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    The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
    The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
    The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life

    Written by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh

    Narrated by Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    For the first time, an award-winning Harvard professor shares his wildly popular course on classical Chinese philosophy, showing you how ancient ideas—like the fallacy of the authentic self—can guide you on the path to a good life today.

    Why is a course on ancient Chinese philosophers one of the most popular at Harvard? Because it challenges all our modern assumptions about what it takes to flourish.

    Astonishing teachings emerged two thousand years ago through the work of a succession of Chinese scholars exploring how humans can improve themselves and their society. And what are these counterintuitive ideas? Transformation comes not from looking within for a true self, but from creating conditions that produce new possibilities. Good relationships come not from being sincere and authentic, but from the rituals we perform within them. A good life emerges not from planning it out, but through training ourselves to respond well to small moments. Influence comes not from wielding power but from holding back. Excellence comes from what we choose to do, not our natural abilities.

    In other words, The Path “opens the mind” (Huffington Post) and upends everything we are told about how to lead a good life. Its most radical idea is that there is no path to follow in the first place—just a journey we create anew at every moment by seeing and doing things differently. “With its…spirited, convincing vision, revolutionary new insights can be gleaned from this book on how to approach life’s multifarious situations with both heart and head” (Kirkus Reviews).

    A note from the publisher: To read relevant passages from the original works of Chinese philosophy, see our ebook Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Xunzi: Selected Passages, available wherever books are sold.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateApr 5, 2016
    ISBN9781442378094
    Author

    Michael Puett

    Michael Puett is the Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and Chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University. He is the recipient of a Harvard College Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching and is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

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    Reviews for The Path

    3.5/5

    70 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a good read. It helps people understand the balance or way better to improve personal growth.
    • 5/5
      Discovering the liberating power of uncertainty in an uncertain world has never been easier!!!
    • 3/5
      Author is knowledgeable. But best to just read the original texts. Gap is insanely high.
    • 4/5
      Really good introduction to Chinese thought that many of us in the West might not be familiar with. I had read many of these philosophers before, but this book opened my mind to some of their ideas in ways I hadn't previously considered
    • 4/5
      This is a quick dash through a series of ancient Chinese philosophers, Lao-tse, Confucius, and some near contemporaries. The book has an agenda, to show that these ancient thinkers are relevant today. We usually think that these folks from old and distant cultures were all stuck in traditional ruts while we modern industrial types are all free thinkers, so what could be the point of going back into any such prison of the mind? This book's main point is that actually we modern industrial types are the ones trapped in prisons of the mind, and that folks from old and distant lands were sometimes fresh and free, dealing with change and challenge quite effectively. It's a book version of an undergraduate class that Puett teaches at Harvard. I expect it's a 100 level class, an introduction to, or how to appreciate, ancient Chinese philosophy. There's a short bibliography for next steps in exploration. The book is just an appetizer. I'm a Buddhist and was rather annoyed by the occasional disparaging comments about Buddhism. In the end though the authors talk about how these days in modern industrial society the understanding of Buddhism is rather warped and shallow. The disparaging comments did seem, in retrospect, to be referring more to this warped and shallow version, rather than the rich river of thought that grew out the axial age sage of India.
    • 4/5
      I almost gave up on this book for being too common sense in places (and downright boring) but intermingled are rewarding insights too.
    • 3/5
      Ronald Reagan as a Daoist sage / leader? Things have taken a strange twist somewhere down the line for sure. Maybe I was just dreaming, but that's too much, even for an agile butterfly. I don't know if this is particularly about Harvard, or US style in general, but when a professor of Chinese philosophy waxes poetic about such a political figure without admitting what a superficial take this is, I can really feel the disturbance in The Way. If you haven't encountered any proper introductory analysis of the pillars of Chinese thought based on Confucius, Lao Tzu, Mencius, Zhuangzi and other names, this book might be the little push to kindle your curiosity, sort of a first step in a long journey. If that was the primary intention of the authors, then they succeeded. On the other hand, if you have some great expectations, immediately get rid of them. Just like the sayings of those old Chinese masters, you'll be presented with an incoherent, contradictory, fragmentary pieces and some "modern" takes on them (be ready for some sweeping generalizations, and anachronistic analogies). I like the last few pages of the book: the briefest comparison and contrasting between European and Asian history, and how China was perceived and misinterpreted by Europeans, leading to our modern misunderstandings.For those that have been already engaged with at least Confucianism and Daoism, the book doesn't have much to offer, except maybe a few resources for further reading.
    • 3/5
      Short book about the application of ancient Chinese philosophy to modern life is certainly well-intended, and it makes some good points, but it just isn't that exciting or revelatory. It grew from what is purported to be one of the most popular undergraduate classes at Harvard, and perhaps this is just what Harvard undergrads are looking for. Or maybe it just works better in person. The writing here is okay, but not particularly inspired. Kudos to the authors, however, for recognizing (in one of their modern examples) that the food we eat is already not "natural" and that genetically modified foods are just not natural in an accelerated way. The major philosophical takeaway here seems to be to resist reacting automatically to things, which in many cases just gets us into endless bad cycles. The use of artifice, such as pretending to be interested when you're not, will break the cycle and probably leave you feeling better. This is just a minor example. Others involve answering strength with weakness, adopting a leadership style where you don't seem to be leading, and so on. There is little to argue with here; it just wasn't a scintillating read.