Tao Te Ching
Yin Xi 關尹子
536 – 596 BCE
Lao Tzu’s first disciple and Taoist patriarch
Yin Xi, Yin Hsi, Guan Yin Zi 關尹子 (fl. 6th century BCE)
Astronomer from a royal observatory said to have seen purple clouds drifting in from the east and taken them as a symbol that a great sage would soon be coming through that area, Yin Xi went to the one place everyone traveling to that area would have to pass through, the Hanku Pass, a strategic and narrow ten-mile canyon between the Qin and Zhou states. Recognizing Lao Tzu, he asked to become his disciple, became his first student, and requested the teachings that became the Tao Te Ching. Known as the “Master at the Beginning of the Scripture,” Lao Tzu’s first disciple, Taoist patriarch and founder of the Yin Xi Lineage; he became the prototype “Taoist” and inspiration for the development of religious Taoism.
Lineages
Taoist
Eras
Western
Egyptian Civilization (3150 – 305 BCE)The Axial Age, “The Great Leap of Being” (800 – 200 BCE)
Quotes by Yin Xi (7 quotes)
“When a person does not dwell in self, things will of themselves reveal their forms.”
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“A sage’s movement is like that of water, his stillness like that of a mirror, his responses like those of an echo.”
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“Never does a sage go ahead of other men, but always follows in their wake.”
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“Only by holding on to the formless and substance-less energy at the root of creation can one attain the Tao.”
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“A person fully unified with heaven and spontaneously one with the creation of all will never be harmed, however difficult life’s situations may be.”
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“Do not try to develop what is natural to man, develop what is natural to heaven.”
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“Regard all things of the world as equal, understand that life and death are cyclical and ultimately the same.”
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Quotes about Yin Xi (1 quotes)
“Taoist astronomer who met Lao Tzu at Hanku Pass and to whom Lao Tzu subsequently conveyed the Tao Te Ching. Several works have been attributed to him though those that survive are probably by later Taoists.”
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