Taoism, in my use of the term, is a broad label covering the philosophical and religious thinking that follows from the writings of Lao Tzu and his related followers. In this respect it is like "Christianity", which bases its philosophical and religious thinking on the Christian texts of Paul and other early converts. And like Christianity, Taoism over time has morphed into many different traditions, from a deeply mystical and very Chinese Religous Taoism, to a popularized "Philosophical Taoism" as adopted by modern westerners.
The journey of Taoism over time originates in an amalgam of ancient traditions in China, during a period where government and society had degraded into a set of warring states. In reaction to the chaos, schools of thought emerged as to how to solve the problems of society. Although there are said to be "100 Schools", the reality is that only about six were highlighted by the first historian of China Sima Qian. Four schools are important to our discussion of Taoism:
1. The school of the sholars (rujia) or "Confucianism". The great sage of this school was Confucius, who documented the rites and proper behavior of society in his Analects and the Book of Rites. Confucianism dominates asian culture, from the Emperors of China until 1912, to the culture of Korea, to the Toronaga Samurai culture of Japan, to the way that the Singaporean government operates today. It governs relations between people, and how courtesy, loyalty, and reciprocity should dominate human relations. From the school of the Ru/Scholars, we get a number of enlightenment concepts such as "mandate of the people".
2. The school of the Way (daojia) or "Taoism". Lao Tzu is said to be the founder of Taoism, although the term means "Old Sage" or "Sages", and thus might mean a group of people in the past who held to certain views. The legendary Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius, whose approach to society was quite the opposite of Confucius, in that he rejected artificial (man made) rules of propriety and rites, and viewed that the ideal society and leaders were ones in perfect harmony with natural order. From the school of the Tao, we get other western enlightenment concepts such as "laissez faire", which was Quesnay's translation of the taoist concept of "wuwei" or non-interventional action.
3. The school of the Law (fajia) or "Legalism". An offshoot of Rujia took a rather dim view of humanity and felt that mankind needed very strict laws with punishments in order to be managed properly. In the purest form of Fajia/Legalism, even the ruler is subject to these laws, hence the enlightenment concept of "rule of law". A wealthy sponsor of the schools, Lu Buwei, fostered a universal application of law as being the way to regulate society. China's first unifying emperor, Qinshihuang, was somehow related to Lu Buwei. However once Qinshihuang became emperor, he tended to want to see a different type of "rule of law" -- his law. His advisor Li Si adopted a variant of legalism where the "rule of law" proceeded from the commands of the Emperor.
4. The school of Yin and Yang (yinyangjia). A far more esoteric tradition existed in China for perhaps a thousand years or more before the warring states period. This tradition was largely made up of folk religion and other shamanistic practices, based in the idea that there were two opposing forces to all things: "yin", represented by the shaded side of a tree, and "yang" represented by the sunny side of the tree. yin is the receptive, the earth, the dark, the female. yang is the creative, the heavens, the white, the male. The text, today, that best represents the thinking of the Yinyangjia is the yijing, the "I Ching" or the book of changes. However, there are also myriad texts outlining Chinese folk religion and practice, including Traditional Chinese Medicine that originate from the Yinyangjia.
The reign of Qinshihuang represented a significant doorway between the old china and everything that followed. Under the influence of Li Si and in 215 BCE, Qinshihuang ordered the burning of books from the 100 schools with the single exception of the Yinyangjia (specifically, the yijing). The Scholars (the Ru), were buried in the ground with their heads exposed until they died. Taoism as a philosophy was literally buried in the ground (texts were salvaged in tombs), but the distorted form of legalism, as taught by Li Si, survived in one of the most brutal reigns in the history of the world.
As the folk traditions of the yinyangjia promised that through alchemical methods, one could concoct the 'elixir of immortality', and as Qinshihuang was somewhat obsessed with his personal survival (there were several assasination attempts), Qinshihuang imbibed a mixure of cinnabar (a mercury compound) and other drugs, and died in around 210 BCE. His son Erhuangdi died shortly thereafter in the rebellioin of Gaozu and the founding of the Han empire.
Gaozu was a peasant emperor, and essentially adopted the legalistic and imperial tendencies of the Qin emperors. The huns from the north (Xiongnu) were invading the northern climes, in spite of the first Great Wall of China that Qinshihuang had built with 300,000 convicts (rigorous punishments in legalism had the benefit of creating a large prison workforce).
After Gaozu died, and after a few years of typical court success intrigue, a new emperor was named: Liu Heng or in his official, posthumous name Wen Di, the literate emperor. Wen's favorite consort, the empress Dou, was a follower of Taoism (school of the Tao, daojia), with a bit of traditional chinese religion mixed in: the yinyangjia. As well, Wen was interested in the idea that the archtype of the ideal ruler, according to the traditional Shang religion, was Huang Di, the "Yellow" (huang) Emperor (di). Under the influence of both his wife Dou and the idealized leadership of Huangdi, Wen adopted a "Huang-Lao" ruling philosophy, fusing many concepts together: Lao-Tzu's taoism as reflected in the Tao Te Ching, core principles from Confucianism: reciprocity and the mandate of the people, and a bit of yinyangjia reflecting how the changes and interplay of yin and yang might affect the empire.
Under the influence of empress Dou's Huanglao taoism, the period of Wen Di and his son Jing Di were characterized as the golden age of Chinese leadership. Harsh punishments were eliminated. Taxation was reduced to a 3% property tax. Feudalism was abandoned in favor of civil service examinations based upon concrete knowledge of the Way things worked. National healthcare was established. Retirement pensions were implemented. In particular, the war with the Xiongnu ended with the institution of a novel concept called "Harmony Weddings", where a chinese princess was offered to the Xiongnu leadership in exchange for peace (she wasn't really a princess, but let's leave that detaill aside). With all these innovations, the prosperity of the nation was so great that the surplusses in granaries began to rot for the excess in production.
Importantly, the texts of philosophical taoism solidified during the reign of Wen and Jing. The earliest complete text of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching was buried in Ma Wang Dui, along with four canons of the Yellow Emperor, formally demonstrating a complete library of Huanglao philosophy. In similar way, a copy of core portions of the Wen Tzu were buried elsewhere at a similar time. The Wen Tzu was considered a late forgery and ignored by scholars, but with the discovery that it preceeded in time the texts from which it was alleged to be derivative, new thinking about the Wen Tzu has emerged.
An important aspect of huanglao is the synthesis with the best of the schools into a coherent ruling philosophy. The maturity of Lao Tzu and Wen Tzu demonstrate leadership principles that go beyond the taoism religion or the hermit-like neo-taoism of the Chuang Tzu. Importantly, Huanglao taoism speaks of an ideal, free society where government intervention is absolutely minimized, and where people are free to pursue their living along the Way without intrusive human laws. Natural law is supreme. As well, Huanglao, while not rejecting the idea of spirits and god, does not speak of them to any large extent. Like Confucianism, the original Huanglao documents represent a Way of living in harmony with Tao divorced from any religious context.
Empress Dou survived as the wife, mother, and grandmother of three emperors, respectively. During the reign of her grandson, as she was approaching the twilight of her life, the former feudal lords and those with a legalistic orientation began demanding a return to a more structured society. When Dou died, the advisers to Emperor Wu discarded the Huanglao ruling philosophy in favor of a somewhat distorted hybrid of Rujia and Fajia that they named "Confucianism". Civil Service examinates changed a bit, from having knowledge of the Way to having knowledge of the Rites and Propriety. Punishments were reinstituted. Harmony weddings were abandoned and war for conquest was resumed with the Xiongnu. As taxes increased, government spending became out of control and after the reign of Wu, the country was bankrupt, the granaries were empty. Most importantly, Huanglao was driven underground and into the countryside, where the more folk-oriented, religious aspects of traditional chinese religion fused with taoism.
After the change of a couple of dynasties, and in 150 CE, Taoism emerged from the folk roots as a new church was formed, the Taoist Church of China. This church required an admission fee of five pecks of rice, thus initially was known as the five bushel sect. Importantly, it reasserted taoism and native traditional chinese folk religion into the public sphere. In some form or another, this taoist religion has endured to this day, and constitutes one of the three, syncretized systems of faith and practice among Chinese people. (The other two are Buddhism and Confucianism).
The Taoist religion goes well beyond the texts finalized during the Huanglao period. The Tao Te Ching is simply one of many scriptures -- there are hundreds more texts within the Taoist Canon. The religion has on occasion held a position as a state church of given dynasties, giving it stature in China over time. It includes most of the shamanistic practices of traditional chinese religion, even if some of these are specifically rejected in the Tao Te Ching. It deified Lao Tzu as one of three principle gods, with many more "immortals" that have achieved enlightenment status. It incorporated the alchemical pursuit of immortality, and often is linked to traditional chinese medicine. It has a priesthood and lineages of that priesthood that establish the validity of whether one is a Taoist priest.
This religion constitues what most people in china think of when I use the term "Taoism". For educated Chinese today, especially as a result of the Cultural Revolution, "Taoism" is a backward, superstition-based folk religion -- hardly worthy of an educated person's interest. Nevertheless the superstitions and legacy of taoism are very much embedded into all aspects of Chinese culture.
From my point of view, the Taoist church represents a parallel to what happened to Christianity as it became politicized and altered from the original church Jesus and his immediate followers set up. I have no intention in saying this to insult the well-meaning intentions of religious taoists, it's just that it's religious point of view often is in conflict with my own, and is therefore inaccessible to me, after years of trying. We have different symbols for our gods than Taoists do, and thus our symbols conflict, even if the core values are very much in accord.
Returning to the history of Taoism, after the downfall of the later Han in around 200 CE, a new movement arose to restore the teachings of the original taoist and confucian sages. During this time of the third century, we see truly educated scholars reconstructing the original texts and deriving the original meaning independent of the religious Taoism. Wang Bi's construction of Lao Tzu, along with his commentary, clearly set the standard for our modern understanding of Taoist texts divorced from the religious point of view.
Another prolific scholar, Guo Xiang, edited the Chuang Tzu with rigor and provided the 33 chapter version of the Chuang Tzu we have today. Importantly, Guo Xiang influenced a school of thinkers, the "Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove", that adopted neotaoism as a counter-cultural, almost anarchist view of society. This Neo-Taoism focused on the mystical aspects of Taoism, the direct union with the Way, through meditation and something called "Pure Conversation". What little we know of the "Xuanxue" (mystical learning) and pure conversation approach of Guo Xiang and his followers appears to be the primary precursor, along with Buddhism, of the meditative tradition we call "Zen Buddhism".
As we move forward through subsequent years, we come up to around 1601, when a Jesuit Missionary, Mateo Ricci, came to China to teach Christianity. Instead, Mateo found in the educated aspects of China, both in taoist learning as well as in the prevailing Confucianism, a superior morality than Europe where he originated. When Ricci's Jesuit priests returned from their missions, they brought to the west principles of chinese enlightenment, including rule of law, separation of church and state, moral authority, mandate of the people, laissez faire/wuwei, and many other Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist principles. These became the basis of the Western Enlightenment, and most of the founding core principles of the American systems emerged from this Enlightenment. These principles were the ideas that influenced the young Joseph Smith, who, in his own way, weaved principles of enlightenment into the texts of LDS thinking. Many LDS priniciples can find their parallel in the ancient texts and thinking of China.
So, to summarize, "What is Taoism"? It's not just "one thing":
Philosophical Taoism is a modern construction of the ideas found in the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu, divorced from the religious connotations of Taoism. Sometimes this is called "Lao-Zhuang" taoism. Lao-Zhuang tends to be individualistic, anarchist, and anti-confucian in its orientation.
Religious Taoism is the most common understanding of Taoism as practiced today in China, Taiwan, and elsewere. It is the fusion of Taoist thinking in the early texts with the entire corpus of Chinese traditional folk religion, with a priesthood lineage that governs its loosely-affiliated practices.
Huanglao Taoism is a historical construct, referenced and praised by the great historian Sima Qian, representing a fusion of taoist thinking with select ideas from Confucius, legalism, the Yellow Emperor, and the folk traditions around the school of yin and yang.
To me, it is simply a Way of living based upon the principles found in the ancient texts of taoism. To me, this Way of living is in complete harmony with what Joseph Smith laid out in Section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants. To me it is the fundamental principles of truth that underly the great scriptures of the world -- the ultimate reality to which all systems point. Taoism as a religion is simply one of those systems, which raises the concern that the term may be confusing between what Chinese think of in the term "taoism" and what I see as the ultimate principle. When Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," I think he was simply pointing out that the ultimate principle is the "I AM", the Way, the Truth, and in following these, the eternal life of living in harmony with the principles. To the early Christians, this made sense, because they called themselves, "Followers of the Way".
As I try to be as well.
The journey of Taoism over time originates in an amalgam of ancient traditions in China, during a period where government and society had degraded into a set of warring states. In reaction to the chaos, schools of thought emerged as to how to solve the problems of society. Although there are said to be "100 Schools", the reality is that only about six were highlighted by the first historian of China Sima Qian. Four schools are important to our discussion of Taoism:
1. The school of the sholars (rujia) or "Confucianism". The great sage of this school was Confucius, who documented the rites and proper behavior of society in his Analects and the Book of Rites. Confucianism dominates asian culture, from the Emperors of China until 1912, to the culture of Korea, to the Toronaga Samurai culture of Japan, to the way that the Singaporean government operates today. It governs relations between people, and how courtesy, loyalty, and reciprocity should dominate human relations. From the school of the Ru/Scholars, we get a number of enlightenment concepts such as "mandate of the people".
2. The school of the Way (daojia) or "Taoism". Lao Tzu is said to be the founder of Taoism, although the term means "Old Sage" or "Sages", and thus might mean a group of people in the past who held to certain views. The legendary Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius, whose approach to society was quite the opposite of Confucius, in that he rejected artificial (man made) rules of propriety and rites, and viewed that the ideal society and leaders were ones in perfect harmony with natural order. From the school of the Tao, we get other western enlightenment concepts such as "laissez faire", which was Quesnay's translation of the taoist concept of "wuwei" or non-interventional action.
3. The school of the Law (fajia) or "Legalism". An offshoot of Rujia took a rather dim view of humanity and felt that mankind needed very strict laws with punishments in order to be managed properly. In the purest form of Fajia/Legalism, even the ruler is subject to these laws, hence the enlightenment concept of "rule of law". A wealthy sponsor of the schools, Lu Buwei, fostered a universal application of law as being the way to regulate society. China's first unifying emperor, Qinshihuang, was somehow related to Lu Buwei. However once Qinshihuang became emperor, he tended to want to see a different type of "rule of law" -- his law. His advisor Li Si adopted a variant of legalism where the "rule of law" proceeded from the commands of the Emperor.
4. The school of Yin and Yang (yinyangjia). A far more esoteric tradition existed in China for perhaps a thousand years or more before the warring states period. This tradition was largely made up of folk religion and other shamanistic practices, based in the idea that there were two opposing forces to all things: "yin", represented by the shaded side of a tree, and "yang" represented by the sunny side of the tree. yin is the receptive, the earth, the dark, the female. yang is the creative, the heavens, the white, the male. The text, today, that best represents the thinking of the Yinyangjia is the yijing, the "I Ching" or the book of changes. However, there are also myriad texts outlining Chinese folk religion and practice, including Traditional Chinese Medicine that originate from the Yinyangjia.
The reign of Qinshihuang represented a significant doorway between the old china and everything that followed. Under the influence of Li Si and in 215 BCE, Qinshihuang ordered the burning of books from the 100 schools with the single exception of the Yinyangjia (specifically, the yijing). The Scholars (the Ru), were buried in the ground with their heads exposed until they died. Taoism as a philosophy was literally buried in the ground (texts were salvaged in tombs), but the distorted form of legalism, as taught by Li Si, survived in one of the most brutal reigns in the history of the world.
As the folk traditions of the yinyangjia promised that through alchemical methods, one could concoct the 'elixir of immortality', and as Qinshihuang was somewhat obsessed with his personal survival (there were several assasination attempts), Qinshihuang imbibed a mixure of cinnabar (a mercury compound) and other drugs, and died in around 210 BCE. His son Erhuangdi died shortly thereafter in the rebellioin of Gaozu and the founding of the Han empire.
Gaozu was a peasant emperor, and essentially adopted the legalistic and imperial tendencies of the Qin emperors. The huns from the north (Xiongnu) were invading the northern climes, in spite of the first Great Wall of China that Qinshihuang had built with 300,000 convicts (rigorous punishments in legalism had the benefit of creating a large prison workforce).
After Gaozu died, and after a few years of typical court success intrigue, a new emperor was named: Liu Heng or in his official, posthumous name Wen Di, the literate emperor. Wen's favorite consort, the empress Dou, was a follower of Taoism (school of the Tao, daojia), with a bit of traditional chinese religion mixed in: the yinyangjia. As well, Wen was interested in the idea that the archtype of the ideal ruler, according to the traditional Shang religion, was Huang Di, the "Yellow" (huang) Emperor (di). Under the influence of both his wife Dou and the idealized leadership of Huangdi, Wen adopted a "Huang-Lao" ruling philosophy, fusing many concepts together: Lao-Tzu's taoism as reflected in the Tao Te Ching, core principles from Confucianism: reciprocity and the mandate of the people, and a bit of yinyangjia reflecting how the changes and interplay of yin and yang might affect the empire.
Under the influence of empress Dou's Huanglao taoism, the period of Wen Di and his son Jing Di were characterized as the golden age of Chinese leadership. Harsh punishments were eliminated. Taxation was reduced to a 3% property tax. Feudalism was abandoned in favor of civil service examinations based upon concrete knowledge of the Way things worked. National healthcare was established. Retirement pensions were implemented. In particular, the war with the Xiongnu ended with the institution of a novel concept called "Harmony Weddings", where a chinese princess was offered to the Xiongnu leadership in exchange for peace (she wasn't really a princess, but let's leave that detaill aside). With all these innovations, the prosperity of the nation was so great that the surplusses in granaries began to rot for the excess in production.
Importantly, the texts of philosophical taoism solidified during the reign of Wen and Jing. The earliest complete text of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching was buried in Ma Wang Dui, along with four canons of the Yellow Emperor, formally demonstrating a complete library of Huanglao philosophy. In similar way, a copy of core portions of the Wen Tzu were buried elsewhere at a similar time. The Wen Tzu was considered a late forgery and ignored by scholars, but with the discovery that it preceeded in time the texts from which it was alleged to be derivative, new thinking about the Wen Tzu has emerged.
An important aspect of huanglao is the synthesis with the best of the schools into a coherent ruling philosophy. The maturity of Lao Tzu and Wen Tzu demonstrate leadership principles that go beyond the taoism religion or the hermit-like neo-taoism of the Chuang Tzu. Importantly, Huanglao taoism speaks of an ideal, free society where government intervention is absolutely minimized, and where people are free to pursue their living along the Way without intrusive human laws. Natural law is supreme. As well, Huanglao, while not rejecting the idea of spirits and god, does not speak of them to any large extent. Like Confucianism, the original Huanglao documents represent a Way of living in harmony with Tao divorced from any religious context.
Empress Dou survived as the wife, mother, and grandmother of three emperors, respectively. During the reign of her grandson, as she was approaching the twilight of her life, the former feudal lords and those with a legalistic orientation began demanding a return to a more structured society. When Dou died, the advisers to Emperor Wu discarded the Huanglao ruling philosophy in favor of a somewhat distorted hybrid of Rujia and Fajia that they named "Confucianism". Civil Service examinates changed a bit, from having knowledge of the Way to having knowledge of the Rites and Propriety. Punishments were reinstituted. Harmony weddings were abandoned and war for conquest was resumed with the Xiongnu. As taxes increased, government spending became out of control and after the reign of Wu, the country was bankrupt, the granaries were empty. Most importantly, Huanglao was driven underground and into the countryside, where the more folk-oriented, religious aspects of traditional chinese religion fused with taoism.
After the change of a couple of dynasties, and in 150 CE, Taoism emerged from the folk roots as a new church was formed, the Taoist Church of China. This church required an admission fee of five pecks of rice, thus initially was known as the five bushel sect. Importantly, it reasserted taoism and native traditional chinese folk religion into the public sphere. In some form or another, this taoist religion has endured to this day, and constitutes one of the three, syncretized systems of faith and practice among Chinese people. (The other two are Buddhism and Confucianism).
The Taoist religion goes well beyond the texts finalized during the Huanglao period. The Tao Te Ching is simply one of many scriptures -- there are hundreds more texts within the Taoist Canon. The religion has on occasion held a position as a state church of given dynasties, giving it stature in China over time. It includes most of the shamanistic practices of traditional chinese religion, even if some of these are specifically rejected in the Tao Te Ching. It deified Lao Tzu as one of three principle gods, with many more "immortals" that have achieved enlightenment status. It incorporated the alchemical pursuit of immortality, and often is linked to traditional chinese medicine. It has a priesthood and lineages of that priesthood that establish the validity of whether one is a Taoist priest.
This religion constitues what most people in china think of when I use the term "Taoism". For educated Chinese today, especially as a result of the Cultural Revolution, "Taoism" is a backward, superstition-based folk religion -- hardly worthy of an educated person's interest. Nevertheless the superstitions and legacy of taoism are very much embedded into all aspects of Chinese culture.
From my point of view, the Taoist church represents a parallel to what happened to Christianity as it became politicized and altered from the original church Jesus and his immediate followers set up. I have no intention in saying this to insult the well-meaning intentions of religious taoists, it's just that it's religious point of view often is in conflict with my own, and is therefore inaccessible to me, after years of trying. We have different symbols for our gods than Taoists do, and thus our symbols conflict, even if the core values are very much in accord.
Returning to the history of Taoism, after the downfall of the later Han in around 200 CE, a new movement arose to restore the teachings of the original taoist and confucian sages. During this time of the third century, we see truly educated scholars reconstructing the original texts and deriving the original meaning independent of the religious Taoism. Wang Bi's construction of Lao Tzu, along with his commentary, clearly set the standard for our modern understanding of Taoist texts divorced from the religious point of view.
Another prolific scholar, Guo Xiang, edited the Chuang Tzu with rigor and provided the 33 chapter version of the Chuang Tzu we have today. Importantly, Guo Xiang influenced a school of thinkers, the "Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove", that adopted neotaoism as a counter-cultural, almost anarchist view of society. This Neo-Taoism focused on the mystical aspects of Taoism, the direct union with the Way, through meditation and something called "Pure Conversation". What little we know of the "Xuanxue" (mystical learning) and pure conversation approach of Guo Xiang and his followers appears to be the primary precursor, along with Buddhism, of the meditative tradition we call "Zen Buddhism".
As we move forward through subsequent years, we come up to around 1601, when a Jesuit Missionary, Mateo Ricci, came to China to teach Christianity. Instead, Mateo found in the educated aspects of China, both in taoist learning as well as in the prevailing Confucianism, a superior morality than Europe where he originated. When Ricci's Jesuit priests returned from their missions, they brought to the west principles of chinese enlightenment, including rule of law, separation of church and state, moral authority, mandate of the people, laissez faire/wuwei, and many other Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist principles. These became the basis of the Western Enlightenment, and most of the founding core principles of the American systems emerged from this Enlightenment. These principles were the ideas that influenced the young Joseph Smith, who, in his own way, weaved principles of enlightenment into the texts of LDS thinking. Many LDS priniciples can find their parallel in the ancient texts and thinking of China.
So, to summarize, "What is Taoism"? It's not just "one thing":
Philosophical Taoism is a modern construction of the ideas found in the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu, divorced from the religious connotations of Taoism. Sometimes this is called "Lao-Zhuang" taoism. Lao-Zhuang tends to be individualistic, anarchist, and anti-confucian in its orientation.
Religious Taoism is the most common understanding of Taoism as practiced today in China, Taiwan, and elsewere. It is the fusion of Taoist thinking in the early texts with the entire corpus of Chinese traditional folk religion, with a priesthood lineage that governs its loosely-affiliated practices.
Huanglao Taoism is a historical construct, referenced and praised by the great historian Sima Qian, representing a fusion of taoist thinking with select ideas from Confucius, legalism, the Yellow Emperor, and the folk traditions around the school of yin and yang.
To me, it is simply a Way of living based upon the principles found in the ancient texts of taoism. To me, this Way of living is in complete harmony with what Joseph Smith laid out in Section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants. To me it is the fundamental principles of truth that underly the great scriptures of the world -- the ultimate reality to which all systems point. Taoism as a religion is simply one of those systems, which raises the concern that the term may be confusing between what Chinese think of in the term "taoism" and what I see as the ultimate principle. When Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," I think he was simply pointing out that the ultimate principle is the "I AM", the Way, the Truth, and in following these, the eternal life of living in harmony with the principles. To the early Christians, this made sense, because they called themselves, "Followers of the Way".
As I try to be as well.
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