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Pros & Cons
Pros
The frances lincoln illustrated edition has a beautiful handscroll cover and backing. It feels larger and richer than other books i've browsed. I own the hard cover to preserve the art as well.
This book is full of teachings for daily living, mindfulness, and clarity in seeing and meeting challenges throughout a lifetime. From force of will and resistance based (egoic) operating ~to a more graceful way of no way within through quiet (heart) ... Read More
For me, this translation is a masterpiece. It flows quite well and provides a calming spiritual message. Not a pedantic word-by-word translation.
Mitchell is sensitive to the mountain of challenges in translating this ancient text. He is also candid regarding the methods and texts he relied on. He says wisdom is stepping back and seeing through the eyes of compassion.
Cons
It is disingenuous of a translator to portray himself as a commentator or interpreter if he changes the author's writings to meet what the commentator considers politically correct today. This book is written in riddles.
This is not a translation of the tao te ching; it is a loose rendition/interpretation/commentary of the great work by lao tzu. Most experts on taoism are in agreement that taoism and zen buddhism are not identical or substantially identical religions ... Read More
Highlights
Quality
I am happy once again to enjoy this wonderfultranslation along with the beautiful artwork
As far as reading the entire book could likely be read in about an hour yet with the wealth of knowledge and depth of philosoph... Read More
Strictly on the quality and presentation of this book not the contents
As a river flows on past any branches over rocks towards its goal of meeting in tim of no time with the sea
Packaging/appearance
I received my copy a day early and am very excited to get into the contents
Competitiveness
Its also a wonderfull translation to begin with or to introduce someone to taoism
Overview
- How are reviewers describing this item?
beautiful, original, great, chinese and ancient. - Our engine has profiled the reviewer patterns and has determined that there is minimal deception involved.
- Our engine has determined that the review content quality is high and informative.
- Our engine has detected that Amazon has altered, modified or removed reviews from this listing. We approximate total reviews altered up to 620.
- Our engine has discovered that over 90% high quality reviews are present.
- This product had a total of 944 reviews as of our last analysis date on Jul 7 2023.
Helpful InsightsBETA
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
Some chinese scholars have criticized mitchells translation as not being true to the original chinese text
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
However for the lay reader this criticism misses the mark
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
First any ancient work relies on manuscripts that were written well after the original texts and during this gap the original texts were undoubtedly edited or suffered transcription errors
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
In this sense the tau te ching might be compared to q in the gospels
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
There are just too many fundamental differences including but not limited to language science and technology life span economics customs values and social organization
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
So from my perspective it is as futile to seek the original and true meaning of the tao te ching as t is try to understand what it is like to be a bat thomas nagle
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
He never tried to merely translate lau tzus words but rather to translate his mind
Posted by a reviewer on Amazon
Finally i want to comment on this particular publication of the tao te ching
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