Showing results by author "Jay Ramsay" in All Categories

Walk down the streets of Chinatown in any American or western European city and look around. She is there. Walk through the downtown streets, look in a shop window. She is there. Go to any city in China and open your eyes. She is there, too. Kuan Yin is the most ubiquitous Chinese deity - and the most loved. She is the living expression of compassion whose gentle face and elegant figure form the center of devotion in most Chinese homes and workplaces. Until relatively recently, she was barely known in the West, and few studies had been made of her.

Sir Nigel Hawthorne's inspiring reading brings to life this new translation of Lao Tzu's 2,500 year old Chinese classic. Probably the most influential spiritual book in human history, the Tao Te Ching translates as The Classic of The Tao and Its Power. In 80 short chapters, it reveals a profound view of the Tao, a unique and satisfying way of life and nature.

The Most Venerable Book is one of the five classics. For many centuries it was a central work for anyone wishing to work for the imperial administration, with its prestige stemming from the belief that it had been assembled by Confucius himself. The first emperor tried to have all copies destroyed because of its subversive implication that 'the Mandate of Heaven' could be withdrawn from rulers who failed their people. For similar reasons it was also banned by Mao. Extraordinarily, it has been revived by the Chinese government of the 2010s.