0:02

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a Canadian Islamicist,

0:06

comparative religion scholar, and Presbyterian

0:09

minister, once said, From now on, any serious

0:13

intellectual statement of the Christian faith

0:16

must include, if it is to serve its purpose,

0:19

some sort of doctrine of other religions. What

0:25

does this say about my church community or religious

0:27

tradition if it lacks the resources to help me

0:31

think through the meaning of religious diversity?

0:35

What should our Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, or

0:39

other religious neighbor think when they realize

0:42

that Christians regard religious diversity as

0:45

a problem to be solved rather than a promise

0:48

to be celebrated and received? How might they

0:53

feel? Last fall, I was privileged to hear John

0:58

Tataminal speak. John presented a question, how

1:02

does it feel to have my Christian neighbor regard

1:05

my tradition and me as a problem to be solved?

1:10

He goes into the idea of what he calls multiple

1:14

religious participation, and how almost all of

1:18

us are engaged in this by some form or another.

1:22

This could be as simple as doing the Eucharist

1:25

upstairs while practicing yoga downstairs. According

1:30

to a Pew Research Center survey in 2009, one

1:34

-third of Americans, 35%, say they regularly

1:38

or occasionally attend religious services at

1:42

more than one place, and most of these, 24 %

1:46

of public overall. indicate that they sometimes

1:49

attend religious services of a faith different

1:53

from their own. John proposes that the question

1:57

is not if, but whether the form of multiple religious

2:01

participation we're engaged in is salutary in

2:05

life. Why is it problematic to be a Buddhist

2:10

and a Christian, but not a capitalist and a Christian?

2:14

Does your multiplicity help you in the struggle

2:17

for justice and the flourishing of creation?

2:21

Does it give you capacity to tune your heart

2:25

to set it free from captivity from toxic desires,

2:29

racist desires, or capitalist forms of desire?

2:34

And if your multiple religious participation

2:37

is actually a way of modifying the faith of other

2:40

people, like you get your Lululemon mat and you

2:44

do your yoga, but you know nothing about yoga

2:47

philosophy, then you're just playing a capitalist

2:50

game and calling it multiple religious participation.

2:54

You are only acquiring the convictions and practices

2:58

of another tradition to market it and to satisfy

3:02

your core capitalist ego. Whenever Jesus in the

3:08

scriptures encountered someone from a tradition,

3:11

other than his own, he never asks them to abandon

3:14

that tradition. In fact, he even commends the

3:18

faith of the foreigner over that of his own people.

3:24

The only form of multiple religious participation

3:27

that Jesus is on record as opposing is the simultaneous

3:31

worship of God and money. Multiple religious

3:37

participation can be devastating and can be eviscerating

3:41

of the dignity, convictions, and practices of

3:45

other traditions. But it can also be done rightly

3:49

and can be profoundly liberating. The choice

3:53

of which kind, though, is up to us all. Welcome

4:00

to Grub and Grace. I am your host, Mark Flower.

4:04

And we will be talking Taoism and what it means

4:08

to be a Christian Taoist with my guest Joshua

4:11

Knoll. Now Joshua doesn't consider himself to

4:15

be a Taoist expert, but rather a Taoist Christian

4:18

aspiring to be a better Taoist. Now, leading

4:23

up to this conversation, I didn't know much about

4:26

Taoism. I'm guessing that the majority of you

4:29

listening to me talk may not know much about

4:32

this topic either. let alone knowing that Taoism

4:36

was even a thing. So let me give you a little

4:40

snapshot before jumping into this conversation.

4:44

Taoism is an ancient Chinese philosophy and religious

4:47

tradition which originated more than 2 ,000 years

4:51

ago around the 4th century BCE in China, making

4:55

it one of the oldest philosophies still practiced

4:58

today. Unlike Christianity or other Western religions,

5:04

Taoism does not necessarily involve worshipping

5:07

a god or a deity, but rather it acknowledges

5:11

numerous deities and spirits while seeing them

5:14

as manifestations of the Tao rather than separate

5:18

entities. Its key beliefs include the Tao, which

5:24

is the universal force and natural order of all

5:27

existence. The Yin and the Yang, which is commonly

5:32

associated with Taoism and is the dualistic nature

5:35

of the universe, representing opposite yet complementary

5:40

forces. And the Wu Wei, which is the principle

5:45

of non -action or effortless action, allowing

5:49

things to follow their natural course. Taoism

5:54

emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The

5:58

aim is to cultivate a state of calm and balance,

6:02

promoting health, longevity, and spiritual insight.

6:10

Practitioners of Taoism may even have traditions

6:13

and guidelines when it comes to food. Be sure

6:16

to stick around near the end of this conversation

6:18

as Joshua and I discuss a couple dishes you can

6:21

even try at home. So, without further ado...

6:25

I truly hope you enjoy this delightful conversation

6:28

about Christian Taoism. I've also got my little

6:41

dish here. Fantastic. That looks so much more

6:45

professional. I literally just had a big plate

6:47

and had noodles in the middle and stir fries

6:50

on both sides. I was like, I'll try both and

6:52

it'll be fine. I did not have chopsticks. I haven't

6:55

tried this yet. So because I made it strictly

6:58

so that I could photograph it last night and

7:00

then I haven't tried it. So I'm not going to

7:02

try it here. This is delicious. Yeah. I can't

7:06

wait to talk about it because I love the ginger. Like the ginger adds so much to it. Yeah. I haven't

7:10

cooked with ginger like that before. And I think

7:12

that that probably was my big takeaway from the dish is I was like, I think I want to use ginger

7:17

more often. Uh -huh. Yeah. You know, you're actually

7:21

the first show that I've done where I've actually

7:23

cooked a specific dish for, so I'm actually very

7:25

happy that you reached out to me about this. I love it, though. It's just fun. I love food.

7:33

We recently did, on my other podcast, The Whole

7:36

Church Podcast, we started a series that we're

7:39

talking about people's occupation work and whether

7:42

what we're talking about in seminaries and stuff are actually relevant. And the first one was

7:46

talking about our... jobs in the food industry

7:48

and i was like that was that was fun reminded

7:51

me i just love food like it's just something

7:53

about it man it's the joy of life yeah yeah for

7:57

sure for sure all right why don't i kick this

7:59

off before we get too much into the weeds as

8:01

far as just kind of talking about stuff no worries

8:04

at all um all right welcome back to grub and

8:07

grace i'm here with this dude joshua joshua noel

8:11

uh welcome to the show hey thanks man appreciate

8:14

it glad to be here So I'll go ahead and introduce

8:19

you just a little bit, and then I'll let you kind of talk about yourself after that a little

8:22

bit. But Joshua is a licensed minister. He is

8:26

an aspiring Taoist Christian. He is also an open

8:29

theist, not a process theologian or theist. He's

8:32

also been a podcaster for a long time and taught

8:35

hermeneutics and children's church for many years

8:38

before he left his previous denomination of the

8:41

Pentecostal church for a Lutheran church. So

8:43

I don't know if you want to share anything more.

8:45

I don't know if I've covered it. everything yeah yeah i mean that's great i don't love talking

8:50

about myself too much but i'm told that it's

8:54

like josh you know that's not good you're just kind of like i'm a guy and they're like yeah

8:56

but like you're also in seminary going for like

8:59

two masters and like some of that stuff makes

9:02

people care sometimes and i'm like yeah but why

9:05

when we just talk about food you know you gotta

9:08

talk about food yeah yeah and you mentioned you

9:11

had will on recently too so that's actually He's

9:14

my pastor. So I am an online member of Will's

9:17

church. That's the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. That's super

9:21

cool. And my listeners will definitely have heard

9:23

Will's episode before this one. I'm going to

9:26

try to bump up his a little bit just because of the timeliness of the movie that we talked

9:29

about that came out. So everyone should or whoever

9:31

listened to my podcast should know who Will is

9:33

at this point. Yeah. I mean, everybody should know who Will is anyway, just in general. Yeah.

9:37

He's just a good guy. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So

9:41

I should probably let everyone know that we will

9:43

be talking about Taoism or Taoism as it's more

9:47

commonly known in China and Chinese philosophy.

9:51

We're also going to be talking about like the

9:53

philosophy of like the five tastes and kind of

9:56

what goes along with that, like the five scents and the five sounds and all that. So we're going

10:00

to be kind of digging into that a little bit, especially Joshua, since you are a Christian

10:06

Taoist. I think it's what you said you identify

10:09

as, right? yeah yeah i i try to identify as like

10:13

a daoist christian i've been saying christian

10:16

daoist for a long time but then like people are like taking that as like i'm primarily a daoist

10:19

and like christian to the adjective and i'm like no it's kind of the other way around it's just

10:22

like it sounds better if you put it christian

10:24

first you know just rolls off the tongue easier but yeah I'm a Christian who follows Taoist ideas,

10:29

yeah. Yeah, I wish there was a better way to say, like, no, they're equal. Because whatever

10:34

comes last is kind of like the primary one, like

10:36

you said. If you say you're a Christian Taoist,

10:39

everyone thinks that you're a Taoist. But if you say you're a Taoist Christian, everyone thinks

10:42

that you're a Christian that practices Taoism as well. And if it's more of that level playing

10:47

field, how do you actually say something like that? Yeah, it's like, I don't actually think

10:51

they're at odds. So it's kind of like, does it

10:53

really matter? Exactly. Like the parts that I

10:58

follow in those, I would say are profoundly Christian.

11:01

And the things that I like about my Christian

11:03

faith are also profoundly Taoist. So it's kind

11:05

of like, yeah, whatever order you want. That's

11:08

the beauty of Taoism. I'm sure you can go into

11:11

this a little further, but my limited research,

11:13

when you asked me about this subject, I was like, cool. I had no idea about it. I started looking

11:18

up about it. These are pretty cool principles that Taoism follows. Taoism actually allows for

11:23

other religions to be blended with it because

11:26

it doesn't actually have a deity that it follows.

11:30

It doesn't have a god figure like Christianity

11:32

does. It's more of this all -encompassing harmony

11:36

with nature. and the world and everything like

11:39

that. So, and I could be just getting that completely

11:42

wrong. Anyone listening, you're probably just like, ah, let me explain this. No, no, no. It

11:48

is interesting. It's part of like my schooling.

11:50

I did a few years just studying like different world religions and stuff. And it's really weird.

11:55

It's kind of a distinction between like Eastern and Western faiths. A lot of your Western faiths

11:58

are more exclusive. Like you don't often see

12:01

people who are like Christian and Muslim because it's like, well. how you view god how we view

12:05

god it's completely different it's not compatible you know whatever but like in eastern thought

12:09

they really just don't have a lot of that you

12:11

know it's kind of like you know siddhartha had at one point even said like he's like i don't

12:15

care about the god question it doesn't actually impact my life so believe in god don't believe

12:19

in god who cares but like a lot of westerns like

12:21

oh buddhists they follow the buddha that's their

12:24

god and it's like no not quite um but at the

12:27

same time you do see like a lot of like it's

12:30

hard when you look at the culture. Cause like when you study the religion, like we think of

12:34

religion is a Western word, you know, like that.

12:37

I saw there was a study in Japan where like a

12:39

lot of people will identify as non -religious, but then a vast majority of Japanese people will

12:44

still say that they're Shinto. And it's like,

12:46

well, for us, that's a religion that doesn't

12:48

make any sense. And they're like, no, that's just, you know, part of our life. It's whatever.

12:51

They don't put that kind of label on it. Cause

12:54

religion kind of creates these structures. Like

12:56

you have to fit everything in a box. Whereas

12:59

for a lot of your more Eastern thoughts, it's like, I like this Taoist idea. I'll use it. And

13:03

I like this Buddhist idea, you know, I'll accompany it. And they might step at a shrine and pay respects

13:07

to a God. And a lot of them don't even know if

13:10

they think that God's real or not. It's just been so part of the tradition for so long. They're

13:13

like, it doesn't matter if it's real. Whereas

13:17

Westerns like everything matters. Is it real? Is it not? Are you in my camp? Are you in the

13:20

other camp? And like we structure things. I don't

13:23

think it's bad. You're good. It's just kind of like that. That's kind of the difference. I think

13:26

it's religion is just a Western word. So it's

13:29

hard to like for us to think of like, what do

13:31

you mean a Taoist who's also a Buddhist and also, you know, and for them, they're like, what do

13:36

you mean? You're just Christian. You don't see

13:40

any wisdom in any other traditions at all, you know? So it's just kind of a difference of thought,

13:44

I think. Yeah, and it kind of makes me think

13:46

of, so back in October, we both were at Theology

13:50

Beer Camp back in Denver, Colorado. Great time.

13:53

And this whole conversation kind of made me think

13:56

of John Thaddeus McNeill's talk on one of the

14:00

days of the main stage. Future editor Mark here.

14:03

I just want to make a quick note that I mispronounced

14:06

his name. His name is actually John Thaddeus

14:08

McNeill. I also want to make a note that in the

14:11

moment of this conversation, I misremembered

14:14

some of the things that he had talked about during

14:16

his conversation at Theology Beer Camp. I just

14:19

want to make this note. And here you go back to the conversation. And he was talking about

14:24

how he's a Christian that grew up in India. And

14:27

so he was in proximity to lots of like Buddhism,

14:32

Islam, like a lot of these kind of like different

14:36

religions kind of circulating around that area. Even with his family and a lot of people thought

14:40

it was kind of weird that he was a Christian. And when, you know, he was kind of pressured

14:44

sometimes to, you know, practice like the other

14:48

faiths that were common with his geographical

14:51

location. And growing up, I think he was in Canada.

14:54

I think he came to America at some point, too, after that. And then he's talking about how he

14:59

he grew up in that world. And then he went to

15:01

go visit. I think it was Japan. I forget it was

15:06

an Eastern country. I forget where it was, but he, he basically kind of, I guess, trained under

15:12

like a monk, like a Buddhist monk. And I trained

15:16

is, is maybe not the right word, but he kind

15:19

of like had like a tutelage, I guess. And he

15:23

learned the religion and just like in proximity

15:26

with this other monk and the monk kind of teaching

15:28

him the ways of his religion and his way of life.

15:31

And he had all these profound questions and philosophical

15:34

questions that he would talk with the monk about.

15:36

Like, you know, like since I'm doing this, like

15:38

am I betraying my own religion of Christianity?

15:42

And the monk, you know, had these. you know profound

15:45

ways to respond to him like like no like you

15:48

know you don't have to betray your own religion

15:50

to learn about another religion it doesn't mean

15:54

you have to give up and practice my religion just because you're here and you're spending

15:57

time with me and you're you're understanding

15:59

and you kind of see a lot of you know similarities

16:02

and whatnot and i just thought that was kind of cool like that he was he was bringing these

16:05

these different kind of like seemingly dichotomy

16:09

kind of ideas from these Western world where,

16:13

you know, you even use the term box and especially

16:16

evangelical, evangelical spaces. It's very boxed

16:20

in and you have to be boxed in with a lot of

16:22

these circles here. So I just think, I just love

16:25

the kind of openness of everything here. Yeah.

16:28

You get some really funny stories when you see

16:31

some of like Western Christians who've gone to

16:34

like, evangelize or you know spread the gospel

16:37

in some of these eastern countries because i you know when you hear their version of story

16:41

coming back it's like oh yeah cool people got saved but a lot of times when you hear it from

16:43

the other side and you're like because now we have the internet so you can look up our articles

16:46

and you just get to like read the stuff and it's so funny they're like they came and said this

16:50

thing that buddha taught was wrong and that's why you should believe jesus and i'm like okay

16:53

so i won't believe that thing that buddha taught and believe the rest of the things and cool yeah

16:57

jesus sounds good too and it's just kind of like they're like oh i'm gonna attack it and i'm gonna

17:01

show you why it's wrong and they're like okay that part's wrong cool like you know whatever

17:06

it's just so funny because you just don't have

17:09

that here like you know it's everything has to

17:12

be right or everything's wrong and even some

17:14

of us who do kind of see the nuance still um so you mentioned theology beer camp and this

17:19

is where i love dr tom ord but one of our big

17:22

disagreements is kind of along the signs of he's

17:25

like we all do have a box whenever we think of

17:27

like what god is or is not everybody does have

17:29

a box and like i see where he's coming from and

17:31

i do largely agree with the idea but i think

17:35

the problem is when you focus on your box when

17:37

you're saying like god is love we agree on that okay so we're immediately you know we're constraining

17:41

god because we're saying he is love which means he's not these other things And I see where he's

17:45

coming from. And I don't disagree with him. I

17:48

think the problem is like, we spend so much time focusing on the box that we don't actually focus

17:52

on God or the Dow or, you know, you know, whatever,

17:55

like the things that are actually enriching about it. We forget about, cause we're so busy trying

18:00

to define the thing. How that makes sense to,

18:03

I guess maybe another way of putting that is

18:05

we're too busy focusing on the rules as opposed

18:08

to letting God speak to us. Yeah. Well, yeah,

18:12

yeah, yeah. Cause like, Not just rules either.

18:15

Like, like I love theology, but when you spend

18:18

all your time saying, this is what God is, this is what God isn't. And then we're like, we're

18:21

talking about the character of God even. And

18:24

you might have a really good understanding of God, but it's like, did you forget that relationship

18:27

part of it or like how we're connecting with it? And I don't think Dr. Orr does. Cause you

18:31

see like his pictures are like, he's hiking and stuff. Like, I think he does a great job with

18:34

that, but I think his teaching can lead someone

18:36

to focus too much on stuff that I'm not sure

18:39

how much it matters. So for me, I've always kind

18:41

of been like Taoist curious. And it wasn't until like last year that I was like, I'm going to

18:45

start embracing this term because I've been studying it anyway. And I just kind of was scared to claim

18:48

it. Now I'm like, you know, whatever. I don't care anymore. There was an event in October.

18:53

There was a shooting at my house while I was at theology camp, leaving theology camp. And,

18:57

you know, my wife got hit. My dog got shot. Everybody's

19:00

okay now. Everybody's healthy now. I don't know if okay is the right word. But it was so interesting

19:04

because I remember like times like when I was

19:06

pregnant or thinking about the stuff that I'm like. grasping for definitions like okay if you

19:11

know God isn't always able to do anything like Dr. Ord says so maybe he just wasn't able to

19:15

do something in that situation and I'm grasping for all this knowledge and the thing that actually

19:18

gave me peace was I reread the Tao Te Ching a

19:22

lot during that time and one of his teachings

19:25

is don't respect the clever and it's so interesting

19:29

he talks about how like when you fill your head up with too much knowledge you just get confused

19:33

and stressed out and I'm like That's true, because

19:36

that's what I was doing. I was like, okay, well, if God is this way, then that makes sense of

19:38

the situation. And if this happened, okay, that's how I explain what happened here. And instead

19:42

of just being like, what if I don't know how

19:44

it happened and God is? And, you know, just kind

19:47

of letting the simplicity be what matters. And

19:50

that kind of gave me a lot of peace. So that's where I'm like, you know, I picked a good time

19:54

to start embracing this, I think. That's really

19:58

beautiful. And actually, so you suggested two

20:01

books to talk about. Maybe we can kind of transition

20:03

into that. And I looked up briefly on Wikipedia

20:06

of all places about these two books. The world's

20:09

only source of news. And I just love the beauty

20:14

of this. So the two books that he sent to me

20:18

were the, and correct me if I pronounce it wrong,

20:21

but the Tao of Poo and the Tay of Piglet. And

20:24

I just love the way that it showcases poo and

20:29

kind of that simplicity and mindset that you

20:32

were kind of just talking about. So I'll let you kind of jump into it a little bit and talk

20:36

about those two books. yeah yeah so that's where

20:38

like that was my first big there's different

20:41

stages in my life where I was like I got more committed to this whole Taoist idea before I

20:44

even embraced it right and remember early on I was like I liked it and if God was ever proven

20:49

not true I would just be a Taoist that's like something I would say like even in high school

20:52

because I remember like reading something like I like these ideas I picked these two books up

20:56

early on in my college career because you know

20:59

my professor recommended when we were learning about Taoism I was like okay I'll check it out

21:02

and at first I was like really aggravated like

21:04

he's using poo bear as like the example for like

21:08

what the dao is and dao is supposed to be the thing that connects all of like like that's basically

21:12

like how i think of god is how a lot of them

21:14

think of the dao and i'm like and you're gonna

21:16

use poo as the example really you know like not

21:20

like a great saint during like when he the poo and then i read it and it's like all this stuff

21:24

where it's like hey yeah rabbit thanks too much

21:27

and that's why he's mad and i'm like oh and poo's

21:30

like i like honey i'm gonna go for honey you

21:33

know what poo is happy it's like oh and so this

21:37

is a profound simplicity and just like learning

21:39

who you are and being okay with that and that's

21:43

like a lot of Taoism is like being okay with who you are what the world is around you all

21:47

that kind of stuff so like um the Tao Poo some

21:49

of the time talk about that and that's when I

21:51

first found one of my favorite photos um it was

21:54

that same author something Benjamin Hoff I believe

21:58

It talks about, like, there's a picture that's pretty prevalent in a lot of Eastern countries,

22:01

and it's, so you have the Buddha, Siddhartha,

22:03

you have Confucius, and you have Lao Tzu sitting

22:08

around without a vinegar. And, you know, Buddha's

22:12

making a bitterness face, and Confucius, like,

22:15

looks like he's really contrary on, like, how to, like, what he should do with this to make

22:18

it, you know, whatever. And then you see Lao Tzu with just this huge grin, because it's like,

22:22

wow, this vinegar tastes like vinegar. You know,

22:25

and it's like... Just appreciating things for

22:28

what they are and learning to be okay with it.

22:31

And that doesn't mean, you know, we don't try to change things or make the world a better place.

22:34

Like, look at our country. Like, you know, I

22:36

got the Captain America thing up here. Like, I love political commentary and I love engaging

22:42

with those things, but also learning to just be okay with what is. And then also kind of like

22:48

the thing that's interesting about the Tao is kind of, and this gets into the Tay of Piglet,

22:51

because like the Tay is more about like, what?

22:54

You actually are like the essence of Mark, right?

22:56

The essence of me might not be what I'm living

22:59

into, right? Like, like being okay with the fact

23:01

that I'll use myself as an example, right? Like

23:05

I'm overweight and I could be like, okay, I'm

23:07

okay with that. And I don't want to get myself better. That's not what it's talking about. Now

23:11

about the Tay is like your true essence of like,

23:13

what, what am I when I'm really living into myself?

23:17

And that's getting into some of the taste and stuff later. Like a lot of these have like, websites

23:21

and stuff will have like you can put in information about yourself and it'll be like here's what

23:24

your balance looks like with the five tastes and here's what you know whatever because it's

23:27

like none of us are the same but the essence

23:31

of me isn't necessarily my mistakes but it's

23:33

my truest self and that's where like my christianity

23:36

comes in i'm like well i think my truest self is found in christ because god made me to be

23:40

a certain way and figuring out what that looks

23:43

like means getting in touch with god getting in touch with the dow ultimately so that I can

23:48

find my Tay, like the truest essence of me and

23:50

live into that and be happy with who I am. Not

23:52

trying to be someone else, but trying to be more true to who I was. You know, you want to say

23:57

created or, you know, manifested to be whatever.

24:00

I have a weird relationship with how I think about time. So it's hard to use some of those

24:03

terms, but I think you get what I'm saying. Like

24:05

figuring out the Tay and living into that, knowing

24:08

that my truest self is found in God, Christ,

24:11

the Tao, and using those tools to find me. And

24:15

being okay with who I am. Yeah. Not focusing

24:18

on, like, an afterlife or anything. Just kind of focusing on, like, if I find my day, I will

24:23

be at peace with God, the universe, you, everybody.

24:26

And that's cool. And, you know, if it ends with,

24:28

like, a nice heaven afterlife, that's nice. Whatever.

24:31

You know. But I don't need that. I wonder if

24:34

this might be a good time to maybe define what

24:37

tau is and te is. Just because I hear you use

24:41

it a lot and a lot of my listeners might not actually, they might be like me before I started

24:44

looking this up and be like, I don't even know anything about this and I don't know what he's

24:47

talking about. What is the tau and kind of define

24:50

that. I don't know if you want to define it. I have it up here too, but I could let you define

24:54

it if you want to. Yeah, I mean, you can read

24:56

your definition and we could just kind of. build off that sure so i'm on this uh philosophy philosophy

25:01

buzz .com and they're talking about taoism and

25:04

it says uh taoism is a philosophy and a religion

25:07

tradition that originated in china emphasizing

25:09

living in harmony with the tao so the tao is

25:12

a term meaning the way it's a path or a principle

25:16

and it's also seen as a natural order of the

25:19

universe an undefinable force guiding all things

25:22

toward balance I don't know if that kind of sums

25:26

it up for you, if there's anything else that you think that kind of sums it up. I really like

25:29

that it has the undefinable word in the definition.

25:33

Because that's a lot of it. And for me, I think

25:37

God and the Tao are kind of the same thing. I

25:39

think that God is that thing that connects all of us. I think that is who God is. And the thing

25:45

that's interesting about the Tao is how many

25:47

times, especially if you read the Tao Te Ching, which is the... Not really like the Bible because

25:52

they don't have something like that. That's like, you know, they don't believe in boxes, right?

25:54

But like it is the fundamental book of Taoism.

25:58

And how many times when it explains it, it says it's kind of like this and it's not like this.

26:02

But if you find this, then you found the Tao. But it never kind of really defines it, right?

26:06

Like you don't have this like God is love kind

26:08

of statement, you know, like a clear statement. The Tao is this. The Tao isn't this. You know,

26:12

some of the examples is like we'll talk about

26:15

the five tastes later. If you focus too much on one. You've lost it. You've gotten confused.

26:19

You've overwhelmed the balance. But if you find

26:22

a good balance together, then you have found the Tao. And it's not like, oh, so what is the

26:26

Tao? Great. Keep asking that question. That's

26:29

kind of the point, right? Like one of my favorites,

26:31

too, is don't make too much of yourself, but

26:33

also don't make too little of yourself. If you

26:35

make too much of yourself, you know, everyone's

26:38

going to see through that and you're going to look like a fool. If you make too little of yourself,

26:41

you're going to make other people feel foolish. And that also throws you out of harmony. So the

26:45

real. way the way is what if you read the English

26:47

versions it'll just say the way probably or technically

26:51

an English translation also could be the force if you want to go Star Wars yeah but the way

26:56

is found when you find a balance where you're

26:59

just kind of like honestly saying hey this is

27:01

who I am not making too much of myself not making too little and it's funny because like growing

27:06

up in a Christian tradition I tend to make too little myself and I'm like oh humbleness and

27:10

humility and it's like well that isn't right

27:12

either because if I'm like oh I mean nothing and then someone's like oh you're working on

27:15

to master's degree and then like you have a finston

27:18

yard and it's like well you're you're nothing what am i you know and it's like oh okay i gotta

27:23

find the right thing where i don't make too much of myself but don't make too little of myself

27:26

and that's um no that it's it's a challenge but

27:28

those kind of things finding the balance that

27:30

is the dao um and it's not easily definable which

27:33

is why i'm glad you had a definition I can just

27:37

feel some of my viewers or listeners like tensing

27:40

up and be like, ah, how do I find this middle

27:42

ground? If like, this is too much and this is

27:44

too little, like we're like, how do we define

27:47

this? And I think that's, that's part of the whole Taoism is, is that it isn't really definable.

27:52

Like it's something you have to find yourself. Yeah. And that too is where like the don't respect

27:59

the clever stuff also comes in. Cause you'll see where like. Really smart people can justify

28:04

different sides of a thing and you can debate all day. For example, did you ever watch The

28:08

Good Place? Yeah. Oh, I love The Good Place.

28:10

I love The Good Place. Chidi, right? Like he

28:12

has really good reason and he's battling himself.

28:15

He's filled up with too much knowledge and he's

28:17

confused. So we can never really just make the

28:19

decision. And the Tao would be, hey, maybe I

28:24

don't know why this is the right thing, but I can kind of tell this is the right thing. So

28:27

I'm just going to do it, right? And I think that's

28:30

a lot of the things we get caught up in politics or someone's like, well, if you really think

28:33

about it this way and turn upside down and squint really hard, this thing makes sense. And it's

28:36

like, okay, but what have we just looked at and said, you know, for example, Russia dictators,

28:41

dictator is bad. Sometimes, you know, like simplicity

28:45

really kind of helps you like put stuff in perspective. And it's like sometimes, and I love knowledge.

28:50

I'm, you know, going for two masters. Like, it's not like I'm anti -intellectual. It's just kind

28:53

of a simplicity is the key to balance. I think

28:57

it's really the thing. And a lot of us really

29:00

just overthink it. And that's why I love I love

29:03

this religion philosophy is that it's like, yeah,

29:07

I am the person who tends to overthink it. That's

29:09

why I'm like, I don't want to be called an expert. I use the term like aspiring Taoist Christian

29:13

because I'm like, I'm not quite there. But I

29:17

like I know that if I find that simplicity, that

29:20

my life is usually better. And that's how I can

29:22

find kind of some of that balance. And I think God is in the simple things. Maybe a still small

29:26

voice. I don't know. Yeah. And I think it's,

29:28

you know, just talking about Taoism in general and like you were talking about, like, you know,

29:31

the nature of America and everything like that.

29:34

And especially with Christianity, like we were

29:36

talking about, you know, how boxing it is, you

29:39

know, very legalistic sometimes. And it's just

29:42

even hearing about other religions and really

29:45

discussing and getting deep into like philosophical conversation. I think it kind of allows you to

29:50

take that step back and see that the world's

29:53

much bigger and that it even allows you to process

29:56

it. your own kind of circle and world as well

30:00

and allows you to process your own box as well.

30:02

So yeah, I think there's a lot of beauty in that.

30:06

I'll throw another example. For people who've

30:09

followed anything I do for a while know that

30:11

I like to talk about how time isn't real. You

30:13

know, it's just one of the weird philosophy things.

30:16

I'm like, I just don't, I don't think time on its own is real. I think time space is real,

30:20

but time doesn't exist on its own, which is a

30:23

concept we tend to think about. We're like, oh,

30:25

yeah, well, if I could go back in time, well, time's not real. You can't really do that. But

30:28

anyway, I, you know, with that, it's really easy

30:33

to think of some things. And that's part of,

30:36

like, for me, that philosophy that sounds like.

30:39

highbrow and like, okay, that's just crazy people talk. But like that for me is what informs them.

30:43

It's why I love Captain America so much. When something comes up, it's like a lot of times

30:46

we're like, well, okay, if we do this thing that seems bad now, for example, we vote for someone

30:51

who has committed sexual assault. And a lot of

30:53

the church is convinced that this man somehow, even though he's terrible in the end, it'll be

30:58

better for us. Right. And it's because they believe

31:00

in time. So they believe in the future. Something good will happen if we do something bad now,

31:04

which is the philosophy of like utilitarianism.

31:07

Right. And for me, I'm like, time's not real.

31:10

I know in this moment, it is bad to vote for

31:12

someone who is evil. So in this moment, I will

31:15

do the right thing. And that's kind of Cap's thing. You see Cap and Iron Man at odds a lot,

31:19

right? And Iron Man's always like, okay, well,

31:22

if we do this thing that seems bad now, we agree with the government, eventually something good

31:25

will happen for us. So we need to do this to play the long game. And Cap's like, okay, but

31:27

that's bad. We don't do bad things. And that's

31:31

also like a Taoist principle. It's like we think

31:34

too much. We think that we are so smart, we know

31:36

what's going to happen in the future. None of us know for sure what's going to happen. For

31:40

all we know, America just ends tomorrow. And

31:43

what will be looked back on if time exists is

31:46

did you do the right thing in the moment that you were given each moment? And like the Taoist

31:51

principles, like in this moment, the simple thing

31:53

is, do I vote for someone who's committed sexual

31:55

assault, who has, you know, sparked a riot against

31:58

the Capitol? I just, just simplicity. Don't overthink

32:02

it. Yeah, that seems bad. right like it's just

32:06

on its face some stuff is just bad in that simplicity

32:09

like i think that's the dow and that's where a lot of us we've lost our balance because we've

32:13

made it so much about in the end will we get

32:15

what we want or how do we you know move things

32:18

to empower us and it's like well so you're trying

32:20

to give yourself power that's not balance that's

32:23

prioritizing one side over the other and it's

32:26

not like a balance of good and evil it's a balance of like harmony you know when evil wins look

32:31

at star wars the dark side wins right that's

32:34

not balance you know it's not balance if there's

32:36

just as much evil as good it's when good allows

32:39

everyone to have power for themselves we're empowering

32:41

others that is what brings balance yeah i like

32:45

that let's see how i got on that tangent did

32:48

we ever define tay i we we didn't define tay

32:51

i don't have the definition of tay so i don't

32:54

know maybe you could go ahead and take this one away That one's a little easier. It's just the

32:58

essence of what a thing is. So, like, your truest

33:01

self is your Tay, basically. So, for us Christians,

33:05

if we believe our truest self is found in Christ, which is, I think, an argument C .S. Lewis made,

33:09

then, yeah, that's your Tay. Your Tay is found

33:11

in Christ. I don't think it's in competition.

33:14

That's another one of those where I'm like, it just seems like the stuff works really well together.

33:19

I love that. It's a nice, clean definition. A

33:22

little bit easier. A little bit easier. I went

33:25

on a long spiel for Dallas. I made a quick little

33:27

thing for today. Well, I mean, I had all these

33:29

other questions. I mean, like how does Christianity

33:33

and Taoism blend? I feel like we've actually

33:35

covered quite a bit of that already, unless there's

33:38

anything else you want to cover. Yeah, I think

33:40

the most simple way to say it is just if you

33:43

believe God is love, which I think pretty much

33:45

all Christians do, even though a lot of times we disagree on love. And I think that's because

33:48

we, you know, again, we prioritize knowledge too much and we just let simple is. Hating someone's

33:54

love? No. Is denying someone's existence love?

33:56

No. You know, like simple stuff. But, you know,

34:00

if we're going to say that God is love and that

34:02

the Tao is finding the way that harmonizes us

34:05

all, that sounds like love. Yeah. Let's see.

34:09

So I had this little question about like. consciously

34:13

or subconsciously how other cultures kind of

34:16

blend in taoist philosophy uh like culturally

34:19

into you know their their whole culture and i

34:23

was thinking about things like lighting incense uh for funerals or like the yin and yang is there

34:28

anything that you've kind of seen like within

34:30

just maybe american culture that you've seen

34:33

that that they kind of adopt or blend in with

34:36

things yeah yeah i mean it's i feel like it's

34:39

a little easier to see in like anime and stuff

34:42

stuff because like again a lot of the eastern

34:45

thoughts blend with each other and promote one

34:47

another you know it's not like daoist or like oh you can't be confucianist you know like so

34:52

a lot of times whenever even in japan which you

34:54

know daoist is a chinese religion and japan and

34:56

china aren't like best buds or anything you'll still see ideas where you're like it's very clearly

35:01

a daoist idea and that's you know part of systematic

35:04

equality it's one of the big things i think people don't notice is how our cultural thought like

35:09

as a unit our culture has like a way of thinking and the stuff that we think is right and wrong

35:13

how much of it is just influenced by pop media

35:16

pop culture media so like it's not really our

35:19

pastors that are making the biggest difference of what people think are right and wrong a lot

35:22

of the times it's like what they're watching on tv because seeing a story the narrative is

35:26

kind of informing like okay i can see where this is right and this is wrong so um the more anime

35:31

gets big which it's been very much getting into

35:34

like the mainstream pop culture I think we see

35:37

more people kind of leaning into these thoughts of like balance of, yeah, this is right. This

35:43

is wrong. Kind of, you know, kind of that stuff. Like, you know, the avatar is a big one, you

35:48

know, after our last airbender and that's about

35:51

to come up, like they already started the live action and they're going to make some more animated

35:54

movies and stuff. So that's about to be kind of a revival. And I think you see a lot of those

35:57

thoughts. And it's interesting how quickly you

36:00

see that translate when you're like on Facebook or something. And you're like, all of a sudden

36:03

someone's post something about like, this guy's

36:05

just like the fire Lord. And I'm like, okay, I get that they're making a pop culture reference,

36:08

but what's behind that pop culture references, the fire Lord's clearly throwing everything out

36:13

of balance. And that anime is telling us that

36:15

what we need is to find balance where everyone

36:18

is empowered. And all of this is kind of like

36:20

Taoist ideas that are behind that cute little

36:22

meme. Someone posted of how our nation's becoming

36:24

the fire nation. That's just kind of where I

36:27

see it the most. That's good. I like that. So

36:30

one thing I did notice is that there's a lot

36:32

of confusion between Taoism with a T and Taoism

36:36

with a D. I know they're pretty much the same

36:41

thing, but I don't know if you've seen that and how you would explain the two, why there are

36:46

two. I think it is basically the same. My understanding

36:50

is it literally just at one point in time, more

36:53

people who were studying it spelled it with a

36:56

T. when they transliterated it because you know

36:59

they use different lettering and then someone

37:03

else one day was like actually we should start using a d for that and now people get confused

37:07

because we started doing it one way and then changed it and started doing it another way and

37:10

they're like which way is right and funny thing

37:12

is it's really funny because it's like with daoism

37:14

like americans are the only ones who would really

37:17

argue about this you're like no doubt it would

37:19

care because it's like yeah you're you're making

37:22

yourself confused and it's like that's against

37:24

the very principle of the thing that you're trying to pronounce it's like yeah we don't we don't

37:28

care how you pronounce it Let's see. So I'll

37:32

go number three here. Does Taoism or Taoism work

37:34

alongside other modes of philosophical thinking

37:37

like Shintoism or religious practices like Buddhism

37:40

or obviously Christianity? I feel like we kind

37:42

of touched on this already, but I don't know if you had anything more to say on that. Yeah.

37:45

Christianity, I feel like we definitely kind of covered it. Shintoism is interesting. The

37:50

thing that's interesting when I was studying

37:52

it is how much like even not directly communicating

37:56

just how much similarity you see between this

37:58

kind of like shintoism and daoism thing and it's just kind of like eastern thought is just different

38:02

so it's like it's just hard for me as a westerner

38:05

i still i'm like i don't what huh they're like

38:08

yeah i you know i stop and i pay homages to these

38:11

gods every week i'm not religious and i'm like

38:14

huh What do you mean? Every week? Like, I know

38:19

Christians, you know, don't think about God every

38:21

week. Like, I'll be honest. Like, I don't like

38:24

read my Bible every week or pray, go to church

38:26

every week. You know, it's like, but you stop

38:28

three times a week and you're like, I'm not religious.

38:33

But it's interesting. Like, you see that kind

38:35

of stuff. And I like reading about Shintoism and how much Shintoism also has a lot of like

38:39

this emphasis on the simple and finding simplicity.

38:43

And it's like, that's not. very far off from

38:46

other stuff same stuff being said and now with

38:49

them i find it interesting because a lot of stuff

38:51

across all your like major religions you see

38:54

like love is emphasized right caring for the

38:56

other stuff that's like that's emphasized but

38:58

it's so interesting like some of them is like western religions seem to be the only ones that

39:02

are like and here's how you do it you know um

39:05

confucianism does a little bit i guess but a

39:08

lot of you know it's like here's how you should have a relationship with spiritual realm it is

39:13

just laid out rules that is mostly a Western

39:16

thought. You still see some of that in a little

39:18

bit in Shintoism, like there's tradition, but it's not like, you know, here is our text that

39:23

tells you the 10 commandments of what you should do. That doesn't exist. Even Confucian, you know,

39:28

the Confucianist text is a lot more practical. It's probably the most practical Eastern religion

39:32

that I know of. It'll say a lot of like, here's

39:35

how a society should function. Here's how we should do things. And it's very much like defining

39:39

like how you should relate to the world, kind of giving like instructions. But a lot of it

39:43

still, it's not like, and if you don't, you're sinning. It's more of like a, this is probably

39:48

a good idea. When you encounter Mark, you should

39:50

probably greet him. It's not something as specific

39:53

as this, but you should probably greet him with a handshake. But it's not like, if you don't

39:56

do a handshake, you're in trouble. It's more

39:58

just like, this is probably a good idea. Yeah.

40:01

I like that. So just to bring in like another

40:05

religion, a lot of people don't know what Shintoism

40:07

means. So I found this Shinto means the way of

40:11

the gods. Shintoism is an ancient religion of

40:14

Japan. Speaking specifically of Japan, it started

40:18

at least as long as 1000 BCE, but it's still

40:21

practiced today by at least 5 million people. So very, very well practiced. The followers of

40:27

Shintoism believe that spiritual powers exist

40:29

in the world. So as opposed to Taoism, where

40:32

it's more of that kind of harmony and undefined

40:34

balance with the world, this is more that spiritual

40:39

powers that influence the world. It is really,

40:45

it gets a lot less easy to understand the more

40:50

you look into like how it's actually stuff or being applied and practiced. Cause so one temple

40:55

I'm going to get to go to when I am in Japan,

40:58

there's a Taoist temple and it's like the thousand

41:00

gods or something. And it has like these different deities and it's like, this is Taoism. And it's

41:04

like, but the Taoism doesn't have gods. And it's

41:07

like, yeah, well we kind of do too. It just, you know, it's not necessarily part of the religion,

41:10

but it can be if you want. And it's like, oh,

41:13

okay. But it's not in the Tao Te Ching. And so

41:16

it's not like, you know, we're like, here's our Bible. It's also about God. And they're like,

41:19

it might be. It could be cool. If you want that,

41:22

you can participate in it. And here's a place you could do that at. And it's a huge temple,

41:25

right? And then, like, Shinto's, like, they have,

41:29

like, this idea is that there is a spirit in

41:31

all things, which is where you get those crazy

41:34

animes where it's like, here is the spirit of your coffee pot attacking you. It's like everything

41:38

has a spirit of it. And it's very interesting

41:41

how, like, If you look at how they describe the

41:43

spirit of things, it's very close to how Daoism

41:46

would describe the Tei, what is something's essence.

41:50

So I think really the big difference actually

41:52

comes more into like in Shintoism, everything

41:55

has its own spirit and we honor the spirit in

41:57

all things. Whereas in Daoism, everyone has its

42:02

own Tei, its own essence. But the Tao, the thing

42:05

that they consider spiritual, is the thing that connects all things, not the thing that is in

42:09

of all things, if that makes sense. Might be

42:13

close to how like if we're going to like use Western labels and thoughts. So like if we talk

42:17

about like there's some Christians who think of God as like panentheist, who are like God

42:21

is in all things. And there's some people like pantheist, God is all things. So I think it's

42:25

kind of like that of like Shintoism might say

42:27

that in all things is a deity. Whereas Taoism

42:32

would say all things has its own essence and

42:34

the Tao is part of that. All of it is in him

42:37

or it, not him, you know, you know, words are

42:41

hard. Words are hard. Yup. They're always changing

42:45

too. Every generation things, things change just

42:49

a little bit. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But I don't know.

42:52

Was that, was that helpful? Did that answer your question? Yeah, no, I think you did. I think

42:56

there's just a lot of like banter that we could

42:58

even have just because like, there's just so

43:00

much to kind of go into a lot of these subjects. Like, you know, Shintoism, we were just talking

43:04

about Taoism, like the whole subject of this episode. There's just so much that you could

43:08

probably dig into that we're probably not even going to get to on this. So all my listeners,

43:12

seriously, like go look it up. There's a lot

43:14

to it. And there's a lot of like philosophical practices because Taoism actually isn't like,

43:19

I mean, it's considered religion, but it's. like

43:22

the way we're describing it it's it's not really

43:24

like a religion it's more of like spiritual practice

43:26

and it's just kind of like the western term that

43:30

we've decided to label it with we like our labels

43:34

here yeah they probably wouldn't have labeled

43:36

it at all um but uh yeah so i i think here's

43:42

another because you know we talk about theology beer cam so i think i think this could be a good

43:45

example too so you have a lot of people who follow like paul tillich um Shout out to our good friend

43:49

Taylor Thomas. You guys should listen to that

43:52

podcast. She's awesome. But, you know, Paul Tillich

43:56

argues that God is the ground of being. So everything's

43:59

essence is the thing that gives us being. The

44:03

fact that we are things that exist are because

44:05

God is the ground of being. So not necessarily an entity that we can have relationship with.

44:10

Right. As an open theist, you might could guess

44:13

that I don't necessarily agree with that. But

44:16

then on the other hand, you have things like,

44:19

you know, other open theist like Tom or Trip

44:24

Fuller. They will process theologians as well

44:28

as open theist. So they'll be like, yeah, we can be in relationship with God who is a separate

44:31

thing who is also in all things. And God can

44:33

change. God's constantly changing his mind. He

44:36

can be wrong. He can't do all things. He might

44:38

not be all powerful. These are kind of the things they might say. If you get well. taylor's not

44:45

sure if she would use the term christianity or not but like for me i'm like i don't really think

44:49

of any of us as like separate religions you know

44:51

but also i'm like those are wildly different

44:54

thoughts like we are not agreeing on who this god character is right for me i'm an open relationship

44:59

with god who isn't like a separate entity but

45:02

rather is the thing that connects all thing with god is that relationship um so like It might

45:08

be taking open theism to the extreme of like,

45:11

no, like the relationship itself. That is what

45:13

God is. And that's very different than him being

45:16

some separate thing that might be changing his mind and can't do all things. And very different

45:20

from the ground of being where we all get our

45:22

existence out of. And yet all of those gods still

45:26

believe this thing of like, we should be connected. We should find harmony, all this kind of thing.

45:30

So I think Eastern thought, we put these labels

45:32

on it, you know. You know, for us, it's like,

45:35

well, are you Christian? Are you not Christian? Because, like, that God doesn't sound like the

45:38

God of the Bible and, you know, whatever. And we have those debates over here. And you can

45:41

have similar debates of, like, is Shintoism and Taoism two separate religions? Are they the same

45:45

thing? Are they whatever? And you're like, well, because Shintoism, you know, each thing has a

45:49

spirit. But in Taoism, everyone has an essence and are connected by a spirit. And it's like,

45:52

well, you don't have to have these things in

45:55

contention. One doesn't have to be right and one doesn't have to be wrong. We can live in

45:58

this perpetual maybe, as Jack Caputo might say,

46:02

right? right like which another one i don't necessarily

46:04

agree with but like this god maybe uh shinto

46:08

maybe taoist maybe you know i i like adding that

46:12

term of like who knows but i think that it's

46:15

worth our time to get into like some theopoetics

46:17

uh you know josh patterson turned me on to that

46:19

i love him too um shout out rethink your faith

46:21

i'm just gonna shout out everybody um but that

46:24

idea of like i think it's useful to live as though

46:28

that god is relationship and that god is real

46:31

that i was real harmony matters it's useful to

46:34

live as if those things are true and also important

46:37

for me to be humble enough to say i don't i don't

46:39

know if they're true and i think that's something

46:41

that i think they just do better with some of these eastern religions than maybe we do in our

46:45

our western thoughts and i'm sure there's things

46:48

that we do better as well but it's easier to look at the other side and go they're doing this

46:51

better I think with, with anything there, there's

46:56

beauty that you can pull out of it. There's also

46:58

destructive things that you can, that you can

47:00

identify as well. So I think, like you said,

47:03

I mean, you don't know, maybe there's some things that we do better than some things that they

47:07

do better. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's all

47:11

relative in a way, I guess. Oh yeah, for sure.

47:14

For sure. So yeah, one, one thing I was, so I'm

47:18

pretty big into like Korean culture. I've actually

47:21

lived in Korea for a little bit. My family I

47:26

married into is Korean, so I'm engulfed in the

47:29

Korean culture. And so I looked up, like, how

47:33

does Taoism kind of relate into, like, South

47:36

Korea specifically? Because, you know, Taoism

47:38

is a very, like, Chinese -originated philosophy,

47:42

and that's kind of spread across the whole world.

47:45

Lots of different countries and cultures, people

47:48

within those cultures. practice this philosophy.

47:52

So I was curious. So I looked it up and a couple

47:56

of these resources talked about how Taoism was

47:59

integrated into Korean culture around, it's tough

48:04

to say exactly when, I think it was the Joseon period or what was it? But it was right around

48:11

the time that Confucianism kind of came in there.

48:13

And it was almost like it was in contrast to

48:17

how it was practiced in China. It was more integrated

48:22

into like mountain monks and kind of practice

48:25

in this like kind of mountain philosophy and

48:28

religion sort of thing. Whereas Confucianism

48:31

kind of spread a little bit more widespread throughout

48:33

the country. But yeah, Buddhism was more of the

48:36

dominant religion. But I just thought it was

48:38

kind of interesting. I was kind of interested

48:41

in checking all that out. So I can't remember if it was the Joseon or the Goryeo or what period

48:46

it was. But yeah, so I thought that was kind

48:48

of cool. Yeah, I find that this might be a talk

48:51

for another day. I find it really interesting how quickly Buddhism has seemed to spread. It

48:55

seems to be more prominent than a lot of the other Eastern thoughts. Not just here in America,

48:59

but like even like because you mentioned that was the thing in Korea. And I know when I study

49:02

in Japan, it's like it's Shinto and Buddhism.

49:05

And it's like, yeah, man, that religion really

49:07

kind of people. Something about our art, something

49:10

about our essence seems to really resonate with

49:12

some of those teachings, I guess. Yeah, it's

49:15

interesting. So I'm wondering if we should jump

49:18

into this five tastes. I know we're talking about

49:22

it and there's a lot of philosophy with that

49:24

even. So I asked you if there's any specific

49:26

kind of food. And since this is kind of a food podcast, I went ahead and made one of them here.

49:32

And I can't share the thing here. It's so picturesque.

49:36

Yeah. Let me pull this up here. There we go.

49:40

All right. So this is like a baby corn. Maybe

49:43

you can explain what it is. Oh, man. Um, so I

49:47

was like broad bean, corn, ginger, let's say

49:51

baby corn, not just corn, um, ginger carrots.

49:56

Is that, is that all it's in it? Oh, I mean,

49:58

sugar, salt, sugar, salt, and you know, oil.

50:02

Oh, was there sugar? Yeah. Cooking and something. I think I read sugar and salt to taste. Oh, I'll

50:08

come. Yeah. I didn't put any sugar, but I think it's delicious. So, um, and there was another

50:12

recipe you sent to, I just didn't happen to take

50:15

a photo of that one. But it was like bean sprouts

50:17

and coriander, which is cilantro for our Western

50:20

listeners. Yeah, it took me a minute to figure out too. Yeah. Which I think is funny. We'll

50:25

get to that in a second about coriander and the

50:28

five tastes of what I found at least. But yeah,

50:31

the bean, and it was the ginger. So the big thing

50:35

was the ginger. So whenever I walk, fry things,

50:39

I oftentimes put like diced. diced garlic and

50:43

it kind of let it get aromatic and and just uh

50:46

kind of toast a little bit before i throw everything

50:48

else in there but i've never done ginger i'm

50:51

gonna start using ginger way more often because

50:53

it was delicious and it made the house smell

50:56

so aromatic and so fantastic and it just gives

50:59

this nice well -rounded flavor with everything

51:02

like i i'd never thought that like i'd used ginger

51:04

before but i'd never thought to to use it as

51:07

like put it in there before and let it kind of toast a little bit in the oil It, I, everyone

51:12

listening, like do this from now on, if you can,

51:14

like any, any Asian dishes you're making or anything

51:16

that, that requires ginger do this. Cause it

51:19

just adds such a nice flavor to everything. Yeah.

51:22

You know, I loved it. And it was, it was this one or the other one where you actually had to

51:25

do like sticks of ginger in it. Uh, this one

51:28

said chips. It wasn't the recipe. That's why

51:31

I bought the chips that already cut chips from

51:34

the store. Future editor Mark again with edit

51:38

number two. I misheard Joshua when he was talking

51:41

about chips of ginger. I thought he had mentioned

51:44

chips of carrots. So I went with conversation.

51:48

I kept going, although we were talking about

51:50

two separate things. He was talking about chips of ginger. I was talking about carrot chips.

51:55

So I just want to make this quick little note so that you are aware that we are talking about

51:59

two separate things in the moment here. All right,

52:01

back to the conversation. Nice. Yeah, I think

52:04

I cut it into sticks instead of chips. I think

52:06

that's what happened. I think it was a me mistake.

52:09

Honestly, I was a little worried about biting into it because they're using it like garlic

52:13

in some of the other recipes I followed. And I was like, I wouldn't want to bite into a garlic

52:17

because I was kind of worried about just biting into a chip of ginger. But like you said, the

52:22

smell was great. The flavor, I love the ginger

52:26

flavor. Overall, I wasn't a huge fan. of either

52:31

dish i don't think oh no really i i think i like

52:34

the other one better though i did like the one with uh where's like beans and stuff i think

52:38

i added too much beans to this one And just,

52:41

you know, it's practice. I've not cooked a lot of Asian cuisine before. This is actually my

52:46

first like I haven't done like Taoist foods before.

52:48

And I was thinking about it because of your podcast made me think about it is why I wanted to get

52:51

into it. And I was like, let's just do this together.

52:53

It would be fun. And then I was like, it was

52:56

a good experience. I definitely like the scent

52:58

thing. And my big takeaway is like I want more

53:00

ginger. If I made that dish again, I would do.

53:06

not prominently broad beans, maybe do a little

53:08

bit better of a balance. Cause it was like, I just had so much beans. Um, and then I think

53:13

I put too much cilantro in the other dish too, but I like cilantro. So it wasn't a big deal.

53:18

I couldn't find broad beans, but I used a shelled

53:20

edamame and it worked just fine. I think. Yeah.

53:23

I mean, I feel like it's basically the same thing. It wasn't good. It was good. It just was like,

53:28

I don't know. But over time, I couldn't eat a

53:31

mass quantity of it. I would have to eat it in smaller quantities. But that might just be like

53:35

me as an American. I'm like, I like eating huge quantities of food and I couldn't eat a huge

53:38

quantity of that. So to my listeners who are

53:42

interested in this recipe, I can try to. posted.

53:45

I've been really bad about posting it. So maybe I can just give a quick run at me because this

53:48

recipe is simple. Both of them are. So all you

53:51

do is you dice up the ginger real small. You

53:54

get your broad beans, your baby corn and your

53:58

carrots, however you want to cut the carrots. And you get the oil hot in a wok, throw the ginger

54:04

in there and let it cook for just maybe like 30 seconds and then throw everything else in

54:08

there. stir fry it for like a minute add a little

54:11

bit of water after it's been cooking for a little

54:13

bit hopefully the oil you don't have too much oil in there so it doesn't splatter and then

54:17

and then let that kind of like marinate just

54:20

a little bit you don't need too much water just a little bit to kind of uh What's the term? Just

54:24

let it kind of cook down. Yeah, steam a little bit. And then it's ready. That's it. And it's

54:28

the same thing with the bean sprouts and coriander one. So you do the ginger and then you throw

54:32

in the bean sprouts and coriander, except you

54:34

have to blanch the bean sprouts for about 30

54:37

seconds, I think is what it said. And then you

54:40

pat it dry and then you throw it back in the wok. So you do that first before the walk. And

54:45

so they're super simple. And I think it went

54:48

pretty quick for me is, is just kind of straightforward

54:51

for me. Cause I'm used to cooking like Korean food and everything like that. So, yeah, no,

54:55

I think I also, I did like show Banu. So those

54:57

are really good for me. I think it was just a

54:59

kind of like, uh, I could see where this would

55:01

have been a lot better if I was a better cook,

55:04

you know, better. Cause I just haven't made this

55:06

kind of dish very often. So like, I want to practice. I want to do more. That's why that's my other,

55:10

my. other big takeaway other than i just want

55:12

to use ginger more i kind of do like almost like

55:14

a like a ratatouille style where like you know

55:17

like you have like all the sliced vegetables go down i kind of want to do one of those but

55:20

like add ginger as one of the slices because like i was like you know i like it i'm just like

55:24

i'm like i just want more ginger in my life yeah

55:26

pickled ginger or something like that yeah that'd

55:29

be good too man yeah so so maybe we can kind

55:32

of jump into this uh five tastes so What I found,

55:35

I found this sub stack. It was a day for young

55:37

Sophie sub stack. So I don't know if you had

55:40

a chance to see it. I could even share it with

55:42

you if you want. Yeah, no, I was trying to see

55:45

if I still had it pulled up. I read it. I read through it. Oh, did you? Okay. So. So basically

55:51

the whole principle is that there is colors,

55:54

the sounds, and the tastes. So the colors, if

55:57

you fixate on one color, such as red, you ignore

55:59

the others, you lead to an imbalance in your energy. Sounds, immersing yourself exclusively

56:04

in one type of music or sound can have a similar

56:06

effect. Taste, overindulging in a specific taste

56:09

like spiciness dulls your palate over time. So

56:12

to have this balance, the most balanced color,

56:15

the most balanced sound, the most balanced taste

56:17

is to have none. like is to get too close to,

56:20

to neutral and none as you can. So like no color

56:24

where you can experience all the colors through it or like no sound, you can experience all the

56:28

sounds, no taste, you have tastelessness. So

56:31

you can experience the neutrality and have all

56:33

the flavors kind of come together. So in a nutshell,

56:35

that that's kind of like what we're kind of looking at with all this. I don't know if you want to,

56:39

if you have any more thoughts on, um, to expand.

56:41

I mean, that's another fun, interesting and challenging

56:44

Dallas principle is like, practicing presence

56:47

through absence of like emptying yourself so

56:51

that you are more present in each moment and appreciating what is there um and yeah translating

56:56

over to like the food it was interesting uh especially

56:58

like reading into it because whenever i like

57:00

i just read the dowdy jingle a lot and when i

57:03

get to the part and it's like i forget how the line how it's worded in english but it's kind

57:07

of like you know if you overindulge the five

57:10

tastes you become confused. And the way that

57:13

my brain read it, it was like, oh, okay. So I want to do just one taste and not all five so

57:17

that I don't get confused. And it's like, nope, I actually didn't mean that at all. It's like,

57:21

okay, okay. That's interesting. I don't know.

57:24

This is one of those where I'm like, I don't know if I agree with it. Well, I like the concept.

57:29

I like where he's going with it. I understand like, you know, finding emptiness allows you

57:33

to appreciate what's there. And I do like the

57:35

concept, but I think I like it a little bit better.

57:37

More like how like Shinto, Shinto, I forget what

57:40

it is, but it's like the Japanese cuisine of

57:44

like that nine course meal where like it's telling

57:47

a story. So each one's like a different flavor

57:49

and it's going through. Or even like a Passover,

57:52

you know how like the Passover meal tells that

57:54

story where like this is bitterness and this is this and it's going through. I think I like

57:57

that a little bit better. Just because I like

58:01

the idea of having all five things present. Maybe.

58:04

Not all at once. Maybe also not trying to get

58:07

to no flavor, but rather each of the flavors

58:10

in small quantities to tell a narrative using

58:13

culinary arts. I think that's just for me something

58:15

that I appreciate a little bit more. But maybe

58:18

that makes me a bad dad. I don't know. I like

58:22

that. So this this whole sub stack post, it kind

58:26

of goes into the practical wisdom of it. And

58:29

I like that you didn't like exactly. feel like

58:33

you you um you agreed with with everything with

58:35

you know the the balance of it and trying to

58:38

just you know focus on like no flavors and all

58:41

that kind of stuff but the the so the practical

58:43

wisdom that this talks about is the visual clarity so stepping back from overstimulation can we

58:48

can notice how different colors affect our emotions and energy auditory sensitivity with quiet reflection

58:54

we discern which sounds uplift us and which disrupt

58:58

our inner harmony and refined taste by avoiding

59:01

extremes we discover rediscover the authentic

59:04

flavors of food without craving overly sweet

59:06

spicy or artificial tastes I think there's some,

59:10

there's a lot of beauty within that. And especially

59:12

even when we were talking about kind of politics

59:15

within America here, I feel like even that is

59:17

taking that step back and, and allowing yourself

59:20

to, to kind of rediscover the harmony within

59:24

all thoughts of, of everything too. So I, I feel

59:28

like that's like another, like a fourth point we could even talk about is thoughts and emotion.

59:33

So, yeah, I mean, I like the point of the extremes,

59:36

even if I don't like the idea of, tasteless food

59:39

um you know or colorless food uh i still like

59:42

the idea of the extremes you know you tied to politics you know i'm thinking like immigration

59:45

like it is a terrible idea to let literally anyone

59:48

who wants in in we don't have the infrastructure

59:51

for that it's also kind of corrupt to be like

59:54

we're just going to deny people access altogether there's got to be something that's not extreme

59:59

right like um and like with food especially man

1:00:02

like you do get some of the dishes where it's like if i should put enough spice on here they

1:00:05

won't notice that the flavor and i'm like actually

1:00:08

when i eat meat i want to taste the meat i have

1:00:10

a little bit of spice or a little bit you know sweet whatever with it but like i want to taste

1:00:14

the food for what it is you know getting to like the day i guess you know that the essence of

1:00:18

my food i still want it to be there um it reminds

1:00:21

me of like a parks and rec they're the big cook

1:00:23

-off and like the vegan burger it is all the

1:00:25

special stuff to it and ron's like beef grill

1:00:28

bun there and it's like oh yeah this tastes good

1:00:32

sometimes food tastes good if you just um let

1:00:35

it be yeah and he's a little i forget what character

1:00:38

was i forget his name um it's rob lowe's character

1:00:41

and he's making so so those who don't know parks

1:00:43

and record that particular episode uh rob lowe's

1:00:45

character whatever his character name is he's

1:00:48

making a vegan patty vegan burger patty and ron

1:00:51

swans is just like burger just put beef on the

1:00:53

grill and he's like no no i've got all these

1:00:56

spices it's gonna be fantastic and he makes this

1:00:58

whole thing it looks artisan it looks like straight

1:01:01

out of like a like one of those fine restaurants

1:01:03

so ron ron takes a bite of that or no he's like

1:01:06

he's like just just try my beef and tries to

1:01:08

take a bite he's like oh that's way better yeah

1:01:11

and it's i don't even think he used salt or anything

1:01:13

no just beef fun like yeah that's true like that's

1:01:18

for me and like it's a huge thing and it's You

1:01:21

know, I love cooking and that's a mistake I made a lot early on is like over salting stuff or

1:01:24

like putting too much, you know, the cadence season because I love this seasoning. And it's

1:01:27

like, you know, sometimes a little bit goes a

1:01:30

long way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're over at our

1:01:34

home. We were used to cooking with minimal seasonings

1:01:37

as possible. So this little dish, I mean, I,

1:01:40

I, like I said, I found it fantastic and delicious.

1:01:42

I know you, you know, you had a different take on it, but this is like right up our alley. That's

1:01:48

all like, like trying, like tasting all those flavors. Like you can like with, with the minimal,

1:01:52

I put a little bit of salt on it. But the ginger,

1:01:54

like you can taste the ginger, like you can taste the little baby carrots, or not carrots, the

1:01:59

baby corn, the carrots as well, and the beans,

1:02:02

like all individually, all together. And you

1:02:04

can even taste the oil that you use too. And

1:02:07

like the fact that you don't use too much seasoning.

1:02:11

And then you can taste the oil like they use.

1:02:14

It's because we use avocado oil for the, for

1:02:16

this one particularly. And like, I can taste

1:02:19

that avocado oil flavor in there too. And it's

1:02:22

just like, I love that kind of fantastic. Cause

1:02:24

it's cause you go to like McDonald's, everything's so salted up and you can't taste any specific

1:02:28

flavor than just salt, sodium and, and a little

1:02:32

bit of meat with it. So I think there's just

1:02:35

something beautiful about that. One more pop culture reference. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

1:02:39

I got to represent my SG folk. Supernatural.

1:02:43

One of my favorite things is Castiel, one of

1:02:45

the angels, becomes human. And he describes the

1:02:48

glory of eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

1:02:51

It's just so funny. He's like, as an angel, what

1:02:54

happens is like, I don't just taste it. I taste like every single thing that went into making

1:02:57

the bread and every single thing that made it the peanut butter. And it's all like all the

1:03:00

separate stuff. And then as a human, I'm like, it just tastes like a peanut butter and jelly

1:03:03

sandwich. I'm like, yeah. bb and j's are are

1:03:06

great it's just so funny to kind of hear that

1:03:09

take of like he's like he gets overwhelmed as an angel because they can taste all of the things

1:03:13

and then he's like as a human i'm able to just kind of like simply it tastes like a peanut butter

1:03:17

jelly sandwich that simplicity is that's where

1:03:19

it's at man So I'm wondering if we should wrap

1:03:23

this up here. I do want to kind of talk about

1:03:25

some of the things that you're a part of. So

1:03:29

you mentioned that you're part of the Anizal Podcast Network. So you're a part of a bunch

1:03:33

of stuff. And so I don't know if you want to kind of take it off from there and talk about

1:03:36

some of the stuff. Oh, yeah. Just a collection

1:03:38

of different podcasts. Basically, me and my friends

1:03:40

shows. A lot of them are pop culture reference.

1:03:43

Some of them less so, you know, I'm part of the whole church podcast. We do ecumenical work looking

1:03:48

at stuff like that. Recently, we had an episode

1:03:50

about the food industry on there. So your listeners

1:03:53

might be interested in that one. That was kind of fun. Systematic ecology is kind of just anything

1:03:56

pop culture referenced. And instead of trying

1:04:00

to plug Jesus into it, we're going to talk about what is this IP saying and what are our takes

1:04:05

on its message for what it is as people who are

1:04:09

Christians rather than just trying to plug the...

1:04:11

square into a round hole kind of thing and then

1:04:14

you know i mentioned uh to you earlier uh my

1:04:16

friend brandon knights on there as well he has a couple shows my seminary life he talks about

1:04:20

stuff that he learned in seminary and stuff that

1:04:22

he's continuing to learn in independent studies now and he has a kung fu pizza party so yeah

1:04:28

all about a kung fu movies and media and a quick

1:04:32

30 minute episodes and they're fantastic add

1:04:35

some pizza in there you got a good time oh yeah

1:04:37

oh yeah for sure that's all you need it just

1:04:40

makes me think of like ninja turtles just like the concept i'm like yeah this is great and you

1:04:45

also talked about uh your sub stack that you occasionally update talking about kingdom hearts

1:04:49

and everything which i have one written that i just keep forgetting to post yeah it's the

1:04:53

kingdom key so it's all about uh daoism christianity

1:04:56

and uh the video game franchise kingdom hearts

1:04:59

which i love it's a probably my my biggest passion

1:05:02

probably outside of philosophy religion or any

1:05:05

of the highbrow stuff so i'm like i just really love playing and replaying all of the kingdom

1:05:09

hearts games all of them all the great games

1:05:12

i love them well dude joshua thank you so much

1:05:18

for for allowing the time to come on and talk

1:05:20

about this and i would love to have you on again

1:05:22

at some point this is a conversation yes it's

1:05:26

great oh and you've been on systematic geekology recently i have yes we're talking about den to

1:05:30

den yeah yeah it was great man yeah it was great

1:05:33

talking to you uh great having you on our show and getting to be over here and you know, intermingle

1:05:37

getting ready for next theology beer camp, I guess. For sure. It's going to be Minneapolis,

1:05:41

which is my home turf. So we should see if it'll

1:05:45

make sense to go. I know we have a lot of stuff

1:05:47

this year, so I will try to make it. I hope so.

1:05:51

I'm still undecided at this point. So we will

1:05:54

see. I hope so. Be good to see you. It would

1:05:56

be good to see you too. Appreciate you, dude.

1:05:58

Appreciate you too. That's it for today's episode

1:06:07

of Grub and Grace. I hope you enjoyed our discussion

1:06:10

with Joshua Null about Taoism. I want to give

1:06:15

a big thank you to Joshua for joining us on this

1:06:17

episode. One thing I realized we mentioned but

1:06:21

never actually discussed were the five severe

1:06:23

flavors, or also known as the five spicy flavors

1:06:27

or the five strict tastes. These are in reference

1:06:31

to the sharp and pungent smelling vegetables

1:06:33

and herbs which may fall under food restrictions

1:06:36

to some who cultivate Dao. It is said that these

1:06:41

foods provide unhealthy qi and its consumption

1:06:44

can affect the organs. They are garlic, which

1:06:50

affects the heart and excites the qi of fire,

1:06:52

onions, which affect the kidneys and deplete

1:06:56

the qi of water, leeks, which affect the liver

1:07:00

and overcomes the key of the wood, spring onions,

1:07:04

which affect the spleen and suppresses the earth's

1:07:07

key, and coriander, also known as cilantro, which

1:07:12

affects the lungs and hinders the key of the

1:07:15

metal. The taste of these foods are very strong,

1:07:20

and after consuming them, have additional effects

1:07:22

to the body, mind, and spirit. The diet of a

1:07:27

Taoist is light with no strict tastes. This is

1:07:31

purity, clarity, calmness of the mind, harmony

1:07:35

of the ki, and being free from diseases. If you

1:07:41

would like to find out more about food practices within Taoism, I would suggest looking into Bai

1:07:46

Gu, or the rejection of grain, and the three

1:07:50

corpses, or also known as the three worms. which

1:07:54

is the idea that evil spirits or demonic supernatural

1:07:56

beings strive to decay the body in order to feed

1:08:00

on it. And a way to starve the three worms is

1:08:04

by abstaining from grains. If you would like

1:08:10

to make the dishes discussed in this episode,

1:08:12

I will try to have those up on our website. If

1:08:18

you like the content that we produce, be sure

1:08:21

to give us a five -star rating on Apple Podcasts,

1:08:23

as well as a shining review. It would really

1:08:26

help us out a lot. You can also visit our website,

1:08:29

rubandgrace .com, and be sure to follow us on

1:08:32

social media on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Until

1:08:37

next time, stay curious, keep an open mind, and