Who Was Lao Tzu - The Founder of Mystic Taoism

#2 in our weekly series The Tuesday “This is Tao, That Was Zen” Newsletter. Today we exploring the life of the great sage

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A 4 minute read

While creating a translation of the Tao te Ching, it became clear to me that certain ideas would need to be addressed that have usually been ignored or passed over in other versions. One of the first things that concerned me was the word “sage” and the concept that Lao Tzu was an enlightened Buddha-like figure.

Westerners tend to create romantic notions of what the word sage means, usually thinking of it to mean “master” or “enlightened being.” For this very reason, I found it necessary to replace the word “sage” in the text of this version of the Tao te Ching with phrases such as “teachers in possession of profound wisdom” and similar structural phrases. If his work is read as was probably originally intended, Lao Tzu had no interest in being deified or worshipped, nor in having those with a profound knowledge of Tao and Te treated in that way. Clearly, the individual that is often called the “sage” in many translations has reached or rather embraced full human potential and personal development. This does not mean that this accomplishment requires deifying such an individual, or placing them on a pedestal.

With the complex and contradictory historical record concerning his existence, the name Lao Tzu still brings to mind images of one of the most respected spiritual masters in history. Whether he was “enlightened” will never be known by the intellectual mind. If the writings attributed to him are in fact his, then Lao Tzu was clearly a peaceful and scholarly man who led a long life, and in the autumn of his life suddenly entered a life of solitude. All that he left behind was a short, poetic, and deeply wise and mystical tract, possibly a poem, and arguably one of the most influential books in history: the Tao te Ching.

What little is known of the life of Lao Tzu comes from a biography written by a scholar named Ssu-ma Ch’ien. Unfortunately, Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s writings present so little verifiable information or facts that all he can offer is a collection of details concerning the traditions that were current in China at the time that Lao supposedly lived. There is so little reliable data on the life of Lao Tzu that many myths, and legends have grown up around him.

The late scholar Dr. Hu Shih, a respected expert on Chinese history and culture indicates in his “Outline History of Chinese Philosophy” (in Chinese) that Lao Tzu, named Li Erh at birth (also known as Tan), most probably lived twenty-five centuries ago, was an elder contemporary of Confucius, and was indeed the author of the Tao te Ching. The name Lao Zi, under which he is known in parts of Europe, is not, in fact, a personal name but an epithet that is best translated as, “the Old One.” The name Lao Tzu is sometimes translated to mean “Elder,” “Old Son,” Old Man,” and “Venerable Master” in Chinese. The same two Chinese characters that form the name “Lao Tzu” also form the words “old scholar.” In Japanese, this is pronounced as Roshi, a title usually reserved in that language for a master of Zen Buddhist teachings. This is similar in meaning to the words Master in English, Babaji or Maharaj ji in Punjabi, Rebbe in Hassidic Judaism, and Mahatma in Hindi. It is possible that rather than being the name of a person, Lao Tzu, was actually his title. Whoever he was at the time that he composed the Tao te Ching, Lao was not a monastic, but rather an introspective deep thinker who was totally committed to and loved the life of contemplation, introspection, and meditation. Most know little of him, other than as mentioned earlier, that he was an archivist who retired and went to live in the mountains.

Lao’s parentage remains unknown and, if what little that is known about him is accurate, he was born in the Ch’u Jen Hamlet in the Li Village of Hu Hsien in the State of Ch’u. Most of his life was served as the historian at the imperial court, where he was in charge of the archives in Luo-Yang, in what is now the province of Henan.

As he got older, he began to witness the spiritual and moral decline of the state and he left his position as historian with the intention of living a contemplative spiritually-based life. When he was eighty years old he set out for the Western border of China, toward what is now Tibet, saddened and disillusioned that humans were unwilling to follow what is commonly translated from Chinese as “the path to natural goodness.” Lao went on a long trek into the mountains intending to have a quiet life of meditation. In order to reach his destination, he had to go through a gate leading to a guarded pass. When reaching the pass, Lao was met by a gate keeper, Yin Hsi, who was greatly excited to meet this respected person of profound wisdom and said to him: “Since you are leaving the world behind, could you write down your mystic teachings so that I might use them as a guide for my enlightenment?” Lao Tzu consented and wrote a work setting out the meaning of the way in 5,350 words. It is probable that Lao’s words were written on bamboo or slats, which would then have been bound together to form two scrolls, each appearing somewhat like a Venetian blind with vertical slats as most records of the day were written.

After fulfilling the Gate Keeper’s request, Lao went into the mountains and was never seen or heard from again. But, for thousands of years, we have had the gift of his 81 entries.

The Importance of the Tao te Ching

As one explores thousands of years of history before Western influence came into the East, particularly to China and India, one can see the patterns of many distinct but complementary approaches weaving through spiritual, emotional, physical, and cultural life. This is especially apparent in three of these threads: Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. Each of these affect the other and have been influenced by each other.

While Buddhism and Confucianism have made a mark on the lives of billions of people, Taoism has been hidden in plain sight. Practiced by Chinese and other Asian peoples for centuries, it has always exhibited a type of spiritual schizophrenia. On the one hand, it has as many rites, rituals, ceremonies, creeds, temples, priests, and sacred texts as the most dogmatic of orthodox faiths — certainly more than many Buddhist traditions. Still the Taoism of the early wisdom teachers, especially Lao Tzu, offers profundity that also detaches itself from any rites, rituals, ceremonies, creeds, temples, priests, and sacred texts. Interestingly when one researches the differences between Taoist and Buddhist thought, one finds that there are more similarities than differences. The literal English translation of the Chinese word Tao, is “way,” or “path,” and the most common translation of the title of this most important book in Taoism, the “Tao te Ching,” has traditionally been translated as, “The Book of The Way and its Virtue.”

Today, in an increasingly multi-cultural world, many have begun using the original name, the Tao te Ching, even for English translations. The Tao te Ching is concerned with what I call the Wisdom Path — the spiritual and mystical, rather than the religious aspects of Taoism. The student of these teachings is likely to be a person seeking a more deeply spiritual life, or who is already on some spiritual journey or path. For many Taoists, the definition of Tao may be extended to refer to “method” or “principle,” thus the popularity of various philosophies and popular culture tracts that use the term Tao in their titles or descriptions. In the Chinese language, the same written character can mean more than one thing. In Taoism, “being” can be the embodiment of what one desires as well as what a person truly needs.

There is a certain respect that has arisen in recent years in the West concerning the profound understanding of human nature and the inner wisdom presented in many great Eastern mystic writings. To Lao Tzu, “The Way” is not merely a path, lifestyle, style of thinking, method, or principle. It is something of greater subtlety. It can best be described as elusive, intangible, and mysterious. It is transcendental, infinite, and eternal, preceding even the birth of the universe.

A Taoist mystic might say that the totality of human knowledge, whether the study of how chemicals interact or how the planets revolve around the sun, is irrelevant to the acquisition of mystic knowledge. For those of profound wisdom, what can be learned from science or mathematics is really the same as what one can know from intuitive wisdom, ruthless introspection, and self-realization. It is not that a mystic teacher does not respect the accomplishments of a Descartes, Picasso, Edison, or Einstein. The teachers of profound wisdom may even agree that these geniuses have a true understanding of certain aspects of profound mystic knowledge. Those of profound wisdom ask, “Why did Einstein have to work so hard and do so much research to learn what he could come to know intuitively by living in alignment with Tao?” Einstein may have understood the mathematics of the Theory of Relativity, yet it is Lao Tzu that furnished the philosophic sensibility of that theory.

Today, great thinkers have an interest in visionary and complex ideas like Game Theory, Big Data, collaborative intelligence, decision science, metaheuristic algorithms, and quantum mechanics. The Tao te Ching is important because in 81 paragraphs, Lao Tzu addresses many of the ideas, issues, and solutions in these sophisticated concepts.

Taoism is among the most misunderstood of the great mystic teachings. It respects the importance of intellect, the logical, and the linear, and yet it sees the limitations of this way of thinking.

Taoism, like Zen and quantum theory, is filled with paradox, contradiction and ambiguity. Among the most commonly studied of the Taoist paradoxes are the “utility of futility; preservation through surrender; the virtues of non-resistance; and the action that has no action.”

The very first step in understanding the Tao te Ching is to go through the wormhole into mystic Taoist thought/non-thought. What this process has to offer is not merely ideas, but the experience of ecstatic love, self-awareness, surrender, and compassion.

Here is the link to my translation of the Tao te Ching. It was created out of a a Meta-analysis of over twenty other translation and from my experience as a teacher of Mystic Taoism.

 https://www.amazon.ca/Tao-Ching-Meta-Analysis-Tzus-Classic/dp/1530288096

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Author: Hey there. My name is Lewis Harrison, and I created this newsletter. I am a transformational coach, teacher, and prepper. I am a proponent of entrepreneurism and also a writer and seminar leader. The author of over twenty books, and numerous self-improvement, business success, and personal development courses, I am the former host of a talk show on NPR Affiliated WIOX91.3 FM.

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Here is the link to my translation of the Tao te Ching. It was created out of a a Meta-analysis of over twenty other translation and from my experience as a teacher of Mystic Taoism.

 https://www.amazon.ca/Tao-Ching-Meta-Analysis-Tzus-Classic/dp/1530288096

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