Wei, I did read the  "Tao to ching"  - several times. It's on my bookshelf
between "The Bhagavad Gita" and "The Diamond Sutra". It's a little worse for
wear because it lived with me in a one room cabin in the woods many years
ago. There's a picture of an old man smiling on the cover which brings to
mind a story Lin Yutang tells in  "The Importance of Living". It is worth
recounting here for its therapeutic value. You may know it. It concerns that
lover of life, T'ao Yuanming.
    "There was then in the great Lushan Mountains, at whose foot he (T'ao
Yuanming) lived, a great society of illustrious Zen Buddhists, and the
leader, a great scholar, tried to get him to join the Lotus Society. One day
he was invited to come to a party, and his condition was that he should be
allowed to drink. This breaking of the Buddhist rule was granted him and he
went. But when it came to putting his name down as a member, he "knitted his
brows and stole away." This was a society that so great a poet as Hsieh
Lingyun had been very anxious to join, but could not get in. But still the
abbot courted his friendship and one day he invited him to drink, together
with another great Taoist friend. They were then a company of three; the
abbot, representing Buddhism, T'ao representing Confucianism, and the other
friend representing Taoism. It had been the abbot's life vow never to go
beyond a certain bridge in his daily walks, but this day when he and the
other friend were sending T'ao home, they were so pleasurably occupied in
their conversation that the abbot went past the bridge without knowing it.
When it was pointed out to him, the company of three laughed. This incident
of the three laughing old men became the subject of popular Chinese
paintings, because it symbolized the happiness and gaiety of three carefree,
wise souls, representing three religions  united by the sense of humor."

    Peace,
    Charles