Taoist thought down the centuries

Taoism, also known as Daoism, is a religion with roots stretching back thousands of years. It grew out of a number of religious and philosophical traditions in ancient China.

Lao Tze (571-471 BC) is often identified as the religion's founding father. According to his philosophical work Tao De Ching, everything in the universe is born from emptiness, and a balance must be struck between humanity and the natural world.

Another foundation text is the Zhuangzi, an ancient collection of anecdotes and fables credited to the philosopher Zhuang Zhou (369-286 BC), which stresses spontaneity of action and freedom from the human world and its conventions.

Taoism also draws inspiration from the School of Yin-yang and the text of the I Ching, often known in the English-speaking world as The Book of Changes, an ancient divination text and the oldest of the Chinese classics, according to the Chinese Taoist Association.

The religion has two main schools of thought: The Zhengyi School was founded by Zhang Ling in the second century, while the Quanzhen School was founded by Wang Chongyang in Shandong province sometime around 1160. Quanzhen flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries and became the largest Taoist school in North China.

A major difference between the two schools is that a Quanzhen priest must renounce his wife and children, practice celibacy, live in a temple, and embrace vegetarianism. The Zhengyi School has no such requirements.

The religion was almost wiped out during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), when many temples were closed or destroyed, and all Taoist activities were halted.

Taoism was resurrected in the 1980s. Ordination in the Zhengyi School recommenced in 1989, while Quanzhen ordinations began again in 1995, according to the Chinese Taoist Association.

There are nearly 100,000 Taoist priests and more than 5,000 religious sites on the Chinese mainland, according to a 2011 report by the Xinhua News Agency.

(China Daily USA 12/27/2014 page6)