Includes bibliographical references and index.

"The terse, haunting verses of the Daodejing have fascinated, inspired, and mystified millions of readers down through the centuries. In sharp contrast to the Western preoccupation with remaking the world and other people as we would wish them to be, the Daodejing preaches the virtue of noninterference and letting things evolve naturally. In personal life, it recommends avoidance of friction, preservation of one's energies, and staying healthy. It sees social order as not conflicting with the order of the cosmos, of which human affairs are a part." "Comparable with the Bible, the Quran, and the dialogues of Plato, the Daodejing is the most fundamental scripture of Daoism and a classic of world literature. Although traditionally ascribed to one author, Laozi, it is really an ancient "hypertext," with inputs from many hands over several centuries." "Though profound and many-layered, the Daodejing makes sense as a whole. In his Introduction, Moeller explains the imagery employed, which probably derives from ancient Chinese ritual. In his commentaries on each of the chapters of the Daodejing, Moeller uncovers their meaning and shows how each chapter relates to the structure of the whole. An Appendix describes what is now known about the different versions of the Daodejing, following the manuscript discoveries of the 1970s and 1990s."--BOOK JACKET