Tao Te Ching: An Illustrated Journey

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A good athlete can enter a state of body-awareness in which the right stroke or the right movement happens by itself, effortlessly, without any interference of the conscious will. This is a paradigm for non-action: the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can’t tell the dancer from the dance. Chan, Alan, " Laozi", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), retrieved 3 February 2020 Chalmers, John, ed. (1868), The Speculations on Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality of the "Old Philosopher" Lau-tsze, London, England: Trübner & Co., ISBN 978-0-524-07788-7 In the practice of butchery, he had learned how to step aside and let his body do the thinking. He followed the Tao into a world of unadulterated sensation, an Eden of the don’t-know mind. The vast universe, with its myriad chiliocosms within chiliocosms, became a single knife-blade gliding through empty space. What did it matter that his material was slaughtered oxen rather than sounds or colors or words? Nothing remained but the pure joy of the work. Dropping Ashes on the Buddha: The Teaching of Zen Master Seung Sahn, Grove Press, 1976, ISBN 0-8021-3052-6

Bryce, Derek; etal., eds. (1991), Tao-Te-Ching, York Beach: Samuel Weiser, ISBN 978-1-60925-441-4 . The Tao Te Ching by Laozi: ancient wisdom for modern times". the Guardian. 27 December 2013 . Retrieved 28 January 2022. There are paradoxes born of wit and paradoxes born of insight. No thought is true, but some thoughts are so much truer than the ones we’re used to that they seem absurd at first glance. It’s all a question of perspective. a b c " "About the Author" HarperCollins Publisher". www.harpercollins.com . Retrieved October 22, 2013.

Le Guin, Ursula K., ed. (1998), Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of Way, Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, ISBN 978-1-61180-724-0 . The reader will notice that in the many passages where Lao-tzu describes the Master, I have used the pronoun “she” at least as often as “he.” The Chinese language doesn’t make this kind of distinction; in English we have to choose. But since we are all, potentially, the Master (since the Master is, essentially, us), I felt it would be untrue to present a male archetype, as other versions have, ironically, done. Ironically, because of all the great world religions the teaching of Lao-tzu is by far the most female. Of course, you should feel free, throughout the book, to substitute “he” for “she” or vice versa. Tao-te-Ching". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 29 July 2020.

Readers who are familiar with the Tao Te Ching but don’t yet know the Chuang-tzu or the Chung Yung—or who, having dipped into them, were discouraged by their unevenness—are in for a treat. Naturally, since all three texts tell of the Tao that can’t be told, there are passages in The Second Book of the Tao that overlap with the Tao Te Ching. But even these passages may strike you as revelations, as if some explorer had discovered a trove of unknown Lao-tzu scrolls buried in a desert cave. And there is much that will be entirely new: meditations on dreams, death, language, the I and the other, doing and not-doing, the origin of the universe, the absolute relativity of things.

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Mitchell's translations and adaptions include the Tao Te Ching, [4] which has sold over a million copies, Gilgamesh, [5] The Iliad, [1] [6] [7] [8] The Odyssey, [9] The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, [10] The Book of Job, [11] The Second Book of the Tao, and The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. He twice won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. His Selected Rilke has been called “the most beautiful group of poetic translations [the twentieth] century has produced” ( Chicago Tribune), his Gilgamesh was runner-up for the first annual Quill award for poetry, and his Iliad was one of the New Yorker 's Favorite Books of 2011. Eliade, Mircea (1984), A History of Religious Ideas, vol.2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity, translated by Trask, Willard R., Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, ISBN 9780226204031 Many Taoists venerate Laozi as Daotsu, the founder of the school of Dao, the Daode Tianzun in the Three Pure Ones, and one of the eight elders transformed from Taiji in the Chinese creation myth. And who knows what a butterfly might dream of? Of an ancient Chinese philosopher, perhaps, or of a nineteenth-century Oxford don who was enchanted by little girls. This particular butterfly woke up as Chuang-tzu—or was it Chuang-tzu who woke up as himself? “There he was again, beyond a doubt.” Beyond a doubt? Ha! I can't comment as someone who has read numerous iterations of the Dao de Jing (or Tao Te Ching as most older books in English refer to it) or of the classics attributed to Zhuangzi. I therefore can't compare it other books about the Dao. Mitchell admits to playing fast and loose with various English translations of the original text and claims no knowledge of Chinese himself. Therefore, this is very much an adaptation in the Daoist vein rather than any attempt at direct translation. Then again, according to the Daoism, one can't know the Dao from books or language, anyway. The conundrum of spiritual knowledge.