Taoism: The Way of Nature, Wu Wei, and the Wisdom of Laozi
There is a path through the forest that no human cleared. Animals made it by walking — each one following the most natural route around obstacles, through clearings, along the contours of the land. The path exists because nature constantly finds the way of least resistance that nonetheless reaches its destination. It is efficient without effort. It is beautiful without design. It is the Tao. Taoism (also spelled Daoism, from the Chinese Dào jiā 道家 — "school of the Way") is one of the most ancient and most enduringly influential philosophical and spiritual traditions in human history. Emerging in China around the 4th–6th centuries BCE, it offers a vision of the cosmos, the self, and the proper relationship between them that is simultaneously simple enough to be expressed in a short poem and profound enough to occupy a philosopher for a lifetime. At its center is a single concept: the Tao (道, "the Way") — the ultimate principle underlying and animating all of rea...