Book Talk: Dàodé jīng: A Contextual, Contemplative, and Annotated Bilingual Translation (2023)

Louis Komjathy 康思奇 (Ph.D., Religious Studies; Boston University), Director of the Center for Daoist Studies 道學中心 and a leading Daoist scholar-educator, will share his groundbreaking new book Dàodé jīng: A Contextual, Contemplative, and Annotated Bilingual Translation (2023). Here Dr. Komjathy documents the multivocal characteristics of the received text, specifically its association with the inner cultivation lineages of classical Daoism. Emphasis is placed on the work’s contemplative and mystical dimensions, specifically the core Daoist practice of apophatic and quietistic (emptiness-/stillness-based) meditation. As an exercise in historical retrieval and contemplative hermeneutics, rooted in a Daoist scholar-practitioner approach, the talk will inspire attendees to reimagine both the Dàodé jīng and classical Daoism, and open new vistas into some of the foundations of the Daoist tradition as a whole.

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