The Autonomy & Dao 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.

Its title is "The Autonomy & Dao of the Korean People."

I came across it serendipitously as I was browsing a random Korean bookstore just as I was 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) that worked a type of therapy on the way I view life, but it introduced me - via footnotes - to 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 translation available, but I have translated a few passages throughout the years on this blog that may be of interest to some.

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