By Larry Kelly

Ken McLeod and I had the pleasure of “leading” the four week discussion of Taoism (part of Emerson’s Adult RE study of Sacred Texts).  The participants enthusiastically embraced the enigmatic Tao Te Ching with typical Unitarian zeal.  Let us continue!

To have to “lead” gives great opportunity to follow.  In further blogs, we hope to embellish on this experience with our fellow bloggers.  For example, a few of my biggest revelations were to “let go”, and to “give up learning” by using my intuition.

Ken and I utilized several dozen interpretations of the Tao Te Ching in our studies.  Later, I will post a full bibliography of books I have found useful, but for now, my favorite sources:

• The Tao of Power – R.L. Wing (Wing for the beautiful calligraphy and a more oriental slant.  Star, for the fantastic index, particularly the line by line definitions of each calligraphic word.  You can write your own Tao Te Ching!)

• Tao Te Ching – Stephen Mitchell  (Mitchell for the poetic version most easily assimilated by us Westerners.)
• Tao Te Ching – The Definitive Edition – Jonathan Star