Tao Te Ching - Introduction

 "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Tao Te Ching

The first steps in my journey with the Tao Te Ching

I have recently been exploring the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching. I was originally considering doing a single post summarizing my thoughts and takeaways from the text, but as I've begun to immerse myself in the Tao Te Ching, I think this will more be a series of posts as I progress through my journey exploring this text.  Initially, my thoughts are to have this post as an introduction and history of the text itself and then follow ups on topics such as trying to define "the Tao," parallels with Christian and other wisdom traditions, views of the Tao on religious authority and leadership, paradoxes and apparent contradictions, and other major themes or individual verses/chapters that have an impression on me. 

Introduction to the Tao Te Ching and Taoism

The Tao Te Ching is a spiritual text comprising 81 short chapters. According to legend, the Chinese teacher Lao Tzu (the name itself meaning "Old Master"), a contemporary to Confucius around the 5th century BCE, departed to the west to live alone in unsettled lands. At the western gate of the kingdom, the gatekeeper recognized Lao Tzu and asked him to record his wisdom for the good of the country before he departed. Lao Tzu obliged and wrote the Tao Ching (literally the Book of the Way), comprising the first 37 chapters of the Tao Te Ching and the Te Ching (literally the Book of Virtue), comprising chapters 38 - 81.  

Most modern historians date the text to the 4th century BCE, and consider it to be an amalgamation of various teachings rather than written or dictated by a single author. The earliest extant partial manuscript of the Tao Te Ching, written on bamboo slips, was found in a tomb in the Hubei province of China and dates to around 300 BCE.  

The first organized religious form of Taoism was called The Way of the Celestial Masters, and did not arrive until 142 CE when Zhang Daoling claimed that Lao Tzu appeared to him and instructed him to rid the world of evil and establish a new state with the "chosen people." As Taoism today is as much a philosophy, teaching and worldview as it is a specific organized religious group, it's hard to define and quantity the number of "Taoists" today.  Demographically, Taoism is often grouped with "Chinese folk religions" which in 2010 collectively consisted of approximately 950 million people in China or about 70% of the Chinese population. Of these, about 173 million Chinese associated themselves specifically with Taoist teachings and practices. Taoism is also popular in Taiwan and Singapore.

The text of the Tao Te Ching consists largely of short aphorisms and statements on what it means to follow the Tao. The most popularly quoted text is likely "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - often misattributed to Confucius. The original text of this passage is thought to be better translated as "the journey of a thousand miles starts beneath one's feet" or alternatively "...starts where one stands" - which hold largely the same meaning, but with perhaps slightly different connotations and insights. 

Originally written in Classical Chinese, the Tao Te Ching has purportedly been translated into more languages than any other book other than the Bible.  Even within English translations, there are at least a few dozen different translations and interpretations of the text. For my own reading, I chose Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te Ching: A New English Version which according to my extensive research (that is, a brief Google search) is true to the spirit and original text of the Tao and Taoism but puts the text in language that is easier to understand and apply for someone from a Western background who is new to the text. I have also been listening to the audio version of a popular modern commentary on the Tao Te Ching by Dr. Wayne Dyer called Living the Wisdom of the Tao: Change Your Thoughts, Change your Life, which I have used to gain greater insights into specific verses. I would highly recommend both works.

Overall first impressions

I was initially surprised by how short the text is. The entire text can be read in probably less than an hour. It also contains very little narrative or historical context, which is very different from other religious texts that I'm more familiar with such as the Bible.  Without this context or background knowledge of Chinese history or philosophy, there are some verses of the text that likely have gone over my head and I have not been able to derive the intended value.  On the whole, however, I have found the text to be deeply insightful and relevant. In my week so far of exploring this text, I have begun to develop a fascination with the text, its philosophies, its challenges and paradoxes, and its wisdom and practical applications for living the Tao in my life.