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ISBN:
9781594202032
Publication Date:
February 2009
Page Count:
224
Was € now € 7.00
Book Description:
The most widely translated book in world literature after the
Bible, Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual
on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his own
version of the Tao Te Ching, renowned scholar and translator Stephen
Mitchell has composed the innovative The Second Book of the Tao.
Drawn from the work of Lao-tzu’s disciple Chuang-tzu and Confucius’s
grandson Tzussu, The Second Book of the Tao offers Western
readers a path into reality that has nothing to do with Taoism or
Buddhism or old or new alone, but everything to do with truth. Mitchell
has selected the freshest, clearest teachings from these two great
students of the Tao and adapted them into versions that reveal the
poetry, depth, and humor of the original texts with a thrilling new
power. Alongside each adaptation, Mitchell includes his own commentary,
at once explicating and complementing the text.
This book is a
twenty-first-century form of ancient wisdom, bringing a new, homemade
sequel to the Tao Te Ching into the modern world. Mitchell’s renditions
are radiantly lucid; they dig out the vision that’s hiding beneath the
words; they grab the text by the scruff of the neck—by its heart,
really—and let its essential meanings fall out. The book introduces us
to a cast of vivid characters, most of them humble artisans or servants,
who show us what it means to be in harmony with the way things are. Its
wisdom provides a psychological and moral acuity as deep as the Tao Te
Ching itself.
The Second Book of the Tao is a gift to
contemporary readers, granting us access to our own fundamental wisdom.
Mitchell’s meditations and risky reimagining of the original texts are
brilliant and liberating, not least because they keep catching us
off-guard, opening up the heavens where before we saw a roof. He makes
the ancient teachings at once modern, relevant, and timeless.