# Daoism A Chinese philosophical and religious tradition centered on the *Dao* (the Way — the underlying patterned process by which the cosmos operates) and on living in harmony with that process through *wu wei* (effortless action, action-as-non-forcing), naturalness (*ziran*), simplicity, and the cultivation of inner energy (*qi*). Daoism encompasses two related but distinguishable traditions: **philosophical Daoism** (*Daojia*) — the textual tradition centered on the *Daodejing* (attributed to Laozi) and the *Zhuangzi* — and **religious Daoism** (*Daojiao*) — the ritual, monastic, and devotional tradition that took organizational form from the 2nd century CE onward. With roughly 12 million formal religious adherents but cultural influence extending across the Chinese-speaking world and beyond, Daoism has the broadest cultural-philosophical footprint of any East Asian tradition in [[the West]], primarily through its influence on alternative spirituality, traditional Chinese medicine, *qigong* and *tai chi* practice, and (with considerable interpretive distance) various tech-right and dissident-right invocations of "Daoist" themes of non-coercion, hierarchy-as-natural, and *wu wei* governance. ## Founding and core beliefs The traditional account of philosophical Daoism's founding attributes the *Daodejing* (Classic of the Way and Its Power) to Laozi — a 6th-century BCE archivist who supposedly composed the text before disappearing west through a mountain pass. Modern scholarship treats Laozi as legendary and the *Daodejing* as a composite text consolidated in the 4th–3rd centuries BCE. The *Zhuangzi* (named for Zhuang Zhou, c. 369–286 BCE) is the second major philosophical text — more literary, more skeptical, more openly playful in its rejection of conventional categories. **Religious Daoism** crystallized in 142 CE when Zhang Daoling, on a vision of Laozi, founded the **Way of the Celestial Masters** (*Tianshi Dao*) — the first organized Daoist religious institution. Religious Daoism developed an extensive ritual system, monastic and householder orders, an elaborate cosmology featuring countless deities and immortals, alchemical and meditative practices for cultivating longevity and immortality, and a vast scriptural canon (the *Daozang*, finalized in successive editions through the 15th century, contains over 1,400 texts). Daoism cohabited with Confucianism and Buddhism in the Chinese "three teachings" (*sanjiao*) framework for two millennia, with significant cross-borrowing and synthesis. The Daoist religious institution was severely damaged by the Maoist Cultural Revolution; significant revival has occurred since the 1980s, with state recognition and tourist-supported temple complexes (Wudang, Longhu, Qingcheng, Mao Shan) as institutional centers. **Core concepts.** *Dao* — the Way; the underlying process by which the cosmos unfolds; both the patterned order of things and the unnameable source of that pattern. *De* — virtue or power; the manifestation of Dao in particular things. *Wu wei* — non-action / effortless action / action without forcing; the proper mode of engagement with the world. *Ziran* — naturalness, spontaneity, "self-so-ness." *Qi* — vital energy / breath / life-force; the substance the body and the cosmos are made of. *Yin-yang* — the complementary polarities through which qi expresses itself. *Wu xing* — the five phases (wood, fire, earth, metal, water) through which qi cycles. **Practices.** Religious Daoist practice includes temple worship, ritual offerings to deities and ancestors, meditation, breath work, *qigong*, internal alchemy (*neidan* — cultivation of immortality through inner energy work), external alchemy (*waidan* — earlier traditions of literal elixir-making, largely abandoned), divination (the *Yijing* / Book of Changes is the foundational divinatory text), exorcism, and ceremonial ritual performed by trained Daoist priests. Philosophical Daoist "practice" — to the extent that's a meaningful category — is centered on textual study, contemplative quiet, and the cultivation of *wu wei* in ordinary life. ## Major divisions Religious Daoism's two principal contemporary schools: - **Quanzhen / Complete Perfection** — founded by Wang Chongyang in the 12th century; the dominant monastic Daoist tradition. Celibate, vegetarian, focused on inner alchemy and meditation. - **Zhengyi / Orthodox Unity** — descendant of the original Celestial Masters tradition; the dominant householder Daoist tradition. Married priests; focused on ritual, exorcism, and community religious service. Stronger in southern China and Taiwan. Smaller schools and sub-traditions include the Shangqing / Highest Clarity (medieval), Lingbao / Numinous Treasure (medieval), various local and folk-Daoist communities, and modern revival movements. ## Demographic footprint ~12 million formal religious-Daoist adherents globally, concentrated in mainland China (where formal religious-identification numbers are difficult to determine reliably), Taiwan (~10–30% of Taiwanese identify some Daoist religious participation), Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam. Cultural Daoism — invocation of Daoist concepts, *qigong*, *tai chi*, traditional Chinese medicine, *feng shui*, the *Yijing*, the *Daodejing* — is vastly more widespread, including substantial Western convert and syncretist populations. ## Right-wing politics tributaries Daoism's direct US right-wing political footprint is limited, but its concepts have been invoked in several adjacent contexts: ***Wu wei* as right-wing libertarian / governance reference.** The Daoist concept of *wu wei* — action-through-non-forcing, the ruler who governs by minimal intervention — has been periodically invoked in libertarian and right-wing-classical-liberal political theory as ancient Chinese precedent for minimal-government doctrine. The interpretive distance from actual Daoist political thought is large; *wu wei* in classical Daoist texts is not a free-market policy claim. [[Murray Rothbard]] wrote essays drawing on Laozi as a "libertarian" figure. **Tech-right and Silicon Valley engagement.** Daoism is woven into the broader Silicon Valley spiritual-but-not-religious framework that includes Buddhism, Hinduism, plant-medicine spirituality, and various neo-traditionalist syntheses. *Tai chi*, *qigong*, the *Yijing*, "*wu wei* productivity," and "Daoist" leadership rhetoric appear frequently in tech-industry adjacent self-development cultures. **Cultural-civilizational reference.** Some dissident-right intellectuals invoke Daoism as part of broader "East Asian civilizational" reference frames; the engagement is typically more aesthetic than substantive. **Anti-CCP / pro-traditional-Chinese framing.** Some US right-wing engagement with China policy contrasts the CCP with "authentic" traditional Chinese culture — Daoism, Confucianism, classical Chinese aesthetics — that the CCP is held to have suppressed. The framing supports a "pro-Chinese-people, anti-CCP" rhetorical position visible in some US conservative China-policy commentary. **Falun Gong dimensions.** Falun Gong (1992–) draws on Daoist (and Buddhist) qigong vocabulary and has been intensely persecuted by the Chinese state since 1999. Falun Gong's *[[Epoch Times]]* media operation has become a significant US right-wing media platform; Falun Gong as religion-political movement appears in this vault's `/Media/` and political-organizing tracking, with religious-substrate Daoism (the parent cultural-religious context) tracked here. ## See also - [[Confucianism]] — sibling Chinese tradition; long pattern of mutual influence and competition with Daoism - [[Buddhism]] — third member of the "three teachings" framework; Chinese Buddhism profoundly shaped by Daoist concepts and vocabulary - [[Shinto]] — sibling East Asian tradition