The Way of Chuang Tzu (Second Edition)

By: Thomas Merton

Narrated by: Greg Chun

Classic writings from the great Zen master in exquisite versions by Thomas Merton, with a preface by his holiness the Dalai Lama, now in audio for the first time.

Working from existing translations, Thomas Merton composed a series of his own versions of the classic sayings of Chuang Tzu, the most spiritual of Chinese philosophers. Chuang Tzu, who wrote in the fourth and third centuries BC, is the chief authentic historical spokesperson for Taoism and its founder, Lao Tzu (a legendary character known largely through Chuang Tzu’s writings). Indeed, it was because of Chuang Tzu and the other Taoist sages that Indian Buddhism was transformed, in China, into the unique vehicle we now call by its Japanese name: Zen.

The Chinese sage abounds in wit and paradox and shattering insights into the true ground of being. Thomas Merton, no stranger to Asian thought, brings a vivid, modern idiom to the timeless wisdom of Tao.

©1965 The Abbey of Gethsemani (P)2018 New Directions

Commentaries Needed

It's difficult to tell whether this is a good translation. I've read other books where commentaries were included so the inexplicit passages were explained.

Still Fux

Total Banger. Listen in car on way to work. Car become monastery. Fry Rice Pwease.

Relevance to contemporary problems

I liked its sober and clear telling of Daoist thought through the lens of chuang tsu and how the problems and remedies are as relevant now as they were then.

Wow

Always a pleasure to hear about the similarities as opposed to the differences.
Book leaves you in deep reflective thought.

My mind is blown

This shall be a book I will read a thousand times and will still learn something new. Profound teaching appropriate at all time.