Buddhism and Taoism: What’s the difference? Body and Mind?

In the first two installments of this column, I have dealt exclusively with Buddhism. Yet section of Suite101 is entitled "Buddhism/Taoism, so we might ask about the relationship between the two traditions. It seems to me that though we find many points in common, so that to many people in the West the two seem virtually indistinguishable, we also see important - some would say crucial - differences in both philosophy and practice. We will take our first look at these matters in this week's column.

Some years ago, my T'ai Chi teacher offered a couple of thoughts. He said to consider, as a starting point, these notions: that Taoists often pay more attention to the body and that Buddhists often pay more attention to the mind; that Taoists tended in China to live outside of the cities, off in the mountains, and that Buddhists tended to live closer to the cities; and that whereas Taoists tended toward an iconoclastic view of social forms, Buddhists tended to accommodate themselves to social forms, adapting to the culture rather than standing apart from it. He also said that in China, we might find that different people had spiritual practices combining elements from Buddhist, Taoism, Confucianism, and other traditions.

If we think for a moment about this body-mind issue, we will see immediately that Taoists (a term that covers a lot of ground, so that I use it with hesitation), though they may put considerable emphasis on the body, do not neglect the mind, and that Buddhists, though they may put considerable emphasis on the mind, do not neglect the body. I've known people who refer to themselves as Taoists who do sitting meditation practices that seem indistinguishable from some Buddhist meditation practices. And if we look at some basic Buddhist meditation texts, we find the first "foundation of mindfulness" described as "mindfulness of body." And though we could certainly find abundant Taoist body-related practices (T'ai Chi Chuan, chi kung, the internal and external Brocades, and others), we also find various body practices in Buddhism (e.g. lama dancing in Tibet, a strong emphasis on physical postures, and others). And, of course, many Buddhists and Taoists would reject the body-mind dualism that underlies the discussion as a whole.