Taoism Main Text Hello, this is AJ again. Welcome to our next lesson, this one's a really interesting one from one of my favorite writers. Absolutely love him, his name is Alan Watts. He

<p><br></p> <p>Taoism Main Text</p> <p>Hello, this is AJ again. Welcome to our next lesson, this one's a really interesting one</p> <p>from one of my favorite writers. Absolutely love him, his name is Alan Watts. He</p> <p>actually died back in the '70s but just an amazing man, so intelligent and actually quite</p> <p>funny actually, just a great sense of humor. And Alan Watts is a very interesting guy.</p> <p>He was one of the first western people, meaning American or European, to learn about</p> <p>eastern spiritual practices, eastern religions. So he studied Buddhism, Taoism and</p> <p>Hinduism, most especially Buddhism. He was a Buddhist. He became a Buddhist. And</p> <p>then he came back, for example, he lived in Japan actually for several years and</p> <p>learned Buddhism there in a monastery.</p> <p>And then he came back and he wrote in English about these religions. The other</p> <p>interesting thing about him is that he was a Christian minister before he became a</p> <p>Buddhist. I believe he was Episcopalian which is a kind of Christian, but he was a</p> <p>minister, he was a preacher. And so the very interesting thing about Alan Watts is that</p> <p>he has a great understanding of both the western and the eastern religious practices,</p> <p>religious beliefs. And not just the normal kind of religion, just go to church and pray and</p> <p>read your little book, but really the deeper meanings of both Christianity, Buddhism, etc.</p> <p>And he has a great way of teaching eastern religions, especially Buddhism and Taoism,</p> <p>to western people in a way we can understand.</p> <p>So anyway, he's also just a really funny, interesting guy and a very intellectual guy, very</p> <p>intelligent. So this is from one of his books about Taoism. Now Taoism is actually</p> <p>spelled with a "T", T-a-o-i-s-m, but it's pronounced "Daoism" like it's a "D". Why is that?</p> <p>Because English spelling is crazy. English spelling, as you already know, is very difficult</p> <p>and there's no logic about it, or very little