Tao Te Ching Read Audiobook in a Card read by Tilda Swinton

This audiobook edition of the Tao Te Ching is inspired by the artist Antony Gormley, who also made the cover image Spiral for Spiracle. 

Translated most simply as the Book of the Way, the Tao Te Ching is thought to be the work of Laozi, written in China in the 6th century BCE. It is a sequence of 81 ‘poems’ that amount to a set of principles for life. At its simplest, the verses can assist each of us in our being part of Nature. In surrendering to the Tao (the Way); in giving up all concepts, judgements and desires, we grow naturally compassionate and can discover, deep in our own experiences, the central truths of the art of living.

Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Tao Te Ching is admired by anyone who knows it and, not surprisingly, it took him many years and draws on his 14 years of Zen training.

With the right text, it was a case of finding the right voice to read it; someone who could enter the empty space and read the simple prose verse with clarity and presence.

Tilda Swinton accepted the request.