Tao Te Ching - your preferred translation?

Stephen Mitchell is still probably my favorite, but I am loving having all these new versions to read!! :woohoo:

Not all translations are equal, and even though some are better than others, none is definitive.


All is translation.

Alan wrote: My working version for the past ten years (recommended by a native Mandarin-speaking colleague):

Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Addiss & Stanley Lombardo, Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.

"Names can name no lasting name.

Nameless the origin of heaven and earth.
Naming: the mother of ten thousand things.

Empty of desire, perceive mystery.
Filled with desire, perceive manifestations.

These have the same source, but different names.
Call them both deep -
Deep and again deep:

The gateway to all mystery."

alan, i like this version! i have never read it before. i will have to check this out somewhere.

tzb wrote: I like a few - of the more "legitimate" translations my favourite is the Addiss and Lombardo version .

My favorite one! Nice pick

tzb

Thank you for the recommendation of the online collection of Terebess Asia Online - Daodejing translations (a site new to me). Last week, we studied Daoism in my world religions class, and even though we have moved on, I will recommend the site to my students. Next semester, I'll work it into the lesson plan.

My pleasure Alan, glad to think it may be of use to others

I have rather painstakingly tried every translation on that site at one point or another, just to see which spoke to me most directly - nice to see several of us have settled on the Addiss and Lombardo text as our benchmark translation!