Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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.
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
thinker.
His book that was famous all over the China, Tao Te Ching, in this
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
is a sentence, All the things in the world are born from You, and the
not only contributed to the culture and ideology of ancient China, but
thousand years.
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,
and cried for a few seconds. When he was going to leave, someone
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
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
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
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
He believed human should follow the nature, Sky and earth are
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
Tao, so he only said about the way, but not the purpose. This gave
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
control the Tao, the Tao controls us; we should obey the Tao, adjust to
stupid to be over-confident.
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
greatest peoples discipline is, be humble in the mind, and be full in the
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
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.
opposite of Yin and Yang and the unity are the exemplification of
will turn from good to bad, and this is the rule of everything. Ethically,
friendly to other countries, avoid violence and war. These three aspect
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
but not use the Tao for just struggling to survive in the world, or the