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What Is The Purpose Of The Tao Te Ching

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The Tao Te Ching is an ancient text written by Lao Tzu. It is considered to be one of the most widely read and deeply cherished books in the world. Because the Tao originates from China, the ideas and lessons are from an Eastern perspective. The East is very different from the West, because of each region's way of thinking. One purpose of the Tao is to help guide those who do not follow it, such as the West. The West can learn from the Tao and understand the teachings. The Tao has a lot of themes representing Eastern philosophy, with some conflicting with Western philosophy. Knowledge is one theme that clashes with Western philosophy, but can teach them the ways of the Tao. The Tao has 81 chapters of various lengths. Two chapters were found to look deeper into their meanings. First, Chapter 47 says that if you travel more, you will know less. The wise person knows without traveling, understands without seeing, and works without doing. Without going to the door, you may know the whole world and without looking out the window, you may see heaven. Second, Chapter 71 says that it is sickness to go from not-knowing to knowing. The passage later on says in order to get rid of your sickness, you must be sick of the sickness. It uses “sickness” to create a metaphor for mental capacity, rather than mental illness. Going from knowing to not-knowing is good like how going from sick to not sick is good. …show more content…

They say knowing less is good compared to knowing more. Eastern philosophy does not say that knowing is evil, but instead it says to limit your knowledge, because there is more to life than knowing everything. Yet, for a Western mind, knowledge is powerful and important. They want to know all the specific details because it gives answers to what is uncertain, which is satisfactory to them. The East’s minds are the opposite because they are okay with knowing what is only

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