Lao Tzu, the Founder
of Daoism
Lao
Dan, alias Lao Zi, was a man from the State of Chu who was probably born
before Confucius by scores of years. He had been a low-ranking official
in the palace of the Zhou Dynasty and his job was to look after the library.
While he was at the job, he engaged in philosophical studies and came
to the conclusion that the universe consisted of sky, earth, humanity
and what he called "principles" or "ways" for which
he coined the term dao. According to him, dao is a priori, from which
everything else in the universe is derived. According to him, all things
are governed by objective natural laws. A man may live or die. A thing
may be big or small. And a human being can be handsome or ugly. These
are contradictions and yet depend on each other. That is to say, without
life there is no death; without bigness, there is no smallness; and without
beauty, there is no ugliness. Furthermore, bad things can often turn into
good things and it is also true the other way round. However, Lao Zi was
opposed to seeking change through conflict and believed in the principle
of "leaving things well alone. " He proposed that there was
no need for intelligence, nor for wisdom, in the world and hoped that
man would become as simple-minded as was possible and be easily contented.
Lao Zi was a thinker and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476
BC) in Chinese history.
In his last years Lao Zi grew very much discontented with the actual conditions
of society. He felt a strong nostalgia for the primitive society of bygone
days and hoped for a return to the social conditions of that time so that
people could live in a world without war and without disparity between
the rich and the poor. He envisioned a world where people had no need
to have anything to do with each other and where barely knowing of each
other's existence through barking dogs and crowing cocks was e-nough.
So he was thinking of leaving the palace job and living the secluded life
of the recluse. One day when riding on the back of a cow on his way through
the Hanguguan Pass, the local officials said to him, "Now that you've
made up your mind to withdraw from the world, please write down for us
all the things you've thought about and all your theories. " So Lao
Zi committed to paper an essay of more than 5,000 words which was given
the title Dao De Jing (Taoist Teachings of Lao Zi), often shortened to
Lao Zi. That is why he is considered as the founder of Taoism in China.