Lao Tzu

Nature does not hurry yet everything is accomplished.Lao Tzu

Laozi, also romanized as Lao Tzu, was a semi-legendary ancient Chinese philosopher, author of the Tao Te Ching, the foundational text of Taoism along with the Zhuangzi. Laozi is a Chinese honorific, typically translated as “the Old Master”. Modern scholarship generally regards his biographical details as invented, and his opus a collaboration. Traditional accounts say he was born as Li Er in the state of Chu in the 6th century BC during China’s Spring and Autumn Period, served as the royal archivist for the Zhou court at Wangcheng (in modern Luoyang), met and impressed Confucius on one occasion, and composed 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. In some sects of Taoism and Chinese folk religion, it is held that he then became an immortal hermit, or that the Tao Te Ching was the avatar – embodied as a book – of the god Laojun, one of the Three Pure Ones of the celestial bureaucracy.

The Tao Te Ching had a profound influence on Chinese religious movements and on subsequent Chinese philosophers, who annotated, commended, and criticized his work extensively.