Tao Te Ching Explained

The Tao Te Ching is a short book from ancient China, traditionally credited to Lao-tzu. Its eighty-one brief chapters are about the Tao, which means the Way, and how a person can live by it. People have been reading it for more than two thousand years.

It does. Chapter one says the Way itself can’t be put into words, and the book goes on for eighty-one chapters anyway. The interpretation of chapter one says it this way: ‘This is not a refusal to teach. It is an instruction on how to listen.’ This app doesn’t try to explain the Way. It helps you understand what each chapter is saying, so you can bring it into your own life.

Every chapter comes in three versions. Traditional is a classic English translation from 1891. Modern says the same chapter in plain English, and Poetic keeps it as verse, with the images and rhythm first. There’s also an interpretation that explains each chapter, which is a fourth way in.

If you’re new to the book, start with Modern, which says each chapter in plain English. Switch to Traditional, a classic 1891 translation, when you want the older wording. Poetic keeps it as verse, and when a chapter leaves you unsure, the interpretation explains it.

Yes. Every chapter has a modern version in everyday English that says what the classic one says without the old-fashioned wording. The Traditional version is still one tap away.

Yes. Tao reads every chapter aloud in three versions, and a spoken interpretation explains each one. The first nine chapters are included for free.

It’s a short spoken explanation of a chapter, a little over a minute long. It says what the chapter means and what it asks of you, and it works through the harder lines. It isn’t another version of the text.

Chapter one opens by saying the Tao can’t be explained, because whatever can be put into words is not the Tao itself. That isn’t a refusal to teach. It’s an instruction on how to listen. Look with a mind that wants nothing, and you sense the depth behind things. Look with a mind that wants, and you see their edges. The chapter asks you to hold both at once, which it calls the dark, the gate of every wonder.

They’re the same Chinese words written two ways in our alphabet. Tao Te Ching is the spelling most English readers know, and Dao De Jing is the newer pinyin spelling. The app shows the familiar one and has a setting to switch.

Yes. Turn on Include the original Chinese in Settings and the original Chinese appears beside the other versions, with the text in traditional characters and the chapter read aloud in Mandarin. The first nine chapters are free in Chinese too, like every version. Its recordings download the first time you play them, and the rest of the app stays in English.

Tradition says Lao-tzu (also written Lao Tzu or Laozi) kept the archives of the Zhou court. Most scholars think the book took shape over many years and many hands, and reached something like its present form around the fourth and third centuries before the common era.

James Legge was a Scottish scholar who translated the Chinese classics into English, and his Tao Te Ching appeared in 1891. It’s in the public domain, and it’s the Traditional version in Tao.

Chapter one takes about forty-five seconds to hear in the Traditional version and about half a minute in the Modern and Poetic ones. All eighty-one chapters in the three versions come to about two and a half hours, and more than four hours once you add the interpretations.

Yes. On iPhone and iPad every chapter has a text page, and you can follow along as each word lights up or read it in silence.

No. Tao opens where you left off, and a button picks a random chapter if you’d rather not choose. You can also set a daily reminder, and slow the reading down or speed it up.

Yes. Each chapter plays over an ink painting that moves while it’s read. There are nine paintings, a new one every nine chapters, and each has its own sound underneath.

The first nine chapters are included for free, in every version, along with their interpretations and a short introduction to the book. Purchasing gives you access to the other seventy-two. It’s a one-time purchase with no subscription.

The first nine chapters are free. One purchase opens the other seventy-two, and there is no subscription. The price is in the box at the foot of this page.

Tao runs on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Apple Watch.

Yes. The watch plays chapters by itself, and its two watch-face complications show today’s chapter or play where you left off.

Yes. The app, the three versions and the spoken explanations are in English. In Settings you can also add the original Chinese, read aloud in Mandarin.