Working from existing translations, Thomas Merton composed a series of
his own versions of the classic sayings of Chuang Tzu, the most
spiritual of Chinese philosophers. Chuang Tzu, who wrote in the fourth
and third centuries B.C., is the chief authentic historical spokesperson
for Taoism and its founder Lao Tzu (a legendary character known largely
through Chuang Tzu's writings). Indeed it was because of Chuang Tzu and
the other Taoist sages that Indian Buddhism was transformed, in China,
into the unique vehicle we now call by its Japanese name--Zen.
The Chinese sage abounds in wit and paradox and shattering insights into
the true ground of being. Thomas Merton, no stranger to Asian thought,
brings a vivid, modern idiom to the timeless wisdom of Tao.