Compare And Contrast Buddhism And Daoism

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People concern themselves with so much with what they cannot control. They worry of the future, past, of the afterlife, or what ‘it’ all means. This deters them from living their life and remaining in the present. The present is the most important aspect of life, for that is where the living takes place. The teaching of Daoism is supportive of this claim in the ways it describes life, or the Dao. It promotes letting things take its course, therefore not focusing on the future but instead, the moment. Buddhism, on the other hand has the goal of reaching enlightenment. It doesn’t focus as much on the present as Daoism, it concerns itself with the cycle of life and death, future lives and past and working toward achieving Nirvana. It has more strict guidelines of how to be an enlightened one and what to do in the moment instead of Daoism, which is about peacefulness and being one with the Dao. Both schools of thought will be explained and will be contrasted to defend this position that the present is what should be embraced.…show more content…
It is beyond language and underlies everything. When the Dao is named, “it is the mother of ten thousand thing.” (67) When nameless, “it is the origin of heaven and earth.” (67). It is the matrix structure and reality of the universe. Dao is merely a byname given to it, and ‘it’ is how one should live, although the Dao is beyond full comprehension. The Dao classic, the Dao-de-Jing was written by Laozi and short as it may be, describes aspects of the Dao through poetry and metaphors. Daoism is not a text based philosophy though, because understanding does not come from thinking, but from a lack of it. It focuses on the now, one lives in the moment and naturally tends toward what one should do. What one ought to do is based on their De, one’s power or virtue. It is one’s essence, yet wholly a part of the Dao itself. One’s De should be in alignment with the will of the Dao, which is done through the rejection of artificial
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