7/3/2023 0 Comments Tao te ching stephenTheir heroic stories are imagined as journeys over physical space (and in Aeneas’ case, through time) as well as through inward spaces. The heroes of myth are often on a journey – think Gilgamesh, or Heracles, or Odysseus, or Aeneas. The idea is not a new one -– it wasn’t even new when the work was written in the 6th-5th century BCE - that life is a journey. In writing this year about travel and books that involve travel, there is no way I could ignore the religious text that uses the idea of the “way” or “path” (what Tao means) as a fundamental metaphor for life. They have to be blabbermouths. But their words are (in the traditional Buddhist metaphor) fingers pointing at the moon if you watch the finger, you can't see the moon.” Mitchell then goes on to say, “That's the problem with spiritual teachers. In the notes to his translation of the Tao te Ching, Stephen Mitchell relates these words from Po Chu-i. How could he have been such a blabbermouth? This month, classic lit connoisseur Bernard Norcott-Mahany continues his year-long travel theme with a review of the Tao Te Ching, which he unofficially subtitles “It don’t mean a thing without Tao Te Ching.”
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