You-Sheng Li
The world has entered a new era that humans have never experienced before. Scholars predict that different cultures will replace nations to compete with each other to find a better way of life for humans. The modern world with a powerless United Nations as a platform for countries to work out their difference at various levels in pretty much like the ancient Chinese super state of primary societies from 2200 BC to 476 BC when Taoist lifestyle was popular. If all human societies are divided into the genetically coded primary society and the man-made secondary society, Western civilization started with secondary societies while Chinese civilization started with primary societies. Taoist philosophy summarizes the lifestyle in the ancient primary society. Taoism emphasizes the value of naturalness and simplicity, which is well complimentary to the modern philosophy of materialism. This book contains 14 essays: The first one presents an outline and the remaining ones explore various aspects of Taoist philosophy in modern terms. The author has made every effort to accommodate both academic and general readers. There are four academic essays that all start with a summary, which allows general readers to know the main content if they decide to skip over the main part of the essay. The remaining essays provide a much lighter reading from the author’s own experience to the lives his mother and grandmother had lived. 3
