In January 2005, Trey Smith launched the blog, The Rambling Taoist. For nearly 4 years, it was a one-man operation. While much of the content focused on his ruminations about philosophical Taoism, it also featured commentaries about the news of the day and observations of the world around him.
In 2009, Scott Bradley of the Sea of Cortez, Mexico joined the blog and it was rechristened, The Rambling Taoists.
In 2011, Ta-Wan of Sydney, Australia came on board. He is a very accomplished writer and thinker who also hosts his own blog, Tao Wow. He also has another Taoist blog, Daily Cup of Tao.
In 2009, Scott Bradley of the Sea of Cortez, Mexico joined the blog and it was rechristened, The Rambling Taoists.
In 2011, Ta-Wan of Sydney, Australia came on board. He is a very accomplished writer and thinker who also hosts his own blog, Tao Wow. He also has another Taoist blog, Daily Cup of Tao.
As it now stands, visitors to The Rambling Taoists are offered a smattering of thoughts and writing styles for your consideration. It is our sincere hope that the writings of one or more of our authors will speak to you. In the end, however, anything we write is nothing more than fingers pointing at the moon.
Each of us must find and walk our own paths in life.
Brief Bios of the Authors in Their Own Words
Scott Bradley
Who was I before my parents were born? Should my biography begin there? If it did, it would go no further. Thus, if I begin at all, it will be an arbitrary beginning. So, in the interest of brevity, let me begin and end with some facts. I am presently 63. I usually live on a 32' sailboat, presently on the Sea of Cortez in Mexico, and have been doing so for since 1989. I started re-considering things 'spiritual' about 5 years ago when I became fed-up with the 'me' I had become and over which I seemed to have no control. Many years previously I had rejected the Christianity which had led me to a study of theology and philosophy.
I suppose my 'greatest accomplishment' is to have completed a 15 year circumnavigation of the world, though for a drifter with the wind at his back, it was the easiest of things to do.
Ta-Wan
I found myself alone in forests, I found myself flooded with insight. I had a life changing night on a beach in India where I died, welcomed and accepted death, but awoke back in this world. I traveled as a self-made nomadic monk for a few years. I met my wife and reentered society.
I found myself writing blog posts on how the separate self is an illusion. I found I loved every word Chuang Tzu allegedly wrote.
Dyslexic, I never read a whole book until I was 28. Strangely during those years the dyslexia went unnoticed and I completed, not just school but university (Industrial Design, this is how I could get by without reading). That book I read was "The Life of Pi" which was excellent. The beginning of the book, which was a great adventure, talked a lot of various religions and philosophies. I found them very interesting, even though I was an atheist.
During a late night chat with a friend he recommend a book called "The Tao of Physics". I read this and it flicked a switch. This too spent an early part of the book explaining religions and I was quite fascinated. I went into the book a scientist and came out of it a koan junky, taking buzzy highs from meditating koans. According to the aim the author had, the book had the complete reverse effect on me. He intended the book to teach science to the religious and spiritual.
I found myself alone in forests, I found myself flooded with insight. I had a life changing night on a beach in India where I died, welcomed and accepted death, but awoke back in this world. I traveled as a self-made nomadic monk for a few years. I met my wife and reentered society.I found myself writing blog posts on how the separate self is an illusion. I found I loved every word Chuang Tzu allegedly wrote.
Trey Smith
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.~ from the novella, A River Runs Through It, by Norman Maclean ~
I was born in Columbia, MO in 1957. I lived predominantly in Kansas City, MO until my junior year of college when I moved to Arkansas. I earned undergraduate degrees at Ouachita Baptist University (Sociology) and Arkansas Tech University (Journalism). I met my wonderful wife, Della, in Arkansas as well.
In 1992, I graduated from Pittsburg State University with a graduate degree focused on political philosophy. It was at Pitt State that I began to look at life differently than before. I discovered Karl Marx and, a few years later, Lao Tzu.
When I was a junior at OBU, I was active at Westminster Presbyterian Church. I gave a sermon once in which I likened God to The Force of Star Wars. Though I didn't realize it at the time, The Force is more akin to the conception of Tao. Once I started reading the Tao Te Ching, it dawned on me that I had been a Taoist all along without knowing it.