention of the printing press that this changed, and to this day Catholics are still more numerous than Protestants.
@@BygoneT There may be exceptions, but I believe that what I said is generally right, for a number of reasons. First, a short canon implies a well-organized religion with a common authority that has the power to exclude miscellaneous writings from such. A well-organized religion can better enforce standards of piety and dogma. Second, speaking of dogma, religious canons are seldom written by a single man. Even in the case of Islam, the hadiths were compiled by many people besides Muhammad, often based off of rumors and existing pre-Islamic traditions of local areas. Different people will have differing opinions, and their writings will contradict each other at times. A longer canon runs the risk of blatant contradictions popping up, making it harder to point to such as a singular voice of authority with a unified message. Like, imagine if Gnostic texts made it into the New Testament. At present Catholics and Evangelicals basically agree on what Christianity is despite their countless denominational differences, but add these texts to the mix and said unity would become impossible. Third, short canons are more accessible than longer ones. Obviously they can be reproduced in greater volumes and distributed across a wider area into more hands, and it's possible to study the Bible and gain a holistic understanding of it. Heck, there is a class of extra-devout Muslims who've memorized the entire Qur'an. You obviously can't do that with the Taoist/Daoist canon, or with the Vedas and Puranas. If basing the core of your faith off knowledge of religious texts is impossible, then you'll prioritize other things to fill the void, such as liturgical practices.
Register for our online class "Fact and Fiction about Laozi and his Daodejing:" religionforbreakfast.eventbrite.com/
There is but a SOLITARY scripture that is truly holy.
Very much looking forward to this session, so have bought my ticket and set my reminder.
I've been fascinated by the Dao for decades, but I had no idea the size of the canon. I'll need to spend some time with the Laozi in preparation.
Love the work you do here, thankyou.
In fairness to Christianity, particularly Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, if we included the same categories that you mention here, it would be just as if not more unwieldy than the Daoist Canon. Similarly, if you were to do the same for Judaism (Torah, plus the writings, plus the Mishnah and Talmud, the Zohar etc), and Islam.
Image in 13:56 is Buddhism.
Also, it will be nice to including the original term, in this case Chinese, in the caption. thanks
We missed out on the webinar, is there a way we could obtain the recording?
Laozi: "The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao."
Daoists: *WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN*
😆
Isn't there a part on Chunag-tze, in which it was advocated for burning all the books, canceling laws, destroying musical instruments and banning art. It's radical, but there is a point
Ao li gei
㥐
They keep telling 😂
Finally, a book that rival the tumbler Mylittlepony fan fiction wall texts.
🦄
As a former-ish brony, I'll confirm this as an accurate comparison. The productivity of that fandom was insane.
But is it as long as the loud house fanfic? How about Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest?
incredible comment from someone who think they are smart but infact very ignorant.
Now I see how Chinese government exam was so hard
The exam for Mandarins concentrated on the Confucian texts, which were not so numerous.
@@faithlesshound5621 Well, yes and no: during some dynasties (Wei, Tang, Song and Yuan) Daoist Classics were also part of the curriculum. The idea of an "unadulterated" Confucianism is an invention of Neoconfucians. Ironically, some Confucian Classics like the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean are very Daoism-leaning .
Heck, I'd start believing I was Jesus Christs brother if I had to memorise all of that.
The Atheist Dictatorship in China? 😂 The only book you need to read for the Government Exam is the current Dictator's Little Red Book
@@TheLifeOfKane
Sounds less horrible tbh.
The Christian equivalent of this wouldn't really be the bible, but more like if at some point the Catholics gathered up not only the stuff they considered authorative, the writings of the Church Father, the words and biographies of various saints, texts on the stardard way to performe certain rituals and prayers and so on, but also Orthodox writing, the Talmud, writings of those heretics the church fathers were responding to and so on. Then when the Protestants came along instead of removing anything that conflicted with their view, just added the writings of Martin Luther, John Calvin and even Thomas Müntzer.
Both Roman Catholics And Protestant Have Removed Several Books From The Bible. Orthodoxy Is The True Apostolic Catholic Church That Exists To This Day
Great point, that's a much more accurate comparison.
The saddest part is that historic Daoism is rarely studied in the West, but instead, we have massive amounts of new agey self-help butchered interpretations of the Tao Te Ching flooding the market
@interferis6252 The exploitation of East-Asian cultures here in the West honestly made me apprehensive about reading up on Taoism, but I'm very glad to have finally sat down and read the Tao Te Ching! It was Le Guin's rendering of it, so I don't know if that counts as a butchering, but I'm also checking out some older translations and they're quite nice :]
@@HeavyWeapons52 Lin Yutang's translation and Dan G. Reid's 2015 translation are two of my favorites. Dan translates the 10,000 creatures as "all creatures and things."
@@Vroomerz I'll have to check it out! Thank you very much :)
So true, thats why Im making my own translation of the Daodejing
@Vroomerz That's very interesting, because people are always looking for the most "accurate" translation- but both of these translations would be, technically, accurate.
In China (and other parts of East Asia), "the 10,000 things" is/was a common phrase used to mean either "everything" or "infinite things ".
So, I guess the question in choosing a translation is: Do you want it accurate to the word or to the spirit?
It's interesting to hear that individual study of the Daoist texts will vary depending on the needs or interests of the reader, so that two different Daoist readers may end up reading entirely different portions of the texts. Whether admitted to or not, this is commonly done with those who study the Bible.
Yeah hearing it from a bunch of different biases would be super interesting. A great example of the problem with translations of the Bible is how King James removed the word tyrant from it.... How expedient
Commonly done by Protestant Christians in particular
Orthodoxy is the only true dogma and theology.
The true power of a good story is in how many interpretations can be derived from it.
Just my thoughts.
@@rick2402 Not really. It's done by all Christians because the Bible is also too large for most people to actually read through in its entirety and study with any meaningful depth. Most Christians are exposed to the Bible through short snippets selected by their minister / paster / priest, expanded upon during the lecture session where the speaker relates that passage to the current lives of the listeners. They rarely even read entire books, let alone the entire canon.
Growing up, I regularly heard about people who believed they could read through the entire thing, start to finish. And how they all foundered on the rocky shores of the Book of Numbers. It was kinda funny. We were all nerds, those of us who tried.
With Buddhism it’s similar, with upwards of 5,000 texts depending the canon
Ironic that some Buddhist scriptures are recognised as canonical by some Daoist lineage and Daoist scriptures have a section in all sinitic Mahayana Tripitaka.
Never knew there was that much
Yea 🫡🫡🫡
The Lord Buddha lived a long, fruitful life. Anyone should be honoured to have so much recorded wisdom from their religion's founder.
@@marcocampa94 I think this speaks well of both traditions.
This is all very interesting but when he said he was in middle school in the early 2000s I promptly turned to dust and disintegrated.
In my time it was pocket calculators integrated into digital watches.
... I was in middle school in the early 2000s 😢
i was in middle school in 2012-2016 LOL
Don't get hung up on it. They are looking older these days
Asking as a confused autist, are you implying he's older than you expected, or younger?
crowdsourcing your holy book is insane
Crowdsourced Holy Library
technically, almost all holy books are crowdsourced. The ones that aren't are usually one founder cults.
That's just Christian tiktok change my mind
That's most/all of the major religions today. But when you actually look at some of the holy books that _weren't_ they're, well... The Book of Mormon comes to mind.
@@kray3883 Mormons consider other books other than the Book of Mormon as canon, like Pearl of Great Price, that is not by Smith, so kinda not
"The way that can be spoken of is not the true way" ≈ "All models are wrong, but some are useful"
I understand it as a: "You cannot really talk about Tao for what it is, but for what it is not. So we are going to talk about Tao but keep in mind it's the opposite of everything we are describing."
Really ? Do you actually realise how utterly absurd that is ?
As someone said it is equivalent to the "unkown unknown"... yet people (like Bhuddists etc) think it is profound ...
@@tariq_sharif What on earth are you complaining about?
@@Tinil0 The absurdity of religions ? and the ridiculous "profound" sentences that are utter nonsense, and sadness that people actually cannot critcally think even to the level of if P then Q, P therefore Q...
Name a single contribution to humanity from any religion, that was not already available and devised by secular enlightened thought ?
@@tariq_sharifDo you understand what the meaning of "The Way" is? If you do, you're way beyond me. If you don't, it's absurd to say the sentence is absurd without knowing what it's referring to
"The Way that can be spoken of is not the True Way"
Daoism: _Proceeds to speak for a VERY LONG TIME anyway_
Really ? Do you actually realise how utterly absurd that is ?
As someone said it is equivalent to the "unkown unknown"... yet people (like Bhuddists etc) think it is profound ...
It’s more like the way which you walk on (the physical path/roads) is not the “way” that I am going to talk about in the book (the way how the society and universe works). As a Chinese I find the translation is too pretentious.😂 It makes sense, but can be confusing for anyone just trying to learn about the dao.
@@tariq_sharif
It is absurd, but true.
Once you speak it, once you think it, you're no longer on the flow state. Words are merely reflections of things, and if you think it's trite, it is just the first step.
@@tariq_sharif - Yet: _"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."_ Is thought by 1,000,000s of people to be profound. People! Gotta love 'em!
I find eastern religions and philosophies to be incredibly fascinating to learn more, it makes me wish I could read the scared texts of Taoism, Buddhism, confucianism, and Hinduism.
You will need at least 100 lifetimes for that, because they're not really just "texts" to begin with.
Most of the major and many minor scriptures have been translated into English by now. Many of the older translations are outside of copyright and free online. Many newer translations are also free online from religious sites or piracy sites.
Don't.
When you can read Chinese is way way quicker than when you can read the sacred texts.
And when you can read the texts, you'll wish someone can translate and notarise the whole mess.
When you can understand the mutiple intepretations of each text, you'll know they can be polar opposites in phnectics, punctuations, understandings and general philosophies.
Fortunately the Tao Te Ching, Dhamapadha, and Baghavat Gita are widely available for translation and are relatively quick reads with understanding only taking a few thousand lifetimes 😉.
You can read all the sacred texts and not understand them (or understand them only partly), but it would be more beneficial to read one set of sacred texts and take the time to understand them fully.
Just read the Pali Cannon! It's not too daunting really. Buddhism is somehow both very simple and complex at the same time.
So, your religion can be flexible and personalizable without the religion falling apart?
many such cases
Well, this is the nature of polytheism (according to Georges Dumézil, Claude Lévi-Strauss and Marcelle Detienne)...
Chinese syncretism is a wonderful thing.
I mean, aren't Baptists essentially Christians that believe that their connection with god is personal and some interpret that as therefor they can worship and practice however they wish? What about just the differences between the many sects of Christianity to begin with? It's always flexible enough for someone to make something up, you just need to get enough people to believe it so that it becomes accepted.
@@MuhammadThakur-si9ot you talk as if religion has one purpose
Finally I can relate to this because in Xianxia genre, where most of the protagonist are Daoist and the Chapter have reach from 4,000 to 10,000 chapters and the protagonist have live from hundred millennium years to myriad millennium years.
In a novel “A Record of a Mortal's Journey to immortality” have reach 2400 in the mortal world and 1400+ chapters in the Immortal World Arc.
and there's Martial God Asura, and of course my favorite 'Reverend Insanity' by Gu Zhen Ren.
I can relate bro, the xianxia genre was what originally made me interested in daoist texts. Also W for Rmji and RI mentions
@@currypikacurta3011 Hey! Any recommendations for a complete newcomer to Xianxia? I have been wanting to get into it but I end up watching CDrama instead because I'm more familiar with it.
@@user-zv8li7eu1w
My Golden Core is a Star, Do you Still Call This Cultivating.
Xian Ni
Five Frozen Centuries
My Descendant Begged Me To Help Him Just After I Became A God
Is That a Wisp?(not really a xianxia though)
Cultivator vs Hero Society
Martial Peak
Apotheosis
@@user-zv8li7eu1wI can’t see my previous comment so I’ll write again:
Xian Ni
Five Frozen Centuries
Is That a Wisp?
My Golden Core is a Star, Do You Still Call This Cultivating
My Descendant Begged Me To Help Him Just After I Became A God
Evolution Begins with a big tree
Coiling Dragon
Martial Peak
Apotheosis
The Charm of the Soul Pets
Your Talent is Mine
Desolate Era
40,000 years of cultivation
100,000 years of Qi Refinement
10,000 layers of Qi Refining
Fig Hill of Five Elements
Emperor’s Domination
@@FFC231A lot of these are probably not the best for a new reader since they’re more targeted at people who are already fans of the genre. I’d personally just recommend Er Gen’s works to anyone looking to get into the genre, since he writes more traditional Xianxia novels that are staples of the community. Of his novels, I Shall Seal the Heavens is probably the most well-rounded, Renegade Immortal if you want something more intense, and if you want something more light-hearted, A Will Eternal. All of them are good picks though.
Daoism is a religious practice that still mystifies me. Thanks for bringing some light into my darkness.
You Need Light? Find The Nearest Orthodox Parish
@@1utewhy u sound like a bot selling a service/product 😂
@@daniel1RM Nothing For Sale, Faith Is Free Bud
In college, my favorite professor was a Daoist philosophy professor, but my path of study led me more towards Hindu Tantra and Yoga and Vedānta, which have similarly massive canons. So does Tibetan Buddhism, as I witnessed during an extensive scroll procession on the Buddha's birthday at a Nyingma monastery in 2012. Some Hindu and Buddhist scriptures are considered to have been revealed by deities or disembodied bodhisattvas, and others were written by people viewed as enlightened masters who often specialized in a particular area of traditional study (e.g. medicine, astrology, meditation, alchemy, philosophy, aesthetics). Abhinavagupta was one of the first Śaivas to put his own name on tantric scriptures, rather than attributing his work to Śiva.
Given the profound phenomenological transformations of consciousness related to Tantric or Daoist practices that work with chi or prāṇa and kuṇḍalinī that I and many other people have experienced, I am confident in the veracity of these mystical systems.
Boring!
Obviously you lie, else it would not have interested you to reply with comment.@@bikechannel4931
That's why I roll my eyes when people say Buddhism isn't a religion. I am like, if think the bible is long, you think you can comprehend the hundreds of Buddhist manuscripts filled with liturgy, rules, Vedas, etc. So many people Buddhism is a "feel good" ideology, but it's very much a religion with hundreds of texts
The fact that you know of Abhinavagupta made you a legend in my eyes.
why dont u just follow regular white people religion bro
Excellent academic approach on Daoist Canon.
except for the mispronouncing of Chinese and showing Chinese text upside down...excellent academic approach BWAHAHAHAHA
@@AllsFairInRockNRollI bet you know next to nothing about Daoism
Wouldn't technically let's say catholic canon be larger than just the bible? Catechism of the Catholic Church, writings of the church fathers, papal encyclicals, documents of councils and so on are all also considered authoritative. Same with mormons and more or less everything that any of their prophets ever published.
Absolutely, it's just a different understanding of the word "canon." The "Christian canon" would be just as massive if it included every theological or scholarly commentary, every testimony of contact with god/angels/etc
@@billbadson7598Yet, for some reason he shows us images of the KJV Bible and The Book of Mormon as though they're comparable, twice.
The Christian Bible is a similar size, it takes up several shelves in Hebrew. The Bible as people know it is a very condensed and edited version specifically designed to be portable.
Likewise you can also get the Tao in a book that fits in your bag, but it obviously isn't complete.
You are right. Good point. Same way that Judaism canonized commentaries & discussions (Talmud, midrash).
Windswept Castle is the only important modern book about the Catholic Church.
It's important to disquish religious Taoism from philosophical Taoism when speaking of the Taoist Canon. The Taoist Canon is primarily a religious Taoism mechanism. While it includes Toaist philosophical texts, the majority is about subjects primarily religious in nature. The philosophical Taoist primarily use the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi as their "books".
That is a western idea taoists in China never differentiated between these two
@@user-oj8rg6vd7q I´m genuinely curious, how do they not differenciate? Like two parts of a book, not worth seperating from one another or as literally the same exact thing?
As an avid reader of Xianxia novels, this is an amazing video. Put so many things into better context in my head. :D
List your top ones that focuses more on the world than characters
@@lazyfate9357 GREAT POINT. Just realized all of the xianxia stuff I’ve read focused SOLELY on the MC.
Got me interested. You got some?
That library of wooden blocks is so cool. It's a shame not more survived, but it's a genius way to cheaply print important texts.
Can you include Chinese characters with Chinese names? Latin alphabets might be good enough for western audiences with little knowledge of east Asian culture. But many east Asians like me(Korean, not Chinese) would understand this content a lot better. I had hard time recognizing Zhu Xi even though I know him very well when written in Chinese characters.
Good idea! I've seen some Chinese History youtubers do this.
Keywords mentioned in this video, written in Traditional Chinese
0:54 Daodejing 道德經, attributed to Laozi 老子
1:18 Daozang 道藏
2:27 Qingyang Gong 青羊宮 in Chengdu (also spoken about around 6:20)
2:37 Zhuangzi 莊子
2:42 Baopuzi 抱朴子 by Ge Hong 葛洪
2:49 Taipingjing 太平經 / The Scripture on the Grand Pacification
3:44 The Triplex Unity 參同契
4:04 Lu Xiujing 陸修靜
4:14 "true scriptures" 真經
4:17 "yet-to-be-revealed" 未出
4:26 The Three Caverns 三洞: Cavern of Perfection 洞真 (Highest Clarity 上清 school), Cavern of Mystery 洞玄 (Numinous Treasure 靈寶 school) & Cavern of Spirit 洞神 (Writ of the Three Sovereigns 三皇文)
4:48 Four Auxiliaries 四輔
5:18 Emperor Huizong of Song 宋徽宗
5:51 Zhu Xi 朱熹
7:37 Zhengtong Daozang 正統道藏
8:26 Zhonghua Daozang 中華道藏
8:32 Dunhuang 敦煌
10:00 Mozi 墨子
11:12 Lord Lao 老君
11:16 Celestial Masters 天師道, Upper Clarity 上清 (just another translation of Highest Clarity, mentioned above), Numinous Treasure 靈寶 (this one's translated consistently) traditions
12:05 External Alchemy 外丹 and Internal Alchemy 內丹
@VieShaphiel amazing! thanks🎉
change your pfp man
Early bird award! And finally, notification worked this time. I usually see your vids a couple of days after uploading.
Whoa. You don't know what you don't know until you know it, huh.
If you really wanted to compare this to comparable Christian literature it would make more sense to include the patristic and liturgical canon as well. Once you add up the Bible, plus the Patrologia Graeca, plus the Patrologia Latina, plus the various Liturgical texts, you're easily well over 400 volumes in total.
Not to mention additional works that are unique to different denominations like the Rule of St. Benedict and the Book of Common Prayer
@@offduty23 I'd have to look, but I suspect the Rule of St. Benedict could likely be found in the Patrologia Latina. But, you make a good point, the texts I referenced just refer to the Greek and Latin tradition prior to about 1500, there's the Slavic patristic and monastic traditions, the Georgians have a religious literary canon in their language. Then there's the various non-Chalcedonians, the Copts, especially, have a rich literary tradition, as do the Armenians.
And then there are the protestant traditions, they don't seem to hold their literary traditions in quite the same regard as the more traditional churches, but they certainly exist, especially with respect to some like the Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterian/Reformed traditions.
@costakeith9048 I think you could lump the majority of the protestant literary tradition together. Especially regarding the Reformed and Anglican wings of the protestant movement, CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and John Calvin's Institutes of the Christan Religion are two of those benchmarks.
I'm sure that Religion for Breakfast knows this, and so I feel that the thumbnail and several images comparing the Taoist canon to the King James Bible are dishonest.
I don't think there's an agenda behind it, except maybe to make the subject seem more exciting.
To me the texts are interesting not because they are long, they're interesting because they're ancient and have had a huge influence on human history.
Just like the Christian bible, the average Taoist has a condensed version if the texts, and just like Christianity, the extended canon is only studied by people who dedicate their lives to the religion, like monks and other teachers.
I’ve always wanted to know what philosophical secrets are in the Taoist canon. Maybe one day :(
I'd love to see a massive translation effort.
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
Medical secrets too! A few years ago a researcher named Youyou Tu won a Nobel Prize for rediscovering a malaria treatment from an old Daoist medical text.
Interesting 🤔 I'm intrigued because most western skeptics tend to fall into philosophical naturalism of materialism. this should prove them wrong.
@@ewrvwergwergwergwergproof?
Can I selfishly request a video on Journey to the West? Its a novel and not exactly a religous text but it has themes of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism and it's main character has become a figure that is revered. The historical and mythological influences are fascinating also.
Thank you for your continuing interest in Daoism, there’s so little scholarly information available on CZcams.
Cool video. Didn't realize the canon was this big for Daoism.
Ticket booked! I consider myself Taoist, but I haven't read much of the Canon and I need to improve my Chinese to read more. Thank you for covering this, I feel more affirmed that I fit more with the wider practice, even if I've not been able to participate in liturgical practice. Going in for a big surgery on Monday, and this has brought me comfort. I appreciate your work 😊
Too many jargons employed.
Good luck on the surgery Tom, hope everything goes well and you recover promptly and in peace!
@@alejorag thanks so much, I've got excellent support with my parents. I appreciate the well wishes 🙏
My new favorite youtube channel. Wonderful. I know a tiny bit more than Zero about Daoist scriptures and Daoism. I frankly hadn't even considered the various religions traditional and native to China. We hear more here in the west perhaps about Confucianism or Buddhism, than Daism (Taoism). I have always loved the book the "Tao of Pooh".
In recent years there's been a growing sect around the god of the markets, the Dao Jones
You are the GOAT Dr. Henry
Instead of being like the Bible or the Koran, the collection seems to be like the Catholic collection of the Doctors of the Church. They are considered to be magisterial teachings, and consist of thousands of volumes.
If it’s anything like Buddhism, it’s a compression problem. Repetition was used before writing to encourage memorization.
“And the Buddha asked his assembled disciples Alice, Bob and Cody, “Alice, Bob and Cody, after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, how many ways can you come to know the valley you are looking over.” And Alice replied “after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by descending the mountain and traveling the valley.” Then the Buddha replied “while it is true after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by descending the mountain and traveling the valley, is there another way to know the valley.” And then Bob says “after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by looking closely from the mountain peak.” And then the Buddha replies: “while it is true after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by descending the mountain and traveling the valley, and it is true that while it is true after seeing the mountain in the distance across a valley, building a boat to cross the river, venturing through the jungle, arriving at the base of the mountain, slowly climbing to the top and finally reaching the top of the mountain and looking out, you can come to know the valley by looking closely from the mountain peak, is there another way to know the valley?” And then Cody says…
It’s like imagine how long the Bible would be if every time they mentioned a characters name they repeated the entire genealogy, and the history of each person in it. Original religious texts are many things but pithy is not one of them.
Daoism was created after writing was a thing, so that shouldn't be the case?
If anything, classical Chinese was very concise and efficient, designed to use as few characters as possible to save space. 1000 characters for a passage was considered long.
Repetition exists but that's mostly for 語錄體:
"A style of ancient Chinese prose. It is often used by disciples to record the words and deeds of their teachers, and sometimes it is also used in Buddhist missionary records. Because it focuses on recording only fragments of words, is short and concise, does not emphasize literary talent, does not pay attention to chapter structure, and does not pay attention to the connection between paragraphs and contents. It has not yet formed a single, complete chapter, so it is called quotation style."
顏淵問仁。子曰：「克己復禮為仁。一日克己復禮，天下歸仁焉。為仁由己，而由人乎哉？」
顏淵曰：「請問其目。」子曰：「非禮勿視，非禮勿聽，非禮勿言，非禮勿動。」
顏淵曰：「回雖不敏，請事斯語矣。」
（《顏淵》第十二 ）
Also here's 5 passages of Tao Te Ching for reference.
道德經
道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名。無名天地之始；有名萬物之母。故常無欲，以觀其妙；常有欲，以觀其徼。此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄之又玄，衆妙之門。
天下皆知美之為美，斯惡已。皆知善之為善，斯不善已。故有無相生，難易相成，長短相較，高下相傾，音聲相和，前後相隨。是以聖人處無為之事，行不言之教；萬物作焉而不辭，生而不有。為而不恃，功成而弗居。夫唯弗居，是以不去。
不尚賢，使民不爭；不貴難得之貨，使民不為盜；不見可欲，使心不亂。是以聖人之治，虛其心，實其腹，弱其志，強其骨。常使民無知無欲。使夫知者不敢為也。為無為，則無不治。
道沖而用之或不盈。淵兮似萬物之宗。挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵。湛兮似或存。吾不知誰之子，象帝之先。
天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗；聖人不仁，以百姓為芻狗。天地之間，其猶橐籥乎？虛而不屈，動而愈出。多言數窮，不如守中。
If you count the theological writings Catholicism recognises as valid teachings alongside the Bible, you'll easily get an equivalent to this
yeah as he was talking i realised how this compares with eastern orthodoxy, that afaik actively rejects Sola Scriptura and even Prima Scriptura (correct me if i'm wrong)
his description of christianity is definitely more aimed at a protestant audience, or at least one that is familiar with protestant doctrine
nonetheless, the comparison is not the meat of the video, and the conclusion seems to be that monks have too much time on their hands, no matter the faith or creed /j
@@aiocafeaits not so much as too much time but like its the compilation of all the good texts.
Like one could talk of a political cannon for the USA & itd be like yeah the founding documents but also the library of congress & all the presidential libraries. A future scholar of america would trawl through all those documents to understand the egregore that is America
Jacques Paul Migne’s Patrologiae cursus completus contains anywhere from 306 to 386 volumes (depending on whether you include Latin translations of Greek texts) of Patristic writings
Yeah, I think the idea that only a small number of books should be elevated as unquestionable canon is mainly a Protestant concept. With a broader definition of canonicity you can easily end up with an enormous amount of writing
The 13th Article of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expresses " if there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy we seek after these things"
During my Taoist phase of life I visited Hua Mountain in China to visit some temples.
Fantastic video!!
Wish you tell us more 😊
Dang notification still dont work, but yay! I was Lucky that I got bored and wanted to entertain myself by watching your mama Mazu video again ;D
I learned something new today! Since there are no or rarely any English translations of these texts, it really makes me hungry for more learning and Im kept up at night as to what kind of knowledge I’m missing out on!
The Three Caverns system is clearly inspired by the Three Baskets (Tipiṭaka / Tripiṭaka / Sanzang 三藏) of Buddhism. Not surprising: syncretism with Buddhism was undergoing since the emergence of Numinous Treasure (Lingbao 靈寶) school / lineages / traditions...
'Don't believe in every quote on the Internet' ~Laozi
Thank you so much for making the class donation based! I'm a poor disabled student and I really appreciate being able to go to this one!!
Amazing as always 🌟
Louis Komjathy has done a good job translating some texts into English in his bilingual, scholarly but also practice-oriented Chinese-English Handbooks for Daoist Practice. He is both a scholar and Daoist priest.
great video! more daoism content please!
This video was so fascinating! I think I'm gonna read some of these daoist scripts...
As a taoist from hong kong, I thought the canon is just collections of taoist books that serves as a backup in case the books are lost in the future wars when dynasty changes every few hundred years or accidentally burned in fire?
It s not right to compare the bible to taoist canon. I.e most taoist practitioners would NOT have access to these books throughout history until now, which is similar to saying most Catholics in medieval era would not have access to the private library of Vatican. Rewatched the video and actually he said it s only widely available to public for the first time in history 8:13
This is basically what he covers in 12:50
@@crazy808ish he is describing what modern taoist would do when there s a taoist canon. I am stating the canon has never been available to the general public until modern library is available in the last few decades. Hence it s like all the pdf backup in a USB drive and so there s little need to "harmonise" the teachings.
Thanks for another interesting and informative episode. I learned many new things about Daoism.
You'd probably be comparing this to a larger library of Christian works including sayings of the desert fathers, Didache, works of Origen, Cappadocian fathers, etc etc etc.
And what is Daoist, Daojia or Daojiao? The latter is more like catch-all for vastly diverse Chinese folk beliefs and the former may be a philosophy but had no continuity as an sect of any kind
There's a loud house fanfiction that's even longer.
It is interesting that these "differences" between Christian and Daoist attitudes toward 'scripture,' as described in the vid, reflects the historical and socio-economical backgrounds each 'religion' was set in.
As we've seen in prior videos about Daoism, Daoist texts are notoriously difficult to understand, feels almost counter-intuitive, and it's definitely not just the laymen who get the feel, "... isn't this just occult/mysticism bullshi?" at times. Which is one of the reasons why, as explained in the vid, there exists vastly different interpretations and hard to pin down "what was the author really trying to say."
What this meant, in the historical context, was that despite the seemingly very sophisticated nature of Laozi or Zhangzi's philosophical musings, in actual practice Daoism has become fused with a variety of mystical, superstitious traditions that differ from region to region, to take on the form of popular mysticism. So common people, would light incense to ward off bad spirits, buy warding scrolls from Daoists and ritualistically burn it, put up figurines, arrange "magic circles" and wish for good luck, throw fireworks and burn papers, spread chicken blood in festivities, do prayers at altars to commemorate their dead and etc etc... NONE of these, were originally a part of anything about Laozi or Zhangzi. But now it's just infused in popular culture, as a highly-decentralized "everyday religion" which at times is hard to tell apart from just shamanism, superstitious practices or traditional rituals. (Like how modern Japanese habitually going to shrines in the New Year to wish for good luck, or give a small ritualistic prayer to home-shrines, does not necessarily mean they're "devout" in their "religiosity.")
This, is in stark contrast to Confucianism, which has become much more highly structured, with strict canonical set of texts and authoritative interpretations from the key scholars of Confucian history.
And that reflects the historic/social reality that Confucianism became engrained as a part of governance and ideological core of bureaucracy in East Asia. So Confucianism is a system, highly organized, and strictly enforced as core values of morals and ethics of the upper ruling class of people. In contrast, Taoism, has become dominant in the lower-middle classes of people as a cultural, life, everyday tradition. But it's not as if Taoism and Confucianism has necessarily "split" the religious beliefs down the middle of East Asian societies -- but more of "different categories" where Confucianism takes on the form of legal, moral, ethical frameworks, while Taoism takes on the form of everyday practice.
Although, Confucian scholars actually have spoken against "too much superstition" in regions where Taoism has become so dominant as to affect regional bureaucracies or policies. But so long as that does not happen, and Taoism "keeps to its lane" as popular practice, they viewed it "unsatisifying, but harmless" and it was allowed to persist.
Hence, thousands of years without central authority, or deep connections with the ruling powers, Taoism has spread to the point that it's now impossible to really narrow down and compile what it is supposed to be, and the incredible amount of texts in the Zhonghuadaojang show that.
Which is interesting, given how much of the Daodejing is concerned _specifically_ with governance and can be seen as a straight-up takedown of Confucianism.
@@Just.Kidding I'd say realistically it's more of a "governance through non-governance," and perhaps the form of governing might feel somewhat familiar to anarchists.
Of course, no kingdom/empire can ever have that, so Taoism actually went through an altered form of compromise in attempts to appeal to the rulers and upper classes -- in the form of "Huanglao" schools which tried to sort of re-imagine the role of the Emperor as a symbolic being.
@ReligionForBreakfast, thank you for this video
Brilliant! I love the way you bring material to us so fluidly. You have a gift my friend. ❤
On the basis of how the texts comprising the Daoist Canon can and have come to be regarded as canonical, one reckons we can put together a Christian Canon as well which could be at least just as massive, by taking in the complete works of Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther and even the Christian mystics, and perhaps the Apocrypha and Kabbalah as well.
It would incidentally seem kind of ironic that the Daoist Canon should be so massive despite the very first sentence in the _Daodejing:_ 'The Way that can be put in words is not the true Way.'
(EDIT: I wonder if they've digitized the whole Daoist Canon and stored it into a DVD? One that's commercially available? :) )
It seems like the Daoist canon would be better compared to an Abrahamic canon than just the Bible. Add the Koran, Talmuds, Josephus, Nag Hammadi Library, Kabbalic works, Agrippa's Three Books, the Book of Mormon...
That's not canonical. It is literally just like the bible. Imagine every book of the bible was written in big characters. You'd have around 40 books or maybe 3 to 4 tomes. The problem is since Taoism is much less unified it has a very flexible Canon, kinda like early century Christianity were certain books were considered canonical but not by everyone
Thanks for covering the news that the US now has a copy of the Daoist canon.
*Larry Burkett's book on "Giving and Tithing" drew me closer to God and helped my spirituality. 2020 was a year I literally lived it. I cashed in my life savings and gave it all away. My total giving amounted to 40,000 dollars. Everyone thought I was delusional. Today, 1 receive 85,000 dollars every two months. I have a property in Calabasas, CA, and travel a lot. God has promoted me more than once and opened doors for me to live beyond my dreams. God kept to his promises to and for me*
There's wonder working power in following Kingdom principles on giving and tithing. Hallelujah!
But then, how do you get all that in that period of time? What is it you do please, mind sharing?
It is the digital market. That's been the secret to this wealth transfer. A lot of folks in the US and abroad are getting so much from it, God has been good to my household Thank you Jesus
And thanks to my co-worker (Michael) who suggested Ms Susan Jane Christy
How can I start this digital market, any guidelines and how can I reach out to her?
One reason for the large volume is the way of writing in Chinese. If you open the book, you will see one character is as large as the largest letter in the headlines in an English newspaper.
And more importantly, size does not matter.
I'm told that in Chinese bibles, the first words of John's gospel ("In the beginning was the Word") are translated as "In the beginning was the Dao."☯️
Certainly true, by Whom, through Him and for Whom all was made
I'd love a similar video on different Buddhist canons!
Could this be compared with how Christians view the writings of the Church Fathers?
i'd love to learn more about daoism, like about the 3 pure ones, the heavenly court, and the rest of the pantheon and lore
I'm surprised the Red Guard didn't destroy those old wood blocks.
Agreed.
This is what confuses me about videos like this that frame the eastern religions as more dense, and somehow better than the bible .
Ok cool so let’s talk to the government of the country where ancient China existed…. - oh wait they had a communist revolution that repudiated, and did away with traditional, ancient, and spiritual practices…. They changed language characters, obliterated spiritual practices, waged incredible iniquities in their neighboring countries and abroad…
Oh right so they’re sinful just like everyone else??… and they don’t care enough to let the world know how to live a better life. No they simply dunk on the crazy kooky bible folk…
@@1surfpesca_ nowhere in this video does he imply any of the things you are talking about. You are just projecting because your are insecure about your own beliefs.
@@asagoldsmith3328 I never stated my beliefs either? You are assuming a lot, how ironic….
I’m sorry if what I said made you feel some type of way 🤣
@@asagoldsmith3328 what beliefs am I insecure about and what exactly am I projecting 🤣 that’s a lot of things you said that have nothing to do with my comment
@@1surfpesca_bro literally never dunked on western religions or said it's better, where does he say that? Give me a timestamp. that's what the other commenter meant when they said you are projecting.
Thanks for a great informative video. My meaningful introduction to Taoism/Daoism came about when researching a report assignment I had to do for a subject, Science in a Social Context: The History of Science, that I enrolled in for an 'easy' credit in a Bachelor of Business I was doing as a mature age student in the late 1970's. I came across Joseph Needham's many volumes on China in which he also described 'The Way'. Though labelling, what I realised was, feng shui, 'geomancy' threw me a bit at first.
I wonder how many of being destroyed during the "Cultural Revolution".
Forever grateful for this channel!
I’m a Dudeist Priest from The Church of the Latter Day Dude, which is a sect of Western Taoism that throws The Big Lebowski movie in there with the Lao Tzu teachings. Taoism has no heresy so it is expected that it’d get weird when it reached the West.
No weird. Tao is infinite, no one‘s way is right or wrong, every Tao can be true. That's Tao Te Ching all about.
4:38 This division isn't too dissimilar to the division in Tanach. The Chumash is the law. The Navi are the prophets and the Ketuvim are the writings which have a more theurgical bent.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing
Xiaoma has GOT to give us the full audiobook.
The concept of canon is very much a Christian one and even Christians argue about what belongs. For Muslims the Quran is central but what about the Hadith? Shi'i reject them yet they are vitally important to many Sunni though they might disagree on whether they are canon. Some Sufi orders place their internal texts in very high regard but does that mean they should be included?
i think it’s more a Greek concept than a Christian concept. the word canon is a Greek word, as he explained. We know that historically, Greeks were writing books and had canons of books before the rise of Christianity. Because early Christianity had a major presence in the Roman empire which was heavily, heavily influence by Greek Hellenistic culture, Christians easily adopted the concept of a canon into the religion. But again the Greek word, canon, existed for Greek culture before Christianity came about in the world. So, you are incorrect. But it’s ok!!!
@@nozrep The concept as it refers to religion is Christian. The church took the Greek idea and spent 1500 years crafting it to fit it's own use. This is just as it did with the word religion, in English it's indistinguishable from how protestant Christianity defines itself.
I was in Malaysia for a few months in the 1994 and still have the copy if the Tao te ching from a hotel room it was left in.
13:36 no you were too vague. Can you repeat what you’re talking about?
honestly, it sounds a bit like the complete Jewish canon. we have the Tanakh, but then we also have the Mishna, which is essentially commentary on the Bible, then the Tosafta, which is additions to the Mishna, then the Talmud, which is commentary on the Mishna, and so on and so forth. the Tanakh is considered the most important and the most holy, but the whole collective is what actually makes Jewish law.
Exactly. And it covers all aspects of life, philosophy, history, law, agriculture, economics, etc. and not just things that are strictly “religious” in nature
2:41 B O I P U C C I
I laughed. I'm not ashamed.
Well, I'm a Buddhist. The Scriptures of Theravada Buddhism or the "Tipitaka" is about 45 volumes recorded in ancient Pali (the language the historical Buddha speaks). It was compiled around 2,100 years ago.
你有给佛陀烧香嘛？😂
RAAAAAA I LOVE TAOISM ☯️ ❤️ ♥️ 💕 💖 💓 ☯️ ❤️ ♥️ 💕
Because?
@@TheWorldTeacher I like Daoism because I was grown up, like many people who may be reading this, in a secular household where religion was for old timers who didnt have their heads on straight. Daoism taught me the failures of atheism, you cannot ignore the spiritual even from a logical standpoint. There will always be mystery, and learning and discovery can only create more mystery. By embracing this you can see the world in a much less anxiety-prone way, and I learned how to be kinder to others, live in the moment, and generally make better choices without succumbing to the abstractions or ideologies that have alot of people in their grip at this moment in history.
@alphachicken9596 Couldn't have said it better myself! I wouldn't call myself a proper Taoist out of respect for its long-standing cultural and folk-religious aspects (and my lack of knowledge thereof), but I don't think I've had a more fulfilling experience with a religious text than with the Tao Te Ching :]
This video was very well put together. Great presentation.
Im sorry to stereotype but a religion based on thousands of pages of wisdom and philosophy is the most chinese thing ever
Thanks!
The bigger, the better.
holy library is more fitting term than a holy book.
Sounds sort of more equivalent to compar to the Bible, plus Christian liturgical texts, plus the Church Father's, and later theologians thana. Direct 1:1
Like the Philokalia.
@charlesiragui2473 yeah, but like the Philokelia plus the Office of Hours (Byzabtine and Latin), and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and like wvery biblical commentary from the middle ages on, plus every book on chemistry written by Monks. Seriously different internal logic, like the video says.
@@Parmandur Latin, Greek: two ways to one goal. Same! Even the name “the Way” was a general name for the early Christian movement.
When you also count the Talmud as part of the ancient Jewish canon then you get another 2,711, very long, double sided pages (not including commentary). A regular Hebrew Bible has around 2100 pages. Much less than the Daoist text. Neverththless an average Daoist page has around 1/15 of the average amount of words in the Bible and about 1/23 of that of the Talmud. This would make the amount of words in both canons as not that different with the Dao having around as three times more words than the Jewish canon (not including the Mystical texts of the second Temple period, the early Medieval Midrashim and the lost, ancient Hebrew texts).
How can we find these scriptures online say? Perhaps with translation software we can start to get some insights. Incredible we in English have so very little available on such a major religion!
They're very hard to translate, and they might contain a character that literally means one thing like "air", but in this text that is being used for something more philosophical.
Machine translation will just sound like nonsense
Fascinating, thank you.
How many ways could you possibly say "go with the flow?"
Daoists:
Please cover more polytheistic traditions. I would also love to see a vid covering differences between Indian, Chinese, and Japanese branches of Buddhism.
This is why when I see Westerners say, "I'm not religious, I'm more like a Taoist", I laugh, because I know they have no idea whatsoever what Taoism really is. And how filled with gods, and rituals, and magic, and traditions it actually is. They have at most read the Tao Te Ching.
Philosophical taoism occurred earlier and was at first disconnected from religious one
Anyone claiming to be a part of a religion that they weren't raised in or part of a specific community cannot be taken seriously.
I just say I have Taoist influences in my beliefs. Which is true, but doesn't overstate things. I've read the Tao Te Ching in translation a few times over the years, and always get something new and interesting out of it. But it would be sheer pretention to call myself Taoist because of that.
(Or, for that matter, I also have Christian influences, from being in a Christian family. "Influences" is a nice descriptor, I think.)
@@LordVarksonI don't think there would be many people raised in Taoist tradition.
@@user-kp1js6cb2s and almost all Westerners have very little knowledge of that either. The Taoist canon is filled with philisophical writings that unless they can read Chinese: I guarantee you most Westerners have never read.
Just about everything I know about Daoism I learned from reading Cultivation stories of various kinds.
It sounds a lot like the Talmud - probably the best "Western" analogy
I am Chinese but I never went really deep into Taoism. Thank you for this video! Recently I have been having your videos in the background when doing chores and I learned a lot! I have been thinking about how different a faith or religion came into being in east and west. I would say Confucious is like Plato in the east. Each culture has its own Plato-like figures whoes philosophy is the fundamental of, or contributes significantly to, the morality standard and guideline of that culture and people of such culture. But Confucious and Lao Tsu and other local and regional heroes have temples and people worship them, with a collection of ritual and ceremonies. The Western don't worship Plato and Philosophers. So the "worship" of those heros are very different from the worship of the god and the god's son and outstanding followers(saints). If we have to pick a perspective to start with, lets say the god in Christrianity and Judaism is the creator of the world. I think Confusicous rarely cover the origin of the world/human beings/nature/society. But Tao Te Ching might mentioned this, like yhe quote you mentioned. I interpreted this like the origin or the world and the foundation of a lot of things in the human society have some axioms as the beginning of everything and we don't think we will ever fully understand what they are, even if we manage to view them, we definitely would not be able to fully understand, no menton have a deep dive into them.
I'm pretty ignorant about daoism.
Every thing i know about it i got from kung fu panda and the big Lebowski
And the original star wars and big trouble in Little china
Oh! And what was that martial arts kangaroo movie that was copying 'never ending story'?
@@the_lotharingian I gotta say, the "There is no secret ingredient" bit in KFP is pretty on point
I assume the lack of translation issue can be solved relatively easily nowadays, what with very reliable OCR and machine translation
Maybe if it was written in Greek
You have no idea at all. Classical Chinese is so different from modern Chinese. And these text usually lean into ambiguity so that the interpretation is flexible.
@@nihilisticgacha Don't even get me started on how some texts in there are also encoded/encrypted in scrambled paragraphs, or half a text is just covering "scribbles" of heavenly seal script...who wants 54 iterations of the word for "sky/heaven" and none of them look the same?
Being in a religion seems like way too much work.
Depends on the religion
Ture
The book " Mormon Doctrine in the Apocrypha" has taught me that Eternal principles can be found anywhere. I'd love to see the earliest copies of the Daoist text to look for parallels.
After the communist cultural revolution of mao's , many religious books were destroyed. Religious scholers had to go to other countries like Japan and some in the west to relearn what the CCP destroyed. 😮😢
You should do a video on Hindu scriptures next!!
The shorter a canon, the more weight attached to each sentence or clause within it. For example, the Jews read the Torah, which is but the first five books of the Tanakh, at every synagogue service. Muslims very strongly revere the Qur'an, which is about as long as the New Testament. The inverse is also true, as this video suggests. Even the Bible was too long for common use by Christians during the Middle Ages, and priority was placed on certain smaller chunks of it like the Psalms or maybe the Gospels. And it de facto had to share authority with non-canonical but highly esteemed works like the writings of the Church Fathers and later theologians. It wasn't until the Protestant Reformation and the invention of the printing press that this changed, and to this day Catholics are still more numerous than Protestants.
Your statement is inconclusive, length is not correlated with clarity so often that a long text becomes vapid. It is case by case basis.
@@BygoneT There may be exceptions, but I believe that what I said is generally right, for a number of reasons.
First, a short canon implies a well-organized religion with a common authority that has the power to exclude miscellaneous writings from such. A well-organized religion can better enforce standards of piety and dogma.
Second, speaking of dogma, religious canons are seldom written by a single man. Even in the case of Islam, the hadiths were compiled by many people besides Muhammad, often based off of rumors and existing pre-Islamic traditions of local areas. Different people will have differing opinions, and their writings will contradict each other at times. A longer canon runs the risk of blatant contradictions popping up, making it harder to point to such as a singular voice of authority with a unified message. Like, imagine if Gnostic texts made it into the New Testament. At present Catholics and Evangelicals basically agree on what Christianity is despite their countless denominational differences, but add these texts to the mix and said unity would become impossible.
Third, short canons are more accessible than longer ones. Obviously they can be reproduced in greater volumes and distributed across a wider area into more hands, and it's possible to study the Bible and gain a holistic understanding of it. Heck, there is a class of extra-devout Muslims who've memorized the entire Qur'an. You obviously can't do that with the Taoist/Daoist canon, or with the Vedas and Puranas. If basing the core of your faith off knowledge of religious texts is impossible, then you'll prioritize other things to fill the void, such as liturgical practices.