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There are many translations of the Taoteching, nearly every one of which is probably worth reading, but this is my favorite version. I can’t attest to the accuracy of the translation, but having read so many different translations of the same text I feel like in some strange way I have a grasp of the original; as if a blank space (the Chinese original) has been given shape and definition by all the English versions surrounding it. But anyway... while I like the spare sensitivity of the language in this version, what makes this version extra special are the added bonuses: an engagingly detailed introduction exploring the life of Lao Tzu, what amounts to an original thesis on the very meaning of “tao�, and commentaries (on specific lines, even specific words) appended to each of the 81 entries that have been culled from centuries upon centuries of critical commentary, by scholars and eccentric mystics alike.

There is recent scholarship that is making the argument that instead of meaning “way� or “path�, which is usually taken to mean how we as people conduct ourselves in accordance with a mysterious spiritual principle, that “tao� actually refers to the Moon and its various phases and paths in space, with particular emphasis on the darkness of the new moon and its significance as potential in darkness. The new moon “hides� its fullness. The fullness is there in potential, unspent. I like this. There’s something pleasingly primitive about it (gimme that old-time religion!), i.e. something real and tangibly mysterious, but also something practical and spiritual � a connector between eye and heart that through some subtle gravity guides our feet along a path.

The commentaries that follow each poem or entry are fascinating and just scratch the surface of what I understand is a vast accumulation of scholarship on this text. The commentaries are often wildly contradictory and tangential, obsessive to an anal nth degree, but also at times wise in their own right. These commentaries have been written by official scholars, by mendicant monks, and even one or two extreme eccentrics living on the fringes of society unaffiliated with any institution. At the back of the book are short biographies of each commentator, which is fascinating reading in itself. It all adds up to evidence that this is a living book, with enough clear and direct meaning to be perpetually valid, and enough obscurity to be endlessly pondered.

The translator is an American who goes by the name Red Pine. He’s almost 70 now and has been a practicing Buddhist for years, but more in the wandering independent scholar Gary Snyder type style. He’s also translated the Diamond Sutra, poems of Han Shan (Cold Mountain) and Stonehouse, and some other Buddhist texts. In every work of his I’ve read there’s serious scholarship in evidence, but also a free spirit and independent thinker with a unique store of fresh air.