I loved the TV series "Kung Fu" when I was in high school. It was so cool to watch Kwai Chang Caine take out the bad guys, help the oppressed, and enlighten everyone. It was fun to fantasize that you had that kind of skill and power to take on the bad guys! Practically every episode ends with Caine slowing walking off to his next adventure. The fact that Caine's character never settled down surely made it easier for the script writers.
Caine is a practicing Taoist -- seeking his path from day to day, no planning, very few possessions, no permanent attachments, little or no intentionality beyond systematic meditation to clear his mind. Tao means "the way."
I was a practicing Taoist for a time in college. There is a certain kind of beauty in the ideals, but there is no power to succeed. I think my experience is more typical than most proponents of Taoism would prefer to admit -- I found that I had to systematically lie to myself to paper over the holes and disappointments and frustrations.
Christian discipleship is highly intentional. It's not about finding the way -- Jesus IS the way (John 14:6). We don't clear our mind to empty it, we fill it with biblically-consistent thoughts about Jesus (see Deut 6:6-7 for starters). We don't have a fuzzy, vague, evolving sense of our historical roots -- we have the written testimony of the Bible and early church history.
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