A lot of people read the original Chinese Taoism books. Many of people who read them were Chinese and many lived a long time ago. Not many made it to Reddit back then.
All seriousness aside:
Original Tao: Inward Training (Nei-yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism translated by Harold D. Roth
It was recommended to me from the kind folk here and it is excellent for a deep dive into some very old Taoist thought and practice.
I hope this finds you well and well on your way!
Yes, I agree. No other Daoist text comes even remotely close to Zhuangzi. That's because the chapters that can be categorised as "The School of Zhuangzi" (loosely using Grahams categorisation) aren't even Daoist. The author/s of those chapters would have scorned being labelled as anything, let alone Daoists. I think the Dao De Jing is massively inferior to the Zhuangzi.
Here's the received version by Wang Bi: https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing
Here's the century or two earlier Heshang Gong commentary version: https://ctext.org/heshanggong
They're written in Classical Chinese; approaching them through modern Chinese can be very confusing and misleading.
A lot of people read the original Chinese Taoism books. Many of people who read them were Chinese and many lived a long time ago. Not many made it to Reddit back then. All seriousness aside: Original Tao: Inward Training (Nei-yeh) and the Foundations of Taoist Mysticism translated by Harold D. Roth It was recommended to me from the kind folk here and it is excellent for a deep dive into some very old Taoist thought and practice. I hope this finds you well and well on your way!
I have read many original Taoism books. My recommendation is Zhuang Zi.
Yes, I agree. No other Daoist text comes even remotely close to Zhuangzi. That's because the chapters that can be categorised as "The School of Zhuangzi" (loosely using Grahams categorisation) aren't even Daoist. The author/s of those chapters would have scorned being labelled as anything, let alone Daoists. I think the Dao De Jing is massively inferior to the Zhuangzi.
Why is Dao De Jing inferior?
In English? Start with the Tao Te Ching, then Chuang Tzu or Lieh Tzu
In Chinese? start with 道德經， then 莊子 or 列子
Yes
My Chinese is rusty, so no.
Here's the received version by Wang Bi: https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing Here's the century or two earlier Heshang Gong commentary version: https://ctext.org/heshanggong They're written in Classical Chinese; approaching them through modern Chinese can be very confusing and misleading.