Yo, what books of the tao would you recommend for a beginner?

[Trickster_Crow]

just finished "The tao of pooh" and loved it! What would you recommend?

[Mal]

You would almost have to go with his Te of Piglet

 

Good stuff in here too Tao 101 - If you could recommend only ONE book

[Aaron]

Alan Watts has several books on Taoism that you might enjoy. "Tao: The Watercourse Way" is an excellent book and one most people read early on. My personal recommendation, buy John C. H. Wu's translation of the Tao Teh Ching and go at it... Other than that, stay away from Wayne Dyer or any of the other "Using Tao to be Happy/Wealthy/Sexy/Interesting" type of books, they rarely are about Tao and more often about pop-psychology.

 

Aaron

 

edit- I would be remiss if I didn't recommend that you check out the Tao Teh Ching Subforum. We're examining the Tao Teh Ching chapter by chapter right now. We're on Chapter Four, so it's easy to catch up. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

Edited December 3, 2010 by Twinner

[zerostao]

Alan Watts has several books on Taoism that you might enjoy. "Tao: The Watercourse Way" is an excellent book and one most people read early on. My personal recommendation, buy John C. H. Wu's translation of the Tao Teh Ching and go at it... Other than that, stay away from Wayne Dyer or any of the other "Using Tao to be Happy/Wealthy/Sexy/Interesting" type of books, they rarely are about Tao and more often about pop-psychology.

 

Aaron

 

edit- I would be remiss if I didn't recommend that you check out the Tao Teh Ching Subforum. We're examining the Tao Teh Ching chapter by chapter right now. We're on Chapter Four, so it's easy to catch up. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

i second the sub-forum on tao te ching and alan watts. there are also some videos of him posted on you tube. they are short and not as good as a book but gives you idea of the flavor. the secret of the golden flower is a book i like but it has been pointed out to me here that the cleary version may be more easily understood than wilhelm. the taoist exercise and health book by da liu is a nice overview for a beginner in my opinion also a personal note about the wilhelm translation of the secret of the golden flower, is that the commentary by cc jung for me was very useful

Edited December 18, 2010 by zerostao

[dawei]

The Dao Speaks:

http://www.amazon.com/Dao-Speaks-Whispers-Wisdom/dp/B000NHOJFM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1291412037&sr=8-5

 

There is a second volume and other philosopher books as well. These are very insightful and fun to read. I buy a few when in china for about $1.00 each, but still worth the outrageous western markup