The Dao & Autonomy of the Korean People

No other book in my life has come close to having as large an impact on both my personal growth and my intellectual development as this book has.

The book is titled "The Dao & Autonomy of the Korean People."

I came across it serendipitously as I was browsing a random Korean bookstore when I was just beginning my university studies in Korea.

This book has given me so much. Not only did it help me gain a firm understanding of Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism better than any English-language material I've ever come across, it worked a type of therapy on the way I view life.

Beyond that it introduced me to - via footnotes - the two other major intellectual influences in my life: Lewis Mumford and Martin Heidegger.

I have read and re-read this book so many times that the original binding fell apart. Luckily I took it to a local copy store that re-bound it for me. It is full of my marginalia, notes and underlines.

It is my treasure.

Unfortunately, this book has been out of print for years now, and most Koreans aren't even able to read it anyways because of all of the Chinese characters in it.

Of course there is no English translation, but I have translated a few passages throughout the years on my old blog that may be of interest to some. I may bring some of those translations to Steemit if there is enough interest.

Check out those writings via this link, and I recommend you start with 'Dao and Study'