If you have looked long at the serene freedom of a Chinese painting or been baffled by a Zen koan or been knocked off your stool by a Beat poet, you have met Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi). If you would like to get to know him better, spend some time with poet Sam Hamill and scholar J.P. Seaton's translation of The Essential Teachings of Chuang Tzu.

Of the 33 chapters in the original, Hamill and Seaton render 19 completely and 3 partially into a naturally flowing English idiom that captures the vibrancy, humor, and playful sincerity of Chuang Tzu's language. Chuang Tzu offers insights more than teachings, startlingly transparent nuggets of wisdom in short episodes with colorful characters and trenchant punch lines. His overarching themes of freedom, living naturally, using the useless, the interconnectedness of all things, natural transformation, and such materialize as the eye meanders from passage to passage. Here is a concise, fluent rendition that makes reading Chuang Tzu almost as much fun as wandering free and easy through the infinite. --Brian Bruya


From Publishers Weekly
Like a treasure chest of precious stones, the writings of Chuang Tzu shine with uncommon wisdom and insight. This new translation, which expertly preserves the humor and bite of these ancient teachings, will entice a whole new audience to read?and re-read?Chuang Tzu's writings. In their informative introduction, Hamill and Seaton discuss the vast influence Chuang Tzu, a disciple of Lao Tzu, has had on writers as diverse as Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot. Chuang Tzu's moral and spiritual instructions teach distaste for technology, love of nature and suspicion of social convention. This revered Taoist teacher also longs in his writings for a golden age when everyone lived a better life. Although written in the third century B.C., Chuang Tzu's teachings are astonishingly contemporary. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This adept abridged translation of the most important writing of the Taoist tradition after the Tao Te Ching attempts to translate key terms consistently, using the same English word even when context might call for a multiplicity of terms; it also relies extensively on an etymological use of Chinese characters and does not shy away from contemporary colloquialisms. Though some readers may end up longing for alternatives to "All-under-heaven" for the Chinese "t'ien hsia" and other such terms, and colloquialisms such as "road kill" appear unexpectedly and perhaps incongruously, Hamill (a poet and founder of Copper Canyon Press) and Seaton (Chinese, Univ. of North Carolina) have selected well and capture the wit, paradox, and profundity of Chuang-tzu's concept of the Tao. The glossary of names and themes will be helpful to nonspecialists. Recommended for all public libraries.?D.E. Perushek, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, ILCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Chinese

FROM THE PUBLISHER

After the Tao Te Ching, the Chuang Tzu is the most popular of the Taoist writings of ancient China and has had an especially strong influence on Asian thought and literature, particularly Zen. Containing the teachings of the sage Chuang Tzu (369-286 BCE) and his followers, the Chuang Tzu is a compendium of wisdom stories, verses, fables, conversations, and anecdotes. At turns playful and acerbic, these writings present a philosophy of life that is politically radical and deeply spiritual. At their heart the teachings of Chuang Tzu stress the immediacy of the Tao, that all-embracing first principle that gives rise to the universe.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Like a treasure chest of precious stones, the writings of Chuang Tzu shine with uncommon wisdom and insight. This new translation, which expertly preserves the humor and bite of these ancient teachings, will entice a whole new audience to read--and re-read--Chuang Tzu's writings. In their informative introduction, Hamill and Seaton discuss the vast influence Chuang Tzu, a disciple of Lao Tzu, has had on writers as diverse as Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot. Chuang Tzu's moral and spiritual instructions teach distaste for technology, love of nature and suspicion of social convention. This revered Taoist teacher also longs in his writings for a golden age when everyone lived a better life. Although written in the third century B.C., Chuang Tzu's teachings are astonishingly contemporary. (Aug.)

Library Journal