![]() ![]() Merton's translation manages to successfully pull Chaung Tzu's thought through the difficult east/west mind-barrier and present contemporary American readers with 2500 year old writing that often seems uncannily appropriate to the tenor of our times. Thomas Merton - whose name at least should be familiar to Pittsburgh area residents through the work of the much lauded Thomas Merton Center - was a Trappist monk and an important author in his own right, as his eloquent introduction to this volume makes abundantly clear. In Merton's "readings" (which are his interpretations based on an assemblage of the then best available Western translations by China scholars), these brief but powerful texts become quite accessible to Western thought. ![]() Taoism is, perhaps, the system of thought second only to Confucianism in defining the history and culture of Chinese civilization. The writings of Chuang Tzu are the most rigorous classic articulations of Taoist thought, which had its beginnings with the Tao Te Ching, attributed to Lao Tzu. ![]()
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