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To ask other readers questions about Tao Te Ching , please sign up. There are so many version of this book! Which one should I read first? John An online search will pull up a pdf with 8 translations, the Bureau of Public Secrets archive links to many, and there is an Hungarian site in Englis …more An online search will pull up a pdf with 8 translations, the Bureau of Public Secrets archive links to many, and there is an Hungarian site in English too which has data on nearly a hundred.
So far I found Ursula Le Guin's anarcho-eco-feminist "creative interpretation" congenial, if free. Jonathan Star achieves a balance of the literary and scholarly; his "definitive ed. Red Pine's and David Hinton's renderings show a blend of scholarship and accessibility from two who truly know Chinese. Finally, the classical Chinese is different than the modern version, which makes me wonder if one needs to be a native speaker of modern Chinese to claim translation credibility, as some born-bilingual interpreters insist.
Seems clear from both translations that there is a significant difference How does this translation compare? Curious about it if anyone has any input. Gary Jaron Leguin's is her own variant of the text based on her studying other translations and using her father's copy of Paul Carus version which has and Chine …more Leguin's is her own variant of the text based on her studying other translations and using her father's copy of Paul Carus version which has and Chinese to English glossary of all the words of the text.
She intuits her own English version. Not exactly a translation. Mitchell also does not read Chinese but pulls off the same trick. See all 9 questions about Tao Te Ching…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4.
Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Tao Te Ching. The book that can be reviewed is not the constant book.
The review which reviews can be neither full of review nor lacking. But as the river changes course over seasons must the reviewer neither review nor not review, but follow the constant review. View all 58 comments. For me, the Tao Te Ching is more folk wisdom than religious treatise and is more useful than a million sermons.
Where the Tao Te Ching parts company with religious attempts at morality such as the 10 Commandments is in its inclusiveness. In doing so the first three create division where the last seven seek harmony.
Take chapter 9, a photocopy of which hung on my office corkboard for years: Fill your cup to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. You can almost see the hacky sack and smell the patchouli. Take chapter 11 in its entirety, where non-action is discussed: We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use. There is more to the book than philosophical abstraction. In fact, common sense pervades the Tao Te Ching. Or these, from chapter 38, which describe the toll of illusory thought: When the Tao is lost, there is goodness. When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual. Ritual is the husk of true faith, The beginning of chaos. Therefore the Master concerns himself with the depths and not the surface, With the fruit and not the flower. He has no will of his own. He dwells in reality, and lets all illusions go.
View all 13 comments. Jeer So true , we have already forgot what learning is what is enjoyment of knowledge, even when we hear such expression we still don't know what it rally So true , we have already forgot what learning is what is enjoyment of knowledge, even when we hear such expression we still don't know what it rally stands for Tg The thing I like about the Tao, is it urges you to merge and not to keep forcing and striving something all the time. The text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated.
The oldest excavated portion dates back to the late 4th century BC, but modern scholarship dates other parts of the text as having been written—or at least compiled—later than the earliest portions of the Zhuangzi. The Tao Te Ching, along with the Zhuangzi, is a fundamental text for both philosophical and religious Taoism. It also strongly influenced other schools of Chinese philosophy and religion, including Legalism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which was largely interpreted through the use of Taoist words and concepts when it was originally introduced to China.
Many Chinese artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and gardeners, have used the Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration. Its influence has spread widely outside East Asia and it is among the most translated works in world literature. The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive. It flows in places men reject and so is like In action, watch the timing. No fight: No blame. View all 3 comments. Sep 02, Dolors rated it really liked it Recommends it for: Those wanting to hear the other version.
Shelves: read-in How can one describe the Universe, the natural order of things, the incessant flowing from being to non-being, the circular unity of a reality traditionally mismatched in dualistic terms?
The Tao Te Ching is the route in itself, the path to emptying the human mind of ambitions, schemes and desires and allow it to be flooded with the smoothness of humility and the exhilarating liberation of a simple life. The Tao Te Ching exults the feminine yin over the masculine yang in the eternal interdependence of opposites, identifying its indwelling suppleness with the intrinsic elements of the Tao. The mixing place of the world, The feminine of the world.
The feminine always overcomes the masculine by its softness Because softness is lesser. Composed of eighty one aphorisms with aesthetic lyricism reminiscent of ancient riddles or even taunting wordplay, the Tao Te Ching dismisses moral teachings, embraces paradoxical dichotomies and differentiates itself from other doctrines like Confucianism because it relays in intuition rather than in duty rooted on imposed moral principles or any other contrived authority.
Highly recommended edition. View all 57 comments. Dolors Tg wrote: ""Just be steady from the beginning to ending" The Tao Teh Ching" Thanks for reading, glad the book spoke to you so intensely. It's one of th Tg wrote: ""Just be steady from the beginning to ending" The Tao Teh Ching" Thanks for reading, glad the book spoke to you so intensely.
It's one of the best novels I read in the recent years. This is, by far, my favorite translation of the Tao Te Ching. I own a few others and they're all well and good, but this one is the one I continually read from and refer to when people ask me about the Tao. The translation is well done, it captures the nature of the text well, and it flows fairly evenly. It's not overly flowery or ornate, it gives you the basics of what you need to understand the various entries and assist in understanding what Tao is i.
It's a book that changed my life. I learned of Taoism in a world history class in high school, and when my friends took their Philosophy course at the local university this was the text they worked with.
My copy came second hand from the U's bookstore and I have had it ever since. It has taught me to understand a lot of the things in the world that otherwise would baffle me and lends a lot to my own personal philosophies.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is lost on their path through life. It doesn't have all of the answers, but it does have a LOT of perspective. View 2 comments. There are many translations of the Taoteching, nearly every one of which is probably worth reading, but this is my favorite version. But anyway The fullness is there in potential, unspent.
I like this. The commentaries that follow each poem or entry are fascinating and just scratch the surface of what I understand is a vast accumulation of scholarship on this text.
The commentaries are often wildly contradictory and tangential, obsessive to an anal nth degree, but also at times wise in their own right. These commentaries have been written by official scholars, by mendicant monks, and even one or two extreme eccentrics living on the fringes of society unaffiliated with any institution.
At the back of the book are short biographies of each commentator, which is fascinating reading in itself. It all adds up to evidence that this is a living book, with enough clear and direct meaning to be perpetually valid, and enough obscurity to be endlessly pondered. The translator is an American who goes by the name Red Pine. View all 10 comments. May 28, Gerrie Williams rated it it was amazing.
This is an amazing. I've read many books out there and this is the best one. Very enjoyable read! I highly recommend it. Concatenated thoughts. Because he does not claim merit, His merit does not go away. It consists of 81 short chapters written in poetic form which, using a pithy language brimming with evocative and, at times, repetitive contradi Concatenated thoughts.
It consists of 81 short chapters written in poetic form which, using a pithy language brimming with evocative and, at times, repetitive contradictions, provide guidance on how humanity may have a harmonious relationship with nature, with the Tao. After reading chapter 11 by the latter, the merits of each work became particularly noticeable. Chen's translation is an accurate marvel. It's the kind of translation I like; literal as possible.
I don't want only the translator's interpretation, I want to know the precise words that went through the author's mind. I've made peace with everything that gets lost in translation, so at least give me surgical precision. On the opposite side stands Mitchell with another approach: divesting the verses of all metaphor, he focuses on the meaning, the thoughts Lao Tzu intended to convey.
In that sense, it's a remarkable work; a detailed examination of all the elements that constitute this treatise. While keeping a small amount of literality, it expresses a similar interpretation. If I have to choose, I prefer Chen's academic translation with its enriching commentary over Mitchell's version with its still lyrical directness.
Even though she generally refers to the sage as a man, whereas Mitchell states that 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. As for my experience with this book, I should revisit it in a few years The dynamics between opposites that say and don't say, that affirm and deny, that teach without speaking and act without doing; it all starts to get a tad annoying after a while.
I wasn't able to identify with some notions, naturally; my skeptical disposition began to take control rather soon. However, The Tao Te Ching includes several useful concepts to improve our fleeting stay in this world. Moreover, many of those impressions are addressed to politicians. In that regard, this book should be required reading for every single one of them.
I close this 'review' with some chapters according to the views of each translator. General comment The overall message of this chapter, just as in preceding and subsequent chapters, is that the unconscious state of nature is superior to the conscious state of virtue.
Texts as old as the Tao Te Ching are subject to the problems of both translation and interpretation. Take this collection of more than versions of the famous opening verse:. The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.
Translated by James Legge The Tao-Path is not the All-Tao. The Name is not the Thing named. Translated by Aleister Crowley The tao that can be told, is not the eternal Tao. Translated by Stephen Mitchell The third is from the most popular modern translation by Stephen Mitchell. Mitchell does a remarkable job of interpreting the more abstruse metaphors of the fourth-century mind for modern audiences - although, this does of course leave the possibility that it is actually the wisdom of Mitchell, not Laozi, shining through these words.
Many readers derive more anger than comfort from the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching. If that first line resembles the famous zen koan "what is the sound of one hand clapping? Below you will find a short description of each of these translations, organized by translator, and also a short guide to additional recommendations for further reading.
Each brings out something unique and beautiful, and we hope that you enjoy them. Many people call the translation from John C. Wu their go-to favorite, and since its original publication in it has been an enduring classic—for good reason.
Wu was a hugely important figure in his age, serving as ambassador from China to the Vatican in the late s and having a pivotal role in the drafting of the constitution of Taiwan. Most people know Ursula K. Le Guin for her extraordinary science fiction. Fewer know just how pervasive Taoist themes are to so much of her work. Also of note, the audio edition is read by Le Guin herself a real treat.
Taught by: Ursula K. Few translators are as adept and rigorous as William Scott Wilson, especially acclaimed for his translations of great Japanese classics of the samurai age—among them, Hagakure , The Book of Five Rings , and The Unfettered Mind. The translation alone is unparalleled in its worth. Taught by: William Scott Wilson. Sam Hamill is a literary giant—the creator of dozens of acclaimed translations from Chinese, Japanese, Greek, and Latin, and the recipient of countless awards for his outstanding poetry.
To me, it is also the deepest spring. This sentence from The Left Hand of Darkness , for example:. To see more of my favorite books, check out my reading years. This site participates in the Amazon Affiliates program, the proceeds of which keep it free for anyone to read. At one point she recited some Robert Frost and some Basho: Eventually we said our goodbyes.
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