Evaluating Taoism & Zen

An Imagined portrait of Lao Tzu (or Laozi), the founder of Taoism

“Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web.”
– Marcus Aurelius, (Emperor of Rome, 161-180 AD), Meditations IV, 40.

“All the world’s major religions contain both factual errors and poetic wisdom.
So do Homer’s Odessey, Melville’s Moby Dick, and Aesop’s Fables.”
— J.X. Mason

(Essay #19, at 6-25-25)

Of all the world’s great spiritual and secular-spiritual traditions, Taoism and Zen are most akin to our own Path or Way of Nature’s Continuing Creation. In fact, “The Tao” translates into English as The Way, and your author, J.X. Mason, almost named his Book, “The Tao of Continuing Creation,” instead of “Nature’s Path of Continuing Creation: The Growing, Organizing, Direction of the Cosmos. Our Book might also have been titled The Zen of Continuing Creation, because Zen largely grew out of Taoism, as we shall see in this Essay.

Zen, formerly known as Zen Buddhism, has a historical connection to the original Buddhism. When Buddhism was carried from its origin in India north into China, it combined with China’s indigenous and much older Taoism to form Chan Buddhism. The word “chan“ translates to “meditation.” From China, Chan Buddhism was exported to Vietnam, to Korea, and then, in the 13^th century, to Japan, where the word “Zen” is a rough pronunciation of “Chan.”

Despite this history, we agree with several scholars, including Alan Watts and Ray Grigg (both of whom we will reference in this Essay), who hold that the content of Japanese Zen (and now worldwide Zen) owes far more to its Taoist roots than it does to Buddhism. ¹ For this reason, we have combined our discussion of Taoism and Zen into this one Essay, reserving Buddhism for a separate Essay of its own.

Because Taoism is older than Zen, we’ll talk about Taoism first, and take up Zen later in this Essay. Lastly, we’ll list what we see as their strengths and shortcomings, as we do in all our Essays that evaluate various individual religions and spiritual paths.

Taoism

The Chinese word “Tao” (or “Dao“) means Way, path, principle, or “the teaching.” In Taoism, “Tao” also denotes something that is the source of everything that exists. It is also something that individuals can find immanent in themselves. The Tao is the natural, spontaneous, eternal, nameless, and indescribable One. It is at once the beginning of all things and the Way in which all things pursue their course. ²

Taoism emphasizes naturalness and spontaneity. In considerable measure, Taoism arose in reaction to the mannered and legalistic formality of Chinese Confucianism in the same era. ³

Taoism is pantheistic because the Tao is believed to be present everywhere. In Western theology, concepts analogous to the Tao include the “flow of the universe,” as well as G.W.F. Hegel’s and Paul Tillich’s “Ground of Being,” and, simply, “Nature.” ⁴ Practitioners of the Way of Nature’s Continuing Creation make the argument that our online Book (which you are now reading) is a restatement and expansion of the Tao Te Ching that includes scientific knowledge, invention, and progress.

Minor Chinese character for “The Way” on a Taoist painting

While Taoism is ancient (going back at least to the fourth century BCE), and Nature’s Path of Continuing Creation is very new, they both comprehend that the Creative Power of the Universe is not a person-like God, but an abstract force, creative power, or Flow. ⁵.

In both Taoism and Nature’s Continuing Creation, this Flow does not stand outside the Earth in a place called “heaven,” but is intricately woven into all the Creative Processes we see all around us. We can see it in the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and human engineering. While God is believed by the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) to have created the Universe, the Tao is thought to grow and evolve with it. Both these Wholistic Paths can also be seen as examples of process theology, which we discuss in our Essay, Forerunners to Our Path & Practice.

Unlike the Abrahamic God (referred to as Yahweh, Jehovah, or Allah) of the three desert religions, the Tao does not issue commandments and does not punish or reward individuals or tribes. Unlike the Abrahamic desert God, neither the Tao of Taoism nor the Way of Continuing Creation pretends to be purely good (omnibenevolent) because, as we all know, reality contains both good and evil. Yet, Taoist Practice, and our own Practice of Nature’s Continuing Creation, do not conduct violent jihad, perform no “honor killings” of women, burn no so-called witches at the stake, nor force women to wear suffocating black robes and veils in the heat of the summer sun.

The main difference between Taoism and the Path of Continuing Creation is that the latter benefits from hundreds of years of increasing scientific knowledge, which, among other things, illuminates how the processes of the Tao and those of Nature actually work. In this sense, Nature’s Continuing Creation: The Growing, Organizing, Direction of the Cosmos can be seen as an expansion and clarification of Taoism. (For more about these processes, see our Essay, The Processes of Evolution and Their Spiritual Meaning.)

The Secular-Spiritual Path of Taoism (or Daoism) was laid down in two principal texts: The Zhuangzi (~476-221 BCE) and the Tao Te Ching, meaning “The Way and Its Power,” written by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (or ‘Laozi’) between ~320 BCE and ~200 BCE.

These two seminal works were preceded by the ancient (2700 BCE) “I Ching” (The Book of Changes), in which the two interacting forces of creation — Yin and Yang (the “male” principle and the “female” principle) — were combined with the Five Elements (water, fire, wood, metal, and Earth) to make 64 patterns (hexagrams) that were used in Chinese fortune telling. ⁶

The “Zhuangzi”

The Zhuangzi is an early collection of fables and anecdotes written by the Chinese Taoist sage, Master Zhuang. Master Zhuang lived from approximately 369 to 298 BCE. ⁷

Many of the anecdotes in the Zhuangzi attempt to illustrate the falseness of human distinctions between good and evil, life and death, and human versus nature. One of these anecdotes tells the story of a butterfly who wakes up to be a man named Zhuang Zhou (the author). On reflection, however, it was not clear to Master Zhuang whether he dreamed the butterfly, or the butterfly dreamed him!

This anecdote illustrates a philosophical view known as epistemological skepticism, which argues that we cannot know anything with certainty. There are several arguments for why this is the case, as expressed by skeptical voices over the thousands of years this debate has been ongoing. One of these arguments is known as the ‘dreaming argument’ and was most famously formulated by the French philosopher and polymath René Descartes (1596-1650) in his Book, Meditations on First Philosophy. The idea is that if I believe that my dreams are real while I am experiencing them, then how can I tell whether what I am now experiencing is real and not just a dream?” ⁸

While other ancient Chinese philosophies, especially Confucianism, focus on moral and personal duty, the Zhuangzi promotes “carefree wandering” and eventually becoming “One with The Way.” ⁹ Taoism (and our own Way of Continuing Creation) lies between those two.

The “Tao Te Ching”

Unlike the tales of the Zhuangzi, Taoism and The Way of Nature’s Continuing Creation (NCC) in no way reject reality. Human agents of NCC are opposed to a life of aimless wandering. We do not hold on to the belief that constructive effort is pointless “because, in the end, nothing matters.” ¹⁰

Taoism and Our Path of Nature’s Continuing Creation both affirm that reality is objective and that our human efforts are critically important in achieving progress… on all fronts that are moral. (See our three Essays, Leading an Ethical, Moral Life; Leading a Virtuous & Honorable Life; and Leading a Fulfilled and Happy Life.)

However, in old age, people may choose some or all of Master Zhuang’s “life of carefree wandering.”
As Westerners might say, “I’m going to enjoy my old age” or, “I’m going fishing!”
— J.X. Mason, age 78 in the year 2024.

The foundational Book of Taoism, the Tao Te Ching, agrees with us: it is very much about purposeful living and working, but always in a centered, calm, creative, and effective manner. In this view, “aimless wandering” is only a meditative tool for resting and rejuvenating the mind and body, before returning to constructive living.

The Tao Te Ching — “The Way and its Power” or “The Way and its Virtue” – is attributed to Lao Tzu (Laozi), “The Old Master.” The Tao Te Ching is a collection of 81 very short, poem-like statements (“chapters”) about the nature of reality and how to live life. It was likely written in the late 300s BCE.

A book cover illustration for The Tao Te Ching

There is no historical evidence that the Old Master ever lived, or that he alone wrote the Tao Te Ching. A number of scholars believe that this little Book was written by a collaboration of authors. Legend says that after writing the Book, Lao Tzu retired alone into the mountains, never to be heard from again. ¹¹

A good many Chinese symbols can be translated in a number of ways, so translations of the Tao Te Ching into English (or into any other language) vary a good deal. One of the best translations into English is Stephen Mitchell’s, published in 1988, and this Essay takes its quotations from Mitchell’s work.

it is worth quoting the following perceptive passage written in 1957 by the famed scholar Alan W. Watts in his masterful classic, The Way of Zen (which we recommend to all readers):

“For us [Westerners] almost all knowledge is what a Taoist would call conventional knowledge because we do not feel that we can really know anything unless we can represent it to ourselves in words… In English, the differences between things and actions are clearly, if not always logically, distinguished, but a great number of Chinese words do duty for both nouns and verbs – so that one who thinks in Chinese has little difficulty in seeing that objects are also events, that our world is a collection of processes rather than entities.” (emphasis added). — Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen ¹²

However, today’s Unitarian Universalists, most of whom live in the West, can think like Chinese Taoists in that they recognize the reality and power of “direct apprehension of the Whole.” One of their “Sources of Our Living Tradition“ is “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life.” ¹³

Analytical thought and precise language (including mathematics) should never take a back seat to wholistic (holistic), intuitive comprehension. The two modes of perception and thought are equally important. Reasoned analysis is the method of science and engineering, without which there would be little modern human-agented progress within Nature’s Continuing Creation. We do not think that Taoism rejected analytic thinking, so much as left it to the province of Confucianism. The Path of Nature’s Continuing Creation is, among other things, an attempt to unify wholistic and analytical thinking.

Below is a discussion of the main ideas in the Tao Te Ching. Readers will immediately see how much the main ideas of Taoism are very similar to the main ideas of our own Path of Nature’s Continuing Creation.

Nature’s Continuing Creation Compared to Taoism

In other Essays in this Book, we have said that the Interrelated Processes of continuing creation continue to elaborate as long as the sun can supply a moderated flow of energy to the open energy system we call Earth. The Tao Te Ching says the same thing, but in poetic language:

Chapter #4, and also #34, of the Tao Te Ching read, in part,

“The Tao is like a great well:
Used but never used up…
… filled with infinite possibilities…
It is hidden but always present.

“The great Tao flows everywhere.
All things are born from it,
Yet it doesn’t create them.
It pours itself into its work,
Yet it makes no claim.”

In other words, the Tao is immanent. It is similar to saying “Jesus is with us always.” But Taoists do not attempt to “walk with” or “talk to” the Tao as Christians believe they do with Jesus. Instead, Taoists meditate and try to center themselves in the Flow of the Tao. The Tao is more akin to the Flow of all Earth’s rivers and streams, or the Flow of the sun’s energy through all living things, than it is to a personified God, such as Allah or Jesus.

The Concept of the Tao vs. the Western Concept of God

The Tao is omnipresent and powerful, but not omnipotent, not omnibenevolent, and not omniscient. Why? Because the Tao does not sense or care what humans are doing… since the Tao is not a sentient, communicating “person!”

Followers of Nature’s Continuing Creation agree that the concept of a flow of evolved processes is a more realistic portrayal of our world and our lives than is a world under the command and control of a person-like, anthropomorphic God.

According to Taoism, How Was the World (Universe) Created?

To answer this question, we can do best by quoting Alan Watts’ The Way of Zen:

“The important difference between the Tao and the usual idea of God is that whereas God produces the world by making (Wei), the Tao produces it by ‘non-making’ (wu-wei) – which is approximately what we [westerners] mean by growing…. Because the natural Universe works mainly according to the principles of growth, it would seem quite odd to the Chinese mind to ask how it was made.” ¹⁴

Another serviceable Taoist answer to this question might be, “The world grows as my garden grows.” Today, of course, we have extensive supporting evidence from the sciences of geology, chemistry, biology, and sociology on how the world develops. For example, see our Essays, “Nature Creates Patterns of Information & Beauty,” and “Nature Creates Increasingly Complex Systems.”

The Interplay of Yin and Yang

The Yin-Yang Symbol

The ancient symbol of Taoism is the Yin and Yang symbol, in which the two sides of the Universe – dark and light, feminine and masculine, negative and positive, competition and cooperation – swirl around each other in the endless dance of creation. (However, the Yin-Yang symbol is also used by Confucianism and by Chinese culture in general.)

Information cannot exist without a difference. White cannot be seen without the presence of black (or some other color). Chapter #2 of the Tao Te Ching says, in part:

“Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
High and low depend on each other.”

The Yin-Yang symbol and its “swirling dance” are, of course, poetic metaphors. They are metaphors for the scientific processes of chemistry, organic chemistry, and evolution. The endless interaction of yin and yang, of light and dark, energy and matter, zeroes and ones, is Taoism’s expression of The Processes of Natural Continuing Creation:

“The endless interaction of yin and yang is forever creating new things and transforming the old… The German-American theologian Paul Tillich famously defined God as the “ground of being.” The impersonal Tao is that, too, but more fundamentally it is the ground of becoming – the natural process undergirding all generativity and change. This creative transformation is on view in the natural world.” – Stephen Prothero (God Is Not One, p. 298)

Note: In our Essay, Nature Creates Patterns of Information & Beauty, we talk extensively about how creation arises from the directional elaboration of information, which itself arises from the patterns created by differences of wholes. (e.g., black and white squares make grids and chessboards).

Align Your Effort & Life with The Practice of Continuing Creation

The purpose of life for Practitioners on Nature’s Path of Continuing Creation is to align one’s life and efforts with the Growing, Organizing Direction of the Cosmos, or at least of the Earth. A number of Essays in this Book explain that and tell people how to do it: We Create, we Build, and we develop positive relationships with other humans and with the living ecosystems here on Earth.

If we work against the Flow of Continuing Creation, we can get lost in turbulence and spend our energies uselessly. The Tao Te Ching says something highly similar in its Chapters #32 and #45:

“If powerful men and women
Could remain centered in the Tao,
All things would be in harmony…

The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the Way
And lets the Tao speak for itself.”

The Western religions, on the other hand, contend that the world and each and every one of our individual lives follows a detailed “Divine Plan” contained in the mind of God. Thus, followers of those religions like to say, “God has a plan for me.” And then, when one of life’s random tragedies happens (disease, flood, etc.), the same people say, “Who can understand the Will of God?” We think this “reasoning” is absurd and fatalistic.

Instead, as American scholar Alan Watts writes, a universe that grows does so by growing and evolving without a detailed plan. As we Practitioners of Continuing Creation would say, it grows by the process of evolution, which uses the materials at hand, generating organisms that emerge and survive long enough to reproduce, even though they may suffer from “poor design.” In truth, there is no design, and the proof is in our “thoughtlessly organized bodies,” with our tooth decay, bad backs, and our suffering from illness and old age. ¹⁵ For more, see our Essay, “Answering Evolution’s Critics.”

“Go With the Flow”

To be most effective and most fulfilled, Nature’s Continuing Creation tells us to work without stress – “Find the Flow,” or as musicians say, “Be in the Groove.” When a songwriter is “in the groove,” she usually cannot explain how she wrote the song or where it came from. And “as any Little League coach can tell you, a pitcher needs to throw the ball without aiming. He needs to let go.” He needs to be “in the Zone.” In the language of the film Star Wars, “Use the Force, Luke!”

Similarly, Taoism teaches the central concept of “Wei Wu Wei.” Written as a trio of the three Chinese characters for “Doing-Not-Doing,” Wei Wu Wei is translated as “doing without anxious striving,” or “acting without anxious stress.” ¹⁶

As Stephen Mitchell writes the foreword to his translation of the Tao Te Ching, “[Wei wu wei] is the purest and most effective form of action… the ‘poem writes the poem;’ we can’t tell the dancer from the dance. Nothing is ‘done’ because the doer has wholeheartedly vanished into the deed.” ¹⁷

Similarly, Eugen Herrigel tells us in his slim gem of a book, Zen in the Art of Archery, “The archer and the target are one.” ¹⁸

The Tao Te Ching, Chapter #63, expresses it like this :

“Work without effort….
Confront the difficult
While it is still easy;
Accomplish the great task
By a series of small acts.

“The Master never reaches for the great;
Thus, she achieves greatness.
When she runs into a difficulty,
She stops and gives herself to it.
She doesn’t cling to her own comfort;
Thus, problems are no problem for her.”

Or, as Stephen Mitchell writes, “The Master has mastery; not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming it.” ¹⁹

The Taoist Virtue of “Te”

When a Taoist or Zen Master attains this unworried Flow of action, he or she has the virtue of Te (also written as De). Of course, Te is the middle word in Tao Te Ching, meaning “The Book of the Way and its Virtue.” As Alan Watts has written,

“When a man has learned to let his mind alone so that it functions in the integrated and spontaneous way that is natural to it, he begins to show the special kind of’ virtue or power called ‘Te.’ This is not virtue in the current sense of moral rectitude but in the older sense of effectiveness, as when one speaks of the healing virtues of a plant.” — Alan Watts. ²⁰

In the Tao Te Ching, the Flow of water is often invoked as a metaphor for the Tao. Water is flexible, flowing, nurturing – but powerfully carving rock and forming canyons over time. Here is Chapter #78, in part:

“Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
Nothing can surpass it.

“The soft overcomes the hard;
The gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
But few can put it into practice.”

Synergy!

Nature’s Continuing Creation reminds us that synergy can create new wholes that are different from their parts. Here is #11 from the Tao Te Ching, which explains this concept poetically and concretely:

“We join spokes together in a wheel,
But it is the center hole
That makes the wagon move.

“We shape clay into a pot,
But it is the emptiness inside
That holds whatever we want.”

In these examples, it is the presence of a center hole (or central void) that combines with the surrounding wood or clay to produce new things that are greater than the sum of their parts. The wheel and the pot were important new inventions in the prehistory of human civilization.

Another example is the combination of copper and tin (sometimes with small amounts of phosphorus, manganese, aluminum, or silicon) to create the alloy bronze, which was highly useful for making swords, spear points, bells, and statues. The invention of bronze ushered in the “Bronze Age“ in the Near East, circa 3,000 years BCE. (For more about Synergy, see our Essay, The Processes of Evolution in Biology, Culture, & Technology.)

Care for the Earth

This Book about Nature’s Continuing Creation has an important Essay, “Overpopulation Threatens Continuing Creation,” that marshals scientific evidence for our global necessity to reverse Climate Change. (This Essay should be updated every other year to reflect new science.)

Over 1600 years ago, Lao Tzu already saw the same unfortunate trends in Earth’s health and remarked on it in Tao Te Ching’s Chapter #39:

“In harmony with the Tao,
The sky is clear and spacious,
The Earth is solid and full,
All creatures flourish together…

“…When man interferes with the Tao,
The sky becomes filthy,
The Earth becomes depleted, the equilibrium crumbles,
Creatures become extinct.”

Taoism even presages the modern Gaia Movement in which Earth’s biosphere is seen as a living, unified being; a process-theology elevation of Mother Nature.
The Tao Te Ching says this in Chapter #6:

“The Tao is called the Great Mother:
Empty yet inexhaustible,
It gives birth to infinite worlds.
It is always present within you.
You can use it any way you want.”
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 6

We weavers in Continuing Creation might have a problem with that last line, but a careful reading shows that it says we can use the Tao “any way we want,” not that we can use Great Mother Earth any way we want!

Gaia, or Mother Nature (artist’s depiction)

The Ten Moral Precepts of Taoism

The Ten Precepts of Taoism were outlined in a short text that appears in the Dunhuang Manuscripts – Chinese papers from the 5th through 11th centuries discovered in China’s Mogao Caves early in the 20^th century. The Ten Precepts are the classical rules of medieval Taoism as applied to practitioners attaining the rank of Disciple of Pure Faith: ²¹

The One Rule of Taoism is the Tao itself, which is divided into the following Ten Precepts:

1. 1. 1. Do not kill, but always be mindful of the host of living beings.
    2. Do not be lascivious or think depraved thoughts.
    3. Do not steal or receive unrighteous wealth.
    4. Do not cheat or misrepresent good and evil.
    5. Do not get intoxicated, but always think of pure conduct.
    6. I will maintain harmony with my ancestors and family and never disregard my kin.
    7. When I see someone do a good deed, I will support them with joy and delight.
    8. When I see someone in need, I will support them with dignity to regain good fortune.
    9. When someone comes to do me harm, I will not harbor thoughts of revenge.
    10. As long as all beings have not attained the Tao, I will not expect to do so myself.

The Moral Precepts of Nature’s Path of Continuing Creation are presented in our Essay, Leading an Ethical, Moral Life. Our moral precepts are remarkably similar to the Taoist precepts listed above.

In fact, the moral principles of all major religions (and secular-spiritual ways) are very much alike. This demonstrates that morals are not handed down by ‘God’ above, but rather grow organically out of human sociobiology, primarily because cooperation among humans provides us with competitive team advantages in the evolutionary landscape.

A shortcoming of all the ancient religions is that they predated three modern developments in Morality: 1) the flowering of human rights in the Enlightenment; 2) modern scientific understanding of how the Processes of Continuing Creation work, and 3) modern awareness that Earth’s biosphere as a whole also has “rights.”

Leading a Virtuous & Honorable Life… Following The Tao

This Book about Nature’s Continuing Creation has a lengthy Essay on “Leading a Virtuous & Honorable Life.” But in the Tao Te Ching, chapter #67, Lao Tzu simply wrote:

“I have just three things to teach:
Simplicity, patience, compassion.
These are your greatest treasures:

- - Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.
  - Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the Way things are.
  - Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.”

Taoist virtue also emphasizes the Three Treasures or the Three Jewels:

The virtue of ci — usually translated as compassion,
The virtue of jian — traditionally translated as moderation, and
The virtue bugan wei tianxia xian – traditionally translated as humility (literally, “not daring to act as first under the heavens”).

And, of course, there is the Taoist virtue Te. However, Te, as we mentioned earlier, translates to an older version of the English word “virtue,” meaning “inner sustaining power.”

Leading a Fulfilled & Happy Life… Following The Tao

The Book you are now reading, Nature’s Path of Continuing Creation, features an Essay titled “Leading a Fulfilled & Happy Life,” which includes sections on meditation and Mindfulness, as well as a paragraph about our “Eight Steps of Daily Growth.”

Chapters #8, #15, and #21 of the Tao Te Ching convey much of our Book’s message, with this simple poetic language:

“In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous…
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.” [#8]

“The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment.
Not seeking, not expecting,
She is present, and can welcome all things…” [#15]

“The Master keeps her mind
Always with the Tao;
That is what gives her radiance.” [#21]

The Tao de Ching shaped Buddhism in China, shaped Zen in Japan, and became the most widely translated Book after the Bible. ²²

After Master Zhuang and Lao Tzu had both passed away, the literature of Taoism grew steadily and was compiled to form a canon of roughly 1400 texts — the Taozang — which was published at the behest of the Chinese emperor around the year 400. Throughout Chinese history, Taoism was several times nominated as a state religion. After the 17th century, however, it fell from favor. ²³

Modern Taoism Today

Every widely practiced religion undergoes a progression from philosophical and austere to anthropomorphic and supernatural popularizations. This occurs so that the religion can be “sold” to a broader and less educated population.

Taoist Temple in Modern Beijing

Over time, Taoism adopted a trio of Deities – The Three Pure Ones – who “emanate” from the Tao. One of them, as we might expect, is a supernatural incarnation of Lao Tzu. ²⁴ (After the human man Jesus died, He was also mythologized as “The Son of God.” See our Essay, “Early Christianity: From Jesus’ Death to 312 C.E.“)

Today, there are whole pantheons of lesser Taoist deities (including figures adopted from Chinese folklore), plus formerly human immortals (Xian) analogous to Catholic saints. There are also modern Taoist celebrations on special days, including sacrifices of food and animals, as well as prayers. ²⁵

Modern Taoism’s rituals, exercises, and medicinal substances are important elements. These aim to align oneself spiritually with the cosmic force, undertake secular-spiritual journeys, improve physical health, and thereby extend one’s life. Here are a few of the better-known disciplines: ²⁶

A collection of “bio-spiritual” breathing, posture, and movement exercises known as qigong is a mainstay of the Falun Gong sect, which was banned by China in 1999. ²⁷
A modern practice highly influenced by Taoism and now well-known in the West is feng shui (“wind and water”), which prescribes rules for the geographic orientation and floor plan of Chinese homes. One of the rules states that no internal staircase should descend directly toward an outside door.
Tai chi exercises, a set of highly controlled gestural exercises, coupled with “right breathing” and “correct concentration,” are today practiced all over the world, usually outdoors in the open air. These flowing exercises can be performed by people of all ages and nearly all physical abilities.

Practicing Tai Chi in a Park in the United States

Tai chi (or Tai chi Ch’uan) began as a martial arts tradition. Two other Chinese martial arts practices are Bagua Zhang and Xing Yi Quan. They also embody Taoist principles to a significant extent, and some practitioners consider their art a means of practicing Taoism. ²⁸ The Way of Continuing Creation recommends these largely Taoist exercises because they provide an excellent meditative respite from our daily endeavors, without requiring us to sit perfectly still.

Note: In Taoism, chi (also spelled ch’i or qi) literally means “air” or “breath,” but as a concept, it refers to the energy flow or life force that is said to pervade all things. The nature of chi has long been a subject of debate in Chinese thought. Some believe chi is a separate force from the physical world, while others think chi comes from physical matter. Still others, especially Chinese Buddhists and Taoists, hold that matter arises from chi. The quality, quantity, and balance of chi are believed to be essential to maintaining health and achieving a long life. ²⁹

Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism all share a humanist philosophy that emphasizes moral behavior and the perfection of the human mind and spirit. Over the centuries, most modern Chinese people have learned to identify to some extent with all three traditions simultaneously. “Like the Hindus, Taoists are forever absorbing rather than repelling new influences.” ³⁰

However, the Tàoshi, “Masters of the Tao,” who dedicate their lives to studying and practicing Taoism (as Buddhist monks do Buddhism), usually take care to note the distinction between their tradition and the practices of Chinese folk religion and the various non-Taoist vernacular ritual orders. ³¹

Taoism has experienced a resurgence in recent years, and a significant amount of new scholarship has been published. Taiwan alone now has 10,000 Taoist temples, and 7.5 million people there (33% of the population) identify themselves as Taoists. In Hong Kong and Singapore, the percentages are 14% and 11%, respectively. ³²

Today, the Taoist tradition is one of the five officially recognized religious doctrines in the People’s Republic of China, alongside Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, and Protestantism. ³³ This is likely because it teaches acceptance rather than activism, and because it recognizes no messianic deity that people expect to arrive and lead them to freedom in a better world. ³⁴

Ancient Taoism and Modern Physics

There are striking parallels between the ancient philosophy of Taoism and modern physics. For example, a subatomic particle can exist or not exist depending on whether it is being observed. Similarly, light can either be particles (photons) or waves, depending on one’s perspective. (See our Essay, “Mysteries of Modern Physics.”)

In 1975, the renowned physicist Fritjof Capra published a best-selling book titled “The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism.” In Chapter 14 of this Book, Dr. Capra says that the duality of particle and non-particle is fundamental because the particle is just a manifestation of a fluctuating field. A field is a region of space in which each point is affected, to some degree, by a force, such as the force of a magnet or the force of Earth’s gravity. Capra offers two quotations about this duality, and we add a third from Wikipedia:

“In theoretical physics, quantum field theory (QFT)… treats particles as excited states of the underlying physical field, so these are called “field quanta.”
— Wikipedia article on “Quantum Field Theory,” accessed June 2025.

If we bring all that back down to Earth, and shift our focus to human beings, Taoism says that since reality cannot be captured by analysis, observation, or logic, Taoism’s advice for daily living is to “go with the flow,” “do and then let go,” and to shape rather than try to control.

“The Master allows things to happen.
She shapes events as they come.
She steps out of the Way,
And lets the Tao speak for itself.”
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 2

In other words, although we don’t fully understand precisely how subatomic physics works, we can still successfully apply it to invent lasers and quantum computers. (Again, please see our Essay, “Mysteries of Modern Physics.”)

Zen

Zen, (still called “Zen Buddhism” by many people) is an austere form of meditative Buddhism that grew to be the principal religion in Japan between 1600 and 1868. The shortened one-word version of its name is mainly due to the fact that Zen draws as much or more from Taoism as it does from Buddhism.

Zen Monk Meditating

Instead of seeking an escape from life into nirvana, as original Buddhists do, Zen practitioners seek satori – “moments of awakening” — that bring spontaneity and openness to everyday life. This idea makes meditation an important tool for leading a creative and productive life within our own Way of Continuing Natural Creation.

In Zen, there are two basic schools of meditation. Followers of The Soto Zen School try to sit idly and think of nothing. You don’t try to follow your breath or to see into the nature of reality. You just try to have an empty mind. This is incredibly difficult to do. For example, if you recognize that you are trying not to think, then you are thinking. One of the results of a completely empty mind can be a sudden, powerful insight or creative breakthrough.

Followers of the Rinzai School of Zen contemplate short paradoxical statements or questions called koan, such as “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” and “Which came first, the Chicken or the egg?”

The purpose of these word puzzles is to disrupt a student’s thinking, so that they confront the reality of the moment. There are no right answers, but the Zen Master has the student contemplate the koan repeatedly until the Master sees that the student has reached a new level of awareness – an awareness of the here-and-now that transcends the mind’s normal processes of comparison and analysis.

Zen koan tries to quicken the plodding process of most Buddhist meditation (including the Soto meditation) by “jerking,” or “awakening” the seeker, into a sudden experience of insight or creativity. The following two-sentence story illustrates what the Rinzai Zen Master is after:

A monk asked Master Haryo, “What is the Way?”
Master Haryo replied, “An open-eyed man falling into the well.”

**Zen “Koan” and The Nature of Reality**

Like Taoism, Zen emphasizes the underlying unity of apparent contradictions within the Universe. In the Zen tradition, novices are trained by directing them to find answers to a number of self-contradictory koans. These paradoxical riddles are designed to highlight the limitations of everyday experience and thereby prompt enlightenment. Here are three famous examples:

#1. The Master was teaching his senior monks at the top of a hill.
At the bottom, a young apprentice was at work: drawing water, chopping wood.
As he worked, he strained to hear the Master’s words, but he could not.
Eventually, the senior monks were dismissed, and the Master sat alone.
The young apprentice rushed up the hill and pleaded with the Master, saying,
“Master, Master, please teach me the Way to Enlightenment.”
The Master replied, “Here is the Way: Draw water, chop wood.”

#2. Master Nan-in served a visiting university professor inquiring about Zen.
He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow and said, “It is overflowing! No more will go in!”
Nan-in said, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations.
How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

#3. Master Mohurai said to a young student,
“You can hear the sound of two hands clapping…
Now show me the sound of one hand clapping.”
The student considered this problem.
Over the following months, he proposed these answers:

- - He played the music of the geishas.
  - He dripped water from one hand.
  - He made the sound of wind by whipping his hand through the air.

The Master rejected all these answers.
At last, the student told the Master he could find no more sounds to try.
The Master said, “Now you have found the soundless sound of one hand clapping.”

“So long as the conscious intellect is frantically trying to clutch the world in its net of abstractions, and insist that life be bound and fitted to its rigid categories, the mood of Taoism [and Zen] will remain incomprehensible; and the intellect will wear itself out.” — Alan Watts, The Way of Zen, pg. 19.

Direct Awareness & Sudden Awakening in Zen

Both Taoism and Zen eschew analysis, dissection, classification, and even naming. As Chapter #1 of the Tao Te Ching says:

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.”

In other words, the Tao cannot be captured in words or mathematics; it must be experienced. Similarly, Zen meditation works at experiencing sudden revelations of satori (awakenings) and the unity of all things (‘Whole of all wholes;’ ‘System of all systems’).

The Whole has so many facets and interconnections that it cannot really be dissected or explained. The Whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

To the Western eye, including most Weavers of Continuing Creation, many Zen monks spend too much time and effort on hours of daily meditation, whether on “empty mind” or on koans. For us Westerners, Zen often becomes a means of mental escape from life here on Earth.

Agents of Nature’s Continuing Creation recognize that we cannot overtly sense (see, hear, smell, taste, or touch) any of the Four Fundamental Forces (the two nuclear forces, electromagnetism, and gravity). But we can directly sense the effects of them, and then we know those forces are real, powerful, useful, and dangerous. With the apparatus and mathematics of modern science, we can accurately predict the workings of these forces and deploy them in useful technologies.

Therefore, it would be wrong, or at least unworkable, to conclude that there is no objective reality, as Taoism and Zen tempt us to do. Instead, we conclude that our explanations and images of objective reality are (as yet) imperfect. What we cannot capture in words, we may capture in mathematics, with technological instruments, and by experiencing outcomes. But this is often preceded by a sudden “Taoist/Zen” insight. New scientific paradigms often (if not always) encapsulate the old, as the Theory of Relativity encapsulates Newton’s Laws of Physics. While we now say that light can be either a particle or a wave field, perhaps science will find an explanation that explains both these appearances.

**The Virtue of “Te” in Zen**

Taoism talks about the power of “doing by going with the flow of the Tao” (See the Book The Tao of Physics, and the Book The Tao of Pooh).

Similarly, Zen has inspired best-selling books like Zen in the Art of Archery and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Both of these books describe how a physical activity can, through mindful practice, become physically and mentally effortless, as our body executes complex and difficult movements without conscious control from the mind. In that process, the physical activity becomes a secular-spiritual experience.

Ikebana – a Zen Flower Arrangement

“When a man has learned to let his mind alone so that it functions in the integrated and spontaneous way that is natural to it, he begins to show the special kind of ‘virtue’ or ‘power’ called Te. This is not virtue in the current, Western, sense of moral rectitude but in the older sense of effectiveness, as when one speaks of the healing virtue of a plant.”
— Alan Watts, The Way of Zen.

A Zen Rock Garden in Japan

The many arts of Zen are a direct reflection of Te, including ikebana (flower arranging), pottery, calligraphy, and landscape gardening. In all of these arts, one can see a naturalness and spontaneity reminiscent of nature itself. Thus, no ikebana arrangement is symmetrical — it has a tendril or two reaching out in a new direction. No pot thrown by a Zen potter is smooth and even; it has a deliberate flaw or two, implying that the pot could have “grown from the ground” on its own.

A Zen garden has natural balance and Flow, but never has the strict symmetry of a classical French garden. In the Zen arts, “superior work has the quality of an accident.” Both Zen and Taoist art show spontaneity and naturalness. Taoism and Zen propose that we each “might become the kind of person who, without intending it, is a source of marvelous accidents.” ³⁵

Zen extends the martial arts of Chinese Taoism to include Japanese jujitsu and judo, which deflect and turn the force of an attack back upon the attacker. Judo uses the concept of jū yoku gō o seisu – “softness controls hardness.” These weaponless defensive arts are perhaps the last word in “doing without doing,” because they physically defeat an attacker without weapons and typically without resorting to life-threatening force. ³⁶

Strengths & Shortcomings in Taoism and/or in Zen

Practitioners in Continuing Creation would say that Taoism and Zen have the following strengths and Shortcomings: (Note: To some extent, this list repeats certain “pros” and “cons” that were mentioned earlier in this Essay.)

Strength of Taoism — The Tao, or The Way, like our own Continuing Natural Creation, is a powerful, pervasive, and often progressive summation of innumerable interactive systems. The Tao is definitely not a super-being.

Shortcoming of Taoism — However, an unnecessary pantheon of conventional “gods” was eventually tacked on to Taoism, to increase its mass appeal. Lao Tsu, the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, became revered as the principal of this collection of godly “immortals.” The immortals lived on mountaintops or in grottoes. They could supposedly “run great distances at top speeds, disappear, shrink themselves, and shape-shift.” To serve the immortals and communicate with them, later Taoism evolved priests and monks, along with temples and monasteries to house them. ³⁷

Strength of both Taoism & Zen – Since they view the Universe (world) as growing rather than having been created, they are consistent with the science of evolution, and with the thrust of Continuing Creation.

Shortcoming of both Taoism & Zen — Unlike the Book of Continuing Creation, both Taoism and Zen arose too early to be informed about modern science and were therefore unable to describe how the Processes of Creation actually work. This also limits Taoism and Zen’s conceptions of progress. Nevertheless, there are remarkable parallels between Taoist philosophy and modern physics, which we briefly discussed above.

Strength of both Taoism & Zen – Even though both these spiritual paths arose long before the Earth was threatened by human overpopulation, pollution, environmental degradation, and global warming, they are still able to address the very early evidence of these problems, as we pointed in above when we discussed Tao Te Ching’s Chapter #39.

Shortcoming of both Taoism & Zen — They predated, and therefore are unable to benefit from, three modern developments in Morality: 1) the flowering of human rights in the Enlightenment; 2) modern scientific understanding of how the Processes of Continuing Creation work, and 3) modern awareness that Earth’s biosphere as a whole also has “rights.” Of course, this has been an early shortcoming of all the world’s major religions.

Shortcoming of both Taoism & Zen — In China, issues of human relationships were the province of Confucianism, not Taoism. However, Taoism does advocate a “soft” laissez-faire kind of government, which would likely be conducive to freedom and individuality. The governing Master does not dictate or control, she shapes events as they flow through her hands.

Strength of both Taoism & Zen — Taoism features a fairly standard set of Ten Moral Precepts. And Zen carries through a set of very similar moral tenets from Buddhism.

Strength of Taoism – Although it has a moral code, Taoism admits that the Tao “doesn’t take sides; it gives birth to both good and evil” (Chapter #5), as does the Process of Continuing Creation.

Strength of both Taoism & Zen — Both of these Ways detest war but recognize that it is sometimes unavoidable. Zen recognizes the fact of war, which gives rise to Taoist and Zen martial arts. Taoism and Zen recognize that the Way of the World is both good and evil, and not just good as proclaimed by Judeo-Christian religions.

“Weapons are the tools of violence…
A decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity.
And, if compelled, will use them with the utmost restraint…
His enemies are not demons,
But human beings like himself”
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 26

Strength of both Taoism & Zen – However, both Taoism and Zen reject the Christian idea of loving your enemies. Taoism and Zen are too rooted in the realities of life for that.

Strength of both Taoism & Zen — Since God is not a “super-person,” but rather an abstract Process that has no jealousy or anger, Taoism and Zen do not insist that moral failures are also personal affronts (“sins”) to a divine personage.

Strength of both Taoism & Zen – Neither Taoism nor Zen has conceptions of Heaven or Hell, where God punishes and rewards human behavior after death. Life is about living… not about enduring on Earth until Heaven can be reached after death.

Strength of Taoism – Taoism provides practical advice on how to work, how to govern, and how to achieve serenity in an active world. The Taoist idea is to “Go with the Flow,” to “Do your Work, and then step back.”

Shortcoming of Zen – Being a practical path, the Tao Te Ching has little mention of meditation. In contrast, Zen overemphasizes meditation and provides scant advice on living a daily life. While meditation can be an aid to an active and creative life, in Zen monasteries, it too often becomes a lifetime search for an elusive sudden “awakening.” In this monastic mode, Zen seeks a means of mental escape here on Earth; a kind of passive acceptance.

Strength of both Taoism & Zen — Like Christianity, both Taoism and Zen have little use for personal ambition. The Tao Te Ching states that the Master works through the Tao for the benefit of her people. Creating, not accumulating, is the important thing.

Strength of both Taoism & Zen – Taoism and Zen teach a way to a better future. We can think of this as a two-step process: 1) Align with the Tao, 2) Use the Tao to shape things and events around us. The Tao Te Ching applies this to governance; Zen applies this to art and war.

Shortcoming of both Taoism & Zen – Neither Taoism nor Zen (nor Confucianism, for that matter) has much to say about how to raise children. ³⁸ This is true of most Old Religions. Ancient peoples learned how to raise children through folkways. Child-rearing was not treated scientifically until Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care in 1946.

Shortcoming of both Taoism & Zen — Neither Spiritual Way has much to say about the evils of slavery or the repression of women.

Strength of Zen – Unlike Taoism and most religions, Zen has not been much diluted by commercial popularization for the sake of mass appeal. (People seeking personal comfort from adopted idols, or needing favors from them in exchange for offerings, have been able to find those features in modern Taoism or in other contemporaneous schools of Buddhism.)

Strength of Taoism & Zen – They both have a conception of progress in virtue, progress in spiritual depth and art, and progress in the achievement of tranquility and wisdom.

Shortcoming of both Taoism & Zen – However, neither of these two Ways was able to recognize the possibility of material progress, i.e., in scientific, medical, or economic progress, nor progress in areas of social justice.

Strengths of Taoism & Zen — Neither one places blind faith in a single “sacred book,” nor holds any of its fables, stories, and koans to be literally true.

Strengths of Taoism & Zen — Neither one commands or demands obedience. Neither one favors one tribe or nation over another. Neither Taoism nor Zen inspires wars or hunger for its “own” land. Neither hopes a “messiah” will come to rescue any group. Neither Way is tribal or racist — at least not in their principal texts. Japanese behavior during World War II was cruelly xenophobic toward the Chinese people after their conquest of China, but when in the history of the world has any major religion been able to deter its people from making war?

Shortcomings of both Taoism & Zen – While neither is apocalyptic, each mostly holds that history and the future are cyclical (yin and yang). The Practice of Continuing Creation, on the other hand, more optimistically maintains that the past has been, and the future will be, progressive over the long run. Even in the most difficult arena of social evolution, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once reminded us that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Life is difficult, and if Taoism, Zen, or nearly any other traditional Path works for you, we have no desire to turn you away from it. But if you seek a modern, secular-spiritual path, or if you have questions, consider The Practice of Nature’s Continuing Creation. — J.X. Mason

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Footnotes to this Essay:

Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen, 1957, Vintage Books, Random House, pp 4-5. See also Ray Grigg, The Tao of Zen, 1994, Alva Press, p. 3.
Elizabeth Pollard, Clifford Rosenberg, and Robert Tignor, Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World — From the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present, Dec. 16, 2014, W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-91847-2. p. 164
Linda Woodhead, Christopher Partridge, & Hiroko Kawanmi, Religions in the Modern World, 2016, Routledge, p.146. ISBN 978-0-415-85880-9.
Isabelle Robinet, 1992, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, 1992, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-2839-9, p. 1.
Russell Kirkland, Taoism: The Enduring Tradition, 2004, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-26322-0, p. 61.
Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen, 1957, Vintage Books, pp. 13-14.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: A Peer-Reviewed Resource, https://www.iep.utm.edu/zhuangzi/.
https://www.philosophy-foundation.org/enquiries/view/the-butterfly-dream.
Ray Grigg, The Tao of Zen, 1994, Alva Press, pp. 21-27.
Roger T. Ames, Roger T. (1998) ed. Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, 1998, State University of New York Press.
Livia Kohn and Michael Lafargue, eds., Lao-Tzu and the Tao-Te-Ching, 1998, State University of New York Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-3599-1.
Alan Watts, “The Way of Zen,” 1957, Vintage Books, Random House, pp 4-5.
See https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/sources.
Alan Watts, Ibid., pp. 16-17.
Alan Watts, Ibid., pp. 16-17.
Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action: Wu-wei As Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China, 2007, Oxford University Press, pp. 6-7. ISBN 9780195138993. See also John Tierney, “A Meditation on the Art of Not Trying,” 2014-12-15, The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 2020.
Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching: A New English Version, with Foreword and Notes, 1998, Harper and Row, p viii.
Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Archery, 1953, Pantheon; 1981 Random House.
Stephen Mitchell, Ibid., p. ix.
Alan Watts, Ibid. p. 25.
Livia Kohn, Cosmos & Community: The Ethical Dimension of Daoism. Three Pines Press, 2004, pp. 185-6.
Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World, 2012, Harper One, p. 281.
Kristopher Schipper, The Taoist Body,1993, University of California Press, p. 19.
Henri Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion, 1981, Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr., University of Massachusetts Press, ISBN 0-87023-308-4, p.41. See also Isabelle Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, 1992, Stanford University Press, ISBN 0-8047-2839-9, p. 63.
Robert Alan Segal, The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion,’ 2006, Blackwell Publishing, p. 50. ISBN 0-631-23216-8.
Prothero, God Is Not One, Ibid., 282.
Stephan Prothero, Ibid., p. 282.
Robert Rousseau, “An Introduction to Chinese Martial Arts Styles.” Retrieved 2017-06-01. See also Stephen Prothero, Ibid., p. 283.
“chi,” published Mar. 17, 2015, updated Apr. 10, 2017, eee.religionfacts.com/chi,rlft,co / 1442.
Stephen Prothero, Ibid., p. 284.
Livia Kohn and David Harold, Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual, 2002, University of Hawai’i Press. ISBN 9780824824297. OCLC 47893514.
Stephen Prothero, Ibid., p. 284.
“Religion in China,” Oct. 11, 2018, Council on Foreign Relations.
Ian Johnson, “The Rise of the Tao,” The New York Times Magazine, Nov. 5, 2020.
Alan Watts, Ibid., p. 28.
Jigoro Kano, Memoirs of Jigoro Kano, 2008, Watson, Brian N. (ed.), Trafford Publishing, pp. 39–40.
Prothero, Ibid., pp. 303-306.
Bill Haines, “Confucian Child-rearing,” The Useless Tree: Ancient Chinese Thought in Modern American Life, https://uselesstree.typepad.com/useless_tree/2011/10/confucian-child-rearing.html#:~:text=Now%2C%20Confucius%20does%20not%20say%20much%20more%20about%20child%2Drearing.&text=Children%20must%20be%20taught%20to,extensively%20because%20they%20do%20it.