Does Tao mean going with the flow, while Buddhist practices often are practices of making our live difficult? We examine by comparing Taoism and Buddhism.
The Chinese are often considered incomprehensible because they have a triad of beliefs, they have three 'religions': Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. The three have a lot in common, and sometimes they complement each other, but at times they contradict each other.
How can one have beliefs which are (partially) contradictory. Either the Chinese are illogical, or they tolerate a greater amount of inconsistency than the average people. Actually everybody have inconsistencies, and it is not always bad to be inconsistent.
I am not going to go into a general discussion of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism here.
But just for a summary, Confucianism believes in order and rationality in society. Order (and discipline and some rituals) is necessary, children must learn it. But order can become outdated, and leads to conservatism. Worse, rituals are often observed just for rituals sake.
Taoism's keyword is harmony with nature. It is also order, but it believes in the natural flow of things. Order comes from spontaneous action.
Buddhism brings a new element, dukkha, which means that nature is basically chaotic, and we need to practice control of chaos.
Out of the three characteristics in Buddhism, change, no-self, and incompleteness, Taoism shares the first two but not the third. On no-self, Taoism believes that self is a product of our thinking, and like Zen, it considers thinking as a hindrance.
In analogy, the difference between Confucianism and Taoism on the one side and Buddhism on the other is like classical, non-chaotic physics and modern physics or chaotic world models. Buddhism recognizes dukkha as fundamental in nature, manifesting itself as suffering, dissatisfaction, Gödel's incompleteness in logic , Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and in mathematical chaos.
This difference between Taoism and Buddhism, the first maintaining that nature is in harmony, and the second that nature is basically chaotic, is crucial.
If nature is in harmony, we don't need to do anything except to be in harmony with nature, to know the flow and just follow it effortlessly.
Elaborate practices causing suffering are just arts of making our lives difficult.
If nature is basically chaotic, we have to exert ourselves to control the chaos through mindfulness. Buddhism believes that the mind is very (infinitely?) malleable, it can be trained e.g. in the five faculties, just like we train our muscles. (Please note the word "control" is not meant as in controlling a machine, subjecting it to our will, but control through mindfulness).
Part of the practice may involve suffering, but this is necessary because suffering is one of the three characteristics of being. Experience is all important in Buddhism, it is the way to know something, including the experience of suffering.
If one day, scientists should developed an enlightenment pill, it would not be very useful, because the process of getting there is more important than the result.
In Buddhism "mind harbors all", Taoism does not have the equivalent of mindfulness.
Finally, I am not suggesting that Confucianism and Taoism are not valuable. The Confucian values for society has played an important role in the economic development of many East Asian countries, and Taoist concept of harmony is what is needed in ecology, for example. Order is mostly good, as in Gtd.
Note: I borrowed the title "The Art of Making Our Lives Difficult" from Theo Fischer's book: "Yu wei. Die Kunst, sich das Leben schwer zu machen"
but the opinions expressed here are different from the book's.
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