Awen Posted May 13, 2023 The Tao Te Ching lists 3 sacred qualities (i.e. sanbao/ 3 treasures) as Compassion, Simplicity/Frugality and Humility. Despite this any reference to compassion that I hear of seems to be coming from a Mahayana Buddhist standpoint (such as Liao Fan's Four Lessons) or the Chinese Folk Religion concept of accumulating merit/virtue. Is anyone on this forum aware of traditional Taoist Scripture(s) that focus on Compassion? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zhongyongdaoist Posted May 13, 2023 9 hours ago, Awen said: The Tao Te Ching lists 3 sacred qualities (i.e. sanbao/ 3 treasures) as Compassion, Simplicity/Frugality and Humility. Despite this any reference to compassion that I hear of seems to be coming from a Mahayana Buddhist standpoint (such as Liao Fan's Four Lessons) or the Chinese Folk Religion concept of accumulating merit/virtue. Is anyone on this forum aware of traditional Taoist Scripture(s) that focus on Compassion? The Character which is translated as "Compassion" is 慈, ci ( compassionate / gentle / merciful / kind / humane, MDGB Chinese Dictionary) and this comes out of this passage from Chapter 67 : 我有三寶，持而保之。一曰慈，二曰儉，三曰不敢為天下先 Translated as: But I have three precious things which I prize and hold fast. The first is gentleness; the second is economy; and the third is shrinking from taking precedence of others. The above reference is to The Chinese Text Project website and its translation to which you can go by clicking 67 above. Searching for 慈, ci, in the Daoist texts on the Chinese Text Project Website gives a total of 35 occurrences in several early Daoist Texts including Zhuangzi and Wenzi, which indicates the importance of the concept in Daoism before the arrival of Buddhist texts. I hope this information is helpful. ZYD 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Gerard Posted May 15, 2023 (edited) From an energetic perspective it makes sense: Shen level. Love-Compassion (Heart, the opening organ network to the Spirit) Qi level (life force & yin & yang dynamics) Jing level (raw substrate, generation & regeneration, brings life). Three Treasures. About witted material, sorry don't know so can't really help here. Edited May 15, 2023 by Gerard Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
