Tao Te Ching

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It is as if the world we perceive through our senses, that whole gorgeous and terrible pageant, were the breath-thin surface of a bubble, and everything else, inside and outside, is pure radiance.

Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell | Waterstones

These commentaries are longer than his "adaptation" in almost every case, and make easy comparisons to Western philosophy and religion, especially Christianity, and to the pop culture of the American Baby Boomer generation. Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. 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.

According to the introduction (*), some schools of thought have accused the Tao of endorsing chaotic anarchy and of not responding to consistent criteria, but such ambiguity in the use of language and its playful axioms are in fact a pure reflection of its skeptical views on measuring all actions according to artificial rules disguised as traditional rituals. Mitchell actually reads and understands Hebrew, so it's likely that he was aware of the nuances of the language and therefore understood the importance of accurately rendering the text into English. The Tao Te Ching, along with the Zhuangzi, is a fundamental text for both philosophical and religious Taoism.

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

Take these lines, which discuss the roots of crime: “If you overvalue possessions, people begin to steal” (chapter 2) and “If you don’t trust the people you make them untrustworthy” (chapter 17).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. Lao-tzu’s central figure is a man or woman whose life is in perfect harmony with the way things are.

The Second Book of the Tao – Stephen Mitchell The Second Book of the Tao – Stephen Mitchell

It would be easy to be skeptical to think that anyone could follow up on Lao Tzu's masterpiece with a gem of their own but The Second Book of the Tao manages to do just that!INSIDE, IN THE CORE OF YOUR BEING, IN EVERY CELL OF YOUR BODY, IN EVERY OUNCE OF THE UNIVERSE, THERE IS LOVE. The Tao Te Ching doesn’t provide answers because there needn’t be questions, just the harmony of moulding to the landscape rather than trying to impose a particular shape on it.