Tao Te Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Book of the Tao (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Lao Tzu

Dec 2018 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

The original mindfulness book, in a landmark new translation by the award-winning translator of the I Ching and The Art of War
 
The most translated book in the world after the Bible, the Tao Te Ching, or “Book of the Tao,” is a guide to cultivating a life of peace, serenity, and compassion. Through aphorisms and parable, it leads readers toward the Tao, or the “Way”: harmony with the life force of the universe. Traditionally attributed to Lao-tzu, a Chinese philosopher thought to have been a contemporary of Confucius, it is the essential text of Taoism, one of the three major religions of ancient China. As one of the world’s great works of wisdom literature, it still has much to teach us today, offering a practical model based on modesty and self-restraint for living a balanced existence and for opening your mind, freeing your thoughts, and attaining greater self-awareness. With its emphasis on calm, simplicity, purity, and non-action, it provides a time-tested refuge from the busyness of modern life.
 
This new translation seeks to understand the Tao Te Ching as a guide to everyday living and encourages a slow, meditative reading experience. The Tao Te Ching’s eighty-one brief chapters are accompanied by illuminating commentary, interpretation, poems, and testimonials by the likes of Margaret Mead, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. Specially commissioned calligraphy for more than two hundred Chinese characters illustrates the book’s essential themes.

Ratings and reviews

I have been looking for this version for many years and I am grateful to have found it. I have read about a dozen different translations in that time and I have compared the same chapter side by side and found that the texts can differ greatly. This version is not perfect, but close to it, and the additional commentaries can be very insightful.

About the author

Lao-tzu, whose name means “Old Master,” was, according to legend, a contemporary of Confucius in the sixth century B.C.E. and the founder of the philosophical tradition of Taoism.

John Minford (editor/translator) is the translator of the Viking Penguin edition of the I Ching, for which he won the Australian Academy of the Humanities Medal for Excellence in Translation, as well as the acclaimed Viking Penguin edition of The Art of War. He is an emeritus professor of Chinese at the Australian National University.