Additional notes from the author

History

The Dude De Ching was originally published in 2010 but has gone through several permutations. In early 2016, it was completely re-written, illustrated and provided with an entirely new accompanying translation of the Tao Te Ching. In late 2016, a “New Annotated Edition” was released featuring 81 explanatory essays, one for each verse. You can find information about that version here: www.dudeism.com/thedudedeching. On the same page you can find free ebook versions of this unannotated version. If you like, please tell your friends.

A version of this book without Big Lebowski references is also available for those who aren’t particularly into the movie or Dudeism, but are interested to learn more about Taoism. More information about that book can be found here: www.daoism.org.

A note on genders

Though the term “dude” originated as a term to describe a certain type of male, and then later to refer to men in general, today it is often used to refer to both genders, at least in certain parts of the United States. Dudeism doesn’t recognize “dude” as a gender-specific word. We consider both women and men who exhibit dude-like qualities to be “dudes,” and assert that the word “dude” can mean many different things depending on the context. Additionally, we occasionally use male pronouns in this book to signify human beings in general, rather than resorting to awkward grammatical constructions like “he or she.”

Well, I hope you folks enjoy yourselves.