Traditional Birth in Chu
Traditional accounts place his birth in the state of Chu. Some sources say he served as an archivist in the Zhou court. Whether he was one man, several, or none at all remains open.
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Tradition says Laozi was an archivist at the Zhou court who grew disgusted with the world's decline. On his way into exile, a border guard asked him to write down his wisdom before he left. The result was the Dao De Jing, eighty-one short chapters on the nature of the Way and its power. Whether Laozi was one person, several, or a legend, the text itself transformed Chinese thought. It teaches that the Way cannot be named, that softness overcomes hardness, that the sage leads by doing nothing, and that the universe unfolds of itself when you stop forcing it.
