The Eternal Wisdom:

World Cultures

Lao Tzu

Chinese philosopher, the founder of Taoism (born app.500 BC)

"If you really want everything, then give up everything."  

– Lao Tzu

About Lao Tzu

Lao Tzu was born in app. 500 BC, in southern China in the state of Ch'u, now known as the Hunan Province. Almost nothing is known about Lao Tzu apart from what can be gleaned from the legends that surround his name. His book of spiritual reflections called the Tao Te Ching has been published in more languages than any book except the Bible.¹

For at least fifty years, Lao Tzu worked in the emperor's library, kept mostly to himself, and was considered a recluse and a mystic of deep wisdom. To our knowledge, all during his long tenure at the Imperial Archives Lao Tzu wrote no books, nor did he allow any disciples to gather around him.

Confucious, the venerable philosopher who was born a generation after Lao Tzu, once sought out Lao Tzu for an interview, during which Lao Tzu told the soon-to-be-famous philosopher and moralist: "Strip yourself of your proud airs and numerous desires, your complacent demeanor and excessive ambitions. They won't do you any good. This is all I have to say you."

Following this now-famous interview with the old man, young Confucius said to his disciples, "I don't know how dragons can ride upon the wind and clouds and soar to high heaven. I saw Lao Tzu today. He can be likened to a dragon."¹

Lao Tzu lived a simple contemplative life in which he learned step by step by step how to practice what he understood to be "the Way" or "the Path" - or in Chinese, the Tao. Throughout his life, "he walked his walk but didn't much talk any talk."¹

According to Henry Way², "Lao Tzu may rightly be regarded as an immortal inspirer. His teachings constitute a bright beacon for the guidance of the human spirit to supreme fulfillment... He led a long, quiet and studious life and then vanished from the human scene, leaving behind a compact

parcel of sublime wisdom in glorious poetry... He was not exactly a hermit or recluse, but simply loved the contemplative life. He preferred to stay in obscurity in the silence of the library, devoting himself to inner culture and the pursuit of truth, living with serene spontaneity and natural ease."²

Lao Tzu wrote his only book Tao Te Ching just before he walked away from the Chou empire he served. One day the old man decided to take his leave of the city and simply started walking towards the distant mountain pass. "Arriving at the gate leading out of the Chou empire, he was halted by the keeper of the border, a man named Yin Hsi, who asked him, "Before you retire entirely from the world, will you please write some words for our enlightenment?" Lao Tzu obviously agreed, because before he walked out through the gates and disappeared into anther kingdom and who-knows-what personal life experience, he left with Yin Hsi a slender collection of eighty-one short poems and reflections, consisting in total of only around five thousand words."¹

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