Tao Te Ching (Penguin Great Ideas)

Renowned translator William Scott Wilson offers a fresh version of the Tao Te Ching that will resonate with the modern reader. While most translators have relied on the new text of 200 B.C., Wilson went back another 300 years to work from the original characters used during Lao Tzu's lifetime. By referring to these earlier characters, Wilson is able to offer a text that is more authentic in language and nuance, yet preserves all the beauty and poetry of the work.

This elegant hardcover edition also features two insightful essays by Wilson, Zen and Taoism and Zen and the Martial Arts, that link the spiritual aspects of the Tao to the practice of Zen and to the martial arts of both Japan and China.

With its 81 memorable passages, the Tao Te Ching is one of humanity's touchstones. As Wilson notes, We read this book because it takes us away from the busy world of business and politics, and provides an entry to a Way. But we also read it for the rhythm and beauty of its phrasing and vocabulary, which often give us an astonishing satisfaction. And this is perhaps the secret of why the book has consistently been on people's bookshelves and bed-stands for nearly twenty-five centuries.

Written during the golden age of Chinese philosophy, and composed partly in prose and partly in verse, the "Tao Te Ching" is surely the most terse and economical of the world's great religious texts. Now it's available in the Penguin Great Ideas series.