The best Tao Te Ching books

War is nothing like business. Countries go to war to compel opponents to do things they’d rather not: Change governments, cede territory, etc. Businesses, on the other hand, try to attract customers to their products and services. In his monumental study of warfare, Patterns of Conflict, Boyd described a strategy that had been remarkably successful: Use an advantage in the tempo of decisions and operations to seize the initiative and exploit it before the opponent could figure out what had happened. He also described a set of cultural attributes that enabled the most successful militaries to do this.

I noticed that a number of companies highlighted by Tom Peters in Thriving on Chaos used similar principles. Many conversations later – including between Peters, Boyd, and me – I had the concept for this book. 

Modern life can be hectic. Filled with noise. Filled with things screaming for our attention. Filled with complexity. Filled with tasks that need to be done. Filled with stress. However, we can walk another path. Life can be calmer. It can be less noisy. It can be less stressful. A powerful tool we can all learn to wield in our lives is simplicity. We can simplify our lives. To do so, we must first go inside. We must simplify from the inside out, to achieve a meaningful return.

That’s what this book is about. What follows is a series of essays that prod at some big topics and challenges we all face. Where I can, I have shared some potential solutions that can support us living a simpler life. All are offered from the personal perspective of someone that believes in the power of simplicity. Someone that believes this journey to simpler, starts from the inside out.

Drawing upon the vital lessons of the Tao Te Ching, The Tao of Inner Peace shows readers how to create greater peace in their lives by honoring their own inner rhythms, part of the overarching rhythms of nature. They will learn to see beyond current conditions, recognize the Tao’s dynamic balance of yin and yang, resolve conflict within and around them, discover new possibilities, and create greater harmony in their world.

Drawing upon the vital lessons of the Tao Te Ching, The Tao of Inner Peace shows readers how to create greater peace in their lives by honoring their own inner rhythms, part of the overarching rhythms of nature. They will learn to see beyond current conditions, recognize the Tao’s dynamic balance of yin and yang, resolve conflict within and around them, discover new possibilities, and create greater harmony in their world.

Thor is best known today as a superhero in Marvel comics and films. In many ways he is the ultimate Viking: bluff, hearty, strong, and direct. And so he was in the earliest surviving stories from Norse myth. The thunder god has survived Roman attempts to conflate him with Classical gods, the bowdlerization of early Christian writers, Nazi attempts to co-opt him and his symbols, and more – and he has done so remarkably unchanged.

Yoga is globally popular, but also often misunderstood. For example, the word “yoga” does not always mean union. In fact, in perhaps the discipline’s most famous text—the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali—its aim is described as separation: isolating consciousness from everything else. And yoga is not five thousand years old, as is commonly claimed; the earliest evidence of systematic practice dates back about twenty-five hundred years. The Truth of Yoga is a clear, concise, and accessible guide to how yoga evolved. Combining scholarly knowledge with quotations from texts, it highlights ways to keep traditions alive in the twenty-first century.

Linda Curtis was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and is an unquestioning true believer who has knocked on doors from the time she was nine years old. Like other Witnesses, she has been discouraged from pursuing a career, higher education, or even voting, and her friendships are limited to the Witness community.
Then one day, at age thirty-three, she knocks on a door--and a coworker she deeply respects answers the door. To their mutual consternation she launches into her usual spiel, but this time, for the first time ever, the message sounds hollow. In the months that follow, Curtis tries hard to overcome the doubts that spring from that doorstep encounter, knowing they could upend her "safe" existence. But ultimately, unable to reconcile her incredulity, she leaves her religion and divorces her Witness husband--a choice for which she is shunned by the entire community, including all members of her immediate family.

Shunned follows Linda as she steps into a world she was taught to fear and discovers what is possible when we stay true to our hearts, even when it means disappointing those we love.

The physical practice of yoga is familiar to most people—a cat-cow stretch, a downward-facing dog, the majestic Warrior Pose. Yet too many people don’t realize that the physical practice is only a fraction of the secret code that unleashes the transformational powers of yoga. If you dig deeper, you’ll discover that yoga’s simple, yet rich philosophy contains profound insights for confronting the complexities of life.

This ancient wisdom, contained in the “Eight Limbs of Yoga,” offers those in the modern world ways to stay centered, compassionate, calm, and content, even in chaotic circumstances. In this book, the authors filter yoga philosophy through the lens of work to illustrate how to stay positive, productive, creative, and energized no matter what you do or where you work.