The Tao Te Ching (The Book of the Way and Virtue), the cornerstone of Taoism in East Asia, is not a book to "improve" oneself, nor a "dazzling" esoteric text that somehow reflects the wisdom of ancient Chinese civilization. Composed of approximately 5000 ideograms and written in the 6th century BCE by the mythical Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (the "incomprehensible Dragon of Heaven," according to the saying attributed to Confucius), the Tao Te Ching took its final form two to three centuries later and still holds the keys to Eastern philosophy, teaching the Way: the adaptation of primordial knowledge to the experience of reality - in simple terms, subtraction and harmony.