Master Lu's Teachings About Tao-te ching If you wish to know the thoughts of a man and the way he lived you
must never read what others account or recount according to their own understanding about that very person, for all these people are wrong even if they want to share the truth about the life of the man who interests us. Lao-tzu's Taoism is the one understood by scribes and historians, expositors and fanatics, followers and enemies. In the end, this Taoism
was mixed with the ideas of certain powerful movements such as Confucianism... The history of thinking was never an open book meant to teach you how to think. Nowadays, Tao-te ching is a history of thinking and represents a book of great interest for historians and mystics (the mystics who worship the figure of Lao-tzu or the ones who love kabalistic challenges [n.n.]). Question: How can we know Taoism other than from all these works corrupted by time and people?
Master Lu: Taoism is not somebody's invention, Lao-tzu's or Chuang-tzu's. It is not something instantly made up by somebody's mind - by a sage or a philosopher. Taoism is the mirror of life, life as it is reflected in the human mind. Question: Life reflected in the human mind created in the Occident a multitude of idealistic thinking or materialistic movements, endless disputes, confusion... Master Lu:
When the mind is emptied of its usual contents it receives the Tao.* So was the mind of the Taoists in the old days. *Here the meaning of word "Tao" is "insight". |