Q 01/05

What does the Chinese word 'Tao' (Dao) most literally mean?

A) Heaven

B) Emptiness

C) Way or path

D) Harmony or balance

Answer · why

C) Way or path

Way or path: it is the everyday Chinese word for a road, and every ancient school preached a Way of its own; the Tao Te Ching was the first to use the...

Q 02/05

What does the name Laozi, the legendary author of the Tao Te Ching, literally mean?

A) Old Master

B) Great Sage

C) Way-Finder

D) First Teacher

Answer · why

A) Old Master

Old Master is the usual reading, a title of respect rather than a personal name. Legend takes it literally: his mother is said to have carried him for...

Q 03/05

In legend, who persuaded Laozi to write down his teachings when he quit his court post and left China?

A) The king he had served

B) A border official

C) A fellow archivist

D) His own son

Answer · why

B) A border official

A border official, the keeper of the pass known in the legend as Yin Xi, begged the departing sage for a book; Laozi wrote one in two parts, then went...

Q 04/05

What is the personal name traditional accounts give to Laozi?

A) Zhuang Zhou

B) Kong Qiu

C) Li Er

D) Meng Ke

Answer · why

C) Li Er

Li Er: one legend explains the surname by having him born at the foot of a plum tree, li in Chinese, and centuries later a ruling house with the same ...

Q 05/05

Where, in the Tao Te Ching's original Chinese, does a journey of a thousand miles begin?

A) At your own gate

B) Inside your own mind

C) Beneath your feet

D) Under an open sky

Answer · why

C) Beneath your feet

Beneath your feet: the familiar 'single step' is a free translation. The verse, which also has a tree too wide to embrace growing from a tiny shoot, i...