Marina Čarnogurska, Slovak Republik

Ten years ago, when I came to Louguantai, this place was terribly destroyed since the times of “cultural revolution”. In our discussion with Mr. Li SanHuai, Director of Management of Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences, I expressed my opinion that the place where Laozi wrote his famous Dao De Jing ought to be reconstructed as soon as possible and transformed into an important Taoistic center of no lesser significance than, for example, the Confucius´s center in Qufu. Therefore, I am supremely happy that from now it is not only a dream, and that thanks the beneficial and wise decisions of the leading Chinese State as well as Taoist authorities, everything here was reconstructed so quickly and perfectly. It is great that we can participate in the reopening of the institution of such superior significance, personifying the value of the memorial at the exact place where 2600 years ago Laozi wrote one of the most important philosophical books of the Humankind.

Last year, during my work on the monograph Laozi and the Process of Creation of His Dao De Jing as well as in the years past, when translating (for the first time the Wang Bi´s copy, later Mawangtuei´s copies and in the present time the Guodian´s copies) his famous Dao De Jing, I have more and more confirmed myself in the opinion that it is the only one, really the most truthful and the most fundamental philosophical work that any philosopher in the history of the world was able to write   about the metaphysical substance of being, of life and of the world, and from all those he derived and formulated the principles of conduct for human behaviors in the surrounding reality of life.

The truth about the substance of the being, derived from the everlasting existence of the Cosmos as well as of the Earth, cannot be conceived only by a simple human thinking. Such truth has to be precisely observed from the outstanding reality surrounding us, and then by drawing the correct conclusions from  such observations one will be able to formulate its metaphysical and philosophical definition, as well as to postulate the true laws for realization of our right coexistence in it, on the bases of our harmonious engagement with the real life processes, changes, and their consequences within the universal laws of the everlasting being present everywhere in the Cosmos and at the same time also here, on the Earth.

But instead of the score of Western philosophers who have been searching (though very unsuccessfully) for such truth since the time of Socrates, Plato or Aristotle, it happened right here, on this place in Louguantai, 2600 years ago, when the real truth was perfectly defined by one man, the Old Master, who did not artificially think it up in his head, but honestly took it down from that what he saw everywhere around him in the reality of life surrounding him. His philosophical eyes pierced through the frontiers of the material world, and he perfectly saw, understood and defined what there really is, metaphysically. And from this clear reality he humbly submitted the acceptance that our life is an immanent micro-component and that we are inseparable microorganisms of an infinitely large but still living macro-unit, with which we form an inseparable vivid connections. So, like cells inside the body, we must similarly behave and act for our own safety, and be in the perfect harmony with the whole macrocosmic reality. Laozi also noticed that in every vivid unit, whether small, larger or infinite, all its parts are functional only on the base of its inner harmonically coordinated processes, and this truth is likewise valid also for our human world. Human beings on Earth can exist only as long they are an integral part of the functionally correct working life processes, who are not tempted succumbing to such wrong and destructive changes that would violate the overall common cooperation and harmony.

In China yet many century before Laozi, the theory of yin-yang dialectical changes was well known, providing the foundation for understanding that everything happening and exists because of everlasting continuing transformations. Yet, Laozi was the first world philosopher who understood and thanks his perfect observance of nature also confirmed that although everything in the world is changeable and, therefore, cannot last forever, to successfully maintain the equilibrium of one´s concrete living function as long as possible, we must accept the environments surrounding us and act in a maximally harmonic coordination with the process of everything that is beneficial. But as soon as we defy such the function and begin to behave contrary to it, the whole so brittle harmony of life on the Earth will start breaking up, and it will cause a very dangerous chaos.  If such situation persists, it would lead to the decay that will result in annihilation of such disruptive element, potentially resulting in the extinguishment of our world.

All these natural laws did not change in the world from the time of Laozi to the present, so all what Laozi observed in real life and so ingeniously expressed in his Dao De Jing, is still valid to this day. If we choose not to accept it, it can have very dangerous consequences for the whole humankind. Unfortunately, in most of the present Western world (but increasingly in the whole of our modern world) this important truth of life is being ignored and the societies behave and remain absolutely ignorant that the current state of our planet already exhibits such dangerous changes in its environment that would change life conditions on the Earth and result in a fatal adversity to our existence.

Laozi had foreseen such dangers already in the ancient times, and for that reason he devoted (in addition to his contemplations about the Way Dao) much effort to to develop an original theory of the perfect human behavior in our living reality. His theory ought to help us survive on the Earth by following his guidance for a  harmonious coexistence with our environments, recognizing the creative living activity 為, and being supportive to the natural terms necessary for the good and perspective future of the whole Humannkind.

The confirmation of it we can find also in newly discovered Guodian copies of his thoughts, in which many parts are devoted to the issues of humans doing 為 and from it derived possibility of “not doing such a doing which is from the point of the reality wrong 無為而無不為” (in Guotian´s texts yet written in the sense of rejecting(亡) such doing:  無為而亡不為). It is really very original contribution to the global theory of the optimal human behaviors in the condition of the world environments, which could help Humankind to persist on the Earth.