Tao is "the way of life". Ancient Chinese considered Tao as the highest, omnipresent order of universe. A life following Tao implies a life with highest fulfillment, i.e., a life by nature. Therefore, all branches of Chinese philosophy and the versatile Chinese cultures flowed and flourished from this central concept.

History of Tao could be traced back to the origin of Chinese civilization as early as 5,000 years ago. The common ancestor of Chinese, Fu-Shi, is believed to have invented Chinese characters by following Tao. He was also accredited with drawing the Chinese oracle book, I-Ching, which embeds and applies the underlying order of nature. There was no explanations and interpretations of I-Ching attached with its 64 symbols. Our understanding of the symbols largely came from numerous interpretations by scholars and Tao practitioners in the past thousands of years. Notably, Confucius has written so-called "Ten Wings" which interpret I-Ching from ten different angles.

Lao-Tzu, dated 700~500 B.C. (Spring-Autumn period), however, was the first sage to put Tao into words in his Tao-Te Ching. Tao is "way of life". Te is "virtue" (more properly, "manifestations of Tao", and Ching is "classics". Tao-Te Ching was originally named "Lao-Tzu", but was later honored as "classic" and given its current name by Emperor Ging in Tang Dynasty.

Another famous and beloved Taoist master is Chuang-Tzu, dated 399~295 B.C. (Warring-States period), who used lots of humorous and sarcastic parables and fables to express Tao in his book that bears his name. I-Ching, Tao-Te Ching, and Chuang-Tzu, collectively called "The Three Mysteries" in Chinese literary tradition, are three major classics for people to understand Tao even up to today.

In subsequent two thousand more years, the philosophy of Tao originated various widely known Tao practices such as Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, Feng-Shui (geomancy), meditation, martial arts, and astrology. Despite the fact that Lao-Tzu never founded an organized religion, the philosophy of Tao, which implies unification of Heaven and Man, evolved into Taoism, which in itself blossomed into numerous branches such as Talisman Taoism, Ceremonial Taoism, Meditative Taoism, Alchemy Taoism, and Magic Taoism. In addition, in early Tang Dynasty, circa 500 A.D., Buddhism was transmitted into China and later assimilated with Taoism to form several branches of Chinese Buddhism in the next thousand years. In a word, Tao is the root of Chinese cultures and represents the ultimate Chinese wisdom.