The Tao Te Ching, a more than two-thousand-year-old collection of eighty-one poems, offers timeless insight into how to live in harmony with oneself and the world. The central concept of the Tao Te Ching, wu wei (¿¿¿L¿¿¿¿), literally meaning "inexertion, " "inaction, " or "effortless action, " is presented as the means of achieving ziran (¿&[¿¿M), a state of "as-it-isness." The Tao Te Ching is one of the most treasured and widely translated works of all time, and one that has influenced art and literature the world over. This edition presents the time-honored translation by James Legge with his original notes to each chapter of the Tao Te Ching. Also included is the essay on early Chinese philosophy by renowned scholar and teacher Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki and a biographical note.