#8 in Tao te ching books
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Reddit mentions of Tao Te Ching: With Over 150 Photographs by Jane English
Sentiment score: 2
Reddit mentions: 4
We found 4 Reddit mentions of Tao Te Ching: With Over 150 Photographs by Jane English. Here are the top ones.
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- Vintage Books
Features:
Specs:
| Color | Black |
| Height | 10.95 Inches |
| Length | 8.47 Inches |
| Number of items | 1 |
| Release date | November 2011 |
| Weight | 1.36245677916 Pounds |
| Width | 0.36 Inches |
EDIT: Also, this -> Tao Te Ching
http://amzn.com/0307949303
If you're into TTC, apparently this dude's introduction sets the standard. I haven't gotten through it yet, but I'm a lazy westerner.
The tao's teachings correlate well with my studies of Nietzsche, Socrates, and other famous philosophers. For myself, "The Way" is about accepting and understanding the natural way of things and finding balance through this. Each maxim should be read and considered multiple times before moving on; it's not the type of book where you finish #1 and get started on #2. I'm fortunate that my copy has explanations for each maxim in the back that sometimes rope in the work of other philosophers. My edition can be purchased here
I'm unique in my minimalism that I love having lots of books. It's a goal to one day have a personal library, and I'd rather be known for a collection of literature than videogames and movies/episodes. However some of y'all are different, so I've compiled different translations below:
Cheers!
Well, I think Zen Koans are different than Buddha stories. Here are a few Koans - then are usually short stories and illustrations that force you to consider truth and meaning and reality and face your doubt.
A Buddha story is usually a longer account of an event that illustrates a deeper meaning, like this:
>The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spit on his face. He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody’s face, he will ask, “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they were cowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither, he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.
>Buddha’s disciples became angry, they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much, and we cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it. Otherwise everybody will start doing things like this.”
>Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?
>“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”
>The man was even more puzzled! And Buddha said to his disciples, “I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.”
>Puzzled, confused, the man returned home. He could not sleep the whole night. When you see a Buddha, it is difficult, impossible to sleep again the way you used to sleep before. Again and again he was haunted by the experience. He could not explain it to himself, what had happened. He was trembling all over and perspiring. He had never come across such a man; he shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.
>The next morning he was back there. He threw himself at Buddha’s feet. Buddha asked him again, “What next? This, too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language. When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are a little narrow; it cannot be contained in them.” Buddha said, “Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something. This man is a man of deep emotions.”
>The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”
>Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.”
>“And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”
I don't really have a source for these stories, I just try to collect them when I see them. I usually just get books on Buddhism and read them, and buy the ones I like. You can usually order most any book from your local library for free. Each person has different needs and grows in a different way, so what is meaningful to me may be different from what is meaningful to you.
I gravitate mostly to Zen, and the idea of Direct Pointing. So I like to read books like D.T. Suzuki's Zen Buddhism. I am also currently reading The Life of the Buddha: According to the Pali Canon for a more complete understanding of the Buddha and his teachings - and so far, it is fantastic. A more basic book on the Buddha, and a good place to start in my opinion, is Buddha by Karen Armstrong. However, it is somewhat her interpretation of the Pali Canon's account... and many Buddhists would rather go directly to the source... but I think it's a good beginning.
I also bought this version of the Tao Te Ching. I think it's fantastic, even though it's technically Tao instead of Buddhism... but I find it practically indistinguishable from Koans in its value and wisdom. And the text can be found online for free, but there are many translations.
As mentioned before, I would always first recommend The Way Of Zen as it had the most profound effect on my life and mind of all the books I've read.
Also, make sure to engage in meditation. The direct realization of non-duality is of utmost importance. Book learning and words are the shadows of meaning - direct realization is entering in the gates.
The translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English has wonderful black-&-white photography in it that, I feel, really helps to illustrate the concepts, emphasizing negative space and challenging your perception of objects, etc.
The Amazon page for this book includes the "look inside" option to see a few of the photos.
ETA: I would also strongly recommend reading at least 2 or 3 different translations, side-by-side (it's a tiny book). That's the best way of really getting a sense of the variety, subtlety, and (... ambiguity? ... equivocality?) of meanings in the verses ... you know ... without actually learning ancient Mandarin.