Author Description

This is a companion volume to Gia-fu Feng and Jane English's translation of the Tao Te Ching, which has enjoyed great success since its publication in 1972 and is having a 25th anniversary edition published in 1997. Very little is known about Chuang Tsu and that little is inextricably woven into legend. It is said that he was a contemporary of Mencius, an official in the Lacquer Garden of Meng in Honan Province, around the fourth century B.C. Chuang Tsu was to Lao Tsu as Saint Paul was to Jesus, and Plato to Socrates. While the other philosophers were busying themselves with the practical matters of government and rules of conduct, Chuang Tsu transcended the whang cheng, the illusory dust of the world -- thus anticipating Zen Buddhism and laying the metaphysical foundation for a state of emptiness or ego transcendence. With imagery and fantasy, he captures the depth of Chinese thinking. His fables and humor are imaginative and poetic, reflecting a brilliant and original mind. He was at once a mystic and a revolutionary. The rhythm of life and its organic vision, an ideal poetically implied by Lao Tsu, is brought to full expression in the writings of Chuang Tsu. The seven Inner Chapters presented in this translation are accepted by scholars as being definitely the work of Chuang Tsu. Another 26 chapters are of questionable origin; they are interpretations and developments of his teachings and may have been added by later commentators. This new edition of Inner Chapters includes 50 new photographs by Jane English and an introduction by Tai Ji master Chungliang Al Huang, who has been highly successful in bringing to the West the wisdom of the East.