Taoism and the Facts of Life The following quote from the Story of the 3 Masters published on Rational Taoism site is commented in this article:
Taoism is not a philosophy or religion of salvation or of escape, but of appropriately enjoying and dealing with the real life which we have. Taoism finds perfection in imperfection, and taking the eternal and universal viewpoint of the Tao, realizes that the good is not to be finally judged by personal or human preference.
So Taoism is about "enjoying with the real life which we have..." But what about the depression and suffering? They are parts of the "real life". We should enjoy them too? I already explained that Taoism means living in accord with the course of nature. (More about what I mean by "nature" and "course" I explained in my initiation class.)
Accordingly, Taoism is not simply enjoying the real life the way those hippies of the Summer of Love era belive.
Taoism focuses on the Tao. But Tao is not a handbook of knowledge, it has no viewpoint, it doesn't teach us any lesson. It is just the rule(r) of nature. It is said: "Taoism finds perfection in imperfection". This is not true. Taoism finds nothing. Still we may say that Lao-Tzu teaches us how to approach dichotomous formulas such as good and bad, beautiful and ugly, high and low, and so forth.
It is also said: "the good is not to be finally judged by personal or human preference". But if we don't judge at all what happens with our mind? No one can force someone to adopt an impersonal view of something, because one can not have such a view if we exclude the scientific approach of modern man. Taoism is not interested in scientific activity.
As I always said, Taoism is the art of living starting from the facts of life. When Chuang-tzu refused the invitation to join the Prince's court and benefit from the position of an adviser he was offered, he
simply refused saying that this benefit has much of a failure, because it doesn't last! This is a personal view based on the facts of life. --
Article by Jhian
Updated: 09.09.2026 
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