Tuesday, March 25th, 2014...11:10 pm

Zhaungzi: Daoism

Jump to Comments

Zhuangzi’s writing focuses on the philosophy of Daoism. In contrast to Confucianism, Daoism doesn’t offer a method or a system for enlightenment whereas Confucianism provides guidelines for moral living. In Zhuangzi’s writing, he entertains that “Dao” or “The Way” is the source to happiness, but following “The way” is mysterious, strange and spontaneous. The Sage shall accept all chaos and feelings as worthwhile and valuable. The sage is not concerned with changes in the world because they accept that they must live in accordance to nature. His ideas implements a “free” lifestyle.

Zhuangzi’s idea of achieving “the dao” or “The Way” entertains that one must be able to “make all things equal”. This suggest that one should find equality between self perspectives and other’s perspective. In other words, one shall not have feelings, or thoughts of the world/nature and accept all that is happening among him. This is the key to achieving happiness and wisdom. Do you think this idea is realistic or idealistic? Why?

 



2 Comments

  • I do think this idea is idealistic and the reason is because we are human being. meaning that we have to have feelings, thoughts and emotions of what happens in order to make sense of what happens.

  • Doaism is such a provocative philosophy but in my opinion, it is something that shouldn’t be applied to a government in its purest form. If this was the case, that society would have no backbone, meaning they would not be very good at defending themselves against foreign threats. I liked the discussion we had in class that day about this subject. I think a little bit of Doaism can do a person or society some good.