Ursula K. Le Guin, a tribute

Ursula K. Le Guin, a fantasy author whom I admire greatly, used her creative gifts to explore concepts set forth in the ancient Chinese text called the Tao Te Ching. This text from 2,500 years ago, presumed to have been written by the Chinese sage Lao Tzu, encapsulates the vast teachings of the Taoist philosophy.

Ursula Le Guin grew up watching her father, a famous archeology professor at UC Berkeley, pour over the 1898 translation of the Lao Tzu text by Paul Carus. She also became entranced. She said, “I was lucky to discover him so young, so that I could live with his book my whole life long.” She wrote a tribute to Lao Tzu’s work, which took her nearly fifty years, entitled Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching. Her goal, to produce an accessible present day book based on the philosophy that had shaped her thinking in “a voice that speaks to the soul,” shares her love for the thoughts in the Tao Te Ching that had inspired her, the poetry, the beauty of thought, the truth.

In her book she wrote a poem in the first chapter that speaks to her fascination with the Taoist philosophy:

So the unwanting soul

sees what’s hidden,

and the ever-wanting soul

sees only what it wants.

Le Guin in her fantasy fiction questioned ideas of power and what power really means. In the Taoist tradition Taoists achieve without using a means to achieve. Lao Tzu saw authentic power as earned, a virtue. She felt this same thought should be the foundation of democracy.

Lao Tzu saw sacrificing oneself or others as corruption and that true power lay in following what he termed The Way. In Le Guin’s book, chapter thirteen, she addresses Lao Tzu’s words, self-satisfied people do no good and self-promoters never grow up, with her own verse: Who knows doesn’t talk. Who talks doesn’t know.

Ursula K. Le Guin died in 2018. She added a feminist, Taoist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy writing. Author of more than twenty novels, many books of poetry, essays, and children’s books, she stands out as a prodigious talent in the world of literature. Her love of the Taoist philosophy imbues her work with an inward call to arms.

In an interview in 2005 with The Guardian, she said: “If you cannot or will not imagine the results of your actions, there’s no way you can act morally or responsibly.” She felt a writer’s duty was to inspire readers’ imaginations with “the best and purest nourishment that it can absorb.”