Tao Te Ching by Stephen Mitchell Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Tao Te Ching
Book Review: Absolutely excellent!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book was a gift from a great friend of mine about fifteen years ago. I still read it from time to time because it gives me a different message each time I read it. These passages touch our hearts in different ways depending on where we are in my life. I cherish this book just like I cherish the friendship I have with the great person who gave this to me. This same friend also gave me a different book a while ago called "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. I really really love it too! This book is more concrete in its explanations but the central message is the same. Appreciate the life you are given. Love, care for, and respect everyone and everything around you. The most respectful person is the person who can keep his or her heart open no matter what happens. Enjoy the wonders of life!Book Review: Amazing book
Summary: 5 Stars
Beautiful book. Some of the best food for thought I have had in a while. Most of the time religious type texts frustrate me. This is the first one I have found that seems to be a hand pointing me in the direction I want to be looking.Book Review: American Zen interpretation of the Tao
Summary: 2 Stars
I could forgive Mitchell for simply comparing translations (apparently never looking at the original text at all!) in this interpretation. I could even forgive what are sometimes gross, totally unjustified alterations of the meaning of words or entire passages. The business of personal interepretations of classics is not new.But this is *not* a good introduction to Taoism or the Tao Te Ching. What it is is a highly personal, biased, American Zen interpretation of the Tao Te Ching.
As such, it does work in its own way, though I found the notes garbled, unhelpful, and sometimes misleading, and I've seen more poetic translations. But as a good, bias-free introduction to *Taoism*, it's a miserable failure. The reader is *not* being given straight Taoism here. That's especially disturbing because it's the most popular translation in print. For an equally elegant, more accurate (that is, Taoist) rendering, check out Henricks' translation.
I repeat: You may like the poetry, you may like the ideas and the philosophy, but it's impossible to like the Taoism, because it simply isn't there.
Book Review: An Honest Translation
Summary: 5 Stars
Of the dozens of translations of Lao Tzu's masterpiece, I find Stephen Mitchell's by far the best. The "Tao Te Ching" describes a way of life, a manner of looking at the world that is elegant, gentle, stern, sublime and revealing. In a mere 81 pages, Lao Tzu captured a philosophy that never leads a man astray. Within this compact book, there exists an answer to every problem a man can encounter.
Considering all the different translations, one might ask why use Mitchell's? There is a very special reason. Mitchell uses the fewest words. He does not editorialize on what Lao Tzu says, as do most of the other translations available on the market today. He takes the symbols of the Ancient Chinese and directly translates them into sparing verses.
This careful and sparing use of words in the translation makes a hugely meaningful difference in the way in which a reader interprets and thus acts on the wisdom of Lao Tzu. In reading many versions, one finds that the more words that are used, the more the translator is trying to influence the reader in how to apply the lessons of the book. Mitchell, like Lao Tzu himself, allows the reader to interpret and exercise the manner in which he applies Lao Tzu's brilliance.
The book is recommended for all readers of Eastern Philosophy and all students of the human condition. All people some time in their life should read the "Tao Te Ching."
Book Review: An outstanding translation of a timeless dialog.
Summary: 5 Stars
Reading this book several years ago set me on a
path of spiritual exploration which I still travel.
I have tried several other translations and find
Mitchell's the most moving. His english and his
explanations make clear a subject that is by nature
elusive and indefinable.