A 1965 volume of free renderings of selected passages from the Zhuangzi by the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton, drawing on the four major English translations available to him at the time (Legge, Giles, Lin Yutang, Wieger) and approached as a sustained personal engagement rather than a scholarly translation. Merton acknowledges in the preface that he had read Chuang Tzu for years before producing the volume and that the work is closer to a poet's reading than a Sinologist's.
Reception
The Way of Chuang Tzu is one of the earliest and most-cited examples of Christian-Daoist interreligious engagement to emerge from a Western monastic; D. T. Suzuki, John Wu (who supplied Merton with the Chinese text and notes), and the Trappist abbot Aelred Graham all engaged closely with the project. Sinologist responses have been mixed — Burton Watson and Victor Mair, the standard contemporary Zhuangzi translators, note that Merton's renderings sit outside the discipline of translation per se. Readers in the contemplative literature (Henri Nouwen, Cynthia Bourgeault, Pico Iyer) treat the book as among Merton's most accessible introductions to his late, comparative-religious phase.
Frequently asked
What is The Way of Chuang Tzu?
It is a 1965 collection of free renderings from the Zhuangzi, composed by the American Trappist monk Thomas Merton drawing on four English translations available to him at the time: Legge, Giles, Lin Yutang, and Wieger. Merton described the work as a poet's reading rather than a Sinologist's translation.
Is this a translation of the Zhuangzi?
Not in the scholarly sense. Merton worked from four existing English translations rather than from the Chinese text, and acknowledged in his preface that the resulting volume is closer to a personal, poetic engagement than a philological translation. Burton Watson and Victor Mair have noted that Merton's renderings sit outside the discipline of translation per se.
What was the reception of The Way of Chuang Tzu?
It is regarded as one of the earliest and most-cited examples of Christian-Daoist interreligious engagement from a Western monastic. D. T. Suzuki and John Wu engaged closely with the project. Readers in the contemplative literature — including Henri Nouwen, Cynthia Bourgeault, and Pico Iyer — treat it as one of Merton's most accessible works from his late, comparative-religious phase.