The Tao is "the way" - How Are We to Understand Its Meaning?
In the reading by Lao-Tzu he makes an understanding that the Tao is “the way”. What he means by this can be interpreted in many ways, and can also be seen from different views. What I understood from it was that the Toa was a set of rules a person can abide by, or something to follow. Now in this reading he uses it in a way to say that to be a good leader you should look to the Tao, or go by its rules or conditions. Then again it can be a religion that he thought was the right way of life. In that he probably was saying that if all the people were to follow the Tao then we would have a great government. That everyone would understand one another and the Tao would be used as a guide to the nation or country. For example, he could have been saying that a theocracy, which is when a government is ruled by a religion, is the right way to a great nation. When I look back at the reading I sense in a way that he was talking about leaving his master and taking the Tao instead, as in finding his freedom. He also talks about his master and about the things she does or does not do, and makes her sound like God with no life. He might have been talking about the sculpture of the old man that is found on page 18, this might be the Tao. I honestly don't know whether this is right or wrong, but that is what I interpreted from the reading.
posted by Aya Elmallah @ 6:57 AM
3 Comments:
I really enjoyed your first blog. It was well structured. You began giving us an overview naming very good points, and finished very strongly with some of your own perosnal arguements. Well done.
This is a very good way of putting it. I can see exactly where you may think it is based on religious values, where it parallels very closely to Buddhism. It is easily misconstrued, however, as both the Tao and Buddhist thoughts are merely principles to follow and not creeds of belief.
Aya, he is talking about a theocracy in some ways--after all, Taoism did become a religion, even though it was not a religion when he wrote this.
It's imporant to remember that Taoism is a religion of process, of how one lives and less about belief, which would make it a little different from most modern theocracies.
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