Reviews

This book is a 21st-century form of ancient wisdom. It brings a new, home-made sequel to the Tao Te Ching into the modern world. By mixing together the words of two wise men (or more), Stephen Mitchell offers a path into reality that has nothing to do with Taoism or Buddhism or old or new alone, but everything to do with truth. As in all his works—but maybe more so in this book, with its concentration and intensity—he is able to remind us of what is real and to suggest how we get there. His renditions are radiantly lucid; they dig out the vision that’s hiding beneath the words; they grab the text by the scruff of the neck—by its heart, really—and let its essential meanings fall out.

Both verse and prose are polished to transparency. Each sentence, on either side of the page, is something one can live with for a near-eternity. Mitchell’s flights, his paradoxes, his wonderful riffs are brilliant and liberating, not least because they keep catching us off-guard, opening up the heavens where before we saw a roof. He finds such dazzling ways to approach the central truth from a fresh angle each time. What a joy, and what a gift!
— Pico Iyer

The translations and Mitchell’s commentaries are poetic, mystical, imaginative, and deeply spiritual.!
— Spirituality and Practice