Tao Te Ching

About the Book

Tao Te Ching means "The Classic of the Virtuous Road," and the author´s name, Lao Tzu, can mean either "Old Master" or "Old Child," depending on whether one thinks literally or mythologically. The basic text is a thin volume of 81 brief, concentrated chapters, arising in China in the first millennium B.C. Since James Legge´s first translation slightly more than a hundred years ago, the book has become one of the most translated books in the world, testifying to its enduring appeal across cultural, linguistic, and national boundaries.

The book is commonly characterized as a classic of Chinese "philosophy." While recognizing the rationale for this classification, this translator believes that good reason exists for a different conceptualization of the book. What is called "Taoism" is the result of the extraction from the work of principles which are then rationalized into a "philosophy," which gives the impression of abstract, systematic thought. The Tao Te Ching has parts that seem abstract, and it has thought that soars like an owl on a moonlit night, but it´s not systematic, and the philosophy abstracted from it does not truly represent it. After decades of study, this translator sees in the text, not system, assuredly, but order, pattern, coherence, and grace that few other translators seem to have found in it. And in these latter days of spiritual crisis, when "system" leaves a bad taste, what more could one hope for in a book than sheer meaning, ordered, patterned, coherent, and full of grace?

The present translator believes the book to be closer to myth than philosophy and more akin to poetry than essay; thus his subtitle: "Poetry and Archetype." He believes the pathetic quality of most translations to date is due to the tradition of treating the text abstractly rather than recognizing its roots in myth and symbol. The result has been, too often, erratic translations of words in which the spirit is lost. Dr. Finley fixes the blame for this failure squarely in the overly complex, academic mentality of the translators, a mentality incompatible with the book´s terse simplicity. Most translators have recognized in the book some connection with "mysticism" but too often they have not understood mysticism and treat is as a commodity that can be inserted into the text like bologna into a sandwich. This translator sees mysticism as more like the salt in seawater.

This translator bases his definition of mysticism on the Oxford Universal Dictionary, which provides both a pejorative and an appreciative definition. The OUD´s definition of the first kind is: "a term of reproach applied loosely to any religious belief associated with self-delusion and dreamy confusion of thought." And its definition of the second kind is: "reliance on spiritual intuition as the means of acquiring knowledge of mysteries inaccessible to the understanding." Expanding slightly on the latter definition, mysticism may be seen as akin to Gnosticism, by which is meant the ability of the "spiritual intuition" to transcend conventional logic, religious tradition, and the dictates of empirical science. This translator sees Tao Te Ching in these terms.

Seeing the Tao Te Ching as an expression of mystical insight grounded in the cosmogony of ancient mankind, this translation does not accept the division of the world into opposing domains of "objectivity" and "subjectivity" where the former describes "reality" and the latter is the wastebasket term for miscellany such as feeling and intuition. This translator believes that Lao Tzu would not understand this bifurcation of reality; and he believes that those in whom this bifurcation has taken root will not understand Lao Tzu.

This translator questions the contemporary view of scholars that the book is a mere compilation lacking organic integrity, specifically rejecting the view of one specialist who claims that treating the chapters as organic wholes distorts thei

About the Author

Robert Finley was born in 1932 in rural Mississippi and spent his childhood there and in New Orleans. The Korean War interrupted his childhood dreams and sent him to Korea and Japan, where he was witness to cultures and ways of being he had never before imagined. After the service, through ten years of college he discovered the joy of writing and the allure of Asian philosophies, which he has been practicing and studying ever since. The present book is the result of 30 years of study. Robert did not intend to make a career of this book; however, apparently this span of time was required for him to learn some simple lessons: the chief of which was that he was not translating the book so much as the book was translating him.