INTRODUCTION

Lao-Tzu, the Old Master, was a contemporary of Confucius, older than he by some twenty years. His life must have been passed between 570 and 490 B.C. (the dates of Confucius being 552-479). Nothing of Lao Tzu is historically certain. He was an archivist at the court of the Chou, says the Taoist tradition; that is probable. He saw Confucius once, around the year 501, says the Taoist tradition again; that is possible. Weary of the disordered state of the Chinese empire, he left and never returned. At the moment of his crossing the Western Pass, he composed for his friend Yin-Hsi, the guardian of that pass, the famous writing known as the Tao-Te-Ching, the fundamental text of Taoism. This again is Taoist tradition, admitted by Lieh-Tzu but not by Chuang-Tzu.

The celebrated historian Ssu-Ma-Ch'ien, writing about 100 B.C. , implied that the family name of the Old Master was Li, his ordinary first name Eull, his noble first name Pai-Yang, and that his posthumous name was Tan (whence the posthumous title Lao-Tan). But, added this famous historian who was more than half-Taoist, others say otherwise, and of the Old Master, one can only be sure of this, that having loved obscurity above everything else, this man deliberately effaced the trace of his life. Lao-Tzu was not the first Taoist; he had forerunners, the names of some of whom are known. According to the literary index of the Han dynasty, Lao-Tzu found Taoism in the ar chives of the Third Ministry. Whatever the truth of the foregoing, Lao-Tzu was the editor of the first Taoist work that has survived, and which no doubt served as the foundation for later writers, such as Lieh-Tzu and Chuang-Tzu. Although there are those who doubt the existence of Lao-Tzu as the author of the Tao-Te Ching, the Taoist tradition itself affirms that he wrote it, and a careful examination of the work seems to confirm this. It is clearly a tirade, all in one breath, the author returning to the beginning when he wanders; a series of points and maxims, rather than a coherent edition; a statement by a man who is precise, clear and profound; who takes up points again and touches them up with insistence. Originally the work was divided neither into books nor chapters. The division was made later, and fairly clumsily. It is not known at what date the work of Lao-Tzu was named Tao-Te-Ching. This name already figured in Huai-Nan-Tzu in the second century B.C.

T AOISM

Taoism (or Daoism) may be regarded as the esoteric part of the Chinese tradition, and Confucianism as the exoteric. The exoteric is that which is open and available to everyone, whereas the esoteric is hidden and only for those who have the requisite spiritual aptitude. In general terms, these two ways may be described as the way of the ancestors (of the cycles of death, rebirth, and so on) and the way of the gods (with deliverance from the cycle of death and rebirth). The highest concept of exoterism is generally that of Being, God in Western monotheistic terms, the Sovereign on High of the Chinese; whereas the esoteric concept goes beyond Being to the Absolute, the Most High God of the monotheistic religions, Tao (or Dao, pronounced as a d, or dow) the Principle of the ancient Chinese.

Many of the Taoist texts give the impression of being opposed to Confucianism, but when Taoism and Confucianism are seen as having existed side-by-side during more than two thousand years of Chinese history, they can be considered as complementary, at least with respect to the original form of Taoism (rather than its later developments when it tended itself towards a theism). The reader will also note that in the text Tao is sometimes referred to as a being, which is inappropriate, since the absolute is beyond being. However, as Lao-Tzu says, words cannot describe it, and recourse is at times necessary to inappropriate terms, leaving the reader to make the necessary mental transposition.

Taoism in its original form is perhaps the closest one can come to the ancient Primordial Tradition, involving as it does a spiritual way without a complex ritual and without withdrawal from life. Whatever one's personal belief, religion, or tradition, one can learn a great deal from the Taoist writings, although a purely mental approach without spiritual aptitude and practice has its limitations.