Wednesday, April 05, 2006

LAO ZI 1

Lao Zi cultivated the Way and Virtue and his teaching aimed at selflessness and no name. For a long time he lived in Zhou, but when he saw its decline he left.
At the pass Yin Xi, the keeper, said to him: “Since you are leaving the world I beg you to write a book for me.”
Lao Zi therefore wrote a book in two parts explaining the Way and Virtue in some five thousand characters. He then departed; no one knows whither he went and where he died.

This quote is from ‘Historical Records’ by Si Ma Qian, who was the first chronicler of China’s history. He lived from 145 BC – 86 BC, more than five hundred years after Lao Zi left.

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