An Introduction

[LDiR]

Hello Tao Bums!

 

I came upon this site while perusing the results to a search for Taoist wedding and thought that the topics were pretty good, so I decided to join up and join in. First, I'd like to say that it's nice to find a place where eastern thought is freely discussed among such knowledgeable individuals.

 

Now that the accolades are out of the way, my experience with Taoism started when I was actively searching for a religion that made sense to me. I spent a lot of time in middle school (grades 6-8) reading the Christian Bible, both a study version and the King James version, but found it unsatisfying by the time I got into high school. I spent a lot of time combing through information on western religions, only looking at the eastern religions in my junior year of high school. I'd read the Tao Te Ching, but didn't spend very much time digesting it because I had been introduced to a few western philosophers shortly thereafter. After reading such philosophers as Kierkegaard, Sartre, Nietzsche, and Camus I adopted a very existentialist, atheist, nihilism that kept me comfortably miserable for years. Though I'd frequently be confronted with desires to read the Tao Te Ching, and would consistently on a nearly annual basis run into either a discussion or book that mentioned Taoism in a loose way, I stuck to my miserable nihilism for years.

 

For the last three years I've been on a journey of self-exploration prompted by a near-suicide, naturally there are a whole lot more things involved in what happened than what I'm putting in here, but this is neither the time nor place to give the whole story. I found myself without a solid foundation for recovery from a series of life-altering events. After my near-suicide I began my journey of self-exploration and went about trying to rebuild myself.

 

I quit drinking and smoking, I stopped having sex outside of relationships, and I started to work hard on finding ways to be happy. Naturally, all of this didn't get corrected overnight, but I'm fast-forwarding to the point at which the Tao Te Ching re-entered my life on a more permanent basis.

 

I'd gotten to the point where my body and mind were doing well, but I wasn't doing well spiritually. I started reading more books on Taoism just over a year ago. My favorite aspect of Taoism is the reliance on individual interpretation. While there are many broad beliefs that are very common among all schools of thought with regards to Taoism, the specifics are largely up to the individual.

 

I look forward to broadening my horizons here and hopefully finding a few ideas that I can appropriate.

 

I own four different translations of the Tao Te Ching, the Library of Chinese Classics version of the Zhuangzi, and the Alfred Huang translation of the I Ching. By no means an expert on any of these books or on Taoism itself, I'm hoping to learn as much as I can here and anywhere else I can find information.

 

EDIT: My handle is an abbreviation of Long Day in Rehab, which has been my internet handle since I first started my journey of 'rehabilitating myself'.

Edited October 13, 2007 by LDiR

[nightwatchdog]

Welcome to the forum, LDiR! Alot of us have traveled along similar paths in our lives. It's great to see someone such as yourself walking the talk.

 

Cheers!

 

Bodhi