The Second Book of the Tao [Paperback]

A twenty-first-century form of ancient wisdom . . . Mitchell's flights, his paradoxes, his wonderful riffs are brilliant and liberating. -Pico Iyer

The most widely translated book in world literature after the Bible, Lao-tzu'sTao Te Ching, orBook of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his own version of theTao Te Ching, renowned scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell has composed the innovativeThe Second Book of the Tao. Drawn from the work of Lao-tzu's disciple Chuang- tzu and Confucius's grandson Tzu-ssu,The Second Book of the Taocollects the freshest, most profound teachings from these two great students of the Tao to offer Western readers a path into reality that has nothing to do with east or west, but everything to do with truth. With his own illuminating commentary alongside each adapta­tion, at once explicating and complementing the text, Mitchell makes the ancient teachings at once modern, relevant, and timeless.

Listen to a special podcast with Stephen Mitchell:

Stephen Mitchell was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943, educated at Amherst, the Sorbonne, and Yale, and de-educated through intensive Zen practice. His many books include the bestsellingTao Te Ching, The Gospel According to Jesus, Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, Meetings with the Archangel,andGilgamesh. Mitchell is married to Byron Katie and cowrote two of her bestselling books:Loving What IsandA Thousand Names for Joy.The Dream of a Butterfly

Chuang-tzu dreamt that he was a butterfly, fluttering here and there, carefree, unaware of a Chuang-tzu. Then he woke up, and there he was: Chuang-tzu, beyond a doubt. But was he Chuang-tzu who had dreamt that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming that he was Chuang-tzu? There must besomedifference between Chuang-tzu and a butterfly! This is called "the transformatil£'