Learn to govern your mind, and the universe will govern itself with the The Second Book of Tao by Stephen Mitchell
The most widely translated book in world literature after the Bible is Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way—the classic manual on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his translation of the Tao Te Ching, renowned scholar Stephen Mitchell gives us The Second Book of the Tao. Drawn from the work of Lao-tzu's disciple Chuang-tzu and Confucius's grandson Tzu-ssu, The Second Book of the Tao offers Western readers precious new lessons in the Tao. Mitchell has selected the freshest, clearest teachings from these two great students of the Tao and adapted them to reveal the poetry, depth, and humor of the original texts, with vivid new clarity.
The Second Book of the Tao is a twenty-first-century form of ancient wisdom, bringing a sequel of the Tao Te Ching into the modern world. Alongside each translated passage, Mitchell includes his own commentary, to explicate and complement the work for contemporary readers. His meditations and provocative reimagining of the original texts comprise a book that is both a companion volume and an anti-manual to the Tao Te Ching. Mitchell renders these ancient teachings at once modern, relevant, and timeless.
Wise and witty, challenging and inspirational, The Second Book of the Tao reconnects us to our own fundamental wisdom, to which now—in these chaotic times more than ever—we should return, in order to live truthfully, and to live well.
Read an excerpt from The Second Book of Tao:
True Love
Chuang-tzu's wife died. When Hui-tzu came to offer his condolences, he found Chuang-tzu sprawled out on the ground, pounding on a tub and singing.
Hui-tzu said, "You loved her all these years, you lived with her, you brought up your children and grew old together. Now that she's gone, don't you owe her a few tears, or at least silence? But pounding on a tub and singing at the top of your lungs—that's a bit much, don't you think?"
"Not at all," Chuang-tzu said. "When she died, I mourned as anyone else would. But then I looked back to the root of her being: not just before she was born, but before she even had a body; not just before she had a body, but before she had a soul. In the midst of the unfathomable ever-changing mystery, suddenly, out of nowhere, she had a soul. Then, suddenly, she had a body. Then, suddenly, she was born.
"Now there has been another transformation, and she's dead. The same process that brought her to birth, in time brought her to death, as naturally as fall turns into winter and spring into summer. Now she is lying at peace in her vast room. I realized that if I went around wailing and pounding my chest, it would show that I didn't understand the first thing about reality. So I stopped."
Chuang-tzu's wife died at exactly the right time, as do we all. She moved on without the impediment of concern for her husband, knowing that he wouldn't feel a moment's grief for her. This made her very happy.
Now, in the period of mourning, Chuang-tzu sits sprawled out on the ground, pounding on a washtub and singing. He enjoys singing loudly, with gusto. He isn't a great drummer, but he has a certain odd rhythm of his own. The woman he loves has never left; nothing of her is missing but the body. How can a merely physical absence affect his joie de vivre?
Hui-tzu, as usual, comes onto the scene as the perfect straight man. His is the voice of shocked piety, the propriety that holds the corners of the universe in place with laundry pins. If you don't suffer, he thinks, it means that you don't care.
In his reply, Chuang-tzu is the soul of patience. It's amazing what lies come out of his mouth. He speaks as though he had waited for his wife to die in order to understand about death. That would have been to close the barn door after the horse was stolen.
Actually, his whole account of gradual discernment is a fairy tale to cushion the shock to his friend's sensibilities. This is called "skillful means"; if he bent over backward any farther, his ears would be touching his ankles. In reality, there was no mourning, no looking back, no realization, no stopping. Chuang-tzu's wife died. He loved her. He was a happy man.
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