Discourse on Taoist Philosophy

A Discourse on Taoist Philosophy In an ancient China full of selfish lords, underhanded merchants who would do anything to turn a profit, and faithless children who went against their parents out of self-interest, the modest thinker Lao-Tze created his philosophy of Taoism. It sought to balance the excess of creative impulse and active imagination [yang] with receptivity, passiveness, and understanding [yin]. His timeless text, Tao Te Ching, overflows with paradoxes and antilogies as it …

…the inherent contradiction within this relationship among these things that was a model of the majority of the paradoxical metaphors in Tao Te Ching. These seemingly nonsensical things represent life’s obstacles and hang-ups. Once you fully understand the book, you understand life. And it is within this where one may find the foundation of tao, the most puzzling and equivocation of all: to master life, an individual must understand that life cannot be mastered.