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From: simmonds@demon.siemens.com (Tom Simmonds)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: RE: Taoism/Buddhism
Message-ID: <1991May9.170141.12547@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 9 May 91 17:01:41 GMT
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> drk20509@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Don Konecny)
> Subject: Taoism/Buddhism

>	What is different between Buddhism and Taoism. I recently
>wrote a paper on the subject and what to know how right i was.
>Also, what is different between Buddhism and Zen Buddhism?
>
>			-DeadWolfKeiner

I think those questions would probably take several volumes to answer properly.
At the risk of being over-simplistic, here are a few very rough attempts at
partial answers.  I am by no means an expert in all (or any) of those
religions, but I have read quite a lot of literature from each of them.
Please excuse any inadvertent distortions.

Buddhism originated in India and is rooted in the culture of the land of its
origin.  There are many schools of Buddhist thought, and there are important
differences between them, both in philosophy and method.  However, they have
a common base in Buddha's Fourfold Truths: 1) Life is suffering (ie. a roller-
coaster ride of gain and loss), 2) The cause of suffering is desire and
attachment, 3) You can free yourself from suffering, and 4) the way to do
that is the Eightfold Path.  To be very simplistic about it, you could say
that Buddhism is a philosophy/religion of self-liberation or freedom from
self-enslavement by means of some discipline or practice.

Taoism is Chinese.  It comes from a different cultural and philosophical
context.  My impression is that it is less prone to elaborate philosophical
and metaphysical theory than most of the Buddhist schools.  It seems to be
a philosophy of simple harmony with nature, or Tao, as a unified reality.
In Taoism, one does not attempt to liberate oneself from gain and loss.
Instead, one accepts them as two sides of the same coin, so to speak, and
neither pursues nor resists either of them.

According to D.T. Suzuki, when Buddhism was brought to China, the Chinese
interpreted it from their own cultural context, and Taoist ideas were, to
some extent, blended with Buddhism.  The elaborate imagery and philosophical
theory characteristic of Indian Buddhist schools was de-emphasized in favor
of straightforward, simple approaches to practice and enlightenment.  A
subtle shift took place, from an attitude of liberation *from* karmic
bondage to an attitude of liberation *in the midst of* karmic activity.
>From this, Ch'an Buddhism arose, which took an anti-theoretical bent, at
least most of the time, and placed the emphasis on enlightenment in simple
daily activity.

When Ch'an Buddhism was transplanted to Japan, the Japanese culture contributed
its own influence on the philosophy and practice, giving rise to Zen Buddhism.

I think that you would need to have a thorough understanding of all three
cultures (which I do not claim to have), in order to get a clear understanding
of the differences in the religions.

--
 ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
  ))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))tom simmonds))))))))))))))))))))
 ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
  ))))))) "True beauty consists in purity of heart." - Mahatma Gandhi ))))))))