Laozi (Lao Tzu)

c. 571 - c. 471 BCE · Chinese (legendary keeper of the Zhou archives; State of Chu) · Daoist philosophy, Chinese philosophy, metaphysics, political philosophy, mysticism

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.

Legend has it that Laozi, the "Old Master," kept the royal archives of the declining Zhou court, watched the dynasty rot, and finally rode west out of civilization altogether. At the Hangu Pass a border guard recognized the sage and begged him to leave something behind; the five thousand characters he reportedly set down before vanishing became the Daodejing, one of the most translated books ever written. Whether one man wrote it or many hands assembled it over the Warring States centuries, no other text has shaped China so quietly.

Topics Laozi (Lao Tzu) addresses

• the Dao as ineffable cosmic generative principle
• wu wei — non-coercive action
• ziran — the so-of-itself
• de — virtue or inner potency
• pu — the uncarved block
• fan — reversal as the movement of the Dao
• wu and you — non-being and being
• the nameless and the named
• xuan — the mysterious dark
• the valley spirit and the mysterious female
• the soft overcomes the hard
• water as image of the Dao
• the sage-ruler and non-action governance
• the small-state ideal
• the anti-Confucian critique of ren and yi
• reversal of opposites
• the female and the feminine in Daoist thought
• cosmogony in the Daodejing
• mysticism in the Daodejing
• cultivation of the self
• language and the ineffable
• the first chapter and its interpretation
• politics and statecraft in the Daodejing
• the Guodian bamboo slips

Questions to put to Laozi (Lao Tzu)

The Dao and the Nameless

• What do you mean when you say the Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao?
• How can you speak about the Dao if it's ineffable?
• What's the difference between the Dao and the ten thousand things?
• How does the Dao produce the One, the Two, the Three, and the ten thousand things?
• What is the relationship between non-being and being in your cosmogony?

Wu Wei and Ziran

• What do you mean by wu wei — is it literal non-action?
• How does wu wei differ from just being passive or lazy?
• What is ziran and why does it matter for how we should act?
• How do you practice wu wei in everyday life?
• What does it mean that in the pursuit of the Dao, every day something is dropped?

The Sage-Ruler and Governing by Not Governing

• How can the best ruler be only a shadowy presence to the people?
• What does it mean to govern a great state like cooking a small fish?
• If the ruler takes no action, how does anything get accomplished?
• Why do you think small neighboring states that never visit each other is the ideal?
• How would your approach to governance work in a time of war or crisis?

Reversal and the Strength of the Soft

• How does the soft overcome the hard?
• What do you mean when you say reversal is the movement of the Dao?
• Why do you emphasize the feminine and the valley imagery so much?
• What's the argument that weakness is actually the use of the Dao?
• How is water your model for the way of the Dao?

Against Confucian Virtue

• Why do you say that when the great Dao was abandoned, there appeared benevolence and righteousness?
• How can you argue that we should banish ren and discard yi?
• Isn't naming virtues like filial piety a way to preserve them, not a symptom of their loss?
• What's at stake for you in the critique of ritual as the beginning of disorder?
• How do you see the relationship between your teaching and Confucius's?

Cultivation and the Uncarved Block

• What is the uncarved block and why does it matter?
• How should I understand your remarks about being like an infant?
• What does it mean to know the masculine but hold to the feminine?
• How do you cultivate yourself to align with the Dao?
• What role does desire play in your understanding of the sage's life?

Converse with Laozi (Lao Tzu) on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in the texts that record Laozi (Lao Tzu), cited to the page.