Introduction
The Tao Te Ching has a total of eighty one chapters which are split in two, the Tao (ch. 1-37), and the Te (ch. 38-81). It is a collection of short aphorisms that are declarative and deep, and are largely independent of each other, but develop the broader themes of Taoism as a whole. I think that it is worth reading for every curious person that is seeking wisdom transmitted through the ages, and the themes have been appreciated by people from many walks of life for its generosity.
The two core Taoist teachings are the Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi, and were composed during the Warring States Period in China. They were made part of the Daozang Canon by monks with around 1,500 texts.
Is it Taoism or Daoism? Well, it refers to the same thing, except that there were the Romanization systems of Wade-Giles which rendered it Taoism, and Pinyin which rendered it Daoism. Daoism is more current and precise, but Taoism is more prevalent. Chinese people pronounce it closer to Dao, so it is preferred. But in this post, I use "t" more often because the academic works referenced often do.
Laozi
The tradition ascribes authorship to a certain Laozi, an old man and sage from the 6-4th century BC. There are legends regarding him, such as living to an age near 1,000, that he met Confucius and had discussions together, that he journeyed to India and was a teacher of the Buddha, that he is the ancestor of the Tang Dynasty.
From an academic perspective, the text is a composite of material collected from different figures over time, and was likely transmitted orally and later redacted. As a whole, the tradition has evolved well, and brought an incredible scripture down the present day.
Concepts
The Tao is the essence of ourselves, and is formless. It is the source and the ideal of all existence. It is the way of nature, the source pattern of the cosmos, the process of reality itself. But at the end of the day, whatever we say the Tao is, it is not exactly. It is a thing beyond words, comprehension or limit. Tao enables us to fully utilize our vessel and tools, and to not trap ourselves in the material self. Te is virtue, the form, the manifestation, the energy. Ching is the way to go to our source.
Understand who you are (Tao), and how you live your day (Te), is manifestation of who you really are. Te is the inner power by which beings authentically express Tao in their own way, to embody Tao.
Wu wei does not mean effortlessness, or being idle. It is non action, to flow with the moment and not force things into conformity. It is also that nothing is left undone. It is how you accomplish everything but not for agenda, control or demand. The way that the sun gives light to all effortlessly and without preference is with wu wei, as well as the earth, heaven and earth.
The concept of yin and yang has existed before Taoism as a school, and is greatly influential on it. It is the complementariness of opposites, such as down and light, up and down. By living with wu wei, ziran can be achieved, which allows for alignment with yin and yang and qi, which ultimately brings accordance with the Tao.
Religious & Philosophical
HC Creel’s 'What is Taoism?' was an influential essay that promoted the distinction, that the first Taoism was philosophical, and later the religious Taoism developed with ritual, deities and clergy.
The widespread classification of religious (Daojiao) and philosophical (Daojia) is a dichtomy rejected by a number of academics including Louis Komjathy, Livia Kohn, etc. as a Western invention that is rooted in the colonial period.
Translations
The Tao Te Ching ranks as one of the most translated books in the world, closely behind the Bible. It has over 250 translations primarily into English, but also in German and French. Its content is dense with great wisdom, written in Classical Chinese.
Based upon multiple sources, I have compiled a chronological list of Tao Te Ching translations, primarily to English. The list should be helpful for those deciding what is right for them. I am not one to say which is the best, but I have noted which are more popular reads. A few of them are most widespread, others take a literal approach, others more interpolative. Here they are:
Stanislas Julien (1842) (first complete published translation of the TTC in Europe. It was to French), John Chalmers (1868), Frederick Henry Balfour (1884), James Legge (1891), G.G. Alexander (1895), P.J. Maclagan (1898), T.W. Kingsmill (1899), I.W. Heysinger (1903), E.H. Parker (1903), Lionel Giles (1904), Walter Gorn Old (1904), C. Spurgeon Medhurst (1905), Richard Wilhelm (1910) (into German), H.G. Ostwald (1985) (into English from Richard Wilhelm's), Léon Wieger (1913) (into French), Derek Bryce (1999) (into English from Leon Wieger's), D.T. Suzuki and Paul Carus (1913), Isabella Mears (1916), Aleister Crowley (1918), Dwight Goddard (1919), Julius Evola (1923) (Italian, translation with commentary), interpretive paraphrase by Tom MacInnes (1927), Charles H. Mackintosh (1926), Arthur Waley (1934), Bhikshu Wai-tao and Dwight Goddard (1935), Edwin Denby (ca. 1935), Ch’u Ta-Kao (1937), Derke Bodde (1937), John C.H. Wu (1939), Lin Yutang (1942) (has relevant verses from Chuang Tzu for verse of TTC) (popular), Witter Bynner (1944), Hermon Ould (1946), Frederick B. Thomas (1948), Orde Poynton (1949), Cheng Lin (1949), J.J.L. Duyvendak (1954), R.B. Blakney (1955), Archie J. Bahm (1958), Frank J. MacHovec (1962), D.C. Lau (1963), Wing-Tsit Chan (1963) (popular), “Adaptation” by Timothy Leary (Psychedelic Prayers, 1966), “Translation” by Peter A. Boodberg (1968), Tang Zi-chang (1969), Gia-fu Feng and Jane English (1972) (popular), Chang Chung-yuan (1975), Bernhard Karlgren (1975) (sinologist), Paul J. Lin (1977), Hua-Ching Ni (1979), K.O. Schmidt (1979), D. Howard Smith (1980), John R. Leebrick (1980), Tam C. Gibbs (1981), Rhett Y.W. Young and Roger T. Ames (1981), Benjamin Hoff (1981), Henry Wei (1982), Tolbert McCarroll (1982), Alan B. Taplow (1982), Raghavan Iyer (1983), Stan Rosenthal (1984), Herrymon Maurer (1985), John Heider (1985), R.L. Wing (1986), Shi Fu Hwang (1987), Stephen Mitchell (1988) (is bestseller but adds a lot of his own improvisation), Robert Henricks (1989), D.C. Lau (1989), A.C. Graham (1989), Ellen M. Chen (1989), Yi Wu (1989), Victor H. Mair (1990), Thomas Cleary (1991) (has TTC and Zhuangzi's inner chapter), Michael LaFargue (1992) (popular), Thomas H. Miles (1992), Livia Kohn (1993), Ren Jiyu et al. (1993), Man-Ho Kwok, Martin Palmer and Jay Ramsay (1993), Stephen Addiss and Stanley Lombardo (1993), He Guanghu, Gao Shining, Song Lidao and Xu Junyao (1993), Patrick E. Moran (1993), Jerry O. Dalton (1994), Ron Hogan (1994), John Louis Albert Trottier (1994), Michelle Klein-Hass (1994), Ray Grigg (1995), John R. Mabry (1995), Gu Zhengkun (1995), John H. McDonald (1996), Sanderson Beck (1996), Brian Browne Walker (1996), Red Pine (Bill Porter) (1996, 2009 revised version), Richard Hooker (1996), Edwin Sha (1996), Alan Fox (1996), Charles Muller (1997), Tormond Byrn (1997), John WorldPeace (1997), Eva Wong (1997), Stephen F. Kaufmann (1998), Ursula K. Le Guin (1998), Eiichi Shimomissé (1998), Jerry C. Welch (1998), Gregory C. Richter (1998), Richard John Lynn (1999), Richard Degen (1999), Timothy Freke (1999), Wang Bi (1999), Ralph D. Sawyer and Mei-chun Lee Sawyer (1999), George Cronk (1999), Lee Sun Chen Org (2000), David Hinton (2000), Jim Clatfelter (2000), Gerald Schoenewolf (2000), Ted Wrigley (2000), Ichin Shen (2000), Moss Roberts (2001), Robert Stevenson (2001), Jonathan Star (2001) (popular), Jeff Rasmussen (2001), David H. Li (2001), Tien Cong Tran (2001), Stephen Hodge (2002), Ralph Alan Dale (2002), Chou-Wing Chohan, Abe Bellenteen and Rosemary Brant (2002), Octavian Sarbatoare (2002), Karl Kromal (2002), Xiaolin Yang (2002), Lok Sang Ho (2002), Douglas Allchin (2002), Alan Sheets and Barbara Tovey (2002), Philip J. Ivanhoe (2003), Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall (2003), Roderic Sorrell and Amy Max Sorrell (2003), Chichung Huang (2003), Bram den Hond (2003), A.S. Kline (2003), Han Hiong Tan (2003), Ha Poong Kim (2003), enlightenedbuddha.com (2004), thetao.info (2004), Chad Hansen (2004), truetao.org (2004), Crispin Sartwell (2004), Stanley Atamanchuk (2004), Maury Merkin (2004), Thomas Z. Zhang (2004), Hilmar Klaus (2004), Clifford Borg-Marks (2004), Yasuhiko Genku Kimura (2004), Chao-Hsiu Chen (2004), Richard Blumberg (2005), Tim Chilcott (2005), Bradford Hatcher (2005), Brian Donohue (2005), Agnieszka Solska (2005), Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping (2005), Hu Xuezhi (2006), Bart Marshall (2006), Charles Q. Wu (2006), Derek Lin (2006), Keith H. Seddon (2006), Nina Correa (2007), Mikhail Mikolenko (2007), Sam Hamill (2007), Edmund Ryden (2008), Stefan Stenudd (2011), Wenliang Tao (2012), William Scott Wilson (2012), Rick Julian (2013), Robert Rosenbaum (compiled from six other translations) (2013), Thanks Always Returns (2015), Auke Schade (2016), Solala Towler (2016), Oliver Benjamin (2016), Jwing Ming Yang (2018), Yuhui Liang (2018), Sam Torode (2018), John Minford (2018), Manuera Mura (2020) (Italian/English), Benjamin Hoff (2021), Ray Grigg (2021), Shaun C. R. Ramsden (2022), Bruce Frantzis (2022).
In addition, there are those written anonymously, or without an apparent date of publication:
C. Ganson (date unknown), Tienzen Gong (date unknown), David Lindauer (date unknown), Ned Ludd (date unknown), Andre Gauthier (date unknown), Bao Pu (date unknown), Sonja Elen Kisa (date unknown), City University of Hong Kong website (translator and date unknown), Steven Ericsson Zenith (date unknown), based on the version published by The Shrine of Wisdom (1924), rivenrock.com (translator and date unknown), Isis (date unknown), Kiyoashi (date unknown), David Tuffley (date unknown), Jeffrey Sorensen (date unknown), David Bullen (date unknown), gospelofthomas.fol.nl (translator and date unknown), Edward Brennan and Tao Huang (date unknown), Liu Qixuan (date unknown), Cheng (date unknown), John Emerson (translation in progress), Headless (date unknown), James Edwards (date unknown).
Inspiration
There have been a number of anarchists inspired by Laozi’s philosophy such as Rudolf Rocker, Peter Kropotkin, and Ursula K. Le Guin, the latter of which also produced a translation of the Tao Te Ching in English in 1998.
I too, was inspired by the Tao Te Ching. It felt like a meditation as I completed the pages with short text. I felt like it was speaking directly to me, and it answered so many uncertainties that I had. It awakens the reader to the way forward and to move with the Dao in harmony.
References
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Daoist Philosophy
Taoism - Wikipedia
Tao Te Ching - Wikipedia
Laozi - Wikipedia
TheDaoBums.com - Philosophical vs Religious
Medium.com - Philosophical vs Religious
