Lao Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, is considered to be the founder of Taoism. His birth and death dates are uncertain. According to legend, Lao Tzu was keeper of the archives at the imperial court. When he was eighty years old he set out for the western border of China, saddened and disillusioned that men were unwilling to follow the path to natural goodness. At the border, he was asked by a border guard to record his teachings before he left. These teachings were compiled into the Tao Te Ching (The Way and Its Power).
Laozi was a philosopher and poet of ancient China. He is best known as the reputed author of the Tao Te Ching and the founder of philosophical Taoism, but he is also revered as a deity in religious Taoism and traditional Chinese religions. Although a legendary figure, he is usually dated to around the 6th century BC and seen as a contemporary of Confucius, but some historians contend that he actually lived during the Warring States period of the 5th or 4th century BC. Laozi is traditionally regarded as the author of the Daodejing (Tao Te Ching). It is one of the most significant treatises in Chinese cosmogony. As with most other ancient Chinese philosophers, Laozi often explains his ideas by way of paradox, analogy, appropriation of ancient sayings, repetition, symmetry, and rhyme. In fact, the whole book can be read as an analogy the ruler is the awareness, or self, in meditation and the myriad creatures or empire is the experience of the body, senses and desires.
