At the outset, two notes are in order. First, throughout this chapter,
the standard system of Chinese pronunciation, the Pinyin system, is
used for the transliteration of proper nouns from the original Chinese.
Those quoted from other sources, however, may have been translated
by their original authors using an alternate system. For example,
Laozi, Daoism, andDao de jingare used to replace the older Wade-
Giles English expressions of Lao-tsu (or Lao-tzu), Taoism andTao te
ching. Second,Dao de jingis better known and has been translated
more often than any other work except the Bible. There are many
English versions of Laozi’sDao de jing, which may be different from
each other in their translations because of the philosophical and
linguistic difficulty and complexity of the book. For the purpose of
accurately understanding and comprehending Laozi’s ideas, this art-
icle quotesDao de jingusing the translations of Wing ( 1986 ) and
Shi ( 1988 ), which provide readers with both English and Chinese
versions. These authors also modified and adjusted their translations
when investigating other original versions of Laozi’sDao de jingin
either modern or classic Chinese (e.g. Fei, 1984 ; Lao-tzu, 1993 ; Laozi,
1961 ). Thus, to the best of our knowledge, the modified translations
and quotations below are consistent with Laozi’s intentions, as was
verified by other research (see also Lee, 1993 , 2003 ).
The historical and philosophical context of Daoism
We address two issues in this section. First, what is the historical
context of Daoism in relation to other philosophies? Second, how is
the philosophy of theDao(Daoism orDao jia) different from the
worldly religion of theDao(Dao jiao)?
To understand and appreciate Daoist ideas of leadership, one must
understand two major texts of Daoism, Laozi’sDao de jing and
Zhuang zi(also known asNan Hua Jing; see Li,1999a). Though
Liezi, author ofWen shi jing(see Li,1999b), is also considered an
influential Daoist scholar, our focus will be primarily on the work of
Laozi who was the pioneer of Chinese Daoism. We will refer to the ideas
of Zhuangzi, another famous Chinese philosopher, where necessary.
Next is an issue related to the differentiation betweenDao jiaand
Dao jiao. Although some concepts or ideas in Daoism had existed long
before his time (e.g. shamanism), Laozi has been recognized as the
founder or father of Daoism. According to the famous Chinese historian
84 Yueh-ting Leeet al.