Tao Te Ching

Product Information

The book's message is simple, the prose spare with plenty of natural imagery. The wisdom (the Tao) of the book is feminine, yin in balance with the yang (while in Confucianism the yang seems sometimes bit heavily-leaned on). The reason I have great trouble is that I have a body. When I no longer have a body, what trouble have I?"

Stephen Mitchell’s Version of the Tao Te Ching: A Spiritual

Stephen Mitchell was born to a Jewish family, educated at Amherst College, [2] the University of Paris, [2] and Yale University, [2] and "de-educated" through intensive Zen practice. [3] He studied for four and a half years with Zen master Seungsahn and for two and a half years with Robert Baker Aitken, Rōshi. Thus the Master uses his skill to harmonize with both sides, and rests in the Tao, which makes all things equal. This is called “walking on two paths at once.” The Essence of Wisdom: Words from the Masters to Illuminate the Spiritual Path, Broadway Books, 1998, ISBN 0-7679-0305-6 Lao-tzu’s central figure is a man or woman whose life is in perfect harmony with the way things are. This is not an idea; it is a reality; I have seen it. The Master has mastered Nature; not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming it. In surrendering to the Tao, in giving up all concepts, judgments, and desires, her mind has grown naturally compassionate. She finds deep in her own experience the central truths of the art of living, which are paradoxical only on the surface: that the more truly solitary we are, the more compassionate we can be; the more we let go of what we love, the more present our love becomes; the clearer our insight into what is beyond good and evil, the more we can embody the good. Until finally she is able to say, in all humility, “I am the Tao, the Truth, the Life.”only to then immediately attempt to explain it anyway! They obviously never reached chapter 71: ”Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.”

Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell | Waterstones Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell | Waterstones

Great translation, helped me understand it. My favorite religious/ philosophical book aside from the Christian Bible. Shows a path of peace, contentment and subtle, quiet, managable power. Once our mind-monkeys are fully trained, it’s all good. In the mathematics of mental peace, three equals four, one equals zero. Adapting to reality means recognizing that nothing underlies or overlays it. The Master can travel on two paths at once, like a photon, because his mind is free. He’s subatomic and supererogatory. He knows that all ways are the Way and that ultimately he is neither coming nor going. Whatever thought grips the mind at the time of death is the one which will propel it and decide for it the nature of its future birth. Thus if one wants to attain god after death, one has to think of him steadfastly... This is not as simple as it sounds, for at the time of death the mind automatically flies to the thought of an object (i.e. money, love) which has possessed it during its sojourn in the world. Thus one must think of god constantly.”The Tao Te Ching clarifies the concepts of Taoism, an ancient school of philosophy that continues to be relevant today. In the 6th century BCE, Lao Tzu created Taoism, passed down through the generations. As to method: I worked from Paul Carus’s literal version, which provides English equivalents (often very quaint ones) alongside each of the Chinese ideograms. I also consulted dozens of translations into English, German, and French. But the most essential preparation for my work was a fourteen-years-long course of Zen training, which brought me face to face with Lao-tzu and his true disciples and heirs, the early Chinese Zen Masters. The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Random House 1982, ISBN 0-394-52434-9, Vintage, 1989, ISBN 0-679-72201-7 This is a fun, gender-pronoun-flopping version of several Daoist(Taoist) classic poems and stories attributed to the sage Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) and to Confucius' grandson, Tzu-ssu.