Taoism[1].pptx is adiverse philosophical and religious

taoism

1. Taoism A philosophical system which strongly emphasizes man’s place in nature. It is concerned with society, except as something to move away. Finally, it functioned as a magical system with incantations for healing disease, countering death, and warding off evil spirits.

2. Lao Tzu He taught that Tao is most fully revealed tranquillity, not through action nor righteous living. Virtue is attained by q uiet submission to the power of Tao . The Tao cannot be defined. As the first line from Tao Te Ching says: “The Way ( tao ) that can be walked is not the true and unchanging way. The name that can be named is not true and unchanging name.” Chuang Tzu Emphasized in a memorable manner the superiority of conforming to the Tao and of avoiding all strife.

3. If Confucianism stresses man’s role as master of nature, Taoism stresses man’s passive role in nature. Founded on the experience of the dynamic force immanent in the universe which gives order and life and meaning to the totality of reality, it shared with Confucianism the Chinese vision of man’s harmony with nature. It might be mentioned parentically that Filipino thought is also characterized as conformity to nature especially among the rural folk and hence it was considered wrong to deviate from the ways of nature.

4. BUDDHISM Originates from the experience of the misery of life. Life for Buddhist, is caught in a labyrinth of changes, so much so that there is no peace to be found in this world. There is an endless cycle of change, of birth and death and therefore, the only way for man to attain peace is to cross the sea of humanity and become something totally other into the state of “nirvana”, or the fading out of suffering. T hus, Buddhism has a morality that is characterized as egocentric and individualistic and gives very little positive value to society.

5. Gautama the buddha - is the personal founder of the religion k nown to be the second to Christianity in its number of following. Buddhism teaches the Four Noble Truths: The noble truth of suffering. The noble truth of the cause of suffering. The noble truth of the cessation of suffering. The noble truth of the path that leads to the cessation of the suffering; that is the Holy Eightfold Path: Right Views, Right Aspirations, Right speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Endeavour, Right Mindfulness, and Right Meditation.

6. Five precepts: Not to kill Not to steal Not to lie Not to commit adultery Not to drink intoxicating Liquors

7. Brahmanism It is founded on the experience of the divine being who is the one beyond all multiplicity. The supreme being for the H indu, the material self and individual self (Atman) are simply deceptions. The only real, non-conscious and beyond good and evil is Brahman or the Great Self. The chief contribution of Hinduism is the philosophy of the self. GRANTH SAHIB The holy book of brahmanism

8. While the experience of the Semitic race is of a transcendent, personal God who reveals himself in the history of a particular people and revealing the ultimate cause or “end” for which everything has been created, the oriental experience is of an immanent principle of Being (Brahman), present in the whole creation and in the heart of every man as the Atman, the self. This inner Spirit , Isvara , reveals itself finally as a personal God, the Lord of what is and will be.

9. In the Hindu tradition, the Spirit, immanent in nature as Brahman and immanent in man as Atman, is revealed as the “unborn, eternal God” in whom both man and nature find their fulfillment ( ef . Suetas Vatara Upanishad 2.15) The hindu conception of “ advaita ” or of non-duality is a basic mark of Brahmanism. Hindu names: Sat- Godhead being Chit- knowledge Ananda - bliss

10. The basic experience of God, which is revealed in the Upanishads and underlies all Hindu religion, is the intuition of one, eternal, infinite reality, the Brahman which cannot properly be named or conceived and yet is the ground and principle of all that exists.

11. The B rahman, when reflected in human consciousness, is known as the Atman, the self, the ground and principle of human existence and consciousness. This experience of the self as one with the Brahman, the principle of being, is expressed in the “ mahavakyas ” the “great sayings” of the Upanishads: I am Brahman; Thou Art That.

12. This experience of the oneness of the Brahman and the Atman is one of absolute bliss- ananda . Thus, the Hindu experience of God, of the absolute, is expressed in the term Saccidanada , which is the nearest approach to a name for the ineffable.

13. According to the teachings of Sankara , who is considered the greatest philosopher in Hinduism, the Brahman and of the Atman can be interpreted only in terms of advaita or non-duality. He maintained that reality or Brahman is one without any difference. All differences are merely “superimpositions” on the one reality of the Brahman.

14. Unlike western philosophies, Brahmanism find no difficulty in believing that God became man. On the contrary, the Hindu believes in multitude of incarnations or “ Avataras ”. “when righteousness declines and unrighteousness prevails,” Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, “then I take birth”.

15. The number of “incarnations” is usually reckoned as ten, but it can be increased indefinitely. The difference here lies in a difference of perspective. For the Hindu, as for oriental in general, time is cyclical. Hence, the world is conceived as “samsara”, as a continual cycle of birth and death and rebirth. The avatara or descent of God takes place from time to time to restore the “dharma”, that is the universal law, but there is no finality in such “descents”. “Moksha” or salvation consists in an escape from this cyclical wheel of time.

16. Zen- buddhism Zen moral philosophy arose out of the experience of the original spontaneous activity of the mind aimed at keeping the elemental and cultural life of man in the state of elemental simplicity possessing the vigor of the spontaneous and the instinctive. It stresses intuition (satori). Wisdom is considered paradoxical and the only valid approach to it is an approach that is anti-rational.

17. Major ethical and social contributions of Zen-Buddhism: A . Essential P assitivity . The principle of “Wu-Wei” or inaction. This views man as essentially passive and comparable to that inactivity of the bamboo that bends when there is a strong wind but never gives up. Judo is an Asian martial art that employs the principle and is defined as the gentle art of throwing people.

18. B. Union of contradictories. What seems logically or rationally incompatible ( e.g. subjectivity-objectivity, attack- defense , passive-active) are resolved in the mind of satori. Koan or zen problems are an exercise of resolving disharmonies. For example, the sound of one hand clapping; how to get a rooster into a narrow-mouthed bottle without destroying the bottle or harming the rooster.

19. C. The ordinary. Zen-Buddhism emphasizes what is very ordinary in our everyday life. For example, “where is the Buddha-heart? It is found in the heart of every man.” What is Buddha? Buddha is three kilos of sugar.

20. Zen Buddhism aroused at early Mahayana Sutras moving under the influence of Chinese thought. Although the basic ideas of Mahayana Buddhism were fully formulated in India, the particular school of Zen meditation emerged in china. It was in china, where Zen was deeply affected by the Indigenous Taoism and from which it spread over all of East- Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Tibet as well.

21. In Japan, it witnessed a great flowering in the 12 th century, attracting the Japanese through its ideal of a disciplined life. The Japanese genius is manifested more on the side of the art of living than on philosophical plane. Stressed the writer D.T Suzuki: “It seems to me that the Japanese are great in changing philosophy into art, abstract reasoning into life, transcendentalism into empirical immanetism .”

22. As Buddhism, Zen is seen as the way of liberation from an inner disorder in man which Buddha calls “ Dukha ”. This disorder is greater than any external misery like poverty, sickness, or ignorance. It is far more serious. It is unsatisfactoriness , fear and insecurity in the heart of every man. What causes it is an untruly state of mind by which man clings to objects and is enslaved by them.

23. A craving for what we do not yet have, or, having, fear to lose. This attachment to objects is due to avidya or ignorance mistaking the self-centered , separative , assertive, phenominal self for our fundamental, authentic self.