Miss Piggy

What does "immortality" mean in the Daoist context? Do they believe that dead people go into heaven etc.?

triplew00t

As digitalchicken said, I think. I find that the philosophical branch practically ridicules those who believe in afterlife, reincarnation or even physical immortality. The idea of physical immortality seems to have crept into the beliefs later from folk lore, followed by spirits, demons and magic. Some schools of religious taoism then picked up reincarnation from Buddhists migrating to China.

I am a follower of classical, philosophical taoism. Life has a beginning, so it has an ending. But on the same level, its all just a part of the flow of things. So death is to neither be looked forward to, nor feared. To think we are above death, above the course of nature is the ultimate blaspheme.

Nero

emotional

This I really can't understand. To me, if death is indeed the end of everything, it is the thing to be most feared of all. This has been so all my life, ever since I was told about death. The idea that death is the end of all makes me scream with uncontrollable fear.



I believe in life after death. Since I also believe in biological evolution, I believe in life after death for all conscious living organisms (cats and dogs and beetles as well as humans).

It is by faith I triumph over death.

kctan

No. In Daoistic context, immortality means one can enhance the life span of oneself indefinitely meaning one will never die literally. One will continue to age but one will never die not because of illness nor accident.

The way can be achieved by 2 means. One is thru the usual meditation & finding out the truth in Dao while the other is thru immortality 'pills' giving rise to alchemy in the chinese sense (actually 2 goals here one is for immortality while the other is to turn 'stone' into gold).

There are numerous stories et al detailing the epics of people attaining immortality from historical scribes (yes, it can be found in Chinese historical records) to folk lores.

andy_d

My understanding of the Taoist obsession with immortality was not to obtain eternal life on earth, but merely to prolong life for long enough for the practitioner to become advanced enough to be able return to the source.

At that point the physical body would be left behind and, for all intents and purposes, would die.

Is this not the aim of the life-extending practices?

wandererfromtx

Daoist immortality is just that, to prolong life in this physical world to get a better understanding of the ultimate truth, or at least what they believed was the truth at that time.
Many stories have been told about Daoist Sages living to be several hundred years old, and while many Daoist practitioners lived long healthy life�s, the average life span was not real long. Also the government, in those time rewarded long life with gifts and money, as a person who lived a long life was considered a valued treasured of wisdom. So the practice of naming their children and grandchildren with the same name and doctoring birth certificates was common.

emotional

It sounds a bit like transhumanism.

triplew00t

I for the most part love the ideas of Zen masters who think reincarnation crept into Buddhism later (so they think death is the end of consciousness). Kind of the "waves on a sea" idea of it. Your material goes back to the earth. Your actions are continued on forever in a chain (ala Chaos Theory). Taoists, of the philosophical school also hold a similar view. Which is not suprising seeing as Chan Buddhism was originally a mix of Buddhism and Taoist teachings.

I like Taoism (in the original, philosophical form) and Zen (Buddhism in (in my opinion) the original form, minus the mystical side of Buddhism that dominates the Tibetian school, including reincarnation beliefs) because they offer the comfort of real life. Taoism says "you are not special, you are just like everything else. Do not resist the way of nature, and do not fight against it if you can help it. As for death, why fear death? Every living thing has gone that way before, and will after. You are just like them. Why do you think you are special and different?" Zen says, simply, "Be here now, be there later". Both are wonderful comfort when I catch myself on a mental rampage because of fear of death. I stop, center myself, breathe calmly and think of these ideas. They help. Eventually, I hope I can train my mind not to even bother with the fear, after I push it away each time. Or maybe by accpeting it, but not attacking it I can overcome it better. Whatever means, I am doing better working with these 'religions' than I have with any other.

Nero

kctan

Think of death as something leading to a new beginning. In the line of "At the end of every ending is a new beginning". Look forward to the new beginning whenever you ventured into the ending.

emotional

He doesn't want to think of death as a new beginning, he wants to believe death is the end of all.