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    Lao Tzu's Tao and Wu Wei
    Lao Tzu's Tao and Wu Wei
    Lao Tzu's Tao and Wu Wei
    Ebook51 pages50 minutes

    Lao Tzu's Tao and Wu Wei

    By Dwight Goddard

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    About this ebook

    In this clarion translation of Laotzu's Tao Te Ching, first published in 1919, Goddard brings the complexity and depth of the ancient philosopher's poetry into the English language, his great love for the topic overcoming the necessary shortcomings of translation. There are three concepts that are essential to the Tao Te Ching-Tao, Te, and Wu Wei-- that all have complex meanings that cannot be directly translated, but spiritual seekers and those with an interest in philosophy and religion will find Goddard's treatment of Laotzu lyrical and deeply meaningful. American writer DWIGHT GODDARD (1861-1939) studied at a monastery in Kyoto, Japan, for a year and was among the first Westerners to bring Zen Buddhism to the United States. His most famous book is The Buddhist Bible (1938).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Publishing LLC
    Release dateJan 3, 2013
    ISBN9781625583437
    Lao Tzu's Tao and Wu Wei

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      Book preview

      Lao Tzu's Tao and Wu Wei - Dwight Goddard

      Lao-tzu’s Tao and Wu Wei

      By Lao-Tzu

      Translated by Dwight Goddard and Henri Borel

      Start Publishing LLC

      Copyright © 2012 by Start Publishing LLC

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

      First Start Publishing eBook edition October 2012

      Start Publishing is a registered trademark of Start Publishing LLC

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      ISBN 978-1-62558-343-7

      Table of Contents

      Preface

      All We Know About Lao-Tzo

      Preface

      I LOVE LAOTZU! That is the reason I offer another interpretative translation, and try to print and bind it attractively. I want you to appreciate this wise and kindly old man, and come to love him. He was perhaps the first of scholars (6th century B.C.) to have a vision of spiritual reality, and he tried so hard to explain it to others, only, in the end, to wander away into the Great Unknown in pathetic discouragement. Everything was against him; his friends misunderstood him; others made fun of him.

      Even the written characters which he must use to preserve his thought conspired against him. They were only five thousand in all, and were ill adapted to express mystical and abstract ideas. When these characters are translated accurately, the translation is necessarily awkward and obscure. Sinologues have unintentionally done him an injustice by their very scholarship. I have tried to peer through the clumsy characters into his heart and prayed that love for him would make me wise to understand aright.

      I hate scholarship that would deny his existence, or arrogant erudition that says patronizingly, Oh, yes, there doubtless was some one who wrote some of the characteristic sonnets, but most of them are an accumulation through the centuries of verses that have similar structure, and all have been changed and amended until it is better to call the book a collection of aphorisms.

      Shame on scholarship when, sharing the visions of the illuminati, they deride them!

      There are three great facts in China to-day that vouch for Lao-tzu. First, the presence of Taoism,--which was suggested by his teachings, not founded upon them. This is explained by the inability of the scholars, who immediately followed him to understand and appreciate the spirituality of his teachings. Second, Confucian dislike for Lao-tzian ideas, which is explained by their opposition to Confucian ethics. Third, and the greatest fact of all, is the characteristic traits of Chinese nature, namely, passivity, submissiveness and moral concern, all of which find an adequate cause and source in the teachings of Lao-tzu.

      An interesting fact in regard to the thought of Lao-tzu is this. Although for two thousand years he has been misunderstood and derided, to-day the very best of scientific and philosophic thought, which gathers about what is known as Vitalism, is in full accord with Lao-tzu’s idea of the Tao. Every reference that is made to-day to a Cosmic Urge, Vital Impulse,

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