The natural Way of the universe - Tao Te Ching

The natural Way of the universe - Tao Te Ching

* 3 audio books
-Tao Te Ching (read by Jacob Needleman) translated by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English
-Tao Te Ching (read by Stephen Mitchell) translated by Stephen Mitchell
-The Tao Teh King (read by Eric S. Piotrowski) translated by James Legge

* Offline website with 29 different translations and the possibility for line-by line comparisons

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The Tao Te Ching (pronounced as 'Dao De Jing'), a 6th century B.C. Chinese masterpiece, is one of the world's most revered sources of spiritual wisdom.

The Tao Te Ching is not a book of moral codes. It is a book expounding on the properties of the Way. If we only study the Way, we would only know how things work. By studying the properties of the Way, we would further know how to harmonize them and be one with the universe.

In the past, we were used to analyzing objects in isolation, as if these objects have an independent nature. However we now realize that things interact, and when they interact, even their nature changes. Quantum mechanics is a science which testify to that. Thus we need a more macroscopic model that can account for these interactions.

The Taoist framework stands out as an ideal choice. In modern business theories, we are already thinking in terms of opposing forces and how to balance them. Game theoretic models also study the harmony among entities. International and national politics today recognize diversity and value the harmonious ways of co-existence. Environmentalists research into how we can peacefully live with mother nature. Indeed, harmony is the key word in this new era.

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According to the legend, Lao Tzu was a sage and philosopher who lived contemporaneously with Confucius, about 500 BC. He served as the court archivist to the Chinese state of Chou. In his eighties, disillusioned at the state of the world, he decided to retire and leave the country. He was stopped at the 'Western Gate' by a gatekeeper, who, unhappy that the state was losing a man of such wisdom, asked him to leave some of his teachings behind. At this request, Lao Tzu dismounted from his oxcart and sat down and composed the Tao Te Ching.

The entire book is eighty-one verses, composed in approximately five thousand Chinese characters. Modern scholars now believe that Lao Tzu was a mythological figure, or possibly a composite of several historical figures, and the Tao Te Ching was actually created over some 300-500 years by various Taoist philosophers.

Taoism is both a philosophy and a religion; the Tao Te Ching is the earliest surviving articulation of this philosophy, which predates the writing by some centuries. Based on earlier Chinese shamanism, Taoism and Confucianism formed during the same period, but spoke to different human roles; Confucianism being concerned with man's place in society and interpersonal ethics, and Taoism being concerned with man's place in nature and how he can improve his own being, to gain longevity or even immortality.

Taoism describe a Way or Tao, from which everything comes and to which everything returns; all nature is cyclical and we should not attempt to deviate from the Way. The organizing principle of the universe, Tao is not a deity in the Western sense, but something more akin to the laws of physics - the way things are. The primary requirement of a follower of Tao is to do nothing that is against 'the Way' - this tenet is called 'wu-wei' or literally, 'do nothing'. This is understood to mean 'live your life in harmony with the way of all things in the universe', or 'live in harmony with nature'.