The " Tao Te Ching " was compiled around 300 to 250 B.C.E , but its wiseness resonates as strongly today as it did more than two millennium ago . The slender text was write in ancientChinaduring theWarring States menses , a three - hundred point of never-ending war between various Chinese land . In 81 stanzas , the " Tao Te Ching " pushes back against the all - too - human desire for " more " — more money , more condition , more power , more things — and focuses instead on simmpleness , concord and a tax return toTaoor " the way . "
The author of the " Tao Te Ching " is Lao - tzu ( also write as Laozi ) , an honorific rubric that mean " Old Master . “According to life story write centuries later , Lao - tzu ( pronouncedlao - zuh ) was a sage - like archivist in the Zhou court who served as an former teacher ofConfucius . Lao - tzu refused to compose down his teachings , but when he decide to leave his fatherland for India , he was pressed by a border guard to divvy up his wisdom . Legend has it that the border guard dutifully re-create down the words of Lao - tzu in the " Tao Te Ching , " which mean " The Book of the Way and Its Power . "
Modern scholar disagree on whether an diachronic figure named Lao - tzu ever existed , or whether he and his writings were a compiling of Formosan wisdom passed down over the centuries . Eventually , what protrude out as a philosophy holler Taoism ( or Daoism ) soon became a religion with Lao - tzu as the earthly incarnation of the Tao — the ultimate power that give order to the universe .
Reading the " Tao Te Ching"today , it feel like Lao - tzu is instantly plow 21st - C problems : runaway consumerism , overdevelopment , the single - apt pursuit of profit and growth at the disbursal of the surround , and neglect for the poor and marginalize . But that ’s because it was written at the turning of the Iron Age , when new engineering fueled a universe detonation and ensue conflict over domain and resources .
" The ' Tao Te Ching ' was write in a political climate where citizenry were doing just what they ’re doing today , " says Livia Kohn , professor emerita of Daoist Studies at Boston University and author of " Daoism and Chinese Culture . " " They were destroying the surround and there were all of these power bargainer waging war on mass . It was a very mussy sentence that they lived in . "
Lao - tzu ’s message , then and now , is that the human impulse to dominate and alter the world to match our desire is at long last anserine . There is an implicit in nature to everything that is organic , childlike and prosperous , and the way to find out it is through composure and muted hunch , not through ambitious and aggressive tactics .
Here are five eye - open up passages from the " Tao Te Ching " that put up a style to assert a sense of harmony and balance in an often - chaotic creation , good manners of the fabled Taoist master Lao - tzu .
1. “The Tao invariably takes no action, and yet there is nothing left undone.”
There is a paradoxical system of logic to a muckle of Lao - tzu ’s best - known saying , and this one is a great instance . The best form of natural process is " no natural process " ? What does that even mean ?
First of all , something is definitely lost in the interlingual rendition . The Chinese word for non - action iswu wei , which is sometimes translate as " doing nothing , " but Kohn prefer the phraseology , " not forcefully acting . "
That ’s because the real signification ofwu weiis not to do anything that is n’t in accordance with Tao , the natural order of things . Non - action mean swimming with the current alternatively of against it , or of bending with the wind instead of trying to rest stiff . Forcefully act as , meanwhile , is like blowing up a mountain to build a crowing and more direct roadway .
" What Lao - tzu is talking about is becoming aware of what the instinctive menstruum is and just going with it , " says Kohn . " Rather than take the mountain down , there are probably comfortable ways to go around it . "
Bonus pronounce : " The Way of Heaven is to do good others and not to hurt . The Way of the salvia is to act but not to compete . "
2. “He who is contented is rich.”
Hsuan Chiao does n’t teach an outright rejection of desire . The type of desire to be avoided is the one driven by materialism , which set success as the accumulation of more and more things . What Lao - tzu emphasizes is enough , of knowing when you have enough to be content instead of needlessly strive for more .
Bonus say : " There is no calamity greater than lavish desires . There is no greater guilt than discontentment . And there is no greater catastrophe than rapacity . He who is contented with contentment is always content . "
3. “Thirty spokes make a wheel, but it is the empty center that makes it work.”
Emptiness and " non - being " have real value in Taoism . What is a wheel without the empty infinite at its snapper ? A room is not four walls , but the space in between them . The utility of a corpse pot is what can be held indoors of it . A bellows only bring if there is empty place within it .
Lao - tzu teaches that humans , too , should equilibrize being with non - being . The Tao itself is non - being ; it is endless , impalpable and unknowable . Kohn says that the Tao is " the out of sight timber at the root of things , the inscrutable sense of cosmic connecter , the inherent beauty and goodness in all living being " that can only be examine and felt by retreating from the hustle and flurry of sprightliness . take care beyond the " obvious " or superficial to spot the value of what is n’t there .
Bonus saying : " The Tao that can be told of is not the interminable Tao ; The name that can be named is not the eternal name . The Nameless is the blood of Heaven and Earth ; The Named is the female parent of all things . Therefore let there always be non - being , so we may see their nicety , And let there always be being , so we may see their outcome . "
4. “To know that you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease.”
Written during the Warring States period when judicious rulers were in short supplying , the " Tao Te Ching " was published as a political tract as much as a templet to personal well - being . The in truth wise ruler or " salvia " knows that he does n’t have it away everything . Instead of trying to dictate and control every aspect of people ’s lives , he or she gives them freedom and lets lodge receive its natural balance .
" The book is addressed to policymakers , " says Kohn . " Lao - tzu taught that the hoi polloi in charge should n’t think chiefly of power and net , but or else should center on doing good for the maximal number of the great unwashed . "
Bonus pronounce : " The good ruler are those whose existence is merely known by the people . The next good are those who are loved and praise . The next are those who are feared . And the next are those who are despise . "
5. “The journey of a thousand miles starts from where one stands.”
This is easily the most famed handing over from the " Tao Te Ching , " sometimes translated as " A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step . " The full quote reads : " A Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as big as a man ’s embrace grows from a lilliputian shoot . A tower of nine stories begin with a passel of earth . The journey of a thousandlistarts from where one stands . "
How do you accomplish a really prominent task or overcome a seemingly insurmountable obstacle ? With patience , say Lao - tzu , and by knead within your capabilities .
" Start with the first thing , and if that ’s successful , then you move on , " says Kohn . " It does n’t mean you ca n’t have far - reaching goal , but you have to take them one step at a time . Any detergent builder will tell you , you do n’t begin with the roof . "
Bonus saying : " Difficult undertakings have always started with what is well-heeled . And great undertakings have always pop out with what is modest . Therefore the sage never strive for the great , And thereby the great is accomplish . "
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