文化 | Hello China 英文版《你好中国》（05-06）
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05 Lao Tzu
Lao-Tzu (also known as Laozi or Lao-Tze) was a Chinese philosopher credited with founding the philosophical system of Taoism. He is best known as the author of the Tao-Te-Ching, the work which exemplifies his thought. The name by which he is known is not a personal name but an honorific title meaning `Old Man’ or `Old Teacher’ and there has been countless speculation as to whether an individual by that name ever existed or whether Lao-Tzu is an amalgam of many different philosophers. The historian Durant writes, “Lao-Tze, greatest of the pre-Confucian philosophers, was wiser than Teng Shih; he knew the wisdom of silence, and lived, we may be sure, to a ripe old age – though we are not sure that he lived at all” (652). If he did exist, he is thought to have lived in the 6th century BCE.
A monumental statue at Mt. Qingyuan of Lao-Tzu, the Chinese philosopher who lived c. 500 BCE and who is credited with founding Daoism (Taosim).
The Tao-Te-Ching
The Tao-Te-Ching (Book of the Way) is an anti-intellectual, anti-authoritarian treatise which posits that the way of virtue lies in simplicity and a recognition of a natural, universal force known as the Tao. Lao-Tzu writes, “When we renounce learning we have no troubles…The ancients who showed their skill in practising the Tao did so not to enlighten people, but to make them simple and ignorant.” By `ignorant’ Lao-Tzu did not mean uninformed but, rather, purposefully focused on the present rather than accumulating knowledge which leads to idle speculation and complications in one’s own life and in the larger community. Lao-Tzu’s Taoism stood in direct contradiction to Confucius’ philosophy emphasizing education, knowledge as power, and strict adherence to the law. Lao-Tzu’s claim that “the more laws one makes, the more criminals one creates” is the antithesis of Confucius’s assertion that more laws make better citizens.
The religion of Taoism, which advocated adherence to the universal Tao long before the Tao-Te-Ching, was practised through ancestor worship and an acknowledgement of the natural law of the Tao in all things. Confucianism, which refused to speculate on universal unknowns, served as a practical guide to living well through emphasis on law and proper behaviour. Lao-Tzu’s writings clarified and codified an underlying philosophy to the belief in a universal force while condemning the laws which attempted to regulate that force in the lives of human beings.
According to Taoism (Daoism), all human beings are naturally good but are corrupted by law and an incorrect belief in how they are supposed to behave in society. By regulating people’s behaviour through law, government only makes them behave badly because it creates an artificial environment which human beings rebel against in an effort to maintain their natural state of harmony. If one observes the Tao, and submits to the natural flow of energy in the universe, one will be at peace. Resistance to the Tao is exemplified through the creation of laws which keep people from behaving in accordance with their natures which, if left unregulated and unrestricted, would tend toward goodness and peace. Lao-Tzu maintained, as did Teng Shih (his contemporary or elder), that people behaved badly because they were forced to through poor government and unjust laws.
Recognizing that human beings act out of self-interest, Lao-Tzu still felt that, if left alone, they would harmonize whatever disputes arose through adherence to the natural rhythm of the universe. He wrote,
If you do not quarrel, no one on earth will be able to quarrel with you. Recompense injury with kindness. To those who are good I am good, and to those who are not good I am also good; thus all get to be good. To those who are sincere I am sincere, and to those who are not sincere I am also sincere; and thus all get to be sincere…The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest. There is nothing in the world softer or weaker than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it.
by Joshua J. Mark
06 Sun and Chinese solar terms
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学习之路，现在开始也不晚
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学习之路，现在开始也不晚
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