Tao Te Ching - your preferred translation?

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10 years 1 month ago #123488 by Proteus

Connor Lidell wrote: I would give my left arm to read the first biblical new testament manuscript in greek. O_O MMMM


I think I read that once... turns out Jesus's abilities might've been a bit exaggerated...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3rLof2cnzg

:P
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10 years 1 month ago #123490 by
Stephen Mitchell
a new english version
1988

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10 years 1 month ago #123491 by
1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the
manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

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10 years 1 month ago #123493 by
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."

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10 years 1 month ago #123494 by
Stephen Mitchell is still probably my favorite, but I am loving having all these new versions to read!! :woohoo:

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10 years 1 month ago #123495 by
Not all translations are equal, and even though some are better than others, none is definitive.


All is translation.

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