Rituals:
Taoist rituals are strongly based around longevity, immortality and naturalism. These elements all help to guide them on the human search for meaning, with relativity to spiritual energy and transformations that lead to immortality, a common goal for all Taoists.
The first of the two main forms Taoist rituals take, is the quest for personal immortality and it is connected with alchemical potions brewed to assist this quest. These personal rituals, performed in the hope that the ageing process will be reversed, are aimed at overturning the normal processes of the body. These rituals include meditation and breathing methods utilised to draw ch’i essence as deeply through the body as possible. Ch’i can be transformed into spiritual energy through Taoist rituals, and this energy can lead to bodily transformations and immortality. Bodily and immortal dimensions are very significant to Taoism and the human search for meaning.
The second main form of rituals in Taoism is related to how the wider cosmos is spaced out. All Taoist see their body as having its own internal landscape of mountains, rivers and fields, with deities watching over different aspects of this landscape. Rituals and prayers to deities are performed in the belief that they can change these internal landscape’s structure. Taoists perform intricate dances which map out models of the cosmos in areas such as caves and temples, in the hope of sympathetic magic. “Religious Taoism can thus be understood as an imagining of microcosms within the body and macrocosms in ritual spaces that can help make transformations that lead to the immortality of the participants.” – Cambridge studies of Religion, 2nd edition.
The first of the two main forms Taoist rituals take, is the quest for personal immortality and it is connected with alchemical potions brewed to assist this quest. These personal rituals, performed in the hope that the ageing process will be reversed, are aimed at overturning the normal processes of the body. These rituals include meditation and breathing methods utilised to draw ch’i essence as deeply through the body as possible. Ch’i can be transformed into spiritual energy through Taoist rituals, and this energy can lead to bodily transformations and immortality. Bodily and immortal dimensions are very significant to Taoism and the human search for meaning.
The second main form of rituals in Taoism is related to how the wider cosmos is spaced out. All Taoist see their body as having its own internal landscape of mountains, rivers and fields, with deities watching over different aspects of this landscape. Rituals and prayers to deities are performed in the belief that they can change these internal landscape’s structure. Taoists perform intricate dances which map out models of the cosmos in areas such as caves and temples, in the hope of sympathetic magic. “Religious Taoism can thus be understood as an imagining of microcosms within the body and macrocosms in ritual spaces that can help make transformations that lead to the immortality of the participants.” – Cambridge studies of Religion, 2nd edition.