The Complete Tao Te Ching with the Four Canons of the Yellow Emperor

I learned a lot from this book. I wanted to stop loving conventionally and try to life as I was created to live and that is according to the consciousness of the universe not all this man made crap and medicated zoned out life!

Great book!!

I love the Tao Te Ching and have several versions in my library. When I saw that this one was based on recently discovered manuscripts I felt that I had to have it. I am sorry I purchased it. The translation is one of the worst I have seen (in my opinion). The original of this work was apparently in French, so perhaps the translation from Chinese to French to English didn't help. This example is from Chapter 70, one of my favorites. In the D.C. Lau translation the last verse reads: "Therefore the sage, while clad in homespun, conceals on his person a priceless piece of jade." The Gia fu Feng translation of the same verse reads: "Therefore the sage wears rough clothing and holds the jewel in his heart." Here is the "Complete Tao Te Ching with the Four Canons of the Yellow Emperor" translation: "Sage hiding jade under his homespun robe." How awkward that reads. The idea is there, but the translation reads without any grace or flow. Very stilted. The Gia fu Feng translation of the first two verses of Chapter 43: "The softest thing on the universe Overcomes the hardest thing in the universe." The "Complete Tao Te Ching with the Four Canons of the Yellow Emperor" translation of the same: "Do you not see that in this world the supplest straddles the stiffest?" To each his own, I suppose. I really didn't care for this translation at all.

*Correction. I have to take some compliments back. The translation contains a lot of attacks on Confucian ideas, which the Guodian "A" text does not. Chapter 19 here is "discard goodness and equity". The Guodian A text says discard artificiality and deceit. Some other parts of the translation also seem to favor anti-Confucius versions of the ancient text. yet it's a very nice book for the price.

This is a great book and was very excited to start ordering and reading more of this books. Now I get them on my Nook.

As a very new Taoist, I found this Translation of the Tao Te Ching to be easy to read. I searched many English Translations for a Translation that kept a balance between accuracy and poetic nature; Spiritual Context and Practical Context. Some Translations are too wordy in trying to be accurate. Some are so poetic they are not very accurate. Some are too Spiritual and forget the practical. Some are too practical and forget the Spiritual. I found some Translations that appeared nice and were out of print. I started looking for a Translation that was in print. I found a small number of them Locally; to be honest. This book is useful as it uses the Ma-Wang-Tui Texts as its base. These are the older texts which show what the Tao Te Ching used to be before its changes over the years that most versions of the book have as the Received Text. The book also does a good job at noting the differences between the Ma-Wang-Tui Texts and the Received Text in its footers. The Book also has the Four Canons of the Yellow Emperor; which I have yet to read but plan to in the future. The Translation is a good balance, I feel. I am not Chinese nor do I have extensive training in the Language. I would like to learn the Language in the future. As someone new to Taoism; I am not keyed in completely as to what all a Tao Te Ching Translation should be. I based my view off of the criteria that I have listed. The book also uses a variety of words. The word Tao is not used every time it could be; as in some Translations. I've seen some Translations open saying something similar to the Tao Taoing the Tao. Perhaps this is grammatically possible and even esoterically correct; but very difficult to understand for someone new to Taoism. "A Tao that can be tao-ed is not lasting Tao." Translated by P.J. Maclagan (1898) What does this mean? Where, if I can use a brief quote, the version in this book says, "The way given voice is not the true Way." There, I can understand what this means. It means when we tell someone the way we are putting it into our own words. In doing; it is only one perspective of the way. To me, this is a lot more easy to understand. By differentiating into the word way instead of always using the word Tao the translation becomes more specific and easier to understand; as long was we remember that the Tao is also called the Way. This is the first book I primarily bought for its Tao Te Ching Translation; I chose it and enjoy it for the reasons I listed.

"This version preserves the unusual, reversed order of the two books..." So the famous verse one - is not at the beginning of the book, but you have find it on page 71. The commentary is valuable, the translation is well done, and the included extra canons and texts are appreciated. I'm dinging this version because I was not expecting the order to be reversed, and that makes it harder to pick up and use as a reference.

I happen to know some folks from china, and I know that although these few folks that I know have a pretty good grasp on the the English language they don't know too many 'Big Words', I always wonder when reading a book translated from Chinese why they don't try to use the simplest words of the English language so it will be more fluid to read. This book is a good example. Even if you speak English well, keep your dictionary nearby.

The writings of the Yellow Emperor are the backbone of Chinese thoughts on the nature of leadership. A level of considerations only reached in 17th_19th century in Europe. I consider these writing are transported from China to Europe in the 17th century to influence King William of Orange.