Tao Te Ching

“ Also fundamental to the Tao is the unity of mind and matter, of the one who knows and the thing known. The understanding of a truth and the truth itself cannot be separated. The Tao includes and unifies these into a larger "reality" encompassing both. The notion that our knowledge is distinguishable from that known is an illusion.
Another teaching of the Tao Te Ching is that intuitive insight surpasses rational analysis. When we act on our spontaneous judgment, we are almost always better off. Chapter 19 declares, "Let the people be free from discernment and relinquish intellection . ”

“ He was a very learned Confucianist, and wrote, along with other works, an excellent commentary on the Chʽun-chʽiu (春秋) of Confucius.
6. The Tao-tê-chên-ching-chu (道德眞經註) by Wu-Chʽêng (吳澄) . This man was a native of Lin-chiean-hsien (臨川縣) in Kiangsi, and lived under the Yuan or Mongol dynasty. He divided the Tao-tê Ching into sixty-eight chapters by putting, in several instances, two or more of the ordinary chapters into one. His commentary is one of the best and of the most popular among the Chinese literati. ”

“ Again, he quotes sentences not to be found in the Tao-T-Ching. He illustrates such a simple saying as " To see small beginnings is clearness of sight," by drawing attention to a man who foresaw, when the tyrant Chou Hsin (who died B.C. 1122) took to ivory chopsticks, that the tide of luxury had set in, to bring licentiousness and cruelty in its train, and to end in downfall and death.
Lao Tzu said, " Leave all things to take their natural course." ”

“ Jen Ch'iu made no answer, and Confucius continued, "That will do. Do not reply. If life did not give birth to death, and if death did not put an end to life, surely life and death would be no longer correlates, but would each exist independently. What there was before the universe, was Tao. Tao makes things what they are, but is not itself a thing. Nothing can produce Tao; yet everything has Tao within it, and continues to produce it without end.
In its offspring.
And the endless love of the Sage for his fellow-man is based upon the same principle." ”

“ Hot people thinking of last winter's icy blast!
"The prince of Ch'u is dignified and severe. In punishing, he is merciless as a tiger. Only a very practised or a very perfect man could influence him.
"The true Sage, when in obscurity, causes those around him to forget their poverty. When in power, he causes princes to forget ranks and emoluments, and to become as though of low estate. He rejoices exceedingly in all creation. He exults to see Tao diffused among his fellow-men, while suffering no loss himself.
Tao is a constant quantity. It can be shared, but cannot be divided. ”

“ Confucius said to Lao Tzŭ, "To-day you are at leisure. Pray tell me about perfect Tao."
"Purge your heart by fasting and discipline," answered Lao Tzŭ. "Wash your soul as white as snow. Discard your knowledge. Tao is abstruse and difficult of discussion. I will try, however, to speak to you of its outline.
"Light is born of darkness. Classification is born of formlessness. The soul is born of Tao. The body is born of the vital essence.
Existence springs from non-existence. "Thus all things produce after their kind. Creatures with nine channels of communication are born from the womb. ”

“ I would test my knowledge in this sense, that perchance I may do some good to that State."
"Alas!" cried Confucius, "you will only succeed in bringing evil upon yourself. For Tao must not be distributed. If it is, it will lose its unity. If it loses its unity, it will be uncertain; and so cause mental disturbance,—from which there is no escape.
"The sages of old first got Tao for themselves, and then got it for others. Before you possess this yourself, what leisure have you to attend to the doings of wicked men? Besides, do you know what Virtue results in and where Wisdom ends? ”

“ This branch consists of the literature of Taoism, or that which has gathered around what is known as the Tao or Way of Lao Tzŭ, growing and flourishing alongside of, though in direct antagonism to, that which is founded upon the criteria and doctrines of Confucius. Unfortunately it is quite impossible to explain at the outset in what this Tao actually consists. According to Lao Tzŭ himself, "Those who know do not tell; those who tell do not know." ”

“ What boots it to wear out the soul with anxious thoughts? I want not wealth; I want not power; heaven is beyond my hopes. Then let me stroll through the bright hours as they pass, in my garden among my flowers; or I will mount the hill and sing my song, or weave my verse beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work out my allotted span, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit free from care.”
The “Peach-blossom Fountain” of Tao Ch‘ien is a well-known and charming allegory, a form of literature much cultivated by Chinese writers. ”

“ The oldest known Chinese sage is Lao-Tze, the founder of Taoism. "Lao Tze" is not really a proper name, but means merely "the old philosopher." He was (according to tradition) an older contemporary of Confucius, and his philosophy is to my mind far more interesting. He held that every person, every animal, and every thing has a certain way or manner of behaving which is natural to him, or her, or it, and that we ought to conform to this way ourselves and encourage others to conform to it. "Tao" means "way," but used in a more or less mystical sense, as in the text: ”

“ The Master I serve succours all things, and does not account it duty. He continues his blessings through countless generations, and does not account it charity. Dating back to the remotest antiquity, he does not account himself old. Covering heaven, supporting earth, and fashioning the various forms of things, he does not account himself skilled. He it is whom you should seek."
And he is Tao.
"I am getting on," observed Yen Hui to Confucius. ”

“ Any Tao?—in its earlier sense of way of doing things. "It is concentration," replied the man. "When twenty years old, I took to forging swords. I cared for nothing else. If a thing was not a sword, I did not notice it. I availed myself of whatever energy I did not use in other directions in order to secure greater efficiency in the direction required. Still more of that which is never without use;—
Tao. So that there was nothing which did not lend its aid.
Jen Ch'iu asked Confucius, saying, "Can we know about the time before the universe existed?"
"We can," replied Confucius. ”

“ Likewise, if we are not conscious of the existence of spirits as such, we must be equally unconscious of the existence of inspired teachers as such; and to be unconscious of the existence of spirits and of inspired teachers is the very essence of Tao."
Adumbrations of Heracleitus.—In the hands of Lao Tzu's more immediate followers, Tao became the Absolute, the First Cause, and finally One in whose obliterating unity all seemingly opposed conditions of time and space were indistinguishably blended. This One, the source of human life, was placed beyond the limits of our visible universe ”

“ Wherefore it follows that men of true virtue are unconscious of its possession. How much more then the man of Tao? This is what the ancients called escaping the vengeance of God.
Which would be incurred by aping his goodness. The true Sage rests in that which gives rest, and not in that which does not give rest. The world rests in that which does not give rest, and not in that which does give rest.
The natural and the artificial.
Chuang Tzŭ said, "To know Tao is easy. The difficulty lies in the elimination of speech. To know Tao without speech appertains to the natural. ”

“ When they entered Tzŭ Lu said, "We seem to have made a thorough failure."
"What do you mean?" cried Confucius. "The superior man who succeeds in Tao, has success. If he fails in Tao, he makes a failure. Now I, holding fast to the Tao of charity and duty towards one's neighbour, have fallen among the troubles of a disordered age. What failure is there in that?
"Therefore it is that by cultivation of the inner man there is no failure in Tao, and when danger comes there is no loss of virtue. ”

“ To be public-spirited and belong to no party, in one's dealings not to be all for self, to move without being bound to a given course, to take things as they come, to have no remorse for the past, no anxiety for the future, to have no partialities, but to be on good terms with all,—herein lay the Tao of the ancients.
P'êng Mêng, T'ien P'ien, and Shên Tao, became enthusiastic followers of Tao. Their criterion was the identity of all things. "The sky," said they, "can cover but cannot support us. The earth can support but cannot cover us. ”

“ He travels like the bird, leaving no trace behind. If there be Tao in the empire, he and all things are in harmony. If there be not Tao, he cultivates virtue in retirement. After a thousand years of this weary world, he mounts aloft, and riding upon the white clouds passes into the kingdom of God, whither the three evils do not reach, and where he rests secure in eternity. ”

“ He was a man of no ambition, content to earn a few cash by selling pea-nuts and spend his life in a philosophical melancholy. As he sat tapping the tin with an elongated finger-nail and droning out a mournful eulogy of his wares, To Tao, the hunchback, passed.
To Tao by his infirmity was unfitted for heavy manual labour, but his distorted body seemed to be endowed with some marvellous power of rendering natural objects equally grotesque. No one for hundreds of li around could produce small trees in such fantastic shapes and weird eccentricities of growth as he. ”

“ Hence to all outward appearances almost as poverty stricken as Lok Hing, To Tao was a man of some means, seeing that the wealthy gentry were only too glad to purchase the curious trees and shrubs that resulted from his untiring care and peculiar skill. ”

“ It is generally believed by Oriental scholars that both Taoism and Confucianism are of greater antiquity than their reputed founders. Confucius insisted that he was “a transmitter, not a maker”, and Lao Tze is found to refer to “an ancient”, “a sage”, and “a writer on war”, as if he had been acquainted with writings that have not come down to us.
There is internal evidence in the Taoistic texts of Lao Tze and Kwang Tze that the idea of the Tao had an intimate association in early times with the ancient Cult of the West—the cult of the mother-goddess who had her origin in water. ”

“ Those of old who preserved themselves, did not ornament their knowledge with rhetoric. They did not exhaust the empire with their knowledge. They did not exhaust virtue. They kept quietly to their own spheres, and reverted to their natural instincts. What then was left for them to do?
Tao does not deal with detail. Virtue does not take cognizance of trifles. Trifles injure virtue; detail injures Tao. Wherefore it has been said, "Self-reformation is enough." He whose happiness is complete has attained his desire. ”

“ There is something of humour, as well as much of truth, in the rebuke which Confucius, speaking pro hâc vice as a disciple of Lao Tzŭ, administers to his self-confident follower who wanted to "be of use." "Cultivate fasting;—not bodily fasting, but the fasting of the heart." Tao can only abide in the life which has got rid of self. ”

“ The Name which can be named (i.e., used on human lips and which is an interpretation of the eternal Law) is not the everlasting Name. The Nameless One is the beginning of the heavens and the earth; the Nameable One is the mother of the material world."
These and other expressions cannot but attract the Christian and should command his appreciation. Though the Tao of Lao-tse does not have the same meaning as the Logos of John, also translated into Chinese as Tao, yet this two-fold aspect of Tao or Law in the Taoist classic is like the twofold aspect of God as taught by the apostle John. ”

“ When Confucius was in the Ch'u State, the eccentric Chieh Yü passed his door, saying, "O phœnix, O phœnix, how has thy virtue fallen!—
By thus issuing forth out of due season. unable to wait for the coming years or to go back into the past.
When you might be, or might have been, of use. The idea conveyed is that Confucianism was unsuited to its age. See Lun-yü, ch. xviii. If Tao prevails on earth, prophets will fulfil their mission. If Tao does not prevail, they will but preserve themselves. At the present day they will but just escape. ”

“ They thought ill of government, and of all interferences with Nature. They complained of the hurry of modern life, which they contrasted with the calm existence of those whom they called "the pure men of old." There is a flavour of mysticism in the doctrine of the Tao, because in spite of the multiplicity of living things the Tao is in some sense one, so that if all live according to it there will be no strife in the world. But both sages have already the Chinese characteristics of humour, restraint, and under-statement. ”

“ And, perhaps, when you have found Him, you will also have found your tao, fool!"
"I shall try," had come Li Ping-Yeng's reply. "Yes; most decidedly shall I try." He had walked to the door. There he had turned. "Little brother," he had said to the priest over his shoulder, without malice or hurt or bitterness, "and why should I not find Him even in the Pell Street gutters? Why should I not find my tao even in the stinking, rotten heaven that vaults above Pell Street? Tell me. Is not my soul still my soul? Is not the diamond still a diamond, even after it has fallen into the dung-heap?" ”