Reviews - Tao Te Ching: A New English Version

268 reviews for:

Tao Te Ching: A New English Version

i feel very 50/50 - some things rang true, some didn’t - maybe ill try looking for a different translation and see if that still stands.

chapters (poems?) that i liked the most: 5, 8, 17, 20, 22, 33, 44, 49, 50 & 74

brightgreenink's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

blatherbrugs's review against another edition

5.0

I returned to this in a different translation 15 years on from my first reading (a formative experience) in the midst of a year spent simmering in household disaster, illness, and injury. Were it not for the joys of fatherhood and a stronger-than-ever marriage, this period might easily have been summed up as the worst year of my life. Extreme highs and lows abound. And now, Lao-tzu and Stephen Mitchell have reappeared at the right moment, as I zig-zag the earth in a hardhat wincing for the next anvil to fall on my head. The Book of Job has been calling to me but I have nothing to prove to God. The Tao speaks to our predicament by advising us to deal with things as they are, do our work and let it go, to not succumb to life’s violent current, but rather, relax our limbs and allow its power to deposit our aching bodies on higher ground.

whoischels's review against another edition

2.5

inspiring reflective fast-paced

I suspect this is the sort of thing that becomes really interesting upon closer, more lengthy study, or if you read it in a book club. I don't like reading poetry so much unless it's in a discussion group, and that held with these ancient poems/advice. Everything in the Tao Te Ching is somewhat vague, which would be great for group discussion, to learn about other people's interpretations, but is a bit boring when you read it alone.