Tao Te Ching

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu can be translated as The Book of the Immanence of the Way or The Book of the Way and of How It Manifests Itself. Lao Tzu, author of the book, can also be known as “The Master”. He has a form of government planned and wishes to everyone follows and support this plan. His main goal is simplicity and naturalness. When he thinks of a way to govern someone it comes to his mind the idea that the more rules and obligation you put to a person, the less they will do it. He just wants to have good relationship with his people and let them be happy and free. “See the world as your self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things” (13). Lao Tzu is trying to show us to see the…

Many of the poems from the Tao Te Ching and the Hua Hu Jing touch on the practice of wuwei. There can actually be examples of all three, humility, compassion and frugality found with in some of them. A lot of these concepts can come across as deep and cryptic, but when you get down to it and begin to understand them and break them down, they can be summed up to the three basic teachings stated above. Chapter two of the Tao Te Ching is among the chapters that stood out to me the most. I found…

Under constant pressure striving for perfection, modern Americans rarely stop to evaluate the values they deem important in life today. Americans forget what they as an individual want out of life because of the chaos and stress experienced in the world around them. Western civilization rarely stops to think of the important values in life or actions perpetrated before execution. American’s base this conduct from the mindset of continual growth; always pressing to keep moving forward in life…

the natural order of all that is. In the ‘Tao Te Ching’, 6th century B.C. Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, introduces the Tao as the undefinable inherent truth; the key to unlocking the ebb and flow of a joyous nonresistant life; to the bewilderment of those who choose to suffer the endless cycle of anxiety, worry and fear. Through this prodigious poetic masterpiece, Tzu introduces the world to his philosophies and births one of the worlds most impactful spiritual movements, Taoism. A philosopher…

In Chapter Three of Tao te Ching, Lao-Tzu expresses his wariness for change. He believes that interfering with the present status of the nature can be detrimental to the total well-being of this universe. According to Tzu, this world is operating in a state of balance upon which any action, if not carefully considered, can lead to serious repercussions. An action that can cause a tilt in the normal status of the earth can result into an avalanche of tribulations beyond control. He argues that…

Tao Te Ching book is filled with mini lessons of life. It was an enjoyable, quick read, and something that I was able to take a lot from because the passages contained practical writings of wisdom for the modern day person. Because the passages varied topics, the following paper will be written with the same notion. The first stanza of passage 2, to me, explained that each persons’ view point is different (“…people see some things a beautiful, other things become ugly…”); however, each view…

The second chapter of a people’s history of the United States by Howard Zinn is named drawing the color line. In this chapter, Zinn specifically talks about the start and rise of slavery in the United States, and the process through which slavery was able to occur and eventually flourish. At the end of the article, he talks about 6 specific conditions that allowed and were needed for slavery. The profit is depicted in Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching and the control is resisted in Frederick Douglass’…

With the great number of English translations of the Tao Te Ching coming forth, researches focusing on theses translations have been continuously carried out by Western scholars. Searching key words "Tao Te Ching Translation" in ProQuest, DOAJ, EBSCO (asp / bsp), EBSCO (asc / bsc) and such databases, 55 results belonging to different fields were found. It can be observed that Western scholars paid close attention to a comparative and contrastive study of original text of the Tao Te Ching. Some…

Verse number 11, from the Tao Te Ching, contains imagery related to emptiness. Those images are objects we interact with on a day to day basis. The first image is a wheel. In this chapter, they depict the wheel as just a wheel, and that is what makes it so interesting. A wheel with a hole and that hole is what makes the wheel useful. Another image is the carved out space in a bowl, and how that carved out space (where the bowl is not) is where it is useful. The final image is a house, with the…

the best thing to do is to let things go and let them take a natural curse, in order to be leaded to success, whatever that is in each of our lives. Correspondingly, Tao Te Ching and Border Town, focus on Taoism and in both the idea of wu wei is deeply express by giving meaning to life through the constant flow of nature. Moreover, Taoism is centered in the spiritual level of self. It is an ancient religious and philosophical system that started in China. Tao meaning “the way,” can’t be…