Any Taoists here?

[Taoistguy]

Are there any Taoists here? What do you make of all this?

[personalreality]

haven't ever heard anyone say they were a taoist.  i'm sure some people ascribe to some taoist principles.  i'm pretty fond of uncarved blocks and books of changes.

[Stookie]

I don't consider myself a taoist, but taoism has been a big influence in my life and personal philosophy. I love it's simplicity.

What do you make of all this?

Make out of what?

[Taoistguy]

I'm certainly not a 'religious' Taoist, as some are in China, with a belief in gods and demons and an hierarchical structure of monks and priests; I'm more of a 'philosophical' one, who tries to live according to the Tao. I started tp learn about it from my GrandMaster when I started T'ai Chi. He never taught anything like lucid dreaming or astral travel in his classes, (as far as I know), but I was just a beginner at the time. But in one of his books he mentioned that by following a meditative system he outlined in the book you can achieve astral travel. He also mentioned a sort of time travel and travel to other dimensions.
What I did experience firsthand during a class he taught was him pushing someone over from about 20 feet away just using his chi!

[HilaryTalrechi]

Taoism is both a very sharp way of thinking.

I love one-pointedness and precision in that philosophy.

[Stillwater]

I love the Zhuangzi- I would say it is one of my top ten favortie books of all time- I can read it over and over. The Tao de Jing is good too, but it is so nebulous and inscrutible at times- even Zuangai scholars don't really agree with how it should be translated, or even if it has been passed to us unaltered or corrupted. The Zhuangzi on the other hand, manages to be both earthy and transcendent at the same time, and perfectly encapsultes what Daoism means to me.

And I definitely understand where you are coming from separating ritual from philosophy... ritual Daoism has absorbed parts of Neoconfucianism and Shang ancestor worship, and does not at all follow directly from earliest Dao teachings- it is essentially its own entity, and really only Daoism by association.

[no_leaf_clover]

Taoism my philosophical back-bone to everything else I study.

I don't consider myself "Taoist" though if I had to tie myself to one named philosophy and only one then it would be Taoism...

What do I think of all of it?  I think the Tao te Ching is probably the deepest text, using the fewest words, I've ever read in my life.

[TofuAttack]

john chang is a taoist, he is currently on level 40 something out of 72? levels.
my dad's master knows him personally

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aos0hnwiHt8