First, let me introduce you to . . . [the story follows] . . .

*** Idioms and phrases *** (help with English) ***

Philosopher - someone who studies what life is about and how different people think about life.

"The truth" - the teachings of the church my parents attended, or so I was told. 

Emptiness - I don't know what it means. You tell me!

Goes totally against everything I was taught - does not agree with what my teachers and parents taught me.

The Jesus story - the story of the Christian "son of God," the center of Christianity

Putting others first - not being selfish

If that's the case, then - The "if/then" sentence structure is often used in English. If A happens, then B happens.  "If that's the case, then X" means "if that is true, then this is true or this happens." The "if/then" sentence structure is very useful for non-native speakers of English because it is easily understood.

Vastly different - very, very different.

To rattle someone's cage - to say or do something that makes someone else uncomfortable or makes them think in ways they are not used to thinking.

Learning how to slow down learning how to get out of the rat race and live a more relaxed life.

Rat race - the lives of city people, living in crowded conditions like rats in a garbage dump.

*** Dao De Jing（道德经）***

As an American, I have to admit I knew nothing about the 道德经, the Dao De Jing.  It is rare than I come across something new.  The Dao, and the concept of emptiness, are completely new to me.  I am simply amazed.

Let me give you some background.  As a philosopher, since my name is Phil I think I can claim that title since they named philosophy after me, I grew up knowing mostly what white people wanted their white kids to know and in the only church in the world that had "the truth," or so I was told.  What a privilege to be one of fewer than a million people among billions who knew "the truth" about god, life, and everything, or so I was taught.  Then, something terrible happened.  It is called reality and it is not perfect.  But, that's not my point.

The concept of emptiness goes totally against everything I (and most Americans) have been taught all our lives.  Christianity, and even more Americanism, is self centered.  Now, some would claim that the Jesus story would tell us otherwise, that putting others first is what Christianity is all about.  I would claim that, if that's the case, then Christianity has lost its connection to the first Christian, Jesus (THE Christ).  But this blog is not about Christianity.  It is about emptiness.  The two concepts are vastly different.

Emptiness is not self centered.  Most Christians are.  Let me make my point and comparison.  If you ask any Christian what one thing is most important for me to know about Christianity, their response might be, "Are you saved?"  That is, are you a Christian.  Without that, all is lost, in the Christian mind.  My point is simple.  Christianity is centered on self.  If the self is not Christian, then, in the Christian mind, all is lost.  So, Christians perceive the world from a self-centered point of view.

The Dao, on the other hand, has this strange concept of emptiness.  Suddenly, one realizes that this self-centeredness is, well, un-Christian perhaps.  I've not resolved this whole concept in my mind.  It is too large for me to get my head around at the moment.  If the world is not centered on me, then the question becomes, what is important in life?  If I, as one of seven billion, am not the center of the universe, what is?  I'm not quite sure yet, but one thing I know. . . .

Many of my Chinese friends have become very Americanized, or at least they have bought into something that is not very Daoist.  I've heard exactly none of them, a grand total of zero, tell me anything about the concept of emptiness.  Something's missing and it is nothing. 

My point? Americans and Chinese have become very goal oriented.  Yet, Daoists, at least from what I have heard, de-emphasize putting self first.  "I spent the first half of my life making a name for myself and establishing my career," I told a friend 20 years ago, "I'm going to spend the next 20 years learning how to slow down." 

I put "Taoist" as my religion on Facebook about ten years ago, and at least one of my relatives went into shock.  "What would your [then dead] parents think?" one relative of that generation asked me.  My parents knew me well.  They would have known I was trying to rattle someone's cage.  I don't know what Taoism and Daoism really are and I'm completely new to the concept of emptiness.  But that's exactly what I had in mind when I said, "I'm going to spend the next 20 years learning how to slow down."