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 …showed first 75 words of 937 total…

…showed last 75 words of 937 total…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.