Laozi and Tao Te Ching

Tao Te Ching, also called “five thousand Chinese characters of Laozi”, or whatever it is called, exactly points to the essence of human consciousness.

However, the heavy influence of tradition, culture and ideology has made it extremely challenging for the mind to understand Laozi without any distortion.

Numerous people have interpreted Tao Te Ching in the past 2500 years, but personal experiences and self-centred views can extremely easily distort the meaning.

It is important to point out that Taoism has nothing to do with Laozi in actuality. Thoughts – continuous self-centred activities bring about various distortions, and Taoism is merely one of them. A serious mind must negate any circuses created by thoughts; otherwise, the mind is trapped in the circus, and coming upon the truth becomes impossible.

To understand Laozi is not to interpret what he says but to understand oneself completely, which is more challenging than merely interpreting something.

What Laozi says is not his personal view at all but is based on his direct perception that is free of any distortion from thoughts; therefore, to understand Laozi is to have the same quality of mind as his, which points to true meditation – end the self and be a light to oneself.

无为 –  "Wu Wei", literally translated as non-doing or making no efforts mentally, is the centrepiece of Tao Te Ching, but only when one is living with 无为, one can understand 无为; and living with 无为 implies tremendous observation, which embodies understanding oneself completely.

It is impossible to understand oneself completely via any practices or systems or organized religions, which are merely to satisfy and exploit a lazy mind that does not penetrate the illusion to observe.

To penetrate the illusion is to give full attention, where the mind learns and observes in absolute humility, not the exhibited humidity, which is out of vanity.

In that observation, the mind is able to make sense of what Laozi says, not merely one segment but everything that he says.

This whole process of understanding demands deep self-inquiry and awareness, and the actual understanding empties the content of consciousness. Doing so embodies true meditation.

True meditation implies that the mind is capable of being free of its content without any control – the distorted human consciousness, which has a centre called “me”, where numerous controls and urges take place, with numerous conflicts, divisions and issues.

Unfortunately, the word “meditation” has been extensively contaminated to merely represent some tricks, systems, practices or methods for the egocentric mind that suffers mentally to achieve an undisturbed state called "peace" that never truly arrives. True meditation ends the ego, not satisfies the ego.

Cico’s teaching in plain English is to facilitate the mind to see and clear its own distortion, which enables the mind to understand itself and, therefore, what Laozi says. When one understands oneself completely, understanding Laozi or not is no longer relevant.

Cico's native language is Chinese, and he "translates" what Laozi says into English via Cico's direct perception, which is the same as Laozi's – the human perception, which everyone could recover by understanding themselves completely.

Therefore, "translation" is no longer translation because Cico and Laozi are one, and there is no interpretation at all. It is the oneness that breaks up the language barrier and surfaces the original meaning of what Laozi says via proper expressions, though understanding it demands the receiver's tremendous observation.  

In the Chinese world, Cico has been working on the ongoing project of “understanding Laozi in plain Chinese”, and an English book is in preparation.

He is open to opportunities to give lectures on Laozi and Tao Te Ching at universities or other places to people who are serious about understanding themselves and the world. For more detail, please read the PDF file below.