Taoism · 6th century BCE (by tradition)
Lao Tzu
Classical Taoism · the source · Tao Te Ching · the Classic of the Way and Virtue
The elder who left five thousand words and vanished into the west. The voice with which the whole way of water began.
The essence of the teaching: The Tao cannot be named – to name it is to limit it. You come to it not by accumulation and effort, but by stillness, the letting go of desire, and non-doing, allowing the natural order to unfold of itself.
Transmission
Lao Tzu built no system – he pointed to what was there before any system. The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao, he says in his very first line, and at once he strikes from your hands the wish to seize it with the mind. Learn from water: it yields to all and does not contend, it takes the low place that everyone disdains – and so it is near to the Tao. The sage does not hoard; giving to others, he grows richer; not pushing, he arrives; not speaking, he teaches. To know that you do not know – this is the highest. Stop dragging the river behind you, and it will carry you of itself.
The full transmission — for members of the School. Here is its essence and its taste.
The tradition
Taoism
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