Chinese religion – dao jiao and dao jia

I was one of the lucky ones. I didn’t have my parents imposing their religious teachings on to me when I was young. I am indifferent(although would be interested to know) about whether there is an alternative outcome of me in a different environment. They themselves were not strong believers of any particular religion. We followed culture, tradition, and rituals we learnt from our grand parents. For a chinese, it is pretty confusing what we worship. We have Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and all the other deities that appear in temples and sometimes at people’s home. And we burnt a lot of paper products too, which is not very good for the environment. Nobody ever explained to me what all these rituals are for when I was growing up.

The only philosophical readings I remembered as a child is the teaching of Laozi and Zhuangzi. And for many years, I didn’t know what has the teaching of the two has to do with ‘Taoism’ as we know it today. (Some application forms do have Taoism as an option other than Buddhism) As it turns out, the Chinese scholars Laozi and Zhuangzi belongs to a group called dao jia (道家), which is distinctly different from dao jiao (道教). Although dao jiao does based its beliefs on the daode jing (道德经), but much of the intellectual philosophy has been reinterpreted into very mystical level. Daode jing and Confucianism have a similar departure point where they are both about the way to live our lives. It is independent from any individual deities or religious beliefs. They are like secular law that can be applied across all religions. The Taoism as we know it, is a totally a different ball game. It is about finding ways to achieve immortality and become xian (仙). And the practices are mixed up with all the occult practices of ancient china such as astrology, geomancy and the art of almanac and five elements. Some may not agree with what I’m saying here. We do recognise Taoism as a “respect”able religious practice for the chinese in Malaysia. Anyhow, I’m just glad that my mother no longer bring her children nor grand children to see a Taoist priest when they don’t do well in school.