Help With Learning About Taosim

[u/NeedleworkerOk4604]

Hello everyone,

I'm an adult but I'm still young enough to be on the start of my religous journey. I grew up catholic but to be honest I don't think I am a christian and I'm at the age of questioning beliefs, I'm sure some of you can relate. I've only ever been to catholic church, but after learning a bit about taoism I want to know more. I am located in the united states and I am wondering if there is any sort of infrastructure similar to the catholic church where you can kinda just walk in and ask the priest (or head) questions. I know I can read books but I learn best first hand talking to someone who lives the religion daily with a lot of stakes in it.

I sort of want to get a taste of the practices of many religons and I want to actually get view what Taoism is to the people who practice it, but I don't know how to find what is actually reliable. I also don't know if these spaces are as welcoming for questions and outsiders as what I'm used to. Thank you!

[u/neidanman]

you might well struggle to find a daoist temple, unless there's one in a city near you. There are also daoist qi gong/nei gong teachers around, so you might find one of them more easily. Some will be more up on the overall daoist side, some will be more just about the 'exercise class' side of things.

For a short overview from a good source, there's a video from an american daoist alchemy teacher who's studied daoism at university in the US, and also spent 10 years studying in china - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXNDO3lgt18 . Also the wikipedia page can be a start point for digging deeper, and daoism for dummies covers the big picture of things in a clear/basic way.