taoist

Well, I guess it had to come eventually, though I've resisted talking about my religion anything other than indirectly here. (I'm gonna get you for this, Ono.)

The Tao Te Ching ... literally "Way Virtue Book" or more approximately "The Book of the Way and its Virtue" is better known to English-speaking peoples as "The Way of Life." The tao is the way; te is moral force, or even character; while a ching is a sacred book of knowledge. It consists of 81 (a mystical number) fairly short poems.

(Tao Te Ching should be pronounced "Dow duh jing" ... Taoism, "dowism," taoists, "dowists.")

Taoists see their lives as a path, the "virtuous way" which is discovered anew by the individual taoist. It is an outgrowth of the mysticism originating in what is now central China during the Shang dynasty which created the precursors of all modern Chinese characters.

With their fall under the Chou around 1100 B.C., the longest dynasty in Chinese history, this mystic tradition grew and took written form in a number of poems that survive today as the Tao Te Ching. This was a golden age for philosophy. The better known writers include Confucius, Mencius and Chuang Chu along with the writers of the Tao Te Ching, who, in keeping with the mystic tradition, are anonymous.

Lao Tzu (sometimes Lao Tsu or even Lao Tse), literally means "old man," an obvious pseudonym, as Lao, pronounced "low" as in allow, is not a Chinese family name, but an adjective. (Chinese names are given in the order family name, personal name.) Indeed, for a mystic author to use his name would be to violate principle. The mystic practices self-loss.

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There is no taoist