Author in Qalma
Laozi
c. 6th century BC
Biography
Laozi, whose name simply means Old Master, is the legendary author of the Tao Te Ching and the founding figure of Taoist philosophy. Almost nothing about his life can be verified. Ancient accounts describe an archivist at the Zhou court who eventually left civilisation behind, riding west on an ox; at the border, the story goes, a gatekeeper persuaded him to write his teachings down before he disappeared. What he left is 81 short chapters on the way things work when nobody forces them, and it has become one of the most translated texts in history.
Why Laozi belongs in Qalma
Qalma gives you a page that asks for nothing. Laozi is the philosopher of exactly that kind of usefulness: the empty vessel, the uncarved block, the low place where water gathers.
“The highest excellence is like water.”
Adapted from Laozi · Tao Te Ching · Chapter 8 · James Legge, 1891
A reflection
Water benefits everything and competes with nothing. It goes where nothing else wants to go, to the low places, and becomes indispensable there. Rivers carve canyons without ever deciding to. That is the quality Laozi points at: ease without laziness, yielding without defeat. Today, pick one thing you have been forcing and try approaching it the way water would, by finding the gap instead of pushing the wall.
Source: Tao Te Ching, chapter 8, in the James Legge translation of 1891. Qalma adapts Legge's Victorian phrasing lightly for a modern ear.
Laozi is one of the twelve voices in Qalma. Explore the daily reflection app, or return to the home page.
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