Taoist philosophy has hovered in the background of my life for many years now. Looking back, I realized that many of the perspectives that helped me the most were very similar to Taoist ideas, even if I didn’t make the connection at the time.
What I picked up came in fragments, but the philosophy of nonresistance became a pillar of my spiritual growth, and it’s something I’ve held close to me ever since. Over time, this perspective changed how I understood suffering, healing, and navigated life itself.
Through plenty of trial and error, I kept finding the same thing. Forcing leads to friction. Surrender, more often than not, leads to peace.
The less I fought against my circumstances, my emotions, my thoughts, my self… the more spaciousness I discovered. That same spaciousness made life flow. Not always in the direction I anticipated or wanted, but in a way I can only say, “was meant to be”.
Life seemed to click when I followed subtle signals rather than rigid ideas about how things should happen. Trying to push against that current never really worked anyway.
When I finally picked up the Tao Te Ching, I was thrown back by how little it tried to explain itself. The text reads more like poetry than instruction. Seemingly random insights and scribblings pointing to a concept that can’t be fully understood.
Great…
But I started to see that the ambiguity is by design. That’s the thing, understanding Taoism isnโt about erecting walls. Itโs about gradually wearing them down to bring us back to a more raw way of experiencing life.
In truth, Taoism isnโt as separate from other traditions as it seems on the surface.
Impermanence sits at the heart of Buddhism. Surrender is central to Islam. Presence and mindfulness echo through modern thinkers like Eckhart Tolle and Alan Watts.
Different traditions, different languages, but the same underlying current.
In this guide, Iโm sharing Taoism from my own perspective. Not as a scholar laying down doctrine, but as someone who has lived with many of these ideas and felt their impact over time.
Weโll start with orientation, move into the core principles, and then explore how they actually apply in everyday life. The goal is to keep things clear while also not sanding off Taoismโs deeper edges that are probably well beyond me.
By the end, you should have a solid feel for what Taoism is and how its principles can be explored in real life. Not as something to adopt blindly, but as something to experience for yourself.
History of Taoism
Taoism (pronounced Daoism) is an ancient Chinese philosophy that emerged somewhere around 500 BCE. While many people think of it as a religion, it’s not quite accurate to depict it as a religion, or solely as a philosophy, either.
Itโs better understood as a living tradition. Think of it as a blend of worldview, spiritual practice, and a way of relating to life itself that’s less concerned with belief and more about… You know, actually doing it.
In this sense, it’s more accurate to see Taoism as a loose framework that is designed to help people live in harmony with the universe (and everything beyond it).
Not to say that more rigid traditions developed around this worldview, because they did. Perhaps in a similar way that Christianity was formed around the teachings of Jesus, yet the heart of the message became diluted and institutionalized.
But the roots are simple.
There is an emphasis on direct experience. On exploring your own relationship with the Tao rather than trying to pin it down intellectually. This is what we should be looking at if we truly want to embody this way of living.
Origins of Taoism
Lao Tzu, often described as a semi-mythical sage from ancient China, is generally seen as the forefather of early Taoism.
Whether he was a single person or a collection of voices doesnโt matter all that much. What matters is the text attributed to him, the Tao Te Ching.
The Tao Te Ching is short. You can read most translations in an afternoon. It doesnโt read as a rulebook like many other religious scriptures do, but it feels more like poetry, written by someone who spent a lot of time watching how life actually works.
While it’s easy to grasp the idea behind some sections, the Tao Te Ching is filled with riddles, paradoxes, and contradictions, all pointing toward a particular current or force in life that can’t be fully explained.
The Tao
And that’s really the point.
Rather than giving you solid answers, the text nudges your mind out of rigid patterns. Instead of telling you what to believe, it invites you to move through life with a little more wonder.
Over time, more scriptures were added to this body of wisdom, and it began to develop into a fuller tradition with rituals, practices, and more structured belief systems.
One of those complementary texts is the Zhuangzi. Itโs filled with stories, dialogues, humor, and philosophical absurdity.
Then there’s also the Daozang, often called the Taoist Canon. This is not a single book but more like a library of related texts built up over centuries. It includes writings on meditation, ritual, internal alchemy, medicine, ethics, cosmology, and more.
This shows us how Taoism gradually evolved from a simple way of seeing life into a vibrant living tradition.
The Rise of Taoism
Early Taoism wasnโt big on spiritual pageantry. It was more โwatch how life movesโ than โkneel here and chant this.โ
But it didnโt stay in a cave forever.
It wandered into villages, houses, and cemeteries. Along the way, it absorbed what people were already doing, such as honoring ancestors and making offerings to forces they felt, but couldnโt quite explain.
Instead of rejecting those practices outright, Taoism shrugged and said, “Sure, that fits,” and incorporated them.
As Taoism evolved over centuries, hundreds of schools emerged. Taoists developed rituals, temples, lineages, ancestral veneration, and deity worship, among other practices. They incorporated different energy techniques like tai chi and qigong into their framework and developed their own medicine and alchemy.
Over time, this turned into what we now call religious Taoism. Same Tao, just wearing incense, robes, and a few extra layers of symbolism.
Now, it helps to think of Taoism as a spectrum.
On one end, itโs a practical philosophy about letting life run its natural course. Maybe it exists as a gentle reminder to stop resisting when things get hard.
On the other end, you have the hardcore Taoists who dedicate their lives to the craft. To them, it’s a full spiritual tradition with the lot.
China’s spiritual spine nowadays is a blend of Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Everything has been jumbled together, so most people wouldn’t consider themselves strictly Taoist, even if they do all the things a Taoist does.
To put it into perspective, you can see all of this extra stuff as supplementary.
Taoism has definitely evolved over the years and incorporated many ancient Chinese beliefs and practices that already existed, but all of these traditions aim at cultivating an enduring connection with lifeโs deeper currents, making them more like tools that help dedicated Taoists align a little deeper than most.
What is Taoism?
In a nutshell, Taoism is a way of life that promotes harmony with the Tao. While elusive to easy definitions, the Tao is often understood as the natural rhythm of the universe, or perhaps the intelligence of the universe itself.
Therefore, people who practice Taoism practice the art of being with the flow of life and removing all obstacles, mental, emotional, physical, and energetic, that create a barrier between them and the natural course of the universe.
I’m not talking about this new-age fluff of ‘going with the flow, bro,’ because you don’t know how to take responsibility for your life.
No, Taoist traditions are more about embodying a way of being where you strip yourself down to a fundamental, unadulterated awareness, in which you’re not going with the currents of life, you are them.
Big distinction there because one implies you’re separate and doing something, and one implies a state of consciousness with the universe, as a tiny fragment of it.
Most people see Taoism as a bridge.
While it’s easy to get caught up in all of this watered-down flow stuff, a good way to look at it is that Taoism is a path to develop a deeper relationship with spirituality, however we define (or can’t define) that.
And it teaches that this is done not by refining, but by undefining. By going back to our roots of simplicity, where, for the most part, life was not seen as something necessarily to conquer or even to co-create, but something to surrender to in awe and wonder.
But this state of being isn’t new.
It’s not a sheltered little secret of ancient Chinese philosophers, it’s a form of spiritual embodiment that isn’t exclusive to any single tradition but is complementary to all of them. It fits into Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Animism… you name it.
It’s one of these philosophies that anyone can look at, regardless of their background, and say, “Oh yeah, that makes sense.”
People from every corner of the world are grasping at the same incomprehensible force that permeates reality itself. This is also another reason why learning about Taoism is important for any spiritual seeker.
It’s universal.
In this case, the scriptures become reference points, not rulebooks. They’re just guides for how to act, make decisions, and move through the world with a little more ease.
So, regardless of where you are on this path, or which path you’re taking, incorporating Taoist teachings into your own practices will only do you good.
What Taoism Teaches Us
Taoism teaches that all living beings function best when they live in harmony with the universe.
Think of it in a way that the universe, and all things within it, are unfolding in a natural course, perhaps as if guided by some sort of higher intelligence.
While you have some say in your own life, of course, in the grand scheme of things, you’re a tiny spec of dust that will come and go. You do not control life, and trying to ultimately leads to suffering.
So, what can you do?
Well, that’s sort of the point. You can’t do anything. All you can really do is navigate within your small axis of possibility and surrender to what’s outside of it.
In Taoist teachings, this spiritual energy that animates all things is called qi (ch’i). You might recognize a similar idea in yogic traditions as prana. When there is no forcing current with our actions, thoughts, emotions, and lives in general, life tends to feel like it’s in sync.
Again, this doesn’t mean you never try, or never have ambitions, or use it as an excuse to be lazy.
Instead, it’s to trust that there is an intelligence working through you, and listening to it. Everything has a role to play, everything has a time, and everything has its place in the grand system we call life.
And when you think about it, this natural flow of energy applies to everything. It permeates every aspect of life because everything has a course to run.
Eating, sleeping, breathing, being. How you process and experience emotions, thoughts, feelings, and desires. It shows up in your relationships, your work, your hobbies, your creativity, and even how you rest. It relates to how you manage your health, expectations, situations, and circumstances, and how you respond to difficulty.
So much tension arises from misalignment. From fighting your circumstances, your emotions, setting expectations, and constantly pushing yourself to do more, be more, and achieve more.
If youโre familiar with traditional views on the ego and why itโs often seen as a barrier to deeper states of embodiment, Taoism isnโt saying anything radically different.
The ego is the part of us that organizes life through labels, comparison, control, and personal narrative. Itโs how we function socially, make sense of ourselves, and move through the world.
Itโs necessary, yes, but itโs also limited.
From a Taoist perspective, harmony arises when we stop experiencing ourselves as something separate from life and begin moving as part of it, which is a very similar view to many traditions. They teach this in Buddhism, Sanatana Dharma, and shamanic traditions in South America, among others.
It seems that the ego is universally recognized as a barrier, and it makes sense.
When we tighten our grips around identity, preferences, and the need for things to unfold a certain way, we’re separating ourselves from the universe.
Not because weโre doing something wrong, but because weโre swimming against a current thatโs already moving.
Friction happens when you resist what’s outside of your control. And that’s the thing about life, really, most things are out of our control. The best life is one that is in harmony with the natural movement of one’s inner and outer world.
Spiritual Beliefs of a Taoist
Taoist texts don’t provide a roadmap for spirituality. The focus is practical, such as how to move through this obscure human experience with less resistance and more alignment.
That said, most Taoists do recognize some form of Ultimate Reality, even if it isnโt clearly defined.
Over time, shared understandings emerged among practitioners, and these became associated with Taoism itself.
In Taoism, death isnโt something to overcome. It’s seen more as a return to the source from which all things manifest. Many Taoists see death as the moment when a personโs energy returns to the Tao, like a river flowing back into the ocean.
Nothing is lost, what disappears is the sense of separateness.
So, life and death are not seen as opposites. It’s not like one’s good and one’s bad. They are part of the same cycle, and each gives meaning to the other.
Some Taoist traditions speak of spirit realms or even immortality, not in a literal, physical sense, but as an ongoing state of harmony with the Tao that transcends ordinary human limits. This is often where the idea of deities comes into play, and the recognition that there’s a lot more happening out there than we can comprehend.
These were things I once dismissed completely. Deities? Come on, give me a break! But the more traditions you study, the more these themes repeat. And it makes you think…
When the same theme shows up everywhere, itโs probably pointing at something real underneath all the cultural interpretation.
While it’s not completely fair to call it dilution, let’s, for a moment, scrape away all the excess that this tradition has accumulated over the centuries, and look at the sweet nectar inside.
And you could say there are different layers to this onion. The Taonion.
At one level, Taoism helps you live with more ease and less friction. Go deeper, and life becomes mysterious and intimate, no longer something that can be fully explained. Go deeper still, and the sense of being a separate self begins to dissolve altogether.
It’s interesting because this state of unity with the universe, or the collective consciousness, or God, exists within every spiritual tradition I know. Yes, they all call it different things, and they have slightly different interpretations of what this state of consciousness means. But it’s universal, and that’s what makes it credible.
This is what the great yogis refer to as Samadhi. What Buddhist monks might call nirvana. It’s a state of nonduality. Likewise, it’s what Christians might call heaven, or what muslims might call Paradise. Not a place you go necessarily, but a state of union with god (the source), which is nonduality.
This, at the deepest level, is what I believe the Tao is. Nonduality, a state of complete unity with all things, and there are different levels to which we can embody it. Death, in a sense, is the deepest level of embodiment.
Core Ideas of Taoism
Think of a river flowing downhill.
Thatโs the easiest way Iโve found to point toward the Tao.
The Tao is the central theme of Taoism, which translates to something along the lines of the Way, or the natural course of things. But Lao Tzu himself is quick to say that the Tao canโt actually be defined. And weirdly enough, thatโs kind of the whole point.
Instead of someone else simply giving you all the greatest answers for life, Taoism places the responsibility of discovery back into the hands of the individual. You’re not given a map, you’re told to walk the walk and figure it out yourself, because there is no better teacher than life itself.
And that makes a lot of sense to me.
Especially when talking about higher realms, spiritual energy, and the mystical pillars of our universe, the human mind falls short.
Like a monkey trying to understand economics, some things are simply beyond the human mind, and if you try too hard to figure it out, you’ll pull a muscle.
Taoism doesn’t ask for much, but it does ask you to recognize that limitation. Especially in a world obsessed with labels, beliefs, and certainty. Where you’re likely to have a panic attack if you miss your routine morning coffee.
Lao Tzuโs relationship with the Tao would have been different from that of later Taoists. Their experience will be different from yours or mine.
Therefore, I can only share my understanding.
The Tao is not supposed to be understood. It’s meant to be experienced, almost like a state of consciousness, of oneness with the universe we hear so much about from the world’s great sages, mystics, yogis, and gurus, where the individual is an insignificant part of it.
Picture the universe as a living, breathing being in all of its infinite processes. In my opinion, Taoism is not just about recognizing that, but fully embodying the deeper truth of reality, that you are an inseparable part of that greater consciousness.
With that said, there are some core themes in Taoist traditions that pop up again and again, in literature, stories, folklore, rituals, and common understandings. Well, look at these core ideas here:
Ziran (Naturalness)
In Taoism, life happens on its own terms, as a living process that doesn’t need to be micromanaged. Not because someone decided it should be this way, but because it’s a self-sustaining system, and you were just plopped in the middle of it.
Nature already knows what it’s doing. It knew what it was doing well before we arrived, and will know what it’s doing well after we leave.
A tree grows, produces fruit, and eventually decays because that’s what it’s built to do. It isnโt trying to grow faster. It isnโt questioning its role. It isnโt saying, โOh, fuck, Iโm a tree.โ
Thereโs no resistance there because the tree isnโt performing.
Itโs simply being, without getting in its own way, which allows it to stay in harmony with the world around it. So, let’s learn from that tree!
Living in ziran means letting life take its natural course and letting yourself be part of it without constantly trying to correct it.
Another way to think of it is that Ziran shows up when we stop interfering with ourselves. It’s all about naturalness. Letting things be where they are, without strain, self-editing, or constant inner commentary.
Itโs what happens when you stop forcing outcomes, rushing timing, or trying to become someone youโre not ready to be. When you let work, relationships, healing, and even confusion unfold at their own pace.
A river doesnโt argue with rocks. It moves around them. Over time, it shapes the land, not through control, but through steady movement and trust in its own direction.
That’s why Taoism emphasises less thinking and more following the natural rhythms of your body, being in touch with the cycles of nature, and simply feeling the pulse of life deeply.
Pu (Simplicity)
Pu is often translated to โthe uncarved block.” It’s all about natural simplicity and the potential of that simplicity, before we’re molded by the myriad influences on our lives.
Real clarity comes from what hasnโt been overworked yet. A block of wood has thousands of different purposes and applications. But when you chizzle it down into a little figurine, it just has one, which is to look nice.
So, when your mind has been chizzled down by conditioning, doctrines, knowledge, and whatever else is filling your cup, you don’t really have that same spaciousness because you’re already occupied.
This is a hard one for modern life because we all have a million things to do, all the time!
Most of us wake up already wound tight. Even our rest gets scheduled and justified. If we do nothing, it has to be framed as recovery. But there is so much tension from just letting ourselves be how we are, because we’ve been wired to be overproductive.
Of course, we do need to get shit done, as our modern lifestyles aren’t low-maintenance. But it doesn’t mean you have to always be switched on!
We never really let ourselves just do… nothing.
I get it. I feel that guilt too. Sitting around doing nothing can just feel wrong… like youโre wasting your life away.
But thatโs conditioning.
Weโve become very good at doing, building, improving, and pushing forward. But in the process, weโve lost touch with the part of ourselves that knows how to simply exist without effort.
That is what Pu suggests.
Itโs not asking you to reject modern life or escape into the mountains. Itโs asking you to notice how rarely you allow yourself to be unoccupied, unproductive, and unlabelled.
This might show up as moments where you stop filling the gaps. Sitting without reaching for your phone. You might notice how uncomfortable that feels at first. How the mind rushes in to justify itself.
But that discomfort is part of the carving!
Pu isnโt something you do. Itโs what remains when you stop interfering so much.
Slowness, stillness, and simplicity arise naturally from that place, not because you forced them, but because thereโs finally space for them to exist.
It sounds simple.
It isnโt.
Wu Wei (Effortless Action)
There’s also something called wu wei in Taoism, which is one of the main ideas, and something you’re probably familiar with if you’ve spent any time at all studying this tradition. Wu Wei means effortless action, and it’s what we might call being in the zone.
Youโve seen it before.
A musician whose completely eloped in the music he’s creating, or the audience member dancing her little heart out to that music because she feels it in her bones. A writer who is so immersed that he forgot to eat, or the person getting lost in the writer’s book.
In these moments, you’re not thinking, you’re not forcing yourself to do anything. While yes, it’s still action, that action feels effortless because you’re 100% present with it.
It reaches a point where stopping feels harder than continuing, where thinking feels intrusive. That’s because youโve already built that momentum, and now you’re switched on.
That’s Wu Wei.
But you don’t need to be some great artist to get into the flow. Effortless action can, and does, appear in everything.
It can happen while driving, when you suddenly realize youโre already home. While cooking, cleaning, or going for a walk. Youโre doing the thing, but youโre not complaining about it, you’re not really thinking about it. You’re just doing it.
Of course, no one lives in this state all the time. Life would be suspiciously easy if that were the case. Wu wei isnโt about floating through life without lifting a finger.
Itโs about reducing unnecessary friction and being present with the activity at hand.
When your actions line up with your nature, your values, and the moment in front of you, things tend to move more smoothly. You still act. You still show up. But youโre no longer dragging yourself through it.
So when flow appears, let it have you.
And when it doesnโt, donโt try to manufacture it. That effort alone pulls you out of it.
Wu wei grows naturally as you stop forcing life to move faster, differently, or more impressively than it wants to.
Sometimes, the most aligned action is simply getting out of your own way.
Yin Yang (Balance and Duality)
Now we’ve landed on a very important piece of Taoist philosophy: Duality.
The ultimate goal of many traditions is to return to nondual reality, and to me at least, that’s what the Tao reflects.
But Taoism isn’t about transcendence.
It’s more about recognizing that this universe is built on contrast, which is what creates space for all the diverse experiences we go through. And nothing captures the essence of duality more than the yin-yang.
Although the concept of yin-yang took root long before Taoism developed into an organized tradition, it certainly gave it a deeper spiritual meaning.
Yin and yang represent two sides of the same coin, or maybe you can look at it as two endpoints of the same continuum. Light and darkness, hot and cold, male and female, life and death, growth and decay, you name it. You can’t have one without the other, it’s part os the universe’s architecture.
Taoism is all about balance. Not the rigid kind where everything is perfectly even, but a living balance thatโs always adjusting.
I’ve learned something interesting while studying shamanic traditions in South America.
Many indigenous communities over there believe that illness stems from imbalance, often when we’re disconnected from nature, community, and spirit. Therefore, the role of a shaman is to bring balance to the community.
Taoists share a pretty similar belief.
Imbalance shows up when we’re out of alignment with the rhythm of nature. This can come from too much asserting control, too much thinking, too much doing.
When we ignore this, imbalance manifests in all sorts of undesirable ways, such as stress, anxiety, tension, fatigue, depression, mental illness, sickness, suffering, and the general erosion of well-being.
So, don’t underestimate the importance of balance within all dimensions of your life experience. Balance between body and spirit, balance between spending time alone and with community. Balance with work and rest, with enjoyment and discipline.
Balance means you still feel human emotions and desires, but they don’t hijack you. You still work, but without tying your self-worth to outcomes.
This is how Taoism relates balance to well-being. When we live in harmony with the Tao, balance becomes the default state.
Taoist Practices
By this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what Taoism is all about, and that’s half the work!
Still, it helps to ground all of this in something tangible. Not some lame ‘how to be a Taoist in 10 steps’ checklist, but to have some solid avenues that make Taoism livable instead of collecting dust in the corner of your mind.
Some practices like Tai Chi or Qigong are often associated with Taoism, but they’re more like supportive tools instead of structural pillars. Likewise, practices like meditation, yoga, or shamanic singing have a very similar goal, and I encourage you to try them.
But we’re not going to look at them here.
Taoism is not something you simply apply, and suddenly it’s there forever. It’s not found through committing to a single practice, despite how much you get it. Taoism is a relationship that develops over time through experience, self-observation, and plenty of trial and error.
So, here, we’re going to look at some subtle shifts you can make to help you cultivate a deeper connection with the Tao.
Tend the Roots
If your energy, health, and attention are wrecked, no amount of discipline is going to save you. If you constantly eat crap food, overwork yourself, or do nothing meaningful with your life, you’re lacking some serious stability, and that’s going to bite you in the ass.
Sustainable action comes from a well-tended source, not constant pressure, pleasure, or bullshit.
Think roots. The unglamorous basics most people try to bypass while chasing productivity. Silence, rest, nourishment. All that good stuff is essential! Because when the roots are neglected, everything above ground starts to wither.
Nature does not rush. It grows when conditions are right and rests when they are not. If you want life to move smoothly, you have to follow nature’s example.
Your body understands this better than your mind does.
It knows when it is tired, when it needs rest, when it has had enough, and when it is overloaded. Pushing through exhaustion, ignoring hunger, and overriding emotional signals are small but constant ways you move against the Tao.
Therefore…
Pay attention to your body. Rest when youโre tired, eat when youโre hungry, slow down when youโre overloaded. Listen to these signals and respond appropriately.
Do Nothing
The Tao Te Ching talks a lot about doing nothing, which sounds suspiciously lazy until you get it. As kids, we love doing nothing! That’s why most of us are so caught in the moment, just having fun, but then something happens…
We grow out of it.
All of that responsibility. All of that commitment. It sneaks up behind us and whacks us with a brick. And I’m not saying that it’s bad to be responsible, or committed, or disciplined. We should, but we also need to relearn an essential skill.
Doing nothing. And more importantly, doing nothing without guilt.
In modern society, we make “doing nothing” into something terrifying.
“I can’t do anything! I need to use my time wisely, I need to be productive!” Most of our minds tell us that, until we learn to disengage and just be with the experience, for whatever it is.
It took me some time to learn to disengage my mind and learn to spend a lot more time really just doing nothing. And when I say nothing, I don’t mean doomscrolling my life away. I mean, really doing nothing! Being extremely unnoteworthy, to the point I would bore you to death describing it.
So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Nowadays, I like to spend time just sitting. Maybe doing some gentle stretches, maybe incorporating meditation or singing. Often doing a lot of thinking or reflecting.
But I don’t set time aside for it. I do it when my body asks for it. When I feel maybe sad about something and know I need to process. When I feel burned out, or like I can’t be bothered doing anything.
I take advantage of that time now, and use it to nourish myself, and I can’t even tell you how nourishing it is.
But the key is presence. If you’re doing nothing, but your thoughts are racing about everything you’re going to do after doing nothing, then that’s not going to nourish you.
Honestly, stillness is so underrated, and we simply don’t know how to be still. That’s why you need to…
Spend more time doing nothing, and enjoying it!
Let Life Unfold
When people think of Taoism, nonresistance is usually the first idea that comes up.
And no, that doesnโt mean sleeping in till 11:00 am because, well, why not… Taoism isnโt laziness wrapped in a spiritual burrito.
Thereโs nuance.
Resistance shows up when there’s a forcing current. For example, when you’re desperately trying to achieve a specific result when it clearly isnโt working out. That’s resistance, and it feels like poop.
It’s like pushing a pull-door and expecting it to open. Some doors aren’t meant to be pushed, and when you say, “I don’t care what the sign says, I’m going to push anyway,” well, just watch how stressful life becomes.
When you feel like you need to become someone or prove something for life to be meaningful, that’s resistance. Itโs like saying, โI need to become enlightened,โ and missing the point entirely.
Sometimes the path of least resistance is the hard conversation, the honest choice, or the leap of faith. You resist your deeper desires when you stay in your comfort zone. Not because itโs easy, but because the alternative quietly eats away at you over time.
Living in alignment with the Tao means you stop swimming upstream. You ease out of this constant urgency that makes life feel so intense. You let experiences play out without putting a label on them. When emotions rise, you allow them. When they fall, you donโt chase them.
When you stop resisting life itself, you learn to do whatโs within your reach, and you let go of what isnโt.
This also applies to your relationships.
Notice the natural flow of relationships and let them take a natural course instead of imposing their own ideals onto them.
If thereโs no cohesion, donโt force it.
If thereโs a connection, allow it to develop naturally.
Avoid rushing intimacy or cutting things off impulsively. Let people reveal themselves in their own time. Trust that every relationship has its own course, and your role is simply to meet it honestly.
Let people, situations, and life move at their own pace. Don’t try to speed things up or hold onto something that’s gone. Practice being present with where any given situation is, right now.
Discern Flow and Indulgence
So, after reading this, you might say, “Well, if it’s all about non-resistance, why not endlessly feed my every desire? Why work when it’s boring, or exercise when it’s tough, or eat healthy when I just want to cram junk food down my gob all day, every day?
And good question indeed! So, let’s address it.
Impulse is not the same thing as natural rhythm.
Taoism isnโt saying โdo whatever feels good in the moment.โ Thatโs a very modern misunderstanding, usually filtered through comfort culture and dopamine habits.
These are surface-level habits that we indulge in to cover up what our bodies are really asking for underneath.
The Tao isnโt your cravings. Itโs the pattern underneath them.
Hereโs the key distinction.
Impulse comes from restlessness, avoidance, hunger for stimulation, or discomfort with stillness. It usually feels urgent. Grippy. Compulsive. You do the thing, and afterward thereโs often a need for more.
Natural rhythm feels slower.
Thereโs a sense of right timing. When you follow it, energy tends to increase rather than drain. Life becomes simpler, not more scattered or habit-driven.
If watching Netflix all day was truly your Tao, youโd feel nourished afterward. Same with sex, masturbation, substances, or anything else.
So when Taoism talks about nonresistance, itโs really pointing to attunement, not indulgence.
Thereโs also an important piece people skip over.
Taoism values clarity.
Pleasure-seeking habits numbs you. They make life foggier, not clearer. And when you canโt feel subtle signals, youโre no longer following the Tao.
This is why traditional Taoism cared a lot about conserving energy, not leaking it constantly through excess sex, intoxication, or scattered living. Not because those things were evil, but because they come from an imbalance.
Know the difference between being in alignment, and seeking pleasure. The less pleasure you seek, the easier it becomes to listen to your internal signals.
Relevance of Taoism Today
Before you walk away from this article thinking, “Okay, I aim to become slower, dumber, and more thoughtless,” the point is to find a natural balance between all things, and the rest will come.
While Taoism is an ancient philosophy, I think it’s actually becoming more relevant today, and it will probably continue to grow in popularity as years tick by.
But there’s a reason for that.
People today are so disconnected. We’ve become so out of touch with spirit that our lives have become like signposts for resistance.
Can’t blame us after all.
This disconnect is partially due to our system: Our pragmatic, urgent approach to modern living. We all live in an age that doesn’t know how to slow down, and much of the ancient wisdom, traditions, and philosophies are… well, absent.
This is why Taoist philosophy is needed more today than ever.
As many traditions say, it’s more important than ever to reconnect with our roots and become more in tune with our natural processes. Because we are spiralling out of control, and without going back to our roots, we will continue to become more imbalanced.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or a shaman. I think every tradition recognizes the Tao in its own way.
Therefore, practicing Taoism is really more about becoming more present, embodying impermanence a little bit more, and practicing the art of being one with the universe, rather than a distinct, separate being that the ego deceives us to think.
Continue to step deeper into spirit, and you are also stepping deeper into the Tao.
