I picked up the Tao Te Ching a few weeks back, thinking “this is small. It’ll be a quick read.” Wrong! There are lots of great concepts packed into a tiny book — very tiny in this case since I’m reading the pocket edition of Stephen Mitchell’s version. On the one hand, this particular translation is pretty understandable and straight forward as far as these things go. On the other, though, the use of anachronistic terms such as “electron” is a bit jarring.
I’ve read that Lao-Tzu wrote the Tao Te Ching in a very short time, something like a day or two, I believe. There are also the questions of whether Lao-Tzu was one person or many, and the historical accuracy of the name. All that, I suppose, just adds to the fun and mystery of reading such an ancient book.
The Tao is the universal energy that flows through us. The idea is to go through life not fighting it, not pushing against it, but quite literally going with the flow. Gems from the book include: Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
And then there is:
When a country is in harmony with the Tao, the factories make trucks and tractors. When a country goes counter to the Tao, warheads are stockpiled outside the cities. There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.
(see what I mean by the anachronisms, though? Lao-tzu is thought to be a contemporary of Confucius, 551-479 B.C.E. — not so many trucks then!. I guess it’s time to go pick up something other than the “New English Version” of it!)
The concepts, though, are timeless, no matter how expressed in the particulars. Well worth a read, and it’s certainly more comprehensible than other similar books.
Posted by: Tao Te Ching — Meg
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I’ve long been interested in the Tao (the version without the trucks, incidentally!), and I like the central concept, that the only constant in life is change. “Going with the flow” may be an expression that became popular in the 1960s, but it’s an ancient concept; water will always triumph over stone in the end.
What I find a little less comfortable is what I read as its emphasis on the individual over the community. There’s just so far that a sense of “this is the way things are” can resonate when one sees things happening that are cruel. That’s the dissonance I feel reading Lao-Tse.
— Jeannette
Comment by Jeannette Cezanne — September 24, 2006 @ 12:59 pm