Taoism

Aside from Buddhism, Taoism had the most influence upon Shaolin thought and art. Tao means "way" in both literal ("road") and metaphysical ("spiritual path") senses. It can also, more rarely, mean "to say" or "to tell." Conceived in China within a few years of the Buddha's teaching in India, Taoism is attributed mainly to the court accountant and philosopher, Lao Tzu. The name Lao-tzu means the Old Boy, deriving from the legend that he was born with white hair. At the end of his distinguished career, Lao Tzu was persuaded to write down the principles of his life and the way he saw the world. The resulting work became the Tao Te Ching, which is perhaps the single most widely read book ever published. Like Buddhism, Taoism began as an agnostic philosophy that taught the manner in which to live a proper life. The Tao itself represented an ethereal concept of a universe in balance or harmony, in which the constituents were polar opposites. The opposites were obviously everywhere Lao Tzu looked: hot and cold, male and female, light and dark, good and evil, hard and soft. To one aspect of the duality he assigned the name "yin," and to the other "yang." Only when there was one, he claimed, could there be the other. In fact, he claimed, the creation of one required the existence of its opposite.

By the time Shaolin was well underway, the teachings of Lao Tzu were widely known and adopted by the monks. Taoist principles of balancing harmony and the guidelines for leading a life of intellect and humble aspect meshed well with Tamo's brand of Buddhism. Shaolin taught a modified version, in which three, not two, aspects had to be kept in balance: body, mind, and spirit.

Read Liao Fan's Four Lessons