Taoism and Zoroastrianism

Dear Dino and Osred

I totally agree. Arthur Pearlstein and I have many times discussed the close relationship between Taoism (or rtaher Daoism) and Zoroastrianism before on different Zoroastrian fora. Interestingly, when the two religions meet it is in the form of Chan in China. Chan (the Chinese precursor of Japanese Zen) is often connected to Buddhism but this is far from the truth. Chan is really the hybrid between Taoism and Zoroastrianism. Chan and Zen for example do not believe in reincarnation (there is nothing there to reincarnate) which makes them distinctly different from all forms of Buddhism.

I also agree with Osred that inward-looking and outward-looking religions are much better descriptions than both negative vs positive and pessimistic vs optimistic. And then I would say that I do not know of any religon that is as outward-looking, life-embracing and existentialist as Zoroastrianism.

Ushta
Alexander

2008/8/8 Special Kain

Dear Osred and Alexander,

Maybe we could use the words "worldly" and "unworldly" instead. I'm still looking for a better English translation for the German words "weltzugewandt" and "weltabgewandt". A good example of a religion that is unworldly (meaning: detached from the world) is Christianity. A good example of the opposite attitude would be Taoism (at least certain Taoist schools). Unworldly do not care about THIS world, because another astral world with different rules are more important, so the adherents rather follow the astral world's rules, instead of giving in to the world RIGHT HERE. An important Taoist term is ziran, meaning "naturalness". It's about discovering the laws and rules of THIS world RIGHT HERE and using this knowledge to live according to these laws and rules. I guess that the same applies to Mazdayasna?

Kind regards,
Dino

--- osred90 schrieb am Do, 7.8.2008:

Von: osred90
Betreff: [Ushta] Re: Indo-European religion
An: Ushta@yahoogroups.com
Datum: Donnerstag, 7. August 2008, 20:57

I don't really disagree with you.

Perhaps when I said optimistic I meant 'hopeful'. - i.e. Zs believe
the world around us can be changed - and thus there is a hope that it
can be changed for the better.

Of course hope is not the same as expectation. There is no reason to
expect that the world will get better rather than worse. So maybe
optimistic is the wrong word.

However Brahmanism (or at least Buddhism which I know more about)
seems to lack the hope of outward wordly change and instead puts its
hope in inner change instead.

Maybe the distinction then is between 'inward-looking' and 'outward-
looking' kinds of religion?

Osred.