Who Wrote the Tao Te Ching?
Tradition gives the Tao Te Ching to Laozi, an archivist who wrote it in one sitting at a border gate before disappearing west. Most scholars now read…
The Uncarved Block: Taoism's Case for Simplicity
Before the wood becomes a spoon, it can still become anything. Taoism's name for that state is pu, the uncarved block, and it is the tradition's…
The Tao Te Ching, Explained Simply
It is shorter than a quarterly report: eighty-one verses, about five thousand Chinese characters. Yet the Tao Te Ching has been translated hundreds…
What Is Taoism? A Plain Introduction
Water defeats stone without fighting it. A tree that bends survives the storm that snaps the rigid one. Taoism is the Chinese tradition built on…
What Yin and Yang Really Means, Beyond the Bumper Sticker
Yin and yang describes how opposites belong to each other: how dark and light, still and moving, soft and hard each need the other to make sense. The…
What Is Wu Wei? The Taoist Art of Effortless Action
Wu Wei is one of the most quoted and most misunderstood ideas in Taoism. It is usually translated as non-action or doing nothing, which makes it…