An elegant and comprehensive critical edition of the Dao De Jing.
A writer offers a translation of a famous Chinese work with commentary from a qigong perspective.
The Dao De Jing is an ancient Chinese classic by Lao Tzu that serves as the foundational text of Taoism as well as an influence on the development of Confucianism and Buddhism. Qigong is a holistic practice of movements, breathing, and meditation that can aid in healing, spiritual growth, and martial arts training. The Dao De Jing was based on Lao Tzu’s “personal understanding about the Dao and the De through his personal qigong practice,” writes Yang (Pain-Free Joints, 2017, etc.) in his introduction. “Since the Dao of managing the body is similar to the Dao of managing a country,” Lao Tzu “offered moral guidance to historical Chinese rulers.” After some preliminary material supplying a context for Lao Tzu and his work—along with a rundown of some of its underlying philosophical concepts—Yang provides all 81 chapters of the Dao in both the Chinese original and in his English translation. He then delivers both a general interpretation of each chapter’s meaning and a qigong-specific analysis. In the case of Chapter 29, for instance (“Doing Nothing—Be Nature”), the general interpretation discusses the concept of wuwei (doing nothing) as it applies to governance: “A ruler should govern according to Nature. Too much of acting on the world (using force) will fail.” The qigong analysis, in turn, is focused on the importance of regulating the mind: “When you practice qigong, your mind must be in a neutral and calm state.” Yang’s translations capture the delicate precision of the original while presenting it in highly accessible language. The dual interpretations of the text are an enlightening feature, even for those readers with no prior interest in qigong. The general interpretation is more outward-facing, toward the world; the qigong one is inward-facing, toward the self. Between the two, the full picture of the Dao emerges as an intriguing symmetry. This is a long book (over 540 pages) for a relatively short text, but Yang’s commentaries greatly aid in understanding Lao Tzu’s words and the worldview behind them.
An elegant and comprehensive critical edition of the Dao De Jing.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59439-619-9
Page Count: 544
Publisher: YMAA Publication Center
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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