If you follow Ekostories on a regular basis, you would know that one of my chief influences is author Ursula K. Le Guin. It was through her work that I first became intrigued by Taoism as a philosophy. Growing up in Hong Kong, my first encounters with Daoism came from ancient tales of whiskery old hermits who sought immortality and strangely robed priests who conducted rituals for the dead. In my adult life, I see bits and pieces of it incorporated haphazardly in the New Age movement. Neither experience was grounded in any context, and as such were bereft of personal meaning and value. For me, Taoism existed as a series of bizarre and disconnected ideas, frequently esoteric and utterly incomprehensible.
Le Guin’s stories changed that. A lifelong student of the Tao Te Ching, she wove its ideas into her writing in a way that made the philosophy tangible, relevant, and meaningful. Her own interpretation of the ancient text is by no means the most accurate, complete, or definitive, but what it lacks in faithfulness it makes up for in clarity, beauty, and accessibility. Within its pages I saw the power, humour, and absurdity of its mysterious author(s), and I began to understand why the thin tome has intrigued people for more than two thousand years.
Intrigued to learn more about the cultural context of Taoism, I took Le Guin’s advice and checked out Holmes Welch’s Taoism: The Parting of The Way, as she described it as the “best, soundest, clearest introduction and guide to the discipline.” What I discovered was not merely a historical and conceptual exploration of the esoteric discipline, but also a deep examination of human nature. Far from being a simple intellectual exercise, Welch’s intriguing application of Taoist philosophy to contemporary society provides some radical and unsettling insights.
