Word: taoism
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...government policy. Soon after fighting stopped in French Indo-China and Viet Nam was split officially from the Communist north, leaders of the new republic began searching for a doctrine to shore up their nation of Taoists, Buddhists and Christians against surrounding Communism. To Vietnamese officials, Buddhism and Taoism seemed too vague and personal to combat Marxism, and the Western ethos was still too alien. The teachings of Confucius (551-479 B.C.) looked like the answer. With its adoration of knowledge, its rigid pattern of family life, its elaborate ritual for such everyday acts as pouring tea and laying place...
Believing with Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism, that inspiration comes in a flash and cannot be long sustained, the Ch'an painter worked in monochrome "as if a whirlwind possessed his hand." Greatest of them all was Liang K'ai, who had won the Emperor's highest painting award, the Golden Girdle, before he retired to a Buddhist monastery. He dashed off such inspired sketches as his Ink Brushing of an Immortal, showing a monk tearing off his shirt to prove the indifference of the enlightened man to outward appearances...
...sects say they are religious; one is political. Cao Dai is a mixture of Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism with its own Pope and cardinals, and a Vatican headquarters 55 miles northwest of Saigon. Cao Dai has an expanding pantheon that includes Clemenceau, Victor Hugo and Joan of Arc and, in nomination pending his death, Sir Winston Churchill. Its Pope, Pham Cong Tac, was formerly a Saigon customs clerk. Hoa Hao is a rowdy sect of dissident Buddhists professing its belief in abstinence and prayer. Its founder, the late Huynh Phu So, augmented his fame as a healer when...
Jung himself is inclined to agree with both his admirers and his critics. His own conception of religion is so eclectic, that it embraces everything from Catholicism to Hinduism, Taoism and Zen Buddhism, and finds truth of some sort in nearly every form of dogma and ritual. "His principal weakness, aside from overeating," a close associate recently remarked, "is his habit of seeing all points of view and agreeing with practically everybody." "The idea an an all powerful being," says Jung himself, "is present everywhere, if not consciously recognized, then unconsciously accepted...I consider it wiser to recognize the idea...
...Maurer, China is the clue to the Orient, and Confucius and Lao-tse are the clues to China. From Confucius stem China's social virtues: family piety, loyalty; from Lao-tse her moral values: Taoism, the philosophy of "Do Nothing," don't fuss, let nature take its course. It was Lao-tse who inspired such axioms as "There are thirty-six ways of meeting a dilemma and the best of them is to run away." To an Oriental, this represented the wisdom of the bamboo shoot which bends before the prevailing wind. To Westerners obsessed with slum clearance...