Most scholarship dates the Tao Te Ching to the mid-third century BC; its authorship has been traditionally ascribed to Lao Tzu (the name means “old philosopher”), but there is no certainty such a figure ever actually existed. The Tao’s eighty-one brief chapters fall into two parts. The first emphasizes the cosmic Way and applies it to the person (sections 1 through 37 in most translations); the second (sections 38–81) focuses on how individual character and virtue determine one’s progress along the Way. The destination of this philosophical journey is a kind of stoicism that relies on serenity rather than strength, engendering a spirit that is poised rather than purposeful. The path the book’s teachings map out encourages us to dispense with habits that hold us hostage to individual will and social and cultural frameworks, so that we may learn again, quietly and without striving, to simply be