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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Lao Tzu Who was he?
from Wikipedia Laozi (/'la?dz?/, Chinese: ??), also romanized as Lao Tzu and various other ways, is a semi-legendary ancient Chinese philosopher and author of the Tao Te Ching (Laozi), the foundational text of Taoism along with the Zhuangzi. A Chinese honorific typically translated as "the Old Master (zi)", the name and text were likely intended to portray an archaic anonymity that could converse with Confucianism. Modern scholarship generally regards his biographical details as later inventions, and his opus a collaboration. Traditional accounts addend him as Li Er, born in the 6th century BC state of Chu during China's Spring and Autumn period. Serving as the royal archivist for the Zhou court at Wangcheng (in modern Luoyang), he met and impressed Confucius on one occasion, composing the Tao Te Ching in a single session before retiring into the western wilderness. A central figure in Chinese culture, Laozi is generally considered the founder of Taoism. He was claimed and revered as the ancestor of the 7th–10th century Tang dynasty and is similarly honored in modern China as the progenitor of the popular surname Li. In some sects of Taoism, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, and Chinese folk religion, it is held that he then became an immortal hermit.[2] Certain Taoist devotees held that the Tao Te Ching was the avatar – embodied as a book – of the god Laojun, one of the Three Pure Ones of the Taoist pantheon, though few philosophers believe this.[3] The Tao Te Ching had a profound influence on Chinese religious movements and on subsequent Chinese philosophers, who annotated, commended, and criticized the texts extensively. In the 20th century, textual criticism by modern historians led to theories questioning Laozi's timing or even existence, positing that the received text of the Tao Te Ching was not composed until the 4th century BC Warring States period, and was the product of multiple authors.
from https://www.worldhistory.org/Lao-Tzu/#google_vignette Lao-Tzu (l. c. 500 BCE, also known as Laozi or Lao-Tze) was a Chinese philosopher credited with founding the philosophical system of Taoism. He is best known as the author of the Laozi (later retitled the Tao-Te-Ching translated as “The Way of Virtue” or “The Classic of the Way and Virtue”) the work which exemplifies his thought. The name by which he is known is not a personal name but an honorific title meaning 'Old Man' or 'Old Master' and the debate continues as to whether an individual by that name ever existed or whether Lao-Tzu is an amalgam of many different philosophers. The historian Will Durant comments: Lao-Tze, greatest of the pre-Confucian philosophers, was wiser than Teng Shih; he knew the wisdom of silence, and lived, we may be sure, to a ripe old age – though we are not sure that he lived at all. (652) Durant expresses the scholarly consensus on the historicity of Lao-Tzu in that he may be a fictitious character created to embody the concept of the sage. At the same time, according to Chinese tradition, he was an actual historical figure and, in religious Taoism, he is understood as a deity. If he did exist, he is thought to have lived in the 6th century BCE. According to legend, Lao-Tzu tried his best to instruct people in the way of the Tao, the creative and binding force which runs through the universe, but no one would listen. His explanation that people could live happier, more fulfilling, lives by aligning themselves with the natural flow of the Tao, instead of placing themselves in opposition to it, went unheeded and, finally, he decided to leave humanity behind and retire into seclusion after writing the Tao-Te-Ching. Legends concerning Lao-Tzu also claim he was the contemporary and teacher of Confucius (l. 551-479 BCE), founder of Confucianism which, in its original form, was closer to Taoism. Modern-day scholarship dismisses this claim, as well as Lao-Tzu as the author of the Tao-Te-Ching, maintaining the work was most likely created by multiple authors under the name Laozi.
from https://iep.utm.edu/laozi/ Laozi is the name of a legendary Daoist philosopher, the alternate title of the early Chinese text better known in the West as the Daodejing, and the moniker of a deity in the pantheon of organized “religious Daoism” that arose during the later Han dynasty (25-220 C.E.). Laozi is the pinyin romanization for the Chinese characters which mean “Old Master.” Laozi is also known as Lao Dan (“Old Dan”) in early Chinese sources (see Romanization systems for Chinese terms). The Zhuangzi (late 4th century B.C.E.) is the first text to use Laozi as a personal name and to identify Laozi and Lao Dan. The earliest materials to mention Laozi are in the Zhuangzi’s Inner Chapters (Chs. 1-7) in the narration of Lao Dan’s funeral in Ch. 3. Two other passages provide support for the linkage of Laozi and Lao Dan (in Ch. 14 and Ch. 27). There are seventeen passages in which Laozi plays a role in the Zhuangzi. Three are in the Inner Chapters, eight occur in chapters 11-14 in the Yellow Emperor sections of the text (chs. 11, 12, 13, 14), five are in chapters likely belonging to Zhuang Zhou’s disciples as the sources (chs. 21, 22, 23, 25, 27), and one is in the final concluding editorial chapter (ch. 33). In the Yellow Emperor sections in which Laozi is the main figure, four passages contain direct attacks on Confucius and the Confucian virtues of ren, yi, and li in the form of dialogues. The sentiments expressed by Laozi in these passages are reminiscent of remarks from the Daodejing and probably date from the period in which that collection was reaching some near final form. Some of these themes include the advocacy of wu-wei, rejection of discursive reasoning and mind meddling, condemnation of making discriminations, and valorization of forgetting and fasting of the mind. The earliest ascriptions of authorship of the Daodejing to Laozi are in Han Feizi and the Huainanzi. Over time, Laozi became a principal figure in institutionalized forms of Daoism and he was often associated with the many transformations and incarnations of the dao itself.
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