Zhicheng Yan

Alexander Izrailevsky
PHIL 1000-018
4/10/2017

Lao-tzu
Biography of Lao-tzu
Lao-tzu was a philosopher of China, he was the founder of Tao,

one of the most typical philosophy in China. He was born in 571 B.C.

and died in 471 B.C. In 80th century, refer to United Nations

Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations research, among the

worlds famous cultural works, the book that is translated into other

languages and has the most of publication is the Holy Bible, and the

second is Tao Te Ching, which was wrote by Lao-tzu. He was not only a

great philosophy of China, he also was a great writer, historian, and

thinker.

He proposed wu wei, he used Tao to explain the changes of

everything in the Universe, Tao is the objective discipline of nature,

at the meantime, it also has an eternal meaning of never change, runs

independently and never be exhausted.

His book that was famous all over the China, Tao Te Ching, in this

book, it contains a lot of opinions of dialectics, for example, everything

has both positive and negative two sides, and they can be opposite

and convert. And it said that everything in the world is under the
concept of You and Wu; You means has, exist; Wu means does

not has, does not exist. You and Wu are relate to each other, but

the Wu is the base of everything, including You, in the book, there

is a sentence, All the things in the world are born from You, and the

You is born from Wu. (Er)

His philosophical thoughts and the Tao that founded by him,

not only contributed to the culture and ideology of ancient China, but

also affected the development of thinking in China for over two

thousand years.

There is a story about Lao-tzu, Lao-tzu lived very long, and he

died at the age of 101, all the neighbors were gathering together to

condolence, old people cried just like losing their kid, young people

cried just like losing their mother. One of Lao-tzus close friend, Yi Qin,

came to condolence, too, he stood next to Lao-tzu, just bowed to him

and cried for a few seconds. When he was going to leave, someone

stopped him and asked, Are you a close friend of Lao-tzu? He

answered Sure. And that person said, You are his friend, and you

dont even feel sad about this, is that ok? Yi Qin said, Why not?

Then the person became angry, and asked him loudly, What is the

reason that you dont have to be sad? Yi Qin smiled, and told that

person, My friend, Lao-tzu, used to said, Not happy about living, and

not sad about dying. Have you ever heard of that? His born and his

dead are all in the rule of nature, what is the reason that we should
feel happy about his born or feel sad about his dead? Because I am his

friend, and I agree with him, so I do not feel sad.

After hearing what Yi Qin said, the neighbor asked him, If you

did not feel sad, then why did you cried for a few seconds? Then he

laughed and answered, I cried for a few seconds was not because of

sad, that was me farewell with Lao-tzu. And the neighbors heard that,

they all said that Yi Qin is a real best friend of Lao-tzu, so they decided

to let Yi Qin be the person who host the funeral. When Yi Qin buried

Lao-tzu, he said to all people, Lao-tzu was a great person, his name

will be remained forever.

Lao-tzus philosophical view

Lao-tzu tried to establish a theory that including everything in

the Universe, and he believed all the things should obey a rule, Tao,

things inside is not single and stationary, instead, they are relatively

complex and mutative. Things themselves are the unity of Yin and

Yang.

The Tao is consist of two elements Yin and Yang, Yin and Yang

are two opposite sides, for example, Yang is bight, Yin is dark, Yang is

male, and Yin is female. Opposite things can convert to each other, it is

the conversion of Yin and Yang.

He emphasized the concept wu wei, that means effortless

action, but it does not means Lao-tzu aimed to do nothing, but aimed
to be you wei, the opposite of wu wei, because the concept of

Tao, wu wei would finally turn into you wei. This way of thinking

has an advantage, it is, you do not have a strong purpose to do

something in order to get benefits subjectively, but objectively, you will

do it better and get more benefits.

He believed human should follow the nature, Sky and earth are

running by themselves, sun and moon are lighting by themselves, stars

are staying at the same place by themselves, animals are living in the

world by themselves, all those things are nature, what is the thing that

control by human? In his words, the nature did not means any god,

but just simply means nature. In other words, he was saying that

human living in the world just like Universe exist, no one can point out

the purpose correctly. Because of that, choosing some destination

irrationally is the only choice. Lao-tzu was standing at the aspect of

Tao, so he only said about the way, but not the purpose. This gave

us a revelation human do not need to feel bad about not achieving

something, wu wei is also a way to live.

There are three treasures within the Tao, the first one is jing, it

means the essence of the physical body; the second one is qi, it

means the matter energy, including the thoughts and emotions;

and the last one is shen, it is the spirit on generative power.

 In the Tao, there are several thing that are discussing about its

main theme, he believed the Tao is powerful, so it is important for us to

define it precisely; and because the Tao is powerful, so we cannot

control the Tao, the Tao controls us; we should obey the Tao, adjust to

his demands; and he believed that it is smart to be humble, and it is

stupid to be over-confident.

Lao-tzus political view

Lao-tzu said, Not to recommend good people, so that everyone

will not compete; not to cherish the things that are hard to get, so that

everyone will not steal; not to show off the things that could cause

people to be greedy, so that everyones mind will be stable. So the

greatest peoples discipline is, be humble in the mind, and be full in the

stomach, be weak in the aim, be strong in the body, always make

people not to be smart, have no goal. So that even those people whom

have the intelligence are afraid of doing bad things. Greatest people

follow the rule of wu wei, follow the rule of nature, then the world will

be totally peaceful. (Er) He advocated this way to rule the society,

wanted people to back to the environment that has no conflict.

Tao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching also called Lao-tzu, written by Lao-tzu, is an

important source of the philosophy Tao. There are two themes in Tao Te

Ching, one is Tao, and one is De. The Tao in Tao Te Ching is not

only talking about the way of Universe, the way of nature, but also
talking about life style. De in Chinese usually means ethic, but in Tao

Te Ching, it is talking about the special cognition of the world, and how

to treat people and things for those people whom want to learn about

the Tao.

The purpose of Lao-tzu to write this book, is to teach people how

to get close to Tao, De is the base, and Tao is a higher level of

De. Without the foundation of De, it is likely to fail as a person, as a

family member, as a king, then it will not get close to Tao.

The main point of Tao Te Ching is Tao obeys the nature.

Philosophically, Tao is the mother of everything in the world, the

opposite of Yin and Yang and the unity are the exemplification of

everythings innate character, when there is too much of something, it

will turn from good to bad, and this is the rule of everything. Ethically,

Lao-tzu advocated humble, humility, indifferent, those are all following

the rule of nature. Politically, Lao-tzu advocated wu wei for own

country, not to do anything that would disturbing people, and be

friendly to other countries, avoid violence and war. These three aspect

get together, and build up the themes of Tao Te Ching. At the

meantime, it made the book with a structure of getting deeper in

logical level from physic to philosophy to ethic to politics. From the

Tao of nature to the Tao of ethic, and finally ends at the imagine of

ideal society and the way to rule it. In other words, it is looking for a

bright way that leads to ideal social discipline from the order of nature.
The controversy of Tao
Some people think that Tao is too passive, useless. Although

there are a lot of passive words in Tao Te Ching, however, that is not

what Lao-tzu wanted to convey to us. It just like the differences

between employer being nice to employees and employees being nice

to employer, the Tao emphasizes more on not to moved by desire;

but not use the Tao for just struggling to survive in the world, or the

excuse of being lazy.

Bibliography
Er, Li. Tao Te Ching. n.d.