Daodejing
Open the Daodejing randomly and wisdom will surface from its often-enigmatic lines. “It is those who don’t trust a thing sufficiently who will find something not to be trusted there.” The paradoxes might also be meant to free the mind from narrow rationalism. “Good is the knotting that uses no ropes or restraints, for it can never be untied.”
In the introduction to his new translation, Brook Ziporyn reviews the traditional origins of this poetic Chinese text, ascribed to Laozi (“the Old Master”), with skepticism. History past a certain point is always guesswork. It’s unsurprising that the Daodejing “has always been famously susceptible to wildly divergent interpretations,” as he writes. The verses can become a Rorschach Test for the imagination of the reader. And then there is the creative act of translation. Ziporyn adds his own exegesis through his decision to translate the text’s key word, Dao, not as “the Way” (as is usual) but “the Course,” with its pliable meaning of a program of study as well as a goal or a pathway.
