Expert: Joe McSorley - 3/25/2006

Question
What is the difference between Buddhism and Taoism? As I see Taoism focus on praying to gods and practicing teachings of Tao, while Buddhists practice to cultivate their minds to be pure and not attached to anything. Which religion between this 2 religions have the upper hand?

Answer
   In one sense Buddhism and Taoism are completely separate and arose independently of each other in India and China, respectively.  Though they are historically and culturally different they both come to the same point at their depth.  In the truest sense of the word neither of these are religions, they are an attempt to answer existentially fundamental questions about the human condition.  There is no god, dogma, creed or faith to any of these philosophies.  Buddhism is call the religion of self-awakening, meaning that in is incumbent upon the individual to come to their own awakening through their own efforts.  There is no savior or god to help one here.  
 There are many sects of Buddhism that vary greatly from one another.  Many of the more popular sects are more like what we think of as religion.  They worship the historical Buddha as godlike and pray to him for help but this is not at all what the historical Buddha taught.  Zen and Mahayana do not do this at all and some argue that Zen is the closest to the original teachings.   There are many very structure schools of Buddhism but it is really the individual's effort and not the ritual or chanting that brings one to awakening.
   At their core Zen and Taoism could be said to be identical but in their practice are vastly different.  Lao Tzu envisioned his writings to guide the rulers to become ‘emperor sages' that they would rule in harmony with nature and man.  Chuang Tzu is much deeper than Lao and in his writings tries to explain the relativity of things, man in particular, and the interpenetration of things.  There are no real formal schools of Taoism and it's articulations today go from to harmonious to bizarre.  There is a thread that some Taoists follow to be ‘all natural' and anything synthetic or man made is wrong.  Some of these folks feel that passing gas, belching and all other ‘natural' forms of being human should never be controlled but expressed fully.  It's an odd interpretation to me.  One teacher actually said to me “We Taoists piss in the yard”.   The problem with the anti-societal thinking is that society is natural.  Insects, elephants, wolves and chimps have social structures and behavior they adhere to so it is consistent with nature for man to do the same.  Taoism, as taught today, is also caught up in magic and alchemy.  There are little of the real teachings of either Lao Tzu or Chuang Tzu in it.  It is very difficult to ‘follow' Taoism for this reason.
  As you should know from your readings in Buddhism the object is to ‘see things as they are' and to overcome the dualistic distinctions of the mind.  The idea of the interpenetrations of all things, sunyatta and prajnaparamita are all consistant with the interpenetration and the yin-yang of Taoism if understood in its deepest sense.  When it is only understood in a relative sense you will have problems.  So this self discovery or better said, self obliteration/reconstruction works perfectly in Buddhism with Taoism when viewed by Chuang Tzu's “heaven, self and I arise simultaneously”.  If you were to come to a true and thorough going realization of reality outside the norms of your society and history you would have to create a language that describes what you have realized.  In the case of Chuang Tzu he did so and it clearly describes the proclamations  of many of the Zen masters over the century.  So from this standpoint I say that they are ultimately speaking of the same things though every day practice may be the farthest thing from this.
    Again, in Taoism, the object is to overcome the self and become harmonious with Nature.  This overcoming of the ego could be said to be the same as overcoming the self in Buddhism and ‘seeing things as they are'.  
 As far as which one has the upper hand, I guess it's dependent on who is arm wrestling whom.
             Joe