What the Tao Te Ching Actually Says

What This Book Covers

1. Prologue
2. Chapter One - Names, Mystery, and Desire
3. Chapter Two - Water, Humility, and Seeing Without Forcing
4. Chapter Three - Ancients, Emptiness, and Virtue That Doesn’t Boast
5. Chapter Four - Bend to Be Whole, Return to the Root
6. Chapter Five - Not Grasping, Hidden Edges, Soft Over Hard
7. Chapter Six - Non-Action, Enoughness, and What Truly Profits
8. Chapter Seven - Great Perfection, Guarding the Doorway
9. Chapter Eight - The Simple Path vs. Excess, Ruling Lightly
10. Chapter Nine - Rivers and Seas, Leading by Following
11. Chapter Ten - Three Treasures, Daring, and the Danger of Control
12. Chapter Eleven - The Softest Wins, Plain Words Are True

Excerpt

PROLOGUE THE TAO TE Ching is small enough to fit in your back pocket, but people have been quoting it, debating it, and building whole philosophies on it for over two thousand years. It’s just eighty-one verses. No chapters, no stories, no commandments. Just short thoughts on how the world works, and how to live without fighting it. It’s usually credited to Laozi, a quiet philosopher working as a record keeper during ancient China’s Zhou Dynasty. Legend says that one day he packed his things and left. At the edge of the empire, a border guard stopped him and said: “I know who you are. Before you go, write down what you know.” Laozi agreed. He sat, wrote these verses, handed them over, and...