Way of Chuang Tzu (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

by Thomas Merton (Author) "The classic period of Chinese philosophy covers about three hundred years, from 550 to 250 B.C. Chuang Tzu, the greatest of the Taoist writers whose..." (more)
Key Phrases: superior man, speechless one, Chuang Tzu, Hui Tzu, Lao Tzu (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
A most admirable introduction to this less known but important source book of Taoism. (Alan Watts, The New York Times Book Review)

Thomas Merton is the saintly man who caused the Dalai Lama to come to admire Christianity as the equal of his beloved Buddhism. (Robert Thurman)

Merton is an artist, a Zen. (Thich Nhat Hanh) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
Working from existing translations, Thomas Merton composed a series of personal versions from his favorites among the classic sayings of Chuang Tzu, the most spiritual of the Chinese philosophers. Chuang Tzu, who wrote in the fourth and third centuries B.C., is the chief authentic historical spokesman 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, paradox, satire, and shattering insight into the true ground of being. Father Merton, no stranger to Asian thought, brings a vivid, modern idiom to the timeless wisdom of Tao. Illustrated with early Chinese drawings.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 159 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation; Eleventh Printing edition (June 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811201031
• ISBN-13: 978-0811201032
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #71,018 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Way of Thomas Merton, December 17, 2002

By	Dale A. Favier (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

~
I used this as a text in a highschool class on meditation. I chose it after looking at all the translations I could get my hands on (my Chinese, alas! is not yet up to reading the original.) Other translations were sometimes more literal and accurate, and some did a better job of conveying Chuang's brilliant word-play, but the overall impression they left of Chuang was either of a pedant (the older translations) or a sneering, bitter stand-up comic (the newer ones). This is much more deeply untrue to Chuang-Tzu than any passing inaccuracy or missed word-play could ever be.

There is only one way in which Merton is more qualified than Chuang's other interpreters: he, like Chuang, was a serious, long-time contemplative, a person who spent hours a day at meditation and prayer. But this qualification seems to me to have trumped all others. Merton and Chuang were brothers: no matter that they were two millenia and half a world apart. Somewhere right now they are walking together at a river's edge, watching the fish leap.

"I know the joy of fishes
In the river
Through my own joy, as I go walking
Along the same river"

My students, by the way -- rather to my surprise -- loved this book as much as I did.

47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The perfect companion to the _Tao Te Ching_., August 20, 2002

By	OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This little book is the perfect companion to Lao-Tzu's _Tao Te Ching_. Thomas Merton assembled it with admirable spiritual insight and sensitivity. Here is the path of the ancient sages. It is not a "how to" manual, for, "He who knows does not speak, and he who speaks does not know." And yet, this book somehow indirectly gives you a sense of what it is to be centered in the Tao. You get a fleeting sense of what it is like to live a life of such centerness and simplicity that it is difficult to tell where your own consciousness ends and the currents of the cosmos begin. This is the state of Wu Wei, effortless action in complete resonance with the Tao.

I suppose that what I found so refreshing during this rereading was the confirmation that men of wealth, station, and learning are not to be admired. They are the least enlightened of men. Indeed, the true man of Tao will live humble in simplicity and obscurity- and yet such beings are the true wellsprings of cosmic harmony between heaven and earth....

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you're new to Chiang Tzu, you're in for a treat!, May 24, 2001

By	tepi "tepi" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

Anyone who may be coming to Chuang Tzu for the first time is in for a treat. Although Chuang Tzu is sometimes described as the most brilliant of all Chinese philosophers, what we find in him isn't what we normally understand by 'Philosophy' and isn't technical at all.

His appeal is not so much to the intellect as to the imagination, and he chose as a vehicle for his philosophical insights, not tedious and lengthy abstract treatises, but brief and witty anecdotes and dialogues and tales. His humor, sophistication, literary genius, and philosophical insights found their perfect expression in his brilliant fragments, and once having read them you never forget them.

Not much is known about Chuang Tzu, other than that he seems to have lived around the time of King Hui of Liang (370-319 B.C.). The received text of his book, which is sometimes referred to as 'the Chuang Tzu' (CT), is made up of thirty-three Chapters. Most scholars seem to feel that the CT is a composite text, and that only the first seven - the Inner Chapters - plus a few bits from the others are Chuang Tzu's own work, the remainder being by his followers.

Among the better known of his translators, all of them excellent, are Arthur Waley, Lin Yutang, and Burton Watson, though only the latter translated the complete text. An abridged version of Watson's complete translation was later made available for those who only want to read the Inner Chapters. All three of these scholars were Sinologists and had direct access to Chuang Tzu's stylistically brilliant though somewhat difficult Chinese.

In contrast to the linguistic expertise of Waley, Lin Yutang, and Watson, Thomas Merton frankly admits to having no Chinese at all. He has, however, soaked himself in all the best translations, and he tells us that his "free interpretive renderings of characteristic passages [were] the result of five years of reading, study, annotation, and meditation." His readings, then, are to be understood, not as direct translations, but as "ventures in personal and spiritual interpretation" (page 9).

If we consider that Merton was a bit of a literary genius himself, we won't be surprised by Burton Watson's comment on his readings. In the Introduction to his 'Complete Works of Chuang Tzu,' he tells us that: "[Merton's readings] give a fine sense of the liveliness and poetry of Chuang Tzu's style, and are actually almost as close to the original as the translations upon which they are based" (page 28).

'The Way of Chuang Tzu' is a small book of just 160 pages. After a 'Note to the Reader' and a 17-page 'Study of Chuang Tzu,' sixty-two readings follow. Most of them have been set out as verse, and many are illustrated with marvelous Chinese drawings. The book was first printed in 1965, and the fact that it is still in print tells us that it has been working for many readers. It certainly worked for me, as it's a book I'd never part with and often return to. I'm pretty sure it will work for you too.