The Second Book of the Tao

Stephen Mitchell has taken on the Dao again. As you may have read in earlier posts of mine, Stephen Mitchell was the first Monk in the Kwan Um School of Zen under the Direction of Zen Master Seung Sahn. His name back then was Mu Gak Sunim, and he forged new ground for all the Western Monks in the Kwan Um School. He eventually was led to a broader path and has written more than thirty eight books on diverse areas of spirituality and life. Stephen is not a Scholar per se, in the vein of say the Cleary Brothers; he is more of an artist in the spirit of Coleman Barks, the famous translator of Jellaludin Rumi. He writes from his heart/mind and his books are always fresh and alive.

Compiled and adapted from the Chuang-tzu and the Chung Yung, with commentaries
The Penguin Press, 2009

The most widely translated book in world literature after the Bible, Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his own version of the Tao Te Ching, renowned scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell has composed the innovative The Second Book of the Tao. Drawn from the work of Lao-tzu’s disciple Chuang-tzu and Confucius’s grandson Tzu-ssu, The Second Book of the Tao offers Western readers a path into reality that has nothing to do with Taoism or Buddhism or old or new alone, but everything to do with truth. Mitchell has selected the freshest, clearest teachings from these two great students of the Tao and adapted them into versions that reveal the poetry, depth, and humor of the original texts with a thrilling new power. Alongside each adaptation, Mitchell includes his own commentary, at once explicating and complementing the text.