Tao Te Ching - your preferred 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.
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tzb wrote: I like a few - of the more "legitimate" translations my favourite is the Addiss and Lombardo version .
My favorite one! Nice pick

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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.
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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!
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http://terebess.hu/english/tao/gia.html
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Connor Lidell wrote: I would give my left arm to read the first biblical new testament manuscript in greek. O_O MMMM
you can...lol, ever heard of the internet?

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