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_, literally meaning "inexertion," "inaction," or "effortless action" is presented as the means of achieving _ziran_, 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 an essay on early Chinese philosophy by renowned scholar and teacher Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki and a biographical note.