Taoism and Buddhism influenced each other in China, leding to the formation of Ch'an Buddhism, which found its way to Japan, where it became Zen, which is the Japanese rendering of Ch'an. Some would say that Zen Buddhism originally was a "marriage" of Taoism and Mahayana Buddhism - for example, both Zen Buddhism and Taoism use the concept of the "Ten Thousand Things," i.e., all forms taken by the ultimate reality. So, they're intimately related.
As far as I know - but I might be wrong about this - Star Wars' focus on fear, anger, hate and aggression as negative forces of one's consciousness, leading to suffering and evil behavior, is very much Buddhist psychology, which is not strongly present in Taoism. And Lucas was clear that the Jedi were designed to be Buddhist monks, and he said, his Force concept is possibly most clearly expressed in Buddhism, although he noted that he based it on all religions.
With that said, the way how Yoda talks about the Force, its two sides and "the way of all things, the way of the Force," that's very close to Taoism, and Lucas described the dark side and the light side as the two simplest parts of a cosmic construction: that's pretty much yin and yang, manifesting the cosmos through their interplay.
In Star Wars: The Clone Wars, however, the Taoist influence is very clear, although there's an important change in the yin-yang pair. The dark side of the Force is destruction, the night, and maleness, and the light side of the Force is creation, the day, and femaleness. Whereas in Taoism, the light is male, and the dark is female.
yousharknotpass
2087
gamechangershow
amandla
areudirty
izzy806
ellievsbear
pixelskylines
titsay
