Introduction

Taoism is one of China’s “Three Teachings,” a religious tradition that traces back to a mythic sage named Lao Tzu and flourishes today in modern China, as well as other parts of East Asia. In recent years, it has even begun to make some headway into Western Europe and North America. Almost every basic world religions textbook has a chapter on it, and many bookstores carry a smattering of Taoist texts or books about some aspect of Taoism.

But if you want to start learning something about Taoism, how do you know where to begin? Some books barely whet your appetite with a brief historical summary and provocative quotations from a handful of classical texts, while others overwhelm you with technical language and microscopic analysis. Some encourage you to adopt Taoist philosophy in your own life, or package Taoism as the latest in “self-help” — but you never really know whether they’re just making it all up!

Fortunately, your troubles are over.

About This Book

This book introduces Taoism in a way that makes it easy to grasp, while at the same time giving you a clear sense of parts of the tradition that can get a little complicated. You can follow the development of Taoism from its origins in ancient China, through the specific sects that have survived in a rapidly changing contemporary Chinese society, all the way to organizations that have popped up in New York, San Francisco, and other North American cities. And you can find out about Taoist ideas, texts, and practices — everything from “non-doing” and yin-yang philosophy to ch’i-kung and rituals of cosmic renewal.

We’re talking here about a religious tradition that has undergone more than two millennia of history, transformed over time, given rise to multiple sects and lineages, and played a role in the lives of literally billions of people, so it would be pretty hard to dig into every single detail with the depth that each one deserves. But that doesn’t mean that a book like this can’t touch as many bases as possible and have some fun while doing so. You can count on this book being broad (it covers a wide spectrum of Taoist information), accurate (it doesn’t tell you anything that isn’t true), and understandable (it never tries to dazzle you with fancy language or dense philosophical banter). And mostly, you can count on it being an enjoyable and entertaining read.

Conventions Used in This Book

Because this book presents its subjects in a straightforward, easy-to-digest style, you don’t have to memorize a bunch of specialized conventions before you even get started, but I do want to let you know about a few standard practices that this book follows:

The book assigns dates using b.c.e. (Before the Common Era) and c.e. (Common Era) instead of b.c. (Before Christ) and a.d. (Anno Domini, or “In the Year of the Lord”), because the newer designations are more religiously neutral. But this isn’t a big deal, because they’re referring to the same calendar.

I don’t talk about Taoism as a “religion” as much as a “religious tradition” or simply a “tradition.” This helps break the habit of thinking of Taoism (or any –ism, for that matter) as one fixed, unchanging entity that exists apart from the way human beings construct it, employ it, and transform it. Somehow, a “tradition” gives the impression of being more fluid and internally diverse than a “religion.”

Finally, and this is the big one, although I don’t want to overwhelm you with long lists of hard-to-pronounce Chinese words, there are enough important people in Taoist history that you really need to pick up some rudimentary ground rules for how to read Romanized (that is, English-language versions of) Chinese words and names. And this will probably come in handy well beyond Taoism For Dummies. The system of Romanization this book uses is the Wade–Giles system, which is covered in Appendix C.

When you read Chinese words and names, try saying them out loud (using the pronunciation guide in Appendix C). People learn words and names better when they actually hear them, instead of just reading the letters on the printed page, and I promise you it’ll be a whole lot easier to keep track of them when you try it this way.

These are the biggest conventions to keep in mind. But in addition to these, my editor wanted me to let you know that I italicize new terms when they're first used (and define them shortly thereafter, often in parentheses), and I use monofont for web addresses.

Note: When this book was printed, some web addresses may have needed to break across two lines of text. If that happened, rest assured that we haven’t put in any extra characters (such as hyphens) to indicate the break. So, when using one of these web addresses, just type in exactly what you see in this book, pretending as though the line break doesn’t exist.

Foolish Assumptions

No, I’m not going to knock whatever assumptions you may have about Taoism — that wouldn’t be fair. But I am going to come clean about some of the assumptions that I have about you:

You’re probably not a Taoist, but you have some interest in this particular tradition, in China more generally, or in any religious tradition that’s not your own.

You take seriously the religious beliefs and practices of other people, and you want to become familiar with Taoism as one way to understand your friends, neighbors, or colleagues a little better.

You don’t necessarily know a lot about Taoism, and you probably don’t know all the technical vocabulary when it comes to religion, but you’re interested in the subject and a quick-enough study that you’ll pick up a lot, as long as I don’t talk down to you and just explain things in a straightforward way.

How This Book Is Organized

Regardless of websites that tell you Taoism is nothing more than adopting a philosophy of simplicity and “going with the flow,” the historical Taoist religious tradition is actually tremendously complex, with distinct lineages and sects, an extensive pantheon of deities, a hierarchical priesthood, and texts that are intelligible only to those who’ve been initiated into certain teachings.

To make your journey into Taoism a little less intimidating, this book is organized into distinct parts, each of which is built around a broad theme. These parts don’t follow any standard formula, or correspond to any official Taoist “orthodoxy” — they’re just presented in a way that makes the subject more approachable and lets you look into the areas you find most interesting.

Part I: Navigating the World of Taoism

This part lets you tiptoe into the world of Taoism by introducing you to its Chinese religious background and presenting an overview of the tradition. It straightens out some common misconceptions, points out the ambiguity of the word Taoism, and gives you some important distinctions to help you navigate the rest of the book.

Part II: Looking At the Development of Taoism

Every story starts at the beginning, and the story of Taoism is no exception. But this story doesn’t just give you a dry “names and dates” version of history; instead, it takes you through a remarkable journey of narrative twists and turns. You see how the tradition begins with a handful of classical texts, produces communitarian organizations and self-cultivation groups, evolves into the liturgical and monastic sects you can find in China today, and is developing a Western identity as we speak.

Part III: Examining Important Taoist Concepts

Here’s a chance to take a look at some enduring Taoist ideas and themes, including the concepts of Tao, “non-doing,” and yin and yang. It’s also a chance to discover some important aspects of Taoism that don’t always make it into the world religion textbooks, like the belief in a “new age” or the scriptural canon that includes well over a thousand texts.

Part IV: Exploring Taoist Practices

Religion is more than a collection of beliefs, doctrines, or texts; it involves how people live and what traditions they practice. This section takes a look at some important aspects of Taoist practice, including meditation, alchemy, self-cultivation, martial arts, and ritual.

Part V: The Part of Tens

In a hurry? Just want some quick bedside reading? Or maybe you like your Taoism straight, with no chaser? Here’s Taoism condensed into bite-size portions, a trio of top-ten lists that give you a very brief summary of basic entry points into Taoism. Here, you can redress the most common misconceptions, get a road map for seeing some Taoism in action, and even pick up pointers for acquiring Taoist wisdom and applying it to your life.

Part VI: Appendixes

Doctors say that the human appendix is useless, something that may have once served a purpose but is now just taking up space. But the appendixes in this book actually contain some pretty useful information, and you may want to turn to them from time to time as you read the book.

Appendix A contains a glossary of important Taoist figures, key Taoist terminology, and other technical terms. These can jog your memory if you read the chapters out of sequence, pick up the book only once in a while, or just want a quick way to review a critical mass of material. Appendix B contains some recommendations for other resources you can consult if you’d like to delve deeper into any of the subjects discussed here. And Appendix C is a pronunciation guide, giving you pointers on how to pronounce all the difficult Chinese names and terms you encounter throughout this book. It also includes a chart that compares the Wade–Giles system used in this book with the pinyin system that many other sources use.

Icons Used in This Book

A handful of cute icons show up periodically throughout this book, in part to give you a “goose” to break up the “duck-duck-duck” rhythm of each chapter, but mainly to draw your attention to points that are especially important, interesting, or just worth repeating. Here are the icons you’ll find:

The Remember icon points out things to keep in mind as you read a particular chapter or move on to the next one. Often, this contains a surprising bit of information or corrects common misconceptions about Taoism, China, or both.

The Tip icon alerts you to strategies for sorting things out, or for making sense of things that could seem confusing. It may suggest to you how you can read or think about a particular section.

The Warning icon gives you a heads-up about places where the subject could start to get more complicated, or topics that not all Taoists agree on or do the same way.

The Technical Stuff icon points out information — background history, complex explanations, problems in interpretation — that is certainly important, but that may be harder to keep track of on your first reading. Feel free either to skim these tidbits or read them extra-carefully, whichever suits you better.

Where to Go from Here

Think of this book as an educational buffet on Taoism, a smorgasbord of resources that are here for only one purpose: to help you understand Taoism better. Depending on which plate you pick up, or where you dip your ladle, you can engage the classical philosophers, meet the medieval alchemists, locate Taoist practice groups in America, hit your head against the counterintuitive idea of “actionless action,” explore the Taoist practice of “sitting and forgetting,” get a look at cults of immortality, and find out how Taoist priests perform rituals from time to time that serve to renew the entire cosmos.

Read this book the way that works best for you. Feel free to read it in order from beginning to end, poke through the Table of Contents to find the themes that most attract you, or just use the Index to chase down a particular text or historical period you’d most like to explore in more detail. Whichever you choose, make sure you have some fun, because Taoism promises you an exciting world of learning. Or to give just a sniff of the Taoist cork, perhaps I should say that Taoism promises you the even more exciting world of unlearning — and what could be more fun than that?