S3E4: How the TTC Helps Us Outfox Religious Wolves
We made a list of seven reasons why the Tao Te Ching helps people from all (or no) faith tradition protect their noggins and learn to outfox religious wolves. In other words, this is an explanation of why we thought this text was ideal for our next set of lessons. We aren't quite ready to commit to 12 total lessons, but these 7 will likely be the backbone. We explain that this text was actually more about political philosophy than New Age spirituality, though we do recognize the personal healing benefits that come from recognizing the natural principles observed in this text.
Stacie recording a reflection alongside a free campsite we found along a river. Right behind her was a family of eagles. We mention the significance of that on this episode.
With respect to political thought, it has many similar themes to the thought of 20th century Christian author Walter Wink, who wrote Engaging the Powers, which shows how Jesus was nonviolent but not a pushover or disconnected from political action.
On this show we explain that Taosurfers refers not to us (though that’s a goal of anyone of good will) but for our purposes refers to the ancient sages who (at least mythologically) mastered the Tao and to anyone who might now or someday do the same. In other words, it is an ideal and never a claim of our own “arrival”. On the contrary, we mention on this show how hard the last couple months have been with national, global, and personal challenges and stressors. That doesn’t deter us, however, but is all the more reason to focus on the ancient Chinese wisdom offered via Lao Tzu.
We mention the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer who developed the concept of the hermeneutical circle and the idea that truth emerges through a linguistic community that hones expressions of truth. This is similar to how C.G. Jung and later Joseph Campbell thought about myth: the point is that there is no one author but rather we find in such literature the bubbling to the surface of ancient archetypes of the collective unconscious.
We also mention:
The Yin/Yang symbol called the Taijitu
Martin Luther on the Freedom of a Christian
A previous episode on Alfie Kohn
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