More books to read

Over the next few weeks, I am intending to start examining Taoism and taoist practices from a more solid academic background.

There are lots of good books of this type to read by a number of different authors, some of which are listed below:

Livia Kohn
Cosmos and Community: The Ethical Dimension of Daoism, Cambridge, Mass.:Three Pines Press, 2004 [ISBN: 1932483027]

Daoism and Chinese Culture (2nd Ed.), Cambridge, Mass.:Three Pines Press, 2004

Daoist Handbook ed. L Kohn, 2000 [Whole text may be found via Google Scholar]

Laughing at the Tao, ed. Schipper, Kristofer & Verellen, Franciscus, 2004

A much longer reading list can be found on Russell Kirkland's website http://kirkland.myweb.uga.edu/

Part of the problem with much of the material to be found on the internet and on the shelves of bookstores is that it makes an erroneous distinction between philosophical and religious taoism. Many of the 'translations' available are no such thing. Examples of this dishonesty are Ursula LeGuin's verion of Tao Te Ching and Timothy Freke's version of the same text. Additionally in the West, we have tended to place a great deal of emphasis on the Chuang Tzu and the TTC to the detriment of other more important texts.

A very important text in this area, which I shall discuss extensively is the book Taoism: The Enduring Tradition by Russell Kirkland [which can also be found as a complete text on Google Scholar].

I hope that you will all join me in discovering a better understanding of taoism and what it truly means, rather than what we have wanted it to mean.

taoism