Summary
Lao-Tse: Tao-te-king
The "Tao Te Ching" was written 2,500 years ago and is a classic of Chinese culture, but it has long since outgrown the boundaries of its origin and today is classified as one of the timeless highlights of the world's literary heritage.
In the original Chinese writing, it consists of 81 poems, which are divided into two parts: poems 1-37 are dedicated to the interpretation of the term "tao" or the "way", the unmanifest source of all creation, while poems 38-81 deal with the teaching of "te", virtue.
The text is considered the foundational work of Taoist philosophy and is a guide book on how to live a good and harmonious life.
It offers a series of insights about life and nature, and these are more suggestions than rules or assertions.
"Tao Te Ching" is written in classical Chinese, a figurative language that knows no punctuation marks, active or passive, has no singular and plural, cases, grammatical gender and verb tense.
Also, in the Taoist manner, some parts of the text are deliberately unclear and ambiguous, leaving freedom of one's own experience and interpretation.
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