In a story called " Peach Blossom Spring ",
T'ao Ch'ien ( c. 400 A.D. ) told of a fisherman
who chanced upon an idyllic community of
people who had fled from a war-torn land
centuries earlier, and had lived ever since in
perfect simplicity, harmony, and peace,
entirely unaware of the turmoil of history
beyond their horizons.
Although these utopians urged the fisherman
to stay with them, he left because he wanted
to share his discovery with his friends.
He could never find his way back. He did
not understand that the sublime and perfect
world he had glimpsed was not to be
found by following any external path, but
by an inner spiritual path.
The utopia he had witnessed was a state
of mind, a level of consciousness, a certain
attitude amidst existence.
Taoism is a philosophical tradition that has
shaped and permeated Chinese culture, and
all the Asian cultures influenced by China,
for more than two thousand years.
Philosophy, in the broad sense, is the pursuit
of wisdom.
Wisdom is the capacity to judge correctly in
matters pertaining to life.
In modern Western culture, philosophy has
come to be mainly a theoretical, intellectual
endeavour, concerned with precise logical
propositions and meticulous reasoning.
However, rational discourse is not the only
manner by which wisdom may be sought,
apprehended and expressed, and indeed, the
complex convoluted cerebral arguments of
many philosophers are so obscure and
highbrow as to appear overly abstract
and irrelevant to the real lives of real people.
Taoism is infinitely profound, but takes a
rather different approach, at once more
practical and more spiritual.
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