What is Tao Te really? When people say they have read the “Tao Te Ching”, most of them really don’t know what they are reading, because it’s very vague, and most importantly, very wrong. That’s right, most of the stuff you find on Tao Te Ching is garbage, because it leads you nowhere near what’s Taoism really is about, and it drives you to the cloud with nothing you can really grab in the air, because it’s wrong and misleading, then a bunch of people reheats the same pool of junks into new junks, and there goes the Tao Te Ching(s) today. Well, maybe it is time to take a look at what Tao Te really is about to see the difference between Taoism and “Taoism in the west”, shall we?
Tao Te is basically translated to “virtue” and it has nothing to do with Taoism on the surface, yet Taoism used this word Tao Te for a different and more specific meaning. To understand this, we need to know what is the Tao. Let’s take a look at the lecture below to understand what is the Tao. If you like the text version, check out the article on my blog – what is Taoism 101.
After this video/blog post, you will now know what Tao and Tao Te is about. It does not lead you to anything vague and abstract at all.
Now, how is this related to Taoism or the Taoist magic stuff then? Knowing the theory is cool, but how and where to apply it is what the westerners all don’t understand, and that is also why people came up with the “philosophical Taoism” category later on, because they don’t know how to apply these things, and that is why it is seen as a “philosophy” only.
The truth is, this is 100% related to the practice we do in Taoism and Taoist magic. The Tao we talk about in Taoism is the Yuen Sun (spiritual planetary body) of ourselves, and so to cultivate the Tao, we learn and do things to get stuff from the yuen sun to energize our life here. The Te part of the cultivation is to give back to the Yuen Sun and replenish the Yuen Sun by shoving it with things we can accumulate in this world.
Tao Te of a Taoist is not about being nice to nature and being a good kid, it’s about cultivating to learn and work with your own life, your Yuen Sun, your pre and post heaven side of “you”. By cultivating the Tao, the Te, you will be able to get more potentials out of your own Yuen Sun to increase your opportunities and potentials here in this world. At the same time, you will be able to make sure the Yuen Sun have replenishments and have more for you to take in the future when you need because you have given back to it on your normal days.
A good relationship with your own Yuen Sun is the key to having a healthy and balanced life, which also ensures your after-death life to be secured and happy. We want to live well, and also die well, shouldn’t we? Look at my video on the purpose of life, you might be shocked, Taoist does not aim to live long like those 200 years old human-jerky mummy!
