The Second Book of the Tao

“A twenty-first-century form of ancient wisdom . . . Mitchell’s flights, his paradoxes, his wonderful riffs are brilliant and liberating.” -Pico Iyer

The most widely translated book in world literature after the Bible, Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his own version of the Tao Te Ching, renowned scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell has composed the innovative The Second Book of the Tao. Drawn from the work of Lao-tzu’s disciple Chuang- tzu and Confucius’s grandson Tzu-ssu, The Second Book of the Tao collects the freshest, most profound teachings from these two great students of the Tao to offer Western readers a path into reality that has nothing to do with east or west, but everything to do with truth. With his own illuminating commentary alongside each adapta­tion, at once explicating and complementing the text, Mitchell makes the ancient teachings at once modern, relevant, and timeless.

Listen to a special podcast with Stephen Mitchell: