A Mind at Home with Itself: How Asking Four Questions Can Free Your Mind, Open Your Heart, and Turn Your World Around, by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell, HarperOne, 2017, ISBN 0062651609 In this space I just want to focus on what Ursula K. Le Guin brings to the table and what exactly makes her rendition of the classic, unique from the plethora of other translations and renditions that are available.

Tao Te Ching - TEOTS

This was immensely interesting to read, though I found myself somewhat aggravated by the passivism that ran through the writing. I really enjoyed mulling over the short passages, and taking the time to re-read them and really think about what the words meant. So many incredibly great lines, full of inspiration. The poem speaks of mother nature as replenishing and everlasting; she will always endure and is the gateway to heaven on earth, to our own nirvana. We can never completely spend her. The metaphor is for the path as Taoism and nature are one and the same here. For the speaker, Taoism (or the way) is the most natural of things we can partake in. We will also never drain the benefits of it and they will also last perpetually. And these ideas for me felt strong and real, but the writing also muses over empire. 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. The Tao Te Ching is not just a book about a way for the individual to live in sync with the Tao. Lao Tzu also likes to comment on the dangers of wealth and living beyond ones most basic needs, as well as expressing his opinions on governance and anti-violence sentiments. Lao Tzu was an anti-capitalist and anarchist before these things even existed.To those who will not admit morality without a deity to validate it, or spirituality of which man is not the measure, the firmness of Lao Tzu’s morality and the sweetness of his spiritual counsel must seem incomprehensible, or illegitimate, or very troubling indeed”. Author Lao Tzu is a highly revered figure in modern China – making it all the more interesting that, as scholar D.C. Lau of the Chinese University of Hong Kong points out in an informative foreword, there is no real way of proving the historicity, even the actual historical existence, of a monk who lived in the 6th century B.C. and was named 老子, Lao Tzu. Therefore, stories about Lao Tzu – like the one in which Lao Tzu supposedly told a young Confucius to “Rid yourself of your arrogance and your lustfulness, your ingratiating manners and your excessive ambition. These are all detrimental to your person” (p. viii) – must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke, Random House, 1983, ISBN 0-679-73245-4 I'm an unbeliever and have been since the first time I played hooky from Sunday services and the Eye in the Sky didn’t say boo. So it may seem strange that I’m reviewing the Tao Te Ching, the widely known and influential Taoist text, written by Lao-Tzu and poetically translated in this edition by Stephen Mitchell. For me, the Tao Te Ching is more folk wisdom than religious treatise and is more useful than a million sermons. You can’t label or define the Tao as by doing so you limit its function which is, inherently, limitless. All one can know is that it was “born before heaven and earth” and supports the universe. It is responsible for the strong being strong but equally responsible for the weak being weak. We can’t define it but we can definitely discuss the concepts that make up the Taoist teachings.

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

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. The Essence of Wisdom: Words from the Masters to Illuminate the Spiritual Path, Broadway Books, 1998, ISBN 0-7679-0305-6 I read two editions simultaneously: Ellen Chen’s The Tao Te Ching: A New Translation with Commentary and Stephen Mitchell’s Tao Te Ching: A New English Version. After reading chapter 11 by the latter, the merits of each work became particularly noticeable. Lao Tzu (Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ; Wade-Giles: Laosi; also Laozi, Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Lao Zi, Laocius, Lao Ce, and other variations) was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching (often simply referred to as Laozi). His association with the Tao Te Ching has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of Taoism (pronounced as "Daoism"). He is also revered as a deity in most religious forms of the Taoist religion, which often refers to Laozi as Taishang Laojun, or "One of the Three Pure Ones". Laozi translated literally from Chinese means "old master" or "old one", and is generally considered honorific. Ezrahi, Sidra (January 2, 2020). "Joseph and the Way of Forgiveness". ttikkun.com . Retrieved May 27, 2021.Thus, the Dao is conceived of as coming out of nothing and as ever changing. It cannot be named because it does not exist as a thing. It has no form or substance and is always becoming. It cannot be known. To act in accordance with it is therefore to act according to the changing universe as an unfolding, not as a thing to be learned. The book relishes in its own mystery. As Le Guin states so aptly in her rendition, there is a “temptation… to grasp at something tangible in the endlessly deceptive simplicity of the words” but, on occasion, the slipperiness of the idea… Is the idea. One of the qualities I most treasure in Chuang-tzu is his sense of the spontaneous, the uncapturable. This makes it easy to follow in his footsteps. Since there are no footsteps, all you can follow is what he himself followed: the Tao. He had confidence that in being true to his own insight he was being true to his teacher Lao-tzu. There was nothing to say and no way to say it, yet it had to be said. As a Zen poet-descendant of his wrote more than a thousand years later, Stephen Mitchell is an extraordinary scholar and translator. His rendition of the Tao Te Ching is beautiful and accessible; the English, as “fluid as melting ice,” is a joy to read throughout.

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

the great Tao: Jayata said to Vasubandu, “If you have nothing to ask for in your mind, that state of mind is called the Tao”. 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. Children understand that 'once upon a time' refers not only--not even primarily--to the past, but to the impalpable regions of the present, the deeper places inside us where princes and dragons, wizards and talking birds, impassable roads, impossible tasks, and happy endings have always existed, alive and bursting with psychic power.” If I had a dollar for every 30-something pommy hipster I’ve seen on YouTube, repeating Lau Tzu’s 1st chapter with a self-satisfied smirk… 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.

I read this translation by Sam Torode every day on my phone, with a hard copy of another translation I will review soon. The simplicity of Torode's translation makes it my favorite so far and lines up with the Taoist philosophy of simplicity. I may consider other works translated by Torode. He has some interesting works out there, such as "The Song of Solomon." Doing not doing is also an ongoing theme in the book. I’ve been banging on about this one for years to my fiancé and she just tells me I’m a lazy fu… sod! Lao Tzu says: ”One does less and less until one does nothing at all, and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone”…. What? If everyone else is allowed to take ancient philosophies out of context, so am I damn it! In all seriousness though, Lao Tzu usually uses this phrase in relation to governance, as in, a leader should lead with minimal meddling in the affairs of the people. Or in relation to the individual, living without striving for more. So, yeah, still gotta do the dishes. Stephen Mitchell's translation of the same line is: "If you overesteem great men, / people become powerless." This book's contents and history have both a sense of vagueness, but not in a bad way, in my opinion. It's somewhat uncertain when it was written (circa 4th-3rd century BC), the author's life details are largely invented, and the existence of the author is not quite certain either (Lao Tzu is just his title, and also it's not known if the text is by one author, or a group of authors worked over some years). It was first translated in the late 1700s, and the oldes existing copy is from circa 300 BC.

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

The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (with Chana Bloch), University of California Press, 1996, ISBN 0-520-20538-3

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. Lao Tzu I read the Stephen Mitchell translation of the Tao Te Ching in one sitting, three times. It is stunning, so lovely. It is a treasure. The author points out the paradox of softness. He refers to women as feminine, or weak, but then turns to say weakness stands stronger than strength, because strength depends on the weakness, as the walls depend on the space for meaning. He says maturity is the end, the death, and Tao has no place with this. When we master something, it ends. A full-grown tree has only to be full-grown, and eventually wither. A new tree has begun to grow, and has a softness, and in this potential to grow, most of life abounds, because the process has just begun. This chapter on the relationship between the ruler and the people is directly connected with chapter 61, which is on the relationship among states. The key concept is again hsia, low or downward flowing. In domestic affairs as well as in international relations, the ruler is to imitate water by reaching downward to the people, assisting in their own self-unfolding without imposing himself on them.