Taoism is not a religion. It's all about here and now: how to live a pleasant life, without causing unnecessary commotion or distress. Tao, the Way, is a kind of natural law behind all of creation. The one who can harmonize with it will be at peace with existence.

The oldest and major source to Taoism is Tao Te Ching (also spelled Dao De Jing), which translates to The Book on the Way and Virtue. It was written by the legendary Lao Tzu (Lao Zi) somewhere between the 7th and the 4th century BC in China. The old classic still has a lot to teach us.

     Tao Te Ching consists of 81 chapters about the Way: its mystery, its cosmology, and what it teaches us about how to conduct our lives the wisest.

     On this website, the 81 chapters are sorted according to their subjects, which is not the case in the Tao Te Ching, where they appear in an order that seems at least partly to be due to chance - or maybe the writer's impulse, while composing the book. It's also possible that the original book is a collection of proverbs from different sources, done long ago by someone else than their author or authors.

     I hope that by sorting the chapters into categories, it will be easier for the reader to examine Lao Tzu's thoughts on different subjects. The Tao Te Ching chapters often return to certain subjects, making similar or just slightly altered statements about them. When gathered according to subjects, it's possible to see the patterns of Lao Tzu's thoughts more clearly and to explore them at depth.

     Also, it gives you a chance to focus on certain aspects of Taoism, without having to go through the whole book.

Here are the categories into which the 81 chapters of the Tao Te Ching have been divided. Please observe that the headers here as well as for each chapter are mine. Tao Te Ching gives no headers for the chapters. I've done so to facilitate the reader's navigation.

Tao Te Ching - The Taoism of Lao Tzu Explained. The great Chinese classic, translated and extensively commented by me. It can be ordered from Amazon and other Internet bookstores. More about it here:

Tao Te Ching - the book