The Caring For Life Of Taoism And Its Inspiration On Modern Education

In every phases of the development of Taoism of every sects, the caring for life is always a subject that cannot be neglected. Taoism involves all the problems that the life should face: the contradiction of the life against the nature, against the society and against the freedom of human beings. But eventually, Taoism attempts to deal all these contradictions with harmony.The existence of human life is the natural existence, the spiritual existence, and the social existence. As the three dimensions of life, the natural life, the spiritual life and the social life connect each other, affect each other and contain each other, which form the integrated life of human beings. Basically, education is for "people". So education should be based on the integrated life. However, for the most part, education damaged the integration of life, took away the freedom of life, and caused the alienation of the existence of life.In the face of the alienation of life caused by the modern education, the caring for life of Taoism brought us much inspiration, that education should follow the way of itself, should return to innocence, should regress to the natural life, and should self-exam the soul in such regression; that education should get rid of the private and advocate the public, should not be too harsh to others, and should foster the social life; that education should turn on people's spiritual life, should set the ethics of unselfishness and freedom, and should pursue for the spiritual freedom. In the practice of Taoism, the theory of inaction could bring us much inspiration too: to follow the self-so of the creatures, to maintain nature, to teach according to students' character, to accomplish without abiding in the accomplishments, etc. That is, we should teach students according to their character, and should make students show their self-so and then improve their self-so naturally.