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Ordination rite concerns the transmission of religious knowledge and authority, and the establishment of religious identity. It is in the relationship between the individual body and the community that Daoists and Buddhists found the form of apprenticeship that led to the embodiment of the community. The mastery of religious knowledge within the community––scriptures, register, mantras, and precepts, etc., was known only through the actual ritual practice. In other words, the ritual body became the locus for coordination of all levels of bodily, social, and cosmological experience via the dialectic of objectification and embodiment in the ordination rites. As the ritualized bodies, those who were ordained coherently comprised the community, which in turn remolded them with dynamically and diversely shaped identities.
Quanzhen Daoism (“The Way of Complete Perfection”) is a sect of Daoism founded by master Wang Chongyang (王重陽 1113-1170) in the twelfth century AD. The tradition is, in essence, the systemization and formalization of traditional Daoist practices through the implementation of Confucian and Buddhist infrastructure. Synthesizing Confucian practices of study and copying of classics, proper human relationships, and master-student succession, and Buddhist chujia (出家 “to leave the household”) and large public monastic systems, Quanzhen Daoism established systematic mechanisms which facilitated the zealous advancement of practitioners.
The Quanzhen sect formalized the Daoist tradition of “famous mountains and enlightened teachers” and integrated the respective practices of residing in a monastery and participating in fangdao (訪道) as required components of personal cultivation, constituting “monastery residence” and “travel” experiences. These two components complemented each other and eventually came to form the integral experiences of Quanzhen cultivation. The establishment of a uniform “household system,” inter-monastery exchange system, “Pure Rules,” “Collection of Orthodox Chants,” “percept transmission system,” and “name assignment system” streamlined the acclimation process for both entering the household of religion and participating in required ceremonies during travel.
Ultimately, the systemized infrastructure established by Quanzhen Daoism allowed for the formation of a complete ordered society outside of the secular world. This Quanzhen world, in turn, provided the framework for large-scale, practical implementation of Daoist techniques, the most ideologically significant of which are participation in arduous travel and actualization of “an irregular accordance with the Dao.”
Teaching is a challenging career that carries various challenges, some of which go beyond the educator’s control and influence their ability to teach. Through the Arizona State University (ASU) Barrett's Honors College, seminars and discussions centered in collaboration and learning, resulted in student's introduction to ideas of what it means to “truly” teach from both a student and educator perspective. Teaching is more than an exchange of information as it requires a human connection. While most educators agree that connection is vital, there are still challenges in the classroom that generationally impact families. Daoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy, discusses concepts such as mindfulness, leadership, and introspection. Educators can use Daoist philosophy as a tool to reflect on and develop their ability to teach with vulnerability, openness, and interconnectedness. From a philosophical standpoint, Lao Tzu (Daoist leader) explains the importance of shifting perspectives to what the individual can control: themselves. Teachers must create a classroom dynamic that is not only engaging but also provides students a sense of autonomy over their education. Shifting the dynamic from teacher centered to student centered places the education in the students’ hands and alleviates some pressure from the teacher. Embedding Daoist philosophy into the classroom can be seamless as it can already be seen through Social Emotional Learning, Culturally Relevant Curriculum, and Deep Learning.