Daoism

"What's your religion, Cassandra?" "Sheela, I think I tend towards Animism, like Shinto or Daoism."

"Frank, in Daoism, Tiāndì or Sky-Earth treats people like 'straw dogs.'" "'Straw dogs,' Don?" "Yeah, Frank."

In Daoism, the "ten thousand things" are like "straw dogs" to Heaven and Earth.

In Daoism, to not know constancy is a tragedy.

I've seen Greg incidentally at Starbucks café on Lulu Island for some years, but only today morning, on the 14th of August of 2022, we formally introduced to each other. He is a Filipino from Nueva Ecija, and he came to Canada at age 18 in 1977. He lived in Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta for some twenty years, then moved to here in BC. He is a devout Baptist Protestant, converted in Canada from Roman Catholicism, who carries his Bible to the café. I told him that when my father was alive, our house had Bible meetings for our Filipino Baptist community. I told Greg that I'm Buddhist. I talked to him about Buddhism and Daoism, this latter of which he knew little. I'm glad to meet a Filipino, like me, who came to Canada very young and has lived in Canada for a vaster period.

My mind about spirituality oscillates between Syncretism and Lojbanism. My Syncretism deals with Animisms as Daoism, Shintō, Native-world Animism, and so forth, as well as Buddhism and Hinduism, but I do not discount Xtian-type ideas from Jehovah's Witnesses, Gnosticism, and my birth religion, Roman Catholicism. My Lojbanism entails the study of Lojban and the practice in expressing spirituality in it, either by writing or making soliloquies.

What happened with Protestant conversions from Roman Catholicism in my extended family didn't go far enough for me, as I had a tendency for Buddhism since prepubescence, largely from sci-fi shows like Star Trek with Mr. Spock's Vulcan philosophy and Space: 1999 with aliens meditating in glass cubicles. I was impressionable to these images and ideas at a young age. By my thirties, I became interested in other Eastern philosophies like Daoism and Hinduism. Things like Baptism, Pentecostal, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. weren't far enough for me...

The analysis of gender in religion or spirituality is an esoteric theme. I for one am attracted to Buddhism, because of its masculine viewpoint about reality. Buddhists accept prevailing discontent as a condition of this illusory world, the Māyā hiding true reality, but paradoxically, they promote equanimous joy. They do not believe in sulking, like a happy boy. The portrayal of the woman is very interesting in the rendition of Dàodéjīng by Ursula K. Le Guin: Chapter 6 says, "The valley spirit never dies. Call it the mystery, the woman. The mystery, the Door of the Woman, is the root of earth and heaven. Forever this endures, forever. And all its uses are easy." Chapter 28 says, "Knowing man, and staying woman, be the riverbed of the world." Chapter 61 says, "By stillness the woman may always dominate the man, lying quiet underneath him." Such is Daoism. I know some who might think that turning to religion might be a "girlie" gesture, but it is not necessarily so. Some sci-fi buff friends of mine think that all I need is sci-fi as an exercise in understanding reality through irreality, something I have been doing since reading Dr. Seuss imaginary books in Grade 1. I analyse that it may have been originally Dr. Seuss books that encouraged me to pursue the sci-fi imaginarium throughout my life. Some sci-fact buffs, however, incline away from sci-fi, which they may think is childish, frivolous "hypotheticals." I believe also in sci-fact, invigorated by sci-fi excursions.

It's the 26th of April of 2025. Before 14:00, a sunny blue-sky afternoon, I went to my neighbourhood's cul-de-sac to meditatively walk around and around there. I admired the gardens. They reminded me of Daoism: how the microcosm reflects the macrocosm: The puffs of sakura would be a nebula afar. One need not really travel too far. Barb my white neighbour was at her driveway. She and her husband Ken would be going out to buy eggs. They eat many eggs.