Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey

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Compiled and adapted from the Chuang-tzu and the Chung Yung, with commentaries The Penguin Press 2009 How could they forget their beginning? That’s where they were constantly centered, in the moment before a thought. They had returned to the primordial: mind hovering over its own abyss, objectless, serene. No wonder their nights were dreamless and their skies full of stars. Gratitude makes no distinctions. It precedes its occasion. It is the magic well that never runs dry, the still waters where you kneel and see your own face, more beautiful than you could have imagined. The Second Book of the Tao is a gift to contemporary readers, granting us access to our own fundamental wisdom. Mitchell’s meditations and risky reimagining of the original texts are brilliant and liberating, not least because they keep catching us off-guard, opening up the heavens where before we saw a roof. He makes the ancient teachings at once modern, relevant, and timeless. The Tao Te Ching is a foundational text in both philosophical and religious forms of Taoism, alongside the Zhuangzi. It has also had a strong influence on other schools of philosophy and religion throughout Chinese history, including Legalism, Confucianism, and particularly Chinese Buddhism, whose interpretations largely used Taoist terminology upon its original introduction to the country. Many artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and gardeners, have used the Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely within the globe's artistic and academic spheres. It is one of the most translated texts in world literature. [10] Title [ edit ]

Welch, Holmes (1965) [1957], Taoism: The Parting of the Way, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, ISBN 978-0-8070-5973-9 It could be (if there were such a thing as departing) that death is the return to a presence the wandering mind has long forgotten. It could be (if there were such a thing as separate beings) that the dead look upon our attachment to life like fond grandparents watching a teenager’s first tumultuous love affair. It could be, in fact, that the dead are nothing but their own delight, there (if there were such a thing as space) where they know even as they are known. The Tao Te Ching has been translated into Western languages over 250 times, mostly to English, German, and French. [36] According to Holmes Welch, "It is a famous puzzle which everyone would like to feel he had solved." [37] The first English translation of the Tao Te Ching was produced in 1868 by the Scottish Protestant missionary John Chalmers, entitled The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality of the "Old Philosopher" Lau-tsze. [38] It was heavily indebted [39] to Julien's French translation [14] and dedicated to James Legge, [4] who later produced his own translation for Oxford's Sacred Books of the East. [5] All things may be one with me, but am I one with them? That’s the issue. And once I am one, what then? Even the one is excessive for anyone who wants to be meticulous. Look where it leads, after all—to two, to three, to infinity, to an infinity of infinities and beyond: always the unattainable, unassuageable beyond.Seidel, Anna (1969). La divinisation de Lao-tseu dans le taoïsme des Han (in French). Paris: École française d'Extrême‑Orient. pp.24, 50. Chuang-tzu has been called a mystical anarchist, and it’s true that his words sometimes have a contrarian flavor that seems to put them at odds with Lao-tzu’s concern for enlightened government. Given the least semblance of control, Chuang-tzu offers a whole world of irreverence and subversion. But if you look more closely, you’ll see that he is neither a mystic nor an anarchist. He’s simply someone who doesn’t linger in any mental construct about reality, someone who lives as effortless action and peace of heart, because he has freed himself from his own beliefs. What he subverts is conventional thinking, with its hierarchies of judgment, its fors and againsts, betters and worses, insides and outsides, and its delusion that life is random, unfair, and somehow not good enough. Learn how to govern your own mind, Chuang-tzu says, and the universe will govern itself. In this he is in wholehearted agreement with Lao-tzu and with the meticulous Tzu-ssu, for whom attention to the innermost self is the direct path to a just society. Boltz, William (1993), " Lao tzu Tao-te-ching", in Loewe, Michael (ed.), Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp.269–92, ISBN 1-55729-043-1 . He doesn't know it, but Mitchell is my long-distance guru. I've benefited from his two Tao-related texts as well as from his The Gospel According to Jesus. I've benefited from the works of Byron Katie, his wife, with whom he co-wrote Loving What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy. And I've benefited from books he recommended: Self-Realization: Life & Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi and Spinoza's Ethics.

The first book of the Tao (written by the perhaps legendary Lao-tzu) is the Tao Te Ching, that marvel of lucidity and grace, the classic manual on the art of living. What I wanted to create here was a left to its right, a yang to its yin, a companion volume and anti-manual. The Chuang-tzu had the perfect material for that: deep, subtle, with an audacity that can make your hair stand on end. If Lao-tzu is a smile, Chuang-tzu is a belly-laugh. He’s the clown of the Absolute, the apotheosis of incredulity, Coyote among the bodhisattvas. And the Chung Yung provided a psychological and moral acuity of comparable depth. Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke, Modern Library, 1995, 0-67-960161-9 Of course, the nothing is out of the question as well, since there’s already a word for it. Not one? Not nothing? This leaves you in an ideal position: speechless, delighted, and ready to say the most nonsensical things, if only they make sense. Kirkland, Russell (1997). "The Taoism of the Western Imagination and the Taoism of China: De-Colonizing the Exotic Teachings of the East" (PDF). University of Tennessee. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2007.Among the many transmitted editions of the Tao Te Ching text, the three primary ones are named after early commentaries. The "Yan Zun Version", which is only extant for the Te Ching, derives from a commentary attributed to Han dynasty scholar Yan Zun ( 巖尊, fl. 80 BC – 10 AD). The "Heshang Gong Version" is named after the legendary Heshang Gong ( 河上公 'Riverside Sage') who supposedly lived during the reign (180–157 BC) of Emperor Wen of Han. This commentary has a preface written by Ge Xuan ( 葛玄, 164–244 AD), granduncle of Ge Hong, and scholarship dates this version to around the 3rd century AD. The "Wang Bi Version" has more verifiable origins than either of the above. Wang Bi ( 王弼, 226–249 AD) was a Three Kingdoms period philosopher and commentator on the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching. Stephen Mitchell was educated at Amherst College, the Sorbonne, and Yale University, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice. He is widely known for his ability to make old classics thrillingly new, to step in where many have tried before and to create versions that are definitive for our time. His many books include The Gospel According to Jesus, The Second Book of the Tao, two books of fiction, and a book of poetry. What could be more useless than a flute with no holes? Yet, if you understand, you put it to your lips and the ancient clear music happens by itself. Had Chuang-tzu believed that there was anything to live up to he would have been too intimidated even to try. There was nothing to live up to. There was only a passion for the genuine, a fascination with words, and a constant awareness that the ancient Masters are alive and well in the mind that doesn’t know a thing.

In 1993, the oldest known version of the text, written on bamboo slips, was found in a tomb near the town of Guodian ( 郭店) in Jingmen, Hubei, and dated prior to 300 BC. [10] The Guodian Chu Slips comprise about 800 slips of bamboo with a total of over 13,000 characters, about 2,000 of which correspond with the Tao Te Ching. My reason for stating this so clearly is that, even without having read the original texts, it is baldly clear that this is such a departure from the original Taoist sources as to virtually be a different book altogether. Therefore, my criticism ought to be taken as directed toward this adaptation alone, and not the original texts, to which I consider myself to still never have been truly exposed. Mair, Victor H., ed. (1990), Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way, New York, NY: Bantam Books, ISBN 978-0-307-43463-0 . Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Here are some tantalizing excerpts from the newest computer-assisted translation of Lao Tzu's famousMitchell…has translated the Tao Te Ching…with passion and scholarly dexterity. None of the other translations comes off as smooth, clear, and simple — as Taoist — as this one… His intuition and willingness to improvise revitalizes the message of the Tao Te Ching. Zandbergen, Robbert (2022). "The Ludibrium of Living Well". Monumenta Serica. 70 (2): 367–388. doi: 10.1080/02549948.2022.2131802. S2CID 254151927.

Loewe, Michael (1993). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. Society for the Study of Early China. p.269. ISBN 978-1-55729-043-4. The most widely translated book in world literature after the Bible, Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his own version of the Tao Te Ching, renowned scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell has composed the innovative The Second Book of the Tao, which draws from the work of Lao-tzu’s disciple Chuang-tzu and Confucius’s grandson Tzu-ssu. Mitchell has selected the freshest, clearest teachings from these two great students of the Tao and adapted them into versions that reveal the poetry, depth, and humor of the ancient texts with a thrilling new power, and makes them at once modern, relevant, and timeless. Alongside each adaptation, Mitchell includes his own brilliant commentary, at once illuminating and complementing the text. Cao Feng (20 October 2017). Daoism in Early China: Huang-Lao Thought in Light of Excavated Texts. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-55094-1. Mitchell’s Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke has been called “the most beautiful group of poetic translations [the twentieth] century has produced.” William Arrowsmith said that his Sonnets to Orpheus “instantly makes every other rendering obsolete.” His Book of Job has been called “magnificent.” His bestselling Tao Te Ching, Bhagavad Gita, and Gilgamesh—which are not translations from the original text, but rather poetic interpretations that use existing translations into Western languages as their starting point—have also been highly praised by critics, scholars, and common readers. Gilgamesh was Editor’s Choice of The New York Times Book Review, was selected as the Book Sense 2004 Highlight for Poetry, was a finalist for the first annual Quill Award in poetry. His translation of the Iliad was chosen as one of the New Yorker’s favorite books of 2011. He is a two-time winner of the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets.

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The Tao Te Ching is ascribed to Laozi, whose historical existence has been a matter of scholarly debate. His name, which means "Old Master", has only fuelled controversy on this issue. [23] Laozi riding a water buffalo