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Tao Te Ching

201 points by yu3zhou4 3y ago

yu3zhou4 3y ago
Lao Tzu's reflections on Tao
dantondwa 3y ago
“The above is the most accurate translation of the ancient classic available anywhere at any price.” Quite a bold statement that immediately makes me very sceptical. When reading ancient classics in translation, the wisest approach is comparing multiple translations. Only then a more complete picture will emerge. This website allows one to compare some translations side by side: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh With this said, the Tao Te Ching is one of the most astonishing texts to ever be written. It hovers around what I see as an essential truth, pointing at it while intentionally avoiding defining it. Any translation and any form is worth being read. I have recently been reading a new Italian translation of it, by Luigi Maggio and published by Bompiani, and I have been really appreciating its care for the mystic, shamanic origin of the text, and the deep discussions of each translation choice, together with the presence of the original text.
- dudefeliciano 3y ago
  If you haven't read it yet I can highly recommend the Italian collection of translations by Augusto Shandena Sabbadini (curator), which also provides translations to each individual Chinese character in the book. (btw looks like we commented almost the same thing at the same time.)
- keyle 3y ago
  It's indeed a big statement coming from the original ideas taken from an ancient language and by some anonymous monk's recounting of the facts. The whole thing is fascinating to me.
  - FollowingTheDao 3y ago
    > by some anonymous monk's recounting of the facts The DDC what not written by one person. Laozi just complied old writings from several sources.
    - naremu 3y ago
      It is also worth noting that as of time of writing, the idea of whether or not Laozi was a single person that ever existed is less clear than originally interpreted. One of the translations I've read more recently takes note of how it, and Zhuangzi were likely penned within the same century, and that Chinese culture of the time did not frown upon "borrowing" or "building" upon knowledge bases and presenting them as "yours". Actually kind of an interesting attitude towards communal wells of knowledge compared to many modern attitudes, I think. The Tao Te Ching may technically be the ultimate work of textual "sampling" if there's any truth to it.
      - hosh 3y ago
        It also has to do with how legitimization works within the Chinese culture. Things with lineages and ancestors are more seen as more legitimate, and the Chinese (historically at least) are not above borrowing it. Related is the complex and rich history of Chinese martial arts. If you ask for the oral tradition for any modern school claiming a lineage, it is often founded by a mythical founder — maybe some Shaolin monk, or a Taoist monk. There is a good case that martial art lineages are much more likely to have evolved out of military skills. It does not help that most practitioners were illiterate, and often not well-educated. What I don’t know is if the literate class also borrowed legitimacy. I don’t think they did, because I don’t think they had to.
- fnordsensei 3y ago
  > It hovers around what I see as an essential truth Yeah, and it opens with basically saying "look, we know that we're going to talk about things ill suited to be captured by language, so keep that it mind"
  - scarmig 3y ago
    The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?
    - Tao3300 3y ago
      Not me. I'm keeping my traps and my words so I can keep using them tomorrow.
      - rando_dfad 3y ago
        And I'm keeping my trap shut
    - kstenerud 3y ago
      Words are placeholders for meaning. Once you lose the words, you lose the ability to retain the thought with any reliable accuracy due to how our brains work.
      - scarmig 3y ago
        Words are just a lossy inefficient stand-in for a vector embedding database.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  The problem of language is a common thread in eastern philosophies, and Western Idealist. Language can't express the idea, but Language is the only way to pass the idea to others, but then what others hear is something not quite right and can be misinterpreted, which can lead to problems. Huang Po - Zen Wittgenstein - West
  - ysavir 3y ago
    To me, this is one of the most interesting differentiations between western philosophy and eastern philosophy. Western philosophy tries to get around the language problems by writing thick volumes with excruciating detail and pedantry to help their idea get across as accurately as possible. Eastern philosophy tries to get around the language problems with allusion and metaphor, leaning on the reader/listeners own experiences as foundation and trying to help them extrapolate from those experiences. It's a fascinating contrast to me. I can't say with any certainty which delivers better, but I lean towards the eastern approach.
    - jhanschoo 3y ago
      My experience reading ancient Greek philosophy has been indeed that many philosophers use allusion and metaphor and are focused on leading a good life.
      - ysavir 3y ago
        Yeah, the ancients Greeks are a mix. Plato in particular finds a way to do both well. But then with Aristotle we have the foundation of writing to excess. Documentation instead of communication.
    - CitizenKane 3y ago
      To be fair, it's far easier in written Chinese[1] to have allusion and metaphor because of the multifaceted nature of meaning in the characters. For instance, 行 (pronounced xing or haeng in Mandarin) has an absolute laundry list[2] of meanings even though originally it meant an intersection of roads. It's also possible (but to my knowledge less common) to play with the actual character shapes to induce other meanings, or to use replacement characters that are direct (or close) homophones to construct a play on words. The example that immediately pops to mind is the use of "river crabs" (河蟹 or héxiè) to replace "harmonized" (和谐 or héxié) in order to evade censorship. I'd honestly be willing to say that there is no real accurate translation of the Dao de Jing into English. Ancient Chinese commentators (including Confucius) note the difficulty of understanding the Dao de Jing, and they could read and speak the language! Not to say that it's impossible, but it's just extremely difficult to replicate. I look at it as being akin to translating Shakespeare into Mandarin. Even English speakers struggle with Shakespeare and when translated it loses the lyricism and a lot of the underlying meaning. [1] Noting here that when speaking the context will generally make it less ambiguous. Additionally, Mandarin and ancient Chinese at the time of Lao Zi share very little in common phonetically. [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censor...
- FollowingTheDao 3y ago
  > This website allows one to compare some translations side by side: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh Most of those are not translations from Chinese, they are interpretations from already translated Chinese texts. > With this said, the Tao Te Ching is one of the most astonishing texts to ever be written. It hovers around what I see as an essential truth, pointing at it while intentionally avoiding defining it. Any translation and any form is worth being read. I agree.
- mkovach 3y ago
  Frankly, I found this "translation" the best: https://aui.me/text/the-dude-de-ching/ https://aui.me/text/the-dude-de-ching/ ,but Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, my opinion, man.
  - otherdave 3y ago
    Is this your homework, mkovach?
- sentimentscan 3y ago
  Can you recommend something similar to tao the ching? I don't mean anything like tao of pooh/new age stuff/alan watts, but similar in the spirit of tao.
  - dudefeliciano 3y ago
    Not OP but "Wandering on the Way" is a great collection of later daoist writings https://www.google.de/books/edition/Wandering_on_the_Way/dpFnYhV_ghIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.de/books/edition/Wandering_on_the_Way/dpF...
  - tralarpa 3y ago
    The Heart Sutra, an extremely condensed version of core Buddhist teaching. But, in my opinion, such texts are useless without explanations. Bernie Glassman explains it in the book "Infinite Circle: Teachings in Zen".
  - 5cott0 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book)
  - driggs 3y ago
    The obvious second book to read after Laozi is Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu). His book is a joy to read, full of humor and anecdotes, where Laozi's reads like cryptic poetry. Both books describe a common worldview of harmonious living with the natural world, from complementary perspectives. I personally recommend Burton Watson's translation of Zhuangzi.
    - juris 3y ago
      Seconding this-- and I can recommend the Merton translation. Great for late night reading, or if you are feeling especially unsettled.
    - mcguire 3y ago
      I personally like Angus Graham's translation, Chuang-tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book Chuang-tzu, as well as his essays on it, A Companion to Angus C. Graham’s Chuang Tzu. For one thing, it gave me some significant sympathy for analytic philosophy for the first time.
- tomcar288 3y ago
  personally, i can only extract so much meaning from the text itself without rely on experts and explanations. i find it helpful to have it interpretted as well by people like Jason gregory.
- mbivert 3y ago
  FWIW, I've wrote a tool to help translate from Chinese on a per-word basis using open ressources (dictionaries, decomposition table, etc.). In particular, it helps to recover some of the information lost when translating from Chinese. It's a personal project for now, so some things are still rough (e.g. no way to add new books, and I haven't bothered with the Tao Te Ching yet). You can see how it works on the San Zi Jing here[0]. If some of you are interested or have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out; my email should be on the "about" page. [0]: https://zhongmu.eu/trbook.html#c=1;w=6;b=san-zi-jing https://zhongmu.eu/trbook.html#c=1;w=6;b=san-zi-jing
- LiquidSky 3y ago
  >When reading ancient classics in translation, the wisest approach is comparing multiple translations. Only then a more complete picture will emerge. But if I can't read the original ancient Chinese, what good does comparing the translations do? I can tell which ones read better to me, but I have no idea if any of them are actually accurate.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    I think the idea is that "the real content" will be nearest where all the translations have consensus. Aberrational translations are quickly discounted this way. Even the single best translation will probably be worse than reading the top three best translations since translation is as much an art as a science.
  - woopsn 3y ago
    So right at the beginning it says this -- you can talk about Tao, but not the eternal Tao[1]. From a philosophy perspective, it is a good idea to read different versions because there isn't really a "right way to put it". This kind of Taoism is meant to make you think and relate to the universe in a certain way. If you're more interested in studying an authentic version of the text though, almost all of the English "translations" are inadequate and misleading. This was a book about dynastic China. The oldest sources appear to have been compiled from multiple sources themselves, and then underwent further revision, eg the order of Tao and Te was probably reversed at some point, the text became less regionally specific as it traveled across China, acquired different vocabulary and grammar, was appropriated by Confucians, separated into chapters, etc. So in this sense it's interesting to read multiple translations and analysis. To get the full picture you have to consider the sinology around the text too. [1] John C. H. Wu's translation: https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html#Kap01 https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html#Kap01
  - z2 3y ago
    Not to make it sound hopeless, but Old Chinese is lossy because it tended to favor conciseness at the expense of unambiguous clarity. There is no total truth and a bit of subjective interpretation is required. 持而盈之 for instance is "持=hold 而=yet 盈=overflow 之=[implied subject or this]" while the translator decided to add a cup, writing "Holding a cup and overfilling it." It's a great assumption as 盈 has the etymology of a vessel being filled, but still an assumption nonetheless.
- dheera 3y ago
  Not any different from a potato chip brand claiming themsleves as the best tasting. They do this because consumers fall for this crap, collectively encouraging the behavior. If they said "we think it's the best translation but you should read multiple and decide for yourselves", they wouldn't make it to the top of news sites.
- prox 3y ago
  I currently learn from a master in a living lineage of Shifu and you get so much context from that than “just” reading the text. You also get the living reality of the text which is beneficial.
- kstenerud 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - skribanto 3y ago
    These virtues are promoted by Christianity as well
    - autokad 3y ago
      no, it only states that you shouldn't be greedy or envious of other people's things. That's a far cry from 'you shouldn't have any things at all'. ambition is fine, so long as it doesn't distract you from god - and god is in everything including yourself, so what its really saying is dont let anything distract you from yourself. don't do anything that is against 'you'.
  - autokad 3y ago
    agree 100%. I had to read it, and to be honest I found little wisdom in it. To add on to your list, you could tell they had distain for people who travel or wanted to do new things.
- hosh 3y ago
  There is a lot missing in any translation of the Dao De Jing, because nothing really captures the various layers of meanings from the original. There are also some meanings that are made clear with realizations and gnosis (for the lack of a better term). One of my favorite is Ursula K Le Guin’s rendering. Her version captures some of the poetry that I rarely find in more straightforward translation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- tasuki 3y ago
  > This website allows one to compare some translations side by side: > https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh Hey that's my website! Thanks for linking :)
specproc 3y ago
I really like the Ron Hogan translation. It's lighter on the woo and, y'know, connects. https://terebess.hu/english/tao/ron.html https://terebess.hu/english/tao/ron.html
- notarobot123 3y ago
  Chapter 42 starts out with some cosmic mumbo-jumbo about Tao making one, one making two, two making three, and three making everything else. I don't know what it means, and, frankly, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
  - keyle 3y ago
    Well it is ... Chapter 42... Coincidence? I think not!
  - pdw 3y ago
    That's weirdly similar to the alchemical _Axiom of Maria_: "One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth." Though the only thing that proves is that mystics all over the world could count to three.
    - t-3 3y ago
      Perhaps the alchemical axiom was influenced by Taoism? The east and west both had roughly contemporaneous periods of alchemical development and lots of known knowledge transfer so it's certainly possible that religious texts associated with a group known for alchemy in the east would end up in some way in the hands of western alchemists.
    - hutzlibu 3y ago
      "Though the only thing that proves is that mystics all over the world could count to three." And that they thought about transformation and did not believe that anything is fixed and unchangable (like for example atoms were supposed to be.)
  - morelisp 3y ago
dudefeliciano 3y ago
"The above is the most accurate translation of the ancient classic available anywhere at any price." I have read a few different translations in different languages, and the interpretations are often quite different. So I think this description is a bit too overconfident. I have to think back to a pet project that I never realized in which I wanted to build a platform for people to provide their own interpretation/commentary on this Classic - something like a genius.com for Daoism and the Daodejing. This was specifically because I had noticed so many different translations and interpretations. Nevertheless I appreciate the website, and anything to do with Daoism, and will be reading this translation as well.
- uoaei 3y ago
  For those who want to compare a translation alongside the original (with pop-up boxes explaining the meanings of the original Chinese) look no further than Yellowbridge: https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing.php https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing.php This website has helped me appreciate the imagery and structure of Mandarin, having never studied it before. I also appreciate the difficulty of translating such a poetic, ambiguous text as the Tao Te Ching or the related I Ching. Helps me understand how to "triangulate" the original meaning using multiple translations of the same source material.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    The Tao Te Ching is not written in Mandarin but in Old Chinese. The two are as different, and stand in roughly the same relationship, as Latin and French. These differences include all levels of the language: phonology, syntax, lexicon, and what morphology the Sinitic languages have. In commentaries, the characters of Old Chinese words are sonetimes glossed with their modern Mandarin sound values, but this is ahistorical and often misleading. The Chinese classics are not accessible to ordinary Chinese without special training. That is why the early 20th century campaign to write in the spoken language instead of fossilized literary languages, made such a huge impact on literacy in China.
    - 3y ago
bowsamic 3y ago
[flagged]
- uoaei 3y ago
  It loosens the grip of the Western narrative re: destiny, individualism, control, rat race, etc. Similar to Stoicism in its initial incarnations but with another perspective that IMO has more universality. Your dismissive tone is curious because the same kind of dismissal can be made of the absurd and outlandish belief systems and mythologies of Mahayana. "Perfected wisdom" is hard to imagine when basing it on stories of stories of myths of god-like beings.
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    EDIT: Deleted as can no longer reply due to being blocked by /u/dang
    - SanderNL 3y ago
      Why don't you try it out for yourself and let us know. You seem to worry about other people's interests more than usual. I get the pragmatism coming from a Buddhist, but not everything can or indeed needs to be brought down into a "path". I'm sure you are fully aware of this. Now I am fascinated by your consternations. Whatever the answer, whatever people get out of it. What's it to you?
- mcphage 3y ago
  I dunno, what do you do with it?
  - bowsamic 3y ago
    That's what I just asked.
- mindvirus 3y ago
  The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. :) It's a very accessible exploration of attachment and offers some great insights on things like ego, virtue and leadership.
mjklin 3y ago
Brook Ziporyn recently gave a short talk on his translation of this text, well worth watching: https://youtu.be/EJ1bB2w2gBk?si=qxBQq9KiL6pSom2Q https://youtu.be/EJ1bB2w2gBk?si=qxBQq9KiL6pSom2Q
modernpink 3y ago
Has this text ever been placed under scientific/logical analysis? Just because it's from an ancient text does not mean it has relevance to life today. For example, the following could be verified via some kind of socioeconomic data analysis: >Do not glorify the achievers >So the people will not squabble
- edgyquant 3y ago
  If it’s been around and maintained for thousands of years that’s usually because it contains abstract truth relevant to man in any age.
  - MadSudaca 3y ago
    Another interesting aspect is that it was created as a manual for rulers during the Spring and Autumn periods of China. A time where the country was divided in many little states fighting for consolidate their power. Many philosophies arose on how to achieve this, and only a handful survived. So not only has it passed the test of time, but it could be said it was produced empirically in an age with intense adaptive pressures.
    - Merrill 3y ago
      University of British Columbia: Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science - Part 1 Part 1 introduces the basic philosophical, religious and scientific concepts that will be drawn upon throughout the course, and then goes on to cover early Shang and Zhou religious thought, the Analects of Confucius, the Daodejing (a Daoist text attributed to Laozi), the utilitarian thinker Mozi, the newly discovered and very exciting Guodian texts, and the momentous philosophical changes that occurred in the mid Warring States period. https://www.edx.org/learn/humanities/university-of-british-columbia-chinese-thought-ancient-wisdom-meets-modern-scienc https://www.edx.org/learn/humanities/university-of-british-c... Excellent course on this period's philosophy.
      - MadSudaca 3y ago
jadbox 3y ago
It's interesting to me how Daoism from China and Hermeticism from Greco-Egyptian culture erose from very separate places with very similar themes. Both traditions emphasize the idea of a universal force or principle governing the cosmos (the Tao in Daoism and the All or the 0ne in Hermeticism).
- FollowingTheDao 3y ago
  Hermeticism was influenced by Daoism and Daoism was around way before Hermeticism as a folk religion and shamanistic practice. Daosim was centrifuged as early as 500BCE, a good 200 years before Hermeticism. It is most likely there was some cultural interactions, ie, the Dayuan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan
- smokel 3y ago
  This is probably due to a built-in preference in our minds for something we later started calling Occam's razor. Obviously there must have been something that started it all, and if there were n+1 things at some time, there might have been n things before, leading to the conclusion that there must once have been 1 thing. These philosophies arise multiple times per evening in any pub where alcohol is served. It's just that most don't stick around for long enough, possibly due to bad marketing.
  - morelisp 3y ago
    Is it an in-built preference? I think a robust monism is still a fairly radical position, especially among religious views. For example even the branches of Christianity which tack more materially tend to draw a rigid boundary between creator/created, God/the universe, etc. (and if you interrogate lay views they tend to skew even more dualistically).
    - smokel 3y ago
      The thinking starts with the beer, then progresses towards one entity, then backpedals because one needs a second to offset against, and from two comes three, and we have come full circle. I see a similar pattern in the advent of abstract art. People have independently settled upon primary colors, primary shapes, and primary compositions, only to then get stuck in a rather limited playing field, from which people started again to create the total utter chaos that is called post-modernism. My personal conviction is that neither religion not abstract art have found the key to understanding the universe. They merely reflect our limited way of thinking.
thisisauserid 3y ago
I recommend Ursula K. Le Guin's "Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way." Then go back and reread The Dispossessed and you'll see a lot of the Tao in it.
- johnthescott 3y ago
  her translation of the tao was the work of her life.
superb-owl 3y ago
Ursula Le Guin's translation is, IMO, truest to the spirit of the original text. I defended it a bit here: https://blog.superb-owl.link/p/taoism-minus-the-nonsense https://blog.superb-owl.link/p/taoism-minus-the-nonsense
MadSudaca 3y ago
I recently created my own translation with annotations based on chatgpt. It’s hard to state what is the “most accurate” translation, as there’s several ancient versions of the Tao Te Ching. The most popular one is from a guy named Wang Bi. He was actually a Confucian and sought to integrate both philosophical currents, which had been in opposition in the past centuries. Who’s to say what is “accurate” in this context. If anyone’s interested, send me a DM and I’ll send you the PDF, or if not, you can check it out on Amazon, it’s called “Tao Te Ching: Reinterpreted”.
zaphod420 3y ago
IMO, the only page that matters is the first one. "The tao that can be told is not the eternal tao."
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago
  Makes me think, "Theory only takes you so far" Or in 2020s slang, "Touch grass"
  - glouwbug 3y ago
    Sure > Grass and trees are tender and soft at birth, and are dry and brittle at death. Therefore, The hard and strong belong to the company of death; The soft and weak belong to the company of life.
  - zlg_codes 3y ago
    Such conclusions aren't teaching you anything, though. It's a form of smugness that alludes to some magical knowledge you'll gain by doing X thing, when that's not how the world works. When people are telling others to "touch grass", it's usually in reference to a specific social thing or attitude they think the other should adopt, but refuse to spell out. It's a pejorative command meant to ridicule. It has no constructive applications, and its use in conversation indicates hostility on behalf of the speaker. If the opening line of the TTC was sufficient, the book wouldn't have been written. The reason the book leads with that is because words are a limiting medium. Much like one's hand pointing to the moon is not the moon, our words point to concepts, they are not the concept themselves. It also continues because, it's unhelpful to tell someone to "touch grass" or "go live it yourself", without any guidance. That's just being a dick. The TTC guides you with concepts and behaviors found in nature. Things you can go outside and observe if you look closely enough. There's no mysticism to it. Find patterns in nature, or pay attention to the "currents" in your life, and you'll find the Tao. Touching grass helps but it's not required. :)
primitivesuave 3y ago
The “most accurate translation” of the first line of the Tao Te Ching (The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao) would be “Tao that is Tao is not Tao”. The original Chinese leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and the best translation (in my opinion) is by Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English.
- morelisp 3y ago
  IIRC Smullyan "literally" translates a modern "literal" Chinese translation as "The Tao that can be Taoed is not the true Tao" which I think is a little more accessible without meaningful compromise. (I cribbed that for my personal rendering as "Tao that is 'tao' is not really tao" and it's one of the few lines I don't think I changed in many years. Maybe it's something other programmers will appreciate.)
sanatgersappa 3y ago
The best translation I've found - http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.txt http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.txt
- bravura 3y ago
  'At the time, I was newly infatuated with the writing of Quentin Tarantino and David Mamet, so my dream version of a TTC reflected the simplicity and grit of their dialogue.' Here is how Hogan translates the first lines of the Tao Te Ching: If you can talk about it, it ain't Tao. If it has a name, it's just another thing.
  - pringk02 3y ago
    Personally, as someone who has read (and often rereads) the Tao in the original Chinese (with a lot of assistance and references!). I actually really like Hogan's translation. I don't think it holds as the only translation you need, but I feel a lot of translators become fixated on trying to capture the mystic poetic-ness of the Tao, but it is impossible to render this in English without loosing one of its most important stylistic elements: it's extreme terseness. Hogan's translation misses a lot of "meaning", but you're missing the point if you want the specificity of the word choice translated for you.
  - __rito__ 3y ago
    These ideas are very much reflected in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. What enters your mind and goes through a function of complete rational cognition- cannot be the ultimate truth. And we repeatedly see in Zen koans, also mentioned in GEB, and life and teachings of Buddha that all questions cannot be purely answered with mere words. Tractatus, Godel's Incompleteness, Halting problem, and these all somehow talk about the same unknowability- or at least intellectually.
calebm 3y ago
"In the beginning was the Tao, and the Tao was with God, and the Tao was God." (John 1:1)
jayavanth 3y ago
Here's Stephen Mitchell's translation which I like very much: https://stephenmitchellbooks.com/translations-adaptations/tao-te-ching/ https://stephenmitchellbooks.com/translations-adaptations/ta... This page posts one every day https://dailytao.org/ https://dailytao.org/
- jwx48 3y ago
  Mitchell's translation of part 50, in particular, has long resonated with me: The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to: no illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body. He doesn't think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day's work. He admits (in the end notes, If I remember correctly) that this is not a literal translation; but comparing it to translations that do stick more closely to the original text I find that there's a lot here I prefer.
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  It is worth calling out the Mitchell translation as significantly transformative.
  - beefman 3y ago
    Can you give an example?
    - woopsn 3y ago
      So I have Mitchell's version and like it as well. But he notably did not call his piece a new translation, only a new version. He doesn't speak or read any Chinese[1], so to begin with he was studying from secondary sources. He also generally just rephrased and reworded liberally. It's his version of Tao Te Ching, and to be fair this is the case for many translations. But for example, Mitchell begins #3: If you overesteem great men, people become powerless. If you overvalue possessions, people begin to steal. While American sinologist Robert Henricks[2] translated it as: By not elevating the worthy, you bring it about that people will not compete. By not valuing goods that are hard to obtain, you bring it about that people will not act like thieves. By not displaying the desirable you bring it about that people will not be confused. And from Chinese jurist John C. H. Wu[3]: By not exalting the talented you will cause the people to cease from rivalry and contention. By not prizing goods hard to get, you will cause the people to cease from robbing and stealing. By not displaying what is desirable, you will cause the people's hearts to remain undisturbed. Some of his changes are like this, Mitchell's version was more readable and accessible compared to the genuine translations, but compressed the message (sometimes to the point of being a bit reductive). In other cases his edits were more substantial. In #9 for example: Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. Compare to Henricks: To hold it upright and fill it, Is not so good as stopping [in time]. When you pound it out and give it a point, It won't be preserved very long. When gold and jade fill your rooms, You'll never be able to protect them. Arrogance and pride with wealth and rank, On their own bring on disaster. When the deed is accomplished you retire; Such is Heaven's Way! And Wu: As for holding to fullness, Far better were it to stop in time! Keep on beating and sharpening a sword, And the edge cannot be preserved for long. Fill your house with gold and jade, And it can no longer be guarded. Set store by your riches and honour, And you will only reap a crop of calamities. Here is the Way of Heaven: When you have done your work, retire! Mitchell's version differs significantly from Henricks, in meaning. He interprets Tao as the way to serenity (vs the Way of Heaven), and gold and jade like money (risk of consumerism, individual peril) instead of a gratuitous display of wealth (risk of burglary, social peril). [1] https://scott.london/interviews/mitchell.html https://scott.london/interviews/mitchell.html [2] https://terebess.hu/english/tao/henricks.html https://terebess.hu/english/tao/henricks.html [3] https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html
Boogie_Man 3y ago
The book of ancient wisdom about Taoism from an isolated nation with a completely different language sounding vaguely like "Tao Teaching" really stressed me out when I first learned about it. It's no wonder paranoid schizophrenics get so wild, coincidences are sometimes alarmingly weird.
carapace 3y ago
FWIW I like Jonathan Star’s translation. I'm looking forward to poring over this one.
timacles 3y ago
To really "get" the Tao Te Ching, I think you have to study Zen and Buddhism. Without getting an intuitive understanding of abstract phrases, talking about things with metaphors, stuff like emptyness and "the way" you're really not going to get anything out of it. You also need to have worked to master some craft or art form. But once you do understand those things, the ideas in the Tao Te Ching are almost common sense. Stuff any somewhat wise person would understand immediately. You can pick any random line out of it and apply to almost any discipline or situation. Its all really just a collection of basic worldly wisdom, that you would encounter doing anything if you put genuine effort into it. Hell, take any art composition class and you can see most ideas in the Tao Te Ching applied literally. This is because in art, things like form, balance and emptyness are all basic building blocks to design
- pphysch 3y ago
  > To really "get" the Tao Te Ching, I think you have to study Zen and Buddhism. TTC doesn't really require a particular framework to understand. It is however difficult to grok from with a Western/Christian philosophical framework. So studying Eastern philosophy could indeed help break down those preconceptions if one suffers from them.
- vorpalhex 3y ago
  > have to study Zen and Buddhism. You will get the most from Taoism by studying it with the mind of a beginner or a child than entering into it with preconceived ideologies.
- jmfldn 3y ago
  Zen evolved from Chinese Chan Buddhism which was influenced by Daoism. Zen is not Daoism though, it is Buddhism. Therefore, to study Daoist texts as a beginner I don't think Zen Buddhism is going to help. It's just going to muddy concepts whatever overlap there may be.
  - __rito__ 3y ago
    Zen is influenced both by Buddhism and Taoism. The word "Zen" may have Chinese roots which in turn might have Indian root (dhyan - meditation -> chen/chan -> Zen) - but it doesn't mean whole of Zen evolved from Taoism. And you cannot really learn Tao by just reading a book- no matter how much of a "beginner's mind" you have. Tao practitioners in China, Buddhists in India/China, and Zen practitioners in China/Japan led very different lifestyles from the rest of the populace. Teachings of Zen/Taoism/Buddhism are nice to hear, and quotable- but you can't learn them by merely reading a book. Practice, and inclusion in lifestyle is necessary.
drcongo 3y ago
The only time I've ever read the Tao Te Ching, I had just hitchhiked 350 miles in the name of love and hadn't slept in about 48 hours. I think that's the ideal state to read it.
blastro 3y ago
Nine Nights with the Taoist Master - great book to get in touch with TTC: https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Nights-Taoist-Master-Deluxe/dp/0976545403 https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Nights-Taoist-Master-Deluxe/dp/0...
- velcrovan 3y ago
  Wow, USD $50 for that book. It better be life-changing.
  - blastro 3y ago
    It's pretty good!
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
Some identify Tao (道) with Ṛta (ऋत) and with Logos (λόγος). And perhaps most interesting is the first chapter of the Gospel of John, which identifies Christ with the Logos (Incarnate) (though one can be forgiven for missing this because translations into most languages result in seemingly inscrutable constructions like "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."; "Word" is horribly anemic in comparison to "Logos"). Given this equivalence, this could result in interesting dialogue between, say, Catholics, Hindus, and Taoists. (The pagan Greeks were already in dialogue with early Christians, of course, hence the use of the extremely Greek word in question in the New Testament.)
- cjameskeller 3y ago
  Using this translation as a reference: http://mountainman.com.au/tao_1_9.html http://mountainman.com.au/tao_1_9.html, there are a few places that really stand out. Section 1 can be understood in terms of the incomprehensible "Logos" which is before both the "logoi" (in Latin, "ratio"; that is, "reasons") in things, as well as before the human "logos"; the rational mind by which we can understand those things. Section 4 has parallels to many Biblical passages (Isaiah 40:4, John 4:14, etc) and speaks of the Tao as being like an "offspring" or "preface" to God. Likewise, Sections 7-9, 13 & 14, 16, 22, 27, and many others have strong parallels to Biblical passages. Section 42 speaks of the Tao begetting One, the One begetting Two, the Two begetting Three, and the Three begetting all else. This is definitely not exactly the Trinity, but the cosmology here (and see the Taijitu Shuo) is suggestive... Section 78 says that only one who takes up the shame and sins of the world is fit to be its ruler. Anywhere one can find concepts or themes that "rhyme", I find there to be something real and weighty.
notShabu 3y ago
I've thought about this for quite a bit and here is my relatively legible explanation of what the 'Dao' and synonymous concepts in other religions/cultures is The "Path" is the arc from a state of anti-entropy(negentropy) to entropy. Negentropy is synonymous with "God" or goodness while entropy is the "Devil" or badness. A life that is in "flow" is one that is on the path moving away from God's light while bravely facing death with eyes forward. Courage is the first of all virtues b/c when facing forward, you are more thankful for each and every fleeting moment. "False idols" are like perpetual motion machines, they seem like sources of negentropy and can reverse the arrow of time like a fountain of youth. etc...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- theonemind 3y ago
  As someone with interest in Zen and Buddhism, I find that line of thought very interesting, but feel like it needs some tweaking somehow. I feel like they want to perhaps equalize anti-entropy and entropy...like, say, between plants and animals, O2 represents a waste product for the plant, and a vital input for the animal, and the CO2 a waste product for the animal, and an important input for the plant. When you don't take the perspective of either of them, you see entropy from one angle, and anti-entropy from another angle. Below I put a bit from Zen master Huang Po on 'the fundamental principle'. The glorious Buddhas would represent anti-entropy, which you do not go toward. The horrific forms entropy, from which you do not move away. Equalized. Anyway, interesting line of thought, only offering another perspective! "If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of consciousness as void; the four physical elements as not constituting an 'I'; the real Mind as formless and neither coming nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one - if he could really accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash. He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor. He would be without even the faintest tendency towards rebirth. If he should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestation, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditioned being. This, then, is the fundamental principle. [This paragraph is, perhaps, one of the finest exposition of Zen teaching, for it encompasses in a few words almost the entire scope of that vast and penetrating wisdom.]" - Huang Po

201 points by yu3zhou4 3y ago

Lao Tzu's reflections on Tao

“The above is the most accurate translation of the ancient classic available anywhere at any price.” Quite a bold statement that immediately makes me very sceptical. When reading ancient classics in translation, the wisest approach is comparing multiple translations. Only then a more complete picture will emerge. This website allows one to compare some translations side by side: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh With this said, the Tao Te Ching is one of the most astonishing texts to ever be written. It hovers around what I see as an essential truth, pointing at it while intentionally avoiding defining it. Any translation and any form is worth being read. I have recently been reading a new Italian translation of it, by Luigi Maggio and published by Bompiani, and I have been really appreciating its care for the mystic, shamanic origin of the text, and the deep discussions of each translation choice, together with the presence of the original text.

dudefeliciano 3y ago
If you haven't read it yet I can highly recommend the Italian collection of translations by Augusto Shandena Sabbadini (curator), which also provides translations to each individual Chinese character in the book. (btw looks like we commented almost the same thing at the same time.)
keyle 3y ago
It's indeed a big statement coming from the original ideas taken from an ancient language and by some anonymous monk's recounting of the facts. The whole thing is fascinating to me.
- FollowingTheDao 3y ago
  > by some anonymous monk's recounting of the facts The DDC what not written by one person. Laozi just complied old writings from several sources.
  - naremu 3y ago
    It is also worth noting that as of time of writing, the idea of whether or not Laozi was a single person that ever existed is less clear than originally interpreted. One of the translations I've read more recently takes note of how it, and Zhuangzi were likely penned within the same century, and that Chinese culture of the time did not frown upon "borrowing" or "building" upon knowledge bases and presenting them as "yours". Actually kind of an interesting attitude towards communal wells of knowledge compared to many modern attitudes, I think. The Tao Te Ching may technically be the ultimate work of textual "sampling" if there's any truth to it.
    - hosh 3y ago
      It also has to do with how legitimization works within the Chinese culture. Things with lineages and ancestors are more seen as more legitimate, and the Chinese (historically at least) are not above borrowing it. Related is the complex and rich history of Chinese martial arts. If you ask for the oral tradition for any modern school claiming a lineage, it is often founded by a mythical founder — maybe some Shaolin monk, or a Taoist monk. There is a good case that martial art lineages are much more likely to have evolved out of military skills. It does not help that most practitioners were illiterate, and often not well-educated. What I don’t know is if the literate class also borrowed legitimacy. I don’t think they did, because I don’t think they had to.
fnordsensei 3y ago
> It hovers around what I see as an essential truth Yeah, and it opens with basically saying "look, we know that we're going to talk about things ill suited to be captured by language, so keep that it mind"
- scarmig 3y ago
  The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?
  - Tao3300 3y ago
    Not me. I'm keeping my traps and my words so I can keep using them tomorrow.
    - rando_dfad 3y ago
      And I'm keeping my trap shut
  - kstenerud 3y ago
    Words are placeholders for meaning. Once you lose the words, you lose the ability to retain the thought with any reliable accuracy due to how our brains work.
    - scarmig 3y ago
      Words are just a lossy inefficient stand-in for a vector embedding database.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
The problem of language is a common thread in eastern philosophies, and Western Idealist. Language can't express the idea, but Language is the only way to pass the idea to others, but then what others hear is something not quite right and can be misinterpreted, which can lead to problems. Huang Po - Zen Wittgenstein - West
- ysavir 3y ago
  To me, this is one of the most interesting differentiations between western philosophy and eastern philosophy. Western philosophy tries to get around the language problems by writing thick volumes with excruciating detail and pedantry to help their idea get across as accurately as possible. Eastern philosophy tries to get around the language problems with allusion and metaphor, leaning on the reader/listeners own experiences as foundation and trying to help them extrapolate from those experiences. It's a fascinating contrast to me. I can't say with any certainty which delivers better, but I lean towards the eastern approach.
  - jhanschoo 3y ago
    My experience reading ancient Greek philosophy has been indeed that many philosophers use allusion and metaphor and are focused on leading a good life.
    - ysavir 3y ago
      Yeah, the ancients Greeks are a mix. Plato in particular finds a way to do both well. But then with Aristotle we have the foundation of writing to excess. Documentation instead of communication.
  - CitizenKane 3y ago
    To be fair, it's far easier in written Chinese[1] to have allusion and metaphor because of the multifaceted nature of meaning in the characters. For instance, 行 (pronounced xing or haeng in Mandarin) has an absolute laundry list[2] of meanings even though originally it meant an intersection of roads. It's also possible (but to my knowledge less common) to play with the actual character shapes to induce other meanings, or to use replacement characters that are direct (or close) homophones to construct a play on words. The example that immediately pops to mind is the use of "river crabs" (河蟹 or héxiè) to replace "harmonized" (和谐 or héxié) in order to evade censorship. I'd honestly be willing to say that there is no real accurate translation of the Dao de Jing into English. Ancient Chinese commentators (including Confucius) note the difficulty of understanding the Dao de Jing, and they could read and speak the language! Not to say that it's impossible, but it's just extremely difficult to replicate. I look at it as being akin to translating Shakespeare into Mandarin. Even English speakers struggle with Shakespeare and when translated it loses the lyricism and a lot of the underlying meaning. [1] Noting here that when speaking the context will generally make it less ambiguous. Additionally, Mandarin and ancient Chinese at the time of Lao Zi share very little in common phonetically. [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%A1%8C [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censorship_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemisms_for_Internet_censor...
FollowingTheDao 3y ago
> This website allows one to compare some translations side by side: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh Most of those are not translations from Chinese, they are interpretations from already translated Chinese texts. > With this said, the Tao Te Ching is one of the most astonishing texts to ever be written. It hovers around what I see as an essential truth, pointing at it while intentionally avoiding defining it. Any translation and any form is worth being read. I agree.
mkovach 3y ago
Frankly, I found this "translation" the best: https://aui.me/text/the-dude-de-ching/ https://aui.me/text/the-dude-de-ching/ ,but Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, my opinion, man.
- otherdave 3y ago
  Is this your homework, mkovach?
sentimentscan 3y ago
Can you recommend something similar to tao the ching? I don't mean anything like tao of pooh/new age stuff/alan watts, but similar in the spirit of tao.
- dudefeliciano 3y ago
  Not OP but "Wandering on the Way" is a great collection of later daoist writings https://www.google.de/books/edition/Wandering_on_the_Way/dpFnYhV_ghIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover https://www.google.de/books/edition/Wandering_on_the_Way/dpF...
- tralarpa 3y ago
  The Heart Sutra, an extremely condensed version of core Buddhist teaching. But, in my opinion, such texts are useless without explanations. Bernie Glassman explains it in the book "Infinite Circle: Teachings in Zen".
- 5cott0 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi_(book)
- driggs 3y ago
  The obvious second book to read after Laozi is Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu). His book is a joy to read, full of humor and anecdotes, where Laozi's reads like cryptic poetry. Both books describe a common worldview of harmonious living with the natural world, from complementary perspectives. I personally recommend Burton Watson's translation of Zhuangzi.
  - juris 3y ago
    Seconding this-- and I can recommend the Merton translation. Great for late night reading, or if you are feeling especially unsettled.
  - mcguire 3y ago
    I personally like Angus Graham's translation, Chuang-tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters and Other Writings from the Book Chuang-tzu, as well as his essays on it, A Companion to Angus C. Graham’s Chuang Tzu. For one thing, it gave me some significant sympathy for analytic philosophy for the first time.
tomcar288 3y ago
personally, i can only extract so much meaning from the text itself without rely on experts and explanations. i find it helpful to have it interpretted as well by people like Jason gregory.
mbivert 3y ago
FWIW, I've wrote a tool to help translate from Chinese on a per-word basis using open ressources (dictionaries, decomposition table, etc.). In particular, it helps to recover some of the information lost when translating from Chinese. It's a personal project for now, so some things are still rough (e.g. no way to add new books, and I haven't bothered with the Tao Te Ching yet). You can see how it works on the San Zi Jing here[0]. If some of you are interested or have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out; my email should be on the "about" page. [0]: https://zhongmu.eu/trbook.html#c=1;w=6;b=san-zi-jing https://zhongmu.eu/trbook.html#c=1;w=6;b=san-zi-jing
LiquidSky 3y ago
>When reading ancient classics in translation, the wisest approach is comparing multiple translations. Only then a more complete picture will emerge. But if I can't read the original ancient Chinese, what good does comparing the translations do? I can tell which ones read better to me, but I have no idea if any of them are actually accurate.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  I think the idea is that "the real content" will be nearest where all the translations have consensus. Aberrational translations are quickly discounted this way. Even the single best translation will probably be worse than reading the top three best translations since translation is as much an art as a science.
- woopsn 3y ago
  So right at the beginning it says this -- you can talk about Tao, but not the eternal Tao[1]. From a philosophy perspective, it is a good idea to read different versions because there isn't really a "right way to put it". This kind of Taoism is meant to make you think and relate to the universe in a certain way. If you're more interested in studying an authentic version of the text though, almost all of the English "translations" are inadequate and misleading. This was a book about dynastic China. The oldest sources appear to have been compiled from multiple sources themselves, and then underwent further revision, eg the order of Tao and Te was probably reversed at some point, the text became less regionally specific as it traveled across China, acquired different vocabulary and grammar, was appropriated by Confucians, separated into chapters, etc. So in this sense it's interesting to read multiple translations and analysis. To get the full picture you have to consider the sinology around the text too. [1] John C. H. Wu's translation: https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html#Kap01 https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html#Kap01
- z2 3y ago
  Not to make it sound hopeless, but Old Chinese is lossy because it tended to favor conciseness at the expense of unambiguous clarity. There is no total truth and a bit of subjective interpretation is required. 持而盈之 for instance is "持=hold 而=yet 盈=overflow 之=[implied subject or this]" while the translator decided to add a cup, writing "Holding a cup and overfilling it." It's a great assumption as 盈 has the etymology of a vessel being filled, but still an assumption nonetheless.
dheera 3y ago
Not any different from a potato chip brand claiming themsleves as the best tasting. They do this because consumers fall for this crap, collectively encouraging the behavior. If they said "we think it's the best translation but you should read multiple and decide for yourselves", they wouldn't make it to the top of news sites.
prox 3y ago
I currently learn from a master in a living lineage of Shifu and you get so much context from that than “just” reading the text. You also get the living reality of the text which is beneficial.
kstenerud 3y ago
[flagged]
- skribanto 3y ago
  These virtues are promoted by Christianity as well
  - autokad 3y ago
    no, it only states that you shouldn't be greedy or envious of other people's things. That's a far cry from 'you shouldn't have any things at all'. ambition is fine, so long as it doesn't distract you from god - and god is in everything including yourself, so what its really saying is dont let anything distract you from yourself. don't do anything that is against 'you'.
- autokad 3y ago
  agree 100%. I had to read it, and to be honest I found little wisdom in it. To add on to your list, you could tell they had distain for people who travel or wanted to do new things.
hosh 3y ago
There is a lot missing in any translation of the Dao De Jing, because nothing really captures the various layers of meanings from the original. There are also some meanings that are made clear with realizations and gnosis (for the lack of a better term). One of my favorite is Ursula K Le Guin’s rendering. Her version captures some of the poetry that I rarely find in more straightforward translation.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tasuki 3y ago
> This website allows one to compare some translations side by side: > https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh Hey that's my website! Thanks for linking :)

specproc 3y ago

I really like the Ron Hogan translation. It's lighter on the woo and, y'know, connects. https://terebess.hu/english/tao/ron.html https://terebess.hu/english/tao/ron.html

notarobot123 3y ago
Chapter 42 starts out with some cosmic mumbo-jumbo about Tao making one, one making two, two making three, and three making everything else. I don't know what it means, and, frankly, I wouldn't worry about it too much.
- keyle 3y ago
  Well it is ... Chapter 42... Coincidence? I think not!
- pdw 3y ago
  That's weirdly similar to the alchemical _Axiom of Maria_: "One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth." Though the only thing that proves is that mystics all over the world could count to three.
  - t-3 3y ago
    Perhaps the alchemical axiom was influenced by Taoism? The east and west both had roughly contemporaneous periods of alchemical development and lots of known knowledge transfer so it's certainly possible that religious texts associated with a group known for alchemy in the east would end up in some way in the hands of western alchemists.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "Though the only thing that proves is that mystics all over the world could count to three." And that they thought about transformation and did not believe that anything is fixed and unchangable (like for example atoms were supposed to be.)
- morelisp 3y ago

dudefeliciano 3y ago

"The above is the most accurate translation of the ancient classic available anywhere at any price." I have read a few different translations in different languages, and the interpretations are often quite different. So I think this description is a bit too overconfident. I have to think back to a pet project that I never realized in which I wanted to build a platform for people to provide their own interpretation/commentary on this Classic - something like a genius.com for Daoism and the Daodejing. This was specifically because I had noticed so many different translations and interpretations. Nevertheless I appreciate the website, and anything to do with Daoism, and will be reading this translation as well.

uoaei 3y ago
For those who want to compare a translation alongside the original (with pop-up boxes explaining the meanings of the original Chinese) look no further than Yellowbridge: https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing.php https://www.yellowbridge.com/onlinelit/daodejing.php This website has helped me appreciate the imagery and structure of Mandarin, having never studied it before. I also appreciate the difficulty of translating such a poetic, ambiguous text as the Tao Te Ching or the related I Ching. Helps me understand how to "triangulate" the original meaning using multiple translations of the same source material.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  The Tao Te Ching is not written in Mandarin but in Old Chinese. The two are as different, and stand in roughly the same relationship, as Latin and French. These differences include all levels of the language: phonology, syntax, lexicon, and what morphology the Sinitic languages have. In commentaries, the characters of Old Chinese words are sonetimes glossed with their modern Mandarin sound values, but this is ahistorical and often misleading. The Chinese classics are not accessible to ordinary Chinese without special training. That is why the early 20th century campaign to write in the spoken language instead of fossilized literary languages, made such a huge impact on literacy in China.
  - 3y ago

bowsamic 3y ago

[flagged]

uoaei 3y ago
It loosens the grip of the Western narrative re: destiny, individualism, control, rat race, etc. Similar to Stoicism in its initial incarnations but with another perspective that IMO has more universality. Your dismissive tone is curious because the same kind of dismissal can be made of the absurd and outlandish belief systems and mythologies of Mahayana. "Perfected wisdom" is hard to imagine when basing it on stories of stories of myths of god-like beings.
- bowsamic 3y ago
  EDIT: Deleted as can no longer reply due to being blocked by /u/dang
  - SanderNL 3y ago
    Why don't you try it out for yourself and let us know. You seem to worry about other people's interests more than usual. I get the pragmatism coming from a Buddhist, but not everything can or indeed needs to be brought down into a "path". I'm sure you are fully aware of this. Now I am fascinated by your consternations. Whatever the answer, whatever people get out of it. What's it to you?
mcphage 3y ago
I dunno, what do you do with it?
- bowsamic 3y ago
  That's what I just asked.
mindvirus 3y ago
The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. :) It's a very accessible exploration of attachment and offers some great insights on things like ego, virtue and leadership.

mjklin 3y ago

Brook Ziporyn recently gave a short talk on his translation of this text, well worth watching: https://youtu.be/EJ1bB2w2gBk?si=qxBQq9KiL6pSom2Q https://youtu.be/EJ1bB2w2gBk?si=qxBQq9KiL6pSom2Q

modernpink 3y ago

Has this text ever been placed under scientific/logical analysis? Just because it's from an ancient text does not mean it has relevance to life today. For example, the following could be verified via some kind of socioeconomic data analysis: >Do not glorify the achievers >So the people will not squabble

edgyquant 3y ago
If it’s been around and maintained for thousands of years that’s usually because it contains abstract truth relevant to man in any age.
- MadSudaca 3y ago
  Another interesting aspect is that it was created as a manual for rulers during the Spring and Autumn periods of China. A time where the country was divided in many little states fighting for consolidate their power. Many philosophies arose on how to achieve this, and only a handful survived. So not only has it passed the test of time, but it could be said it was produced empirically in an age with intense adaptive pressures.
  - Merrill 3y ago
    University of British Columbia: Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science - Part 1 Part 1 introduces the basic philosophical, religious and scientific concepts that will be drawn upon throughout the course, and then goes on to cover early Shang and Zhou religious thought, the Analects of Confucius, the Daodejing (a Daoist text attributed to Laozi), the utilitarian thinker Mozi, the newly discovered and very exciting Guodian texts, and the momentous philosophical changes that occurred in the mid Warring States period. https://www.edx.org/learn/humanities/university-of-british-columbia-chinese-thought-ancient-wisdom-meets-modern-scienc https://www.edx.org/learn/humanities/university-of-british-c... Excellent course on this period's philosophy.
    - MadSudaca 3y ago

jadbox 3y ago

It's interesting to me how Daoism from China and Hermeticism from Greco-Egyptian culture erose from very separate places with very similar themes. Both traditions emphasize the idea of a universal force or principle governing the cosmos (the Tao in Daoism and the All or the 0ne in Hermeticism).

FollowingTheDao 3y ago
Hermeticism was influenced by Daoism and Daoism was around way before Hermeticism as a folk religion and shamanistic practice. Daosim was centrifuged as early as 500BCE, a good 200 years before Hermeticism. It is most likely there was some cultural interactions, ie, the Dayuan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayuan
smokel 3y ago
This is probably due to a built-in preference in our minds for something we later started calling Occam's razor. Obviously there must have been something that started it all, and if there were n+1 things at some time, there might have been n things before, leading to the conclusion that there must once have been 1 thing. These philosophies arise multiple times per evening in any pub where alcohol is served. It's just that most don't stick around for long enough, possibly due to bad marketing.
- morelisp 3y ago
  Is it an in-built preference? I think a robust monism is still a fairly radical position, especially among religious views. For example even the branches of Christianity which tack more materially tend to draw a rigid boundary between creator/created, God/the universe, etc. (and if you interrogate lay views they tend to skew even more dualistically).
  - smokel 3y ago
    The thinking starts with the beer, then progresses towards one entity, then backpedals because one needs a second to offset against, and from two comes three, and we have come full circle. I see a similar pattern in the advent of abstract art. People have independently settled upon primary colors, primary shapes, and primary compositions, only to then get stuck in a rather limited playing field, from which people started again to create the total utter chaos that is called post-modernism. My personal conviction is that neither religion not abstract art have found the key to understanding the universe. They merely reflect our limited way of thinking.

thisisauserid 3y ago

I recommend Ursula K. Le Guin's "Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way." Then go back and reread The Dispossessed and you'll see a lot of the Tao in it.

johnthescott 3y ago
her translation of the tao was the work of her life.

superb-owl 3y ago

Ursula Le Guin's translation is, IMO, truest to the spirit of the original text. I defended it a bit here: https://blog.superb-owl.link/p/taoism-minus-the-nonsense https://blog.superb-owl.link/p/taoism-minus-the-nonsense

MadSudaca 3y ago

I recently created my own translation with annotations based on chatgpt. It’s hard to state what is the “most accurate” translation, as there’s several ancient versions of the Tao Te Ching. The most popular one is from a guy named Wang Bi. He was actually a Confucian and sought to integrate both philosophical currents, which had been in opposition in the past centuries. Who’s to say what is “accurate” in this context. If anyone’s interested, send me a DM and I’ll send you the PDF, or if not, you can check it out on Amazon, it’s called “Tao Te Ching: Reinterpreted”.

zaphod420 3y ago

IMO, the only page that matters is the first one. "The tao that can be told is not the eternal tao."

ReactiveJelly 3y ago
Makes me think, "Theory only takes you so far" Or in 2020s slang, "Touch grass"
- glouwbug 3y ago
  Sure > Grass and trees are tender and soft at birth, and are dry and brittle at death. Therefore, The hard and strong belong to the company of death; The soft and weak belong to the company of life.
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  Such conclusions aren't teaching you anything, though. It's a form of smugness that alludes to some magical knowledge you'll gain by doing X thing, when that's not how the world works. When people are telling others to "touch grass", it's usually in reference to a specific social thing or attitude they think the other should adopt, but refuse to spell out. It's a pejorative command meant to ridicule. It has no constructive applications, and its use in conversation indicates hostility on behalf of the speaker. If the opening line of the TTC was sufficient, the book wouldn't have been written. The reason the book leads with that is because words are a limiting medium. Much like one's hand pointing to the moon is not the moon, our words point to concepts, they are not the concept themselves. It also continues because, it's unhelpful to tell someone to "touch grass" or "go live it yourself", without any guidance. That's just being a dick. The TTC guides you with concepts and behaviors found in nature. Things you can go outside and observe if you look closely enough. There's no mysticism to it. Find patterns in nature, or pay attention to the "currents" in your life, and you'll find the Tao. Touching grass helps but it's not required. :)

primitivesuave 3y ago

The “most accurate translation” of the first line of the Tao Te Ching (The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao) would be “Tao that is Tao is not Tao”. The original Chinese leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and the best translation (in my opinion) is by Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English.

morelisp 3y ago
IIRC Smullyan "literally" translates a modern "literal" Chinese translation as "The Tao that can be Taoed is not the true Tao" which I think is a little more accessible without meaningful compromise. (I cribbed that for my personal rendering as "Tao that is 'tao' is not really tao" and it's one of the few lines I don't think I changed in many years. Maybe it's something other programmers will appreciate.)

sanatgersappa 3y ago

The best translation I've found - http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.txt http://www.beatrice.com/TAO.txt

bravura 3y ago
'At the time, I was newly infatuated with the writing of Quentin Tarantino and David Mamet, so my dream version of a TTC reflected the simplicity and grit of their dialogue.' Here is how Hogan translates the first lines of the Tao Te Ching: If you can talk about it, it ain't Tao. If it has a name, it's just another thing.
- pringk02 3y ago
  Personally, as someone who has read (and often rereads) the Tao in the original Chinese (with a lot of assistance and references!). I actually really like Hogan's translation. I don't think it holds as the only translation you need, but I feel a lot of translators become fixated on trying to capture the mystic poetic-ness of the Tao, but it is impossible to render this in English without loosing one of its most important stylistic elements: it's extreme terseness. Hogan's translation misses a lot of "meaning", but you're missing the point if you want the specificity of the word choice translated for you.
- __rito__ 3y ago
  These ideas are very much reflected in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. What enters your mind and goes through a function of complete rational cognition- cannot be the ultimate truth. And we repeatedly see in Zen koans, also mentioned in GEB, and life and teachings of Buddha that all questions cannot be purely answered with mere words. Tractatus, Godel's Incompleteness, Halting problem, and these all somehow talk about the same unknowability- or at least intellectually.

calebm 3y ago

"In the beginning was the Tao, and the Tao was with God, and the Tao was God." (John 1:1)

jayavanth 3y ago

Here's Stephen Mitchell's translation which I like very much: https://stephenmitchellbooks.com/translations-adaptations/tao-te-ching/ https://stephenmitchellbooks.com/translations-adaptations/ta... This page posts one every day https://dailytao.org/ https://dailytao.org/

jwx48 3y ago
Mitchell's translation of part 50, in particular, has long resonated with me: The Master gives himself up to whatever the moment brings. He knows that he is going to die, and he has nothing left to hold on to: no illusions in his mind, no resistances in his body. He doesn't think about his actions; they flow from the core of his being. He holds nothing back from life; therefore he is ready for death, as a man is ready for sleep after a good day's work. He admits (in the end notes, If I remember correctly) that this is not a literal translation; but comparing it to translations that do stick more closely to the original text I find that there's a lot here I prefer.
vorpalhex 3y ago
It is worth calling out the Mitchell translation as significantly transformative.
- beefman 3y ago
  Can you give an example?
  - woopsn 3y ago
    So I have Mitchell's version and like it as well. But he notably did not call his piece a new translation, only a new version. He doesn't speak or read any Chinese[1], so to begin with he was studying from secondary sources. He also generally just rephrased and reworded liberally. It's his version of Tao Te Ching, and to be fair this is the case for many translations. But for example, Mitchell begins #3: If you overesteem great men, people become powerless. If you overvalue possessions, people begin to steal. While American sinologist Robert Henricks[2] translated it as: By not elevating the worthy, you bring it about that people will not compete. By not valuing goods that are hard to obtain, you bring it about that people will not act like thieves. By not displaying the desirable you bring it about that people will not be confused. And from Chinese jurist John C. H. Wu[3]: By not exalting the talented you will cause the people to cease from rivalry and contention. By not prizing goods hard to get, you will cause the people to cease from robbing and stealing. By not displaying what is desirable, you will cause the people's hearts to remain undisturbed. Some of his changes are like this, Mitchell's version was more readable and accessible compared to the genuine translations, but compressed the message (sometimes to the point of being a bit reductive). In other cases his edits were more substantial. In #9 for example: Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity. Compare to Henricks: To hold it upright and fill it, Is not so good as stopping [in time]. When you pound it out and give it a point, It won't be preserved very long. When gold and jade fill your rooms, You'll never be able to protect them. Arrogance and pride with wealth and rank, On their own bring on disaster. When the deed is accomplished you retire; Such is Heaven's Way! And Wu: As for holding to fullness, Far better were it to stop in time! Keep on beating and sharpening a sword, And the edge cannot be preserved for long. Fill your house with gold and jade, And it can no longer be guarded. Set store by your riches and honour, And you will only reap a crop of calamities. Here is the Way of Heaven: When you have done your work, retire! Mitchell's version differs significantly from Henricks, in meaning. He interprets Tao as the way to serenity (vs the Way of Heaven), and gold and jade like money (risk of consumerism, individual peril) instead of a gratuitous display of wealth (risk of burglary, social peril). [1] https://scott.london/interviews/mitchell.html https://scott.london/interviews/mitchell.html [2] https://terebess.hu/english/tao/henricks.html https://terebess.hu/english/tao/henricks.html [3] https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html https://terebess.hu/english/tao/wu.html

Boogie_Man 3y ago

The book of ancient wisdom about Taoism from an isolated nation with a completely different language sounding vaguely like "Tao Teaching" really stressed me out when I first learned about it. It's no wonder paranoid schizophrenics get so wild, coincidences are sometimes alarmingly weird.

carapace 3y ago

FWIW I like Jonathan Star’s translation. I'm looking forward to poring over this one.

timacles 3y ago

To really "get" the Tao Te Ching, I think you have to study Zen and Buddhism. Without getting an intuitive understanding of abstract phrases, talking about things with metaphors, stuff like emptyness and "the way" you're really not going to get anything out of it. You also need to have worked to master some craft or art form. But once you do understand those things, the ideas in the Tao Te Ching are almost common sense. Stuff any somewhat wise person would understand immediately. You can pick any random line out of it and apply to almost any discipline or situation. Its all really just a collection of basic worldly wisdom, that you would encounter doing anything if you put genuine effort into it. Hell, take any art composition class and you can see most ideas in the Tao Te Ching applied literally. This is because in art, things like form, balance and emptyness are all basic building blocks to design

pphysch 3y ago
> To really "get" the Tao Te Ching, I think you have to study Zen and Buddhism. TTC doesn't really require a particular framework to understand. It is however difficult to grok from with a Western/Christian philosophical framework. So studying Eastern philosophy could indeed help break down those preconceptions if one suffers from them.
vorpalhex 3y ago
> have to study Zen and Buddhism. You will get the most from Taoism by studying it with the mind of a beginner or a child than entering into it with preconceived ideologies.
jmfldn 3y ago
Zen evolved from Chinese Chan Buddhism which was influenced by Daoism. Zen is not Daoism though, it is Buddhism. Therefore, to study Daoist texts as a beginner I don't think Zen Buddhism is going to help. It's just going to muddy concepts whatever overlap there may be.
- __rito__ 3y ago
  Zen is influenced both by Buddhism and Taoism. The word "Zen" may have Chinese roots which in turn might have Indian root (dhyan - meditation -> chen/chan -> Zen) - but it doesn't mean whole of Zen evolved from Taoism. And you cannot really learn Tao by just reading a book- no matter how much of a "beginner's mind" you have. Tao practitioners in China, Buddhists in India/China, and Zen practitioners in China/Japan led very different lifestyles from the rest of the populace. Teachings of Zen/Taoism/Buddhism are nice to hear, and quotable- but you can't learn them by merely reading a book. Practice, and inclusion in lifestyle is necessary.

drcongo 3y ago

The only time I've ever read the Tao Te Ching, I had just hitchhiked 350 miles in the name of love and hadn't slept in about 48 hours. I think that's the ideal state to read it.

blastro 3y ago

Nine Nights with the Taoist Master - great book to get in touch with TTC: https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Nights-Taoist-Master-Deluxe/dp/0976545403 https://www.amazon.com/Nine-Nights-Taoist-Master-Deluxe/dp/0...

velcrovan 3y ago
Wow, USD $50 for that book. It better be life-changing.
- blastro 3y ago
  It's pretty good!

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

Some identify Tao (道) with Ṛta (ऋत) and with Logos (λόγος). And perhaps most interesting is the first chapter of the Gospel of John, which identifies Christ with the Logos (Incarnate) (though one can be forgiven for missing this because translations into most languages result in seemingly inscrutable constructions like "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."; "Word" is horribly anemic in comparison to "Logos"). Given this equivalence, this could result in interesting dialogue between, say, Catholics, Hindus, and Taoists. (The pagan Greeks were already in dialogue with early Christians, of course, hence the use of the extremely Greek word in question in the New Testament.)

cjameskeller 3y ago
Using this translation as a reference: http://mountainman.com.au/tao_1_9.html http://mountainman.com.au/tao_1_9.html, there are a few places that really stand out. Section 1 can be understood in terms of the incomprehensible "Logos" which is before both the "logoi" (in Latin, "ratio"; that is, "reasons") in things, as well as before the human "logos"; the rational mind by which we can understand those things. Section 4 has parallels to many Biblical passages (Isaiah 40:4, John 4:14, etc) and speaks of the Tao as being like an "offspring" or "preface" to God. Likewise, Sections 7-9, 13 & 14, 16, 22, 27, and many others have strong parallels to Biblical passages. Section 42 speaks of the Tao begetting One, the One begetting Two, the Two begetting Three, and the Three begetting all else. This is definitely not exactly the Trinity, but the cosmology here (and see the Taijitu Shuo) is suggestive... Section 78 says that only one who takes up the shame and sins of the world is fit to be its ruler. Anywhere one can find concepts or themes that "rhyme", I find there to be something real and weighty.

notShabu 3y ago

I've thought about this for quite a bit and here is my relatively legible explanation of what the 'Dao' and synonymous concepts in other religions/cultures is The "Path" is the arc from a state of anti-entropy(negentropy) to entropy. Negentropy is synonymous with "God" or goodness while entropy is the "Devil" or badness. A life that is in "flow" is one that is on the path moving away from God's light while bravely facing death with eyes forward. Courage is the first of all virtues b/c when facing forward, you are more thankful for each and every fleeting moment. "False idols" are like perpetual motion machines, they seem like sources of negentropy and can reverse the arrow of time like a fountain of youth. etc...

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theonemind 3y ago
As someone with interest in Zen and Buddhism, I find that line of thought very interesting, but feel like it needs some tweaking somehow. I feel like they want to perhaps equalize anti-entropy and entropy...like, say, between plants and animals, O2 represents a waste product for the plant, and a vital input for the animal, and the CO2 a waste product for the animal, and an important input for the plant. When you don't take the perspective of either of them, you see entropy from one angle, and anti-entropy from another angle. Below I put a bit from Zen master Huang Po on 'the fundamental principle'. The glorious Buddhas would represent anti-entropy, which you do not go toward. The horrific forms entropy, from which you do not move away. Equalized. Anyway, interesting line of thought, only offering another perspective! "If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of consciousness as void; the four physical elements as not constituting an 'I'; the real Mind as formless and neither coming nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one - if he could really accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash. He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor. He would be without even the faintest tendency towards rebirth. If he should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestation, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditioned being. This, then, is the fundamental principle. [This paragraph is, perhaps, one of the finest exposition of Zen teaching, for it encompasses in a few words almost the entire scope of that vast and penetrating wisdom.]" - Huang Po