Archive | Tao Thoughts Blog

We hope you are all safe, healthy, and taking good care of yourselves and your communities. We’re not experts on public health or economic challenges, but Taoism does have a lot to share about responding to the changes and turmoil of life in a way that can lead to greater peace and clarity. So we […]

Over the past few years, there has been a great deal of anger, anxiety, and division running through our world, and these negative expressions are manifesting through  coronavirus, as it is a reactionary symptom of our worldly behavior. Sometimes we forget or are left unaware about the powerful effects our views and actions can have […]

Over the years I’ve found myself drawn to stories about immortals. I think this attraction was due to having read Ge Hong’s (葛 洪) fourth-century work Master Who Embraces Simplicity (抱 朴 子, Bao Pu Zi ). In his book, Ge Hong makes credible arguments for the belief and existence of immortals, as well as describing the […]

Originating sometime during the Tang dynasty in Shanxi province, this story is about an elderly man who sold herbal medicines in the marketplace of his village. Since no one in the village knew his name, they just called him the Old Herb Seller. Wang Yu, a rich man in the village, was reserved, kind, and […]

For a long time now I’ve been wanting to tell this Taoist story about a young girl who wanted to learn Taoist magic and become an immortaless. It really has good advice about self-cultivation of Taoism and goes like this: In the province of Sichuan there was a very rich man, who had a young […]

In Taoism, life and death, or mortality and immortality, are one and the same. Mortality is immortality and immortality is mortality, just as life is death and death is life. In the Taiji (Yin-Yang) symbol it can be seen that death (the small dark circle) exists within life (the large white area resembling a fish). […]