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Laozi  |
| CCTV.COM 2002-03-20 14:03:20 |
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Laozi was a famous philosopher in ancient China. His Taoist school of thought exerted an extremely important influence on the Chinese culture.
Laozi lived in the late Spring and Autumn Period more than 2,400 years ago. He and Confucius were contemporaries. Li was his surname and Er, his name. He styled himself Dan.
The Records of the Historian said he was a native of Quren Village, Li Township, Gu County in the State of Chu, in present－day Luyi County, Henan Province.
 Laozi served as the librarian, archivist and grand scribe at the royal court of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. He took part in important political activities, so he accumulated profound knowledge and social experience. Later he resigned from his official post and lived in seclusion. As an onlooker, he pondered on matters of society and life. He built up his own philosophy.
The legend goes that when he stopped over at Hangu Pass after his resignation, Laozi wrote the book Laozi at the request of Yin Xi, director of the pass. Because it discussed philosophical questions of "Dao" and "De", it was also known as Dao De Jing.
This was the first work with a comprehensive philosophical system in the history of Chinese philosophy. It established the earliest ontology and cosmology in China, expanding the scope of man's thinking from life to the universe as a whole.
"Dao" is the central concept of Laozi's philosophical system.
Laozi advanced "Dao", the core of classical Chinese philosophy.
"The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way；
The names that can be named are not unvarying names.
It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang；
The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.
...
These two things issued from the same mould, but nevertheless are different in name.
This 'same mould' we can but call the Mystery,
Or rather the 'Darker than any Mystery,'
 The Doorway whence issued all Secret Essences."
－－ Chapter 1
Laozi held that "Dao" was the origin of all things under heaven.
"There was something formless yet complete,
That existed before heaven and earth；
...
One may think of it as the mother of all things
under heaven."
－－ Chapter 25
He held that "Dao" is the fundamental law of nature, human society and thinking.
"Tao gave birth to the One； the One gave birth successively to two things, three things, up to ten thousand."
－－ Chapter 42
"The ways of men are conditioned by those of earth.
The ways of earth, by those of heaven.
The ways of heaven, by those of Tao, and the ways of Tao, by the Self－so."
－－ Chapter 25
The three links of heaven, earth and man follow the example of nature.
"They who by Tao ruled all that is under heaven did not let an evil spirit within them display its powers."
－－ Chapter 60
Laozi freed philosophy from the shackles of faith in ghosts and gods, effecting a great leap in the history of man's thinking.
Laozi said that things exist in opposites and develop in comparison with each other.
"For truly, Being and Not－being grow out of one another；
Difficult and easy complete one another.
Long and short test one another；
High and low determine one another.
Pitch and mode give harmony to one another.
Front and back give sequence to one another."
－－ Chapter 2
Things that oppose each other can also complement each other. They can transform themselves into each other under given conditions.
"It is because every one under Heaven recognizes beauty as beauty, that the idea of ugliness exists.
And equally if every one recognized virtue as virtue, this would merely create fresh conceptions of wickedness."
－－ Chapter 2
"Every straight is doubled by a crooked, and every good by an ill."
－－ Chapter 58
"It is upon bad fortune that good fortune leans, upon good fortune that bad fortune rests."
－－ Chapter 58
In the history of Chinese philosophy, dialectical thinking emerged after the publication of The Book of Changes. But Laozi generalized the universal phenomenon of unity of opposites as the general law of things, the internal motive force and cause of the existence, development and change of things. This was another great contribution he made in the history of thinking.
"In Tao the only motion is returning；
The only useful quality, weakness."
－－ Chapter 40
Laozi worshipped nature. The ever－changing nature was an important source of his thinking. For example, water has different characteristics. First, it is soft and able to adapt itself to different circumstances. Second, it is content to stay in a low position and tolerant towards other things. Third, "the goodness of water is that it benefits the ten thousand creatures； yet itself does not scramble." Laozi hoped that people would learn from the virtue of water so as to get closer and closer to Tao.
With great wisdom of life and dialectics, the theory of Laozi produced an extremely far－reaching influence on the Chinese nation and mankind. It still shines brilliantly when the new century is coming today.
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