Zen and the art of translation

The original Tao Te Ching was written by Laotzu in the sixth century B.C. Legend has it that the 80-year-old,frustrated by his fellow man’s inability to follow the path of natural goodness and harmony,left China for Tibet. At the border,a guard asked him to write down his teachings. This became the Tao Te Ching.

Mitchell’s new book,The Second Book of the Tao (Penguin Press),consists of adaptations from the work of two ancient Chinese scholars: Chuang-tzu,a Laotzu disciple,and Tzu-ssu,Confucius’ grandson. In his commentaries,Mitchell sets out to emulate the irreverent tone of Chuang-tzu: “If Laotzu is a smile,” he writes,“Chuang-tzu is a belly-laugh. He’s the clown of the Absolute.”

Asked to elaborate,he says: “I just love to play with the Taoist masters. For them,nothing is sacred. The best tribute is contradiction.”

Nonetheless,Mitchell has been criticised for his irreverent adaptations and translations,for his New Age style and his way of turning sacred texts into spiritual manuals for everyday living.

“Whether it’s the fourth century B.C. or 21st-century America,” Mitchell says,“people suffer and find a way into freedom. Humans have a basic capacity for freedom.”

In many ways,Mitchell’s path began when his first girlfriend,Vicky,broke up with him. He found solace in the Book of Job,an affirmation that there was a solution to human suffering. Six years after the breakup,Mitchell bumped into a friend who mentioned that he had met a Zen master with very strange eyes. Mitchell spent the next several years in intensive Zen practice; days spent meditating 12 to 14 hours,solitary retreats that lasted 100 days.

Vicky introduced Mitchell to the work of Rilke. Eighteen years later,he sent her a copy of his translation,The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. She wrote back,and the two spent four days together as friends. “If I could have wished anything for you,” she told him,“it would have been that you might become the person you’ve become.”

Mitchell hardly thinks about his readers. He feels,unabashedly,that he has a right to the material he works with,a right to reinterpret it and keep it alive. “Readers are not a part of my world,” he declares. “I write the books I want to read.”
Mitchell’s longtime agent and friend Michael Katz introduced him to Byron Katie in 2000. The two collaborated on a book,Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002),and then on A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony With the Way Things Are (2007),which he considers his “third book of the Tao”.

“Western therapy doesn’t work; I’ve never heard of it leading people to a place where life is problem-free. You need a method that can cut the Gordian knot,catapult people to a new level of experience,” he says.
Mitchell’s connection to Laotzu is,he insists,not only intellectual but umbilical. “Sometimes,” he admits,“I do 20 or 30 drafts of a chapter. Sometimes it came out the way I dreamed it. But sometimes the subject matter is so dense I have to leave it for a day or a week and come back.”
_Susan Salter Reynolds, LATWP