Chuang Tzu uses grand metaphors and charming parables to help us to stop identifying with this and that thing, and to instead identify with our horizon-spanning field of consciousness and our embodied sense of spirit or energy. This frees us to be present with, and to playfully engage with, whatever things happen to appear before us. His remarkable book, written in Ancient China sometime around 300 BC, has lain hidden for millennia in a sprawling morass misleadingly known as the Chuang Tzu. Now, at last, it has been excavated. Here for the first time in over two thousand years is Chuang Tzu’s actual book: crisp and poetic, structured and elegant. A philosophical and literary work of art. This new translation is groundbreaking in three ways: It presents you with Chuang Tzu’s actual book . Whereas other translations mix Chuang Tzu’s writing up with other people’s comments and stories, this new translation is the first to remove all that clutter and reveal Chuang Tzu’s elegantly structured book. (The omitted material is moved to an appendix, so you can decide for yourself if the translator was right to remove it.) - It presents you with Chuang Tzu’s crisp, clear, poetic writing . Whereas other translations play freely with the original text (they tend to paraphrase and rewrite), this new translation adheres to the grammatical structure (the line structure, the phrasing, the exact imagery) of the text. The result is that whereas other translations ramble semi-coherently, now like an old drunk with pretensions of grandeur, now like a philosophy undergraduate dosed up on speed, this new translation presents you with Chuang Tzu’s crisp, clear, poetic writing. (For side-by-side comparisons with other translations and the Chinese text, see the book’s webpage: thecicadaandthebird dot com) - It provides a running commentary . Chuang Tzu’s stories are witty, funny, and profound, but to see this we often need to know the cultural context of the stories, and we often need some interpretive guidance. This translation is the first to have a running commentary that provides this context and guidance. Many stories in Chuang Tzu's book have never been coherently or deeply interpreted by anyone, until now. A wonderful book. —David Dyer, author of The Midnight Watch Simply amazing. I've read them all, and this is by far the best of this Chinese classic. Since 2000, there have been so many great new translations—of the Iliad, of Paradiso, everything by Anne Carson. This book ranks high among that group ... Whether you are just looking for a great read or a translation for a class, this should be your first choice. —pilot, reviewer on Amazon A warm, kind, friendly, engaging and humbly offered translation. Sharing Chuang Tzu's wisdom in an easy conversational manner and tone that makes it highly accessible. Not a daunting academic tome, though no less deeply researched, considered and carefully created/crafted. It's a wonderful gift to anyone who is lucky enough to have it enter their lives. —Peach Darvall, Hakomi psychotherapist I'm disgusted by how good this book is. While I've spent my life focused on climbing the academic ladder, Mr Tricker has been tinkering away at his leisure on the Chuang Tzu while faffing about with psychotherapy and meditation and carpentry and God-knows-what, and yet somehow he's managed to solve sinological problems that have baffled me my entire career. Just who does this little upstart think he is! And such horrible clarity: in a single paragraph he'll say what I can't manage to stutter in 20 pages. It's offensive and I won't have it. I refuse to even acknowledge this book. Anyway, the idea that someone would want to read something so well-written by a total nobody is absurd. There are many stodgy, pretentious, impenetrable books by distinguished professors like myself; that's what people should be reading. —Professor Stodge, Ivory Towers University