Introduction

Abstract

Daoism or Taoism is both a philosophy and a religion, though defining it once and for all, historically and globally, has never been an easy task. This difficulty continues to hold true even according to recent observations by internationally recognized experts such as Livia Kohn in the United States (“Daoist Studies in North America: A Survey of Scholars and Recent Trends” 2009) and Hu Fuchen in China (A General Introduction to Daoim, 2009: 6). For a brief and simplified introduction here, however, Daoism is first and foremost presented as an immensely rich and heterogeneous philosophy about the Dao and its power or virtue (de in pinyin) as a creative principle, about the dynamics of the yin/yang, and about the harmonized qi giving rise to everything. Daoism also covers a multitude of bio-spiritual practices related to the afore-mentioned concepts and principles, best expressed in original Chinese pinyin above to avoid potential corruption in misleading, reductionist, or even Orientalist translations (Keping Wang, Reading the Dao: A Thematic Inquiry, 2011: xii).. Historically, this philosophy gave rise to a religious movement some 1800 years ago in China, a movement that not long after turned into in an organized Daoist religion. This religion spread to Europe and then North America in the past few centuries, and has been subsumed, in English, under the umbrella term Daoism in pinyin or English, or Taoism in the Wade-Giles system.