Table Of ContentTao Te Ching
Tao Te Ching
Power for the Peaceful
☯
A new translation
by
Marc S. Mullinax
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
TAO TE CHING
Power for the Peaceful
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Cover design: Rob Dewey
Print ISBN: 978-1 - 5064-6 986-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1 - 5064-6 987-4
For Hazel, through whom Tao shines
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Pragmatic Tao 1
Tao Te Ching: Power for the Peaceful 19
Afterword 313
Notes 315
Selected Bibliography 319
About the Author/Translator 323
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This long journey of ten thousand translation miles started in 1974
when my East Asian history professor Jim Lenburg introduced me to
Tao Te Ching in a college course on Chinese history. A few years later,
when I first taught and lived in Korea, Ms. Woo Geum- Ok ( )
우금옥
was my classical Chinese teacher, and I am especially indebted to her
patient insistence on quality work. There, I first taught Tao Te Ching,
using my newly acquired Chinese character work in the class. Since
then, I have read and taught this text in Daejeon and Seoul, South
Korea, and Mars Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Over the years, Tao Te Ching “translated” to me a worldview and
spiritual reality different than what I encountered anywhere else.
Finally, in 2017, I began to translate Tao Te Ching for my context,
at a time when I took on new leadership at Mars Hill University. I
was joyfully engaged— riveted— by this text that kept offering timely
reminders of the wonderfully subversive power of Wu- wei and yin-
yang balance when serving the faculty during a hard transitional time.
I offer first my deepest thanks to my partner, Grace, for helping me
find the space and time for this good work. The following people have
read early drafts and made edits, corrections, and contributions both
notable and careful: Sharon Bigger, Virginia Bower, Brian Graves,
Glenn Graves, John Gripentrog, Beth Honeycutt, Jimmy Knight,
Stephanie McLeskey, Allen Mullinax, Dale Roberts, Seamus Rob-
ertson, Nancy Hastings Sehested, Mahan Siler, Bryony Smith, John
Snell, and Walter Ziffer. Chad Holt’s critiques have been especially
fermentive and led directly to the “Notes and Reflections” becoming a
key part of this work.
Rebecca Gahagan offered needed hospitality and reflective space to
bring this effort to completion. Thank you.
I am deeply indebted to Joyce Hollyday’s careful copyediting. Her
work has rendered every paragraph clearer to read and easier to grasp.
Fortress Press’s vision and mission have taken this work across the
finish line. At once professional and understanding in approach, Will
Bergkamp’s vision for this work has enlarged my own understand-
ing of the relevance and power for peace that Tao actually conveys to
readers today. I am deeply indebted to his imagination on how Tao
engages us on so many levels. Thank you. Elvis Ramirez and his team
of copyeditors were also deeply involved. Their efficient competence
has astounded me again and again.
The individual efforts of this great cloud of witnesses and part-
ners have rendered this a truly collective work. If any imprecisions
or mistakes remain, I have managed to achieve them singlehandedly.
x ☯ Tao Te Ching
