About Tao Te ChingTao Te Ching
is the main source of inspiration for the philosophical Taoism. All the topics of the later are borrowed from Tao Te Ching, including tao, wu and wu-wei. The book itself centers round the principles of
nondoing (wu-wei),
emptiness (wu), and return (fu). The book is assigned to
Lao Tzu, the father of Taoism, but there are experts who claim the Taoist Bible was never the work of a single author.
The first page of Chinese version of Tao Te Ching |
In its present form, the Tao Te Ching comprises two sections (The Book about Tao - chapters 1-37 - and The Book of Te - chapters
38-81), and uses around 5,000 Chinese characters. Each chapter is a very short essay on the different facets of Taoist philosophy, lists of attributes or even aphorisms. There are many English translations of the
book starting with perhaps the most valuable, that of James Legge.Since the translation of the Chinese characters is very difficult, there are a lot of versions of the same classic text, some of
them very different from each other. This is why is advisable, when studying the Taoist concepts of the book, to consult and compare several versions.
As we already mentioned the philosophy of the book centers round the main Taoist topics including tao, wu and wu-wei. The Taoist adept must follow the Tao and in
order to do this he/she must void his ego, or empty his mind. He should practice the nonaction (nondoing) which is the main goal of Taoist disciples. I think that one facet of the
Tao Te Ching Taoism could be summarize in the words of Ssu-ma Ch'ian - the historian of the Chinese ancient culture - when he said about
Lao Tzu that he practices the Tao and Te, and preaches the retreat from the social world, and anonymity.
Tao Te Ching, Legge version
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