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Very simply: with regard to that other thread, my response is that this chapter isn't in any way suggesting that people worship spirits. It talks of them, and I'm not sure I understand it, but my feeling is that he's suggesting that perhaps either the sage can use belief in spirits to control people (and rule easier), or that belief in spirits is harmful and nobody should bother with them. Less simply: Firstly, Legge's translation. I've realized why his stuff, as far as I'm concerned, so often missed the mark: he seems to have attempted to translate every work of early Chinese philosophy. He was in a bit of a rush.. In terms of words: why "manes" of the departed? Why "manifest their spiritual energy"? This kind of unnecessary language...meh. But equally, why "power"? 神 doesn't mean "power", as so many others have translated it. Does it? 神 could mean: creator, God, god, spirit, mysterious, wonderful, clever, infinite it originally is made up of 示 sacrifice/worship/ritual/altar and 申 lightning 鬼 could mean: demon, ghost, spirit of the dead, dark, unclear, cunning, dirty trick it originally is made up of 示 sacrifice/worship/ritual/altar and 田 (mask, not field) and 人 person (it depicted a shaman putting on a mask and acting like a demon/ghost) I would transliterate as: 治大國若亨小鮮 govern great nation like cook/contribute small fish 以道蒞天下 by Dao reach everything 其鬼不神 the cunning/ghost not mysterious/god 非其鬼不神也 false the cunning/ghost not mysterious/god 其神不傷人也 but the mystery/god not harm people 非其神不傷人也 false the mystery/god not harm people 聖人亦弗傷也 the sage also not have harm 夫兩不相傷 the two not hurt each other 故德交歸焉 then De not return? Secondly, then, in terms of interpretation: 治大國若享小鮮 Governing a great nation is like cooking small fish; (be greater than the nation) 以道蒞天下 Reach everything through the Way, (if you govern by Dao) 其鬼不神 And cunning shamans/demons lose their mystery/godlike image; 非其鬼不神也 If cunning shamans/demons don't lose their mystery/godlike image, (well, they might try to be mysterious) 其神不傷人也 The mystery will still not harm people; 非其神不傷人也 If the mystery still harms people, (some people might still be scared) 聖人亦弗傷也 The sage comes to/does no harm anyway. 夫兩不相傷 If the two do no harm to each other, (the cook and the fish / the sage and the nation) 故德交歸焉 Will De not return?

Yees I saw your post just now and wondered if spirits etc might be brought up. There's ch.6 too, with the valley spirit. I'll reply about ch.60 in the TTS forum when I've woken up a bit!

I was beginning to wonder if anyone else had noticed.. Vmarco, why the sudden rampage of anti-USA topics? Not "Why do you hate America?" (you've covered that fairly well so far) but "Why the sudden need to rant about it?" No problem with it, just wondering.

Why? Why death? Why ground flesh?

I don't know how true this is. Do you, for certain? The modern word for religion in Chinese is 宗教 -- 宗 appears on the Oracle Bones, and refers to worshiping and sacrificing to one's ancestors in a temple. And there have, for a long long time, been words in Chinese such as "worship", “sacrifice", "obedience", "spirit", "God", and a bunch of others that are inextricably linked to the idea of religion as we think of it in the West. I'd note that in the TTC, there isn't a single suggestion for people to worship, sacrifice, be obedient, etc, but that at the time Laozi was first gaining popularity, religious behaviour as described above was most certainly prevalent in China. So, I'd suggest that there very much has been a difference between philosophical Taoism and deity-worshiping Taoism, and that it's been fairly clear who was whom for some centuries! However, I agree with your general point that it doesn't really matter all that much

Look back in this conversation and you'll see that there is disagreement. Some of us agree that it is in no way is referring to thirteen anythings. In other words, the translators who mention these "thirteen companions" are basically making things up because they don't understand / cannot find a good way to translate the text. The number actually (imo) means 3 in 10. http://thetaobums.com/topic/19370-ttc-study-chapter-50-of-the-tao-teh-ching/?p=591655 I believe TT started the discussion about this here on page 3.

Yes. Why so sorry? Please...ask and say whatever you want. I know I do!

I believe that one can choose one's beliefs. Why would you choose to believe something that you know is holding you back? That'd be silly. If you recognize that that belief is detrimental... just stop believing it. Simples. I also don't know what's meant by "holding you back"... holding me back from what? Enlightenment?

It's a case where one Chinese character has many meanings. 气 must be, in some contexts, translated as breath. If we talk about inhaling and exhaling qi, for example, we're talking about breathing. Personally, I've always seen the qi that we breathe as continuing into a process in the body by which we produce qi energy. In Western scientific terms, this process is aerobic respiration, which is incredibly important (obviously). So to me qi is both breath and energy. They're as inseparable as... food and poop? That the ancients knew this -- that qi breath and qi energy are essentially the same -- is quite impressive.

Well, I haven't read the Tao of Pooh for many years, but.. it's not in the required reading as far as early texts go! Reading the TTC once or even a few times is most likely not enough. And there's no single really good translation of the text, so I always suggest reading at least 3 different versions. http://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html There are a lot here. My favourites are John Wu's, Gia-fu Feng's, and Stephen Addiss's. People also commonly refer to D. C. Lau's and Lin Yutang's, though I haven't read them myself. Also, importantly, the Chuang Tzu / Zhuangzi http://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html is equally as important as the TTC, really, though I must admit I haven't read it in its entirety yet

Not you, the guy in the video sorry, I haven't been following the convo here and just jumped in with an undeveloped thought on the lecture. Not sure if I can elaborate very well. I just feel that he's missing things. His thoughts seem limited to modern scientific principles, and he seems bent on having science overtake religion as the dominant way of thinking. Well, I have no problem with the idea of no theistic religions, but the idea that the removal of Christianity, Islam, etc will make people nicer and/or less destructive is fairly ridiculous (imo), and the idea that science can somehow "save" mankind... well.. Looking at his wikipedia entry, I see he is indeed in favour of "a scientific approach to normative morality" He mentions "evil" and morality a lot. After doing such a good job at unmasking the essentially religious notion of free will -- an idea dependent on an agent (soul) independent of this plane of existence making free choices equally independent of the situation -- he seems to neglect to realise that the idea of morality is a product of the very same religious mode of thinking. Many people still believe that some things are good, and some evil, objectively -- independent of subjective reality. Many atheists believe this. But morality is nothing more than a tool, and personally, I don't think it's a very useful one.

I agree with his ideas about free will. He agrees with what I've believed for a while. But I think he's missed the bigger picture.

I'm not entirely sure what you just said, but... welcome aboard!

I'm not sure...

You mean feelings aren't real??

It's whatever you choose. Give me a definition for religion, philosophy, spirituality, practicality, or biscuit, and I'll give you two more for each. Give me a definition of Taoism, and I'll give you ten. Thousand.

OK. It's late and I'm tired.. 分之 is used for fractions and percentages, right? 十分之三 translates to 3 out of 10. Not 10 divided by 3. You are correct. Fine. However, 3 out of 10 three times is only 9 out of 10. So there is one left over. In relation to this chapter, we're talking thirds: 10 — = 3.333333 = one third. This is what Laozi was saying, I believe. 3 Ten divided by three, 3 into 10, 30%, 33%, one third, 3/10, 10/3, 1/3, 3/1... it doesn't really matter. The real point is, you can't help correcting people, even when it's entirely unnecessary... it's quite tedious...

You do love to "correct" people... even when they've said the same thing as you! Ten divided by three is 3/10 (10/3 means 3 divided by 10) Again.. almost exactly what I said! A simplified way of saying 十分之八 which is 8/10 which is 80%!! Yes, but 30 x 3 = 90 3 x 3 = 9 So you can see why MH would wonder about the remaining 10 or 1 But as I've already pointed out, this way of writing numbers is a simplified way of doing things, and isn't intended to be 100% mathematically accurate. If it was mathematically/statistically accurate, I doubt it'd be as simple as 3 groups of 33%...

My error. They've put it (in the modern Chinese) as 十分之三, which literally translates to "ten divided by 3" or "3 into 10" (so, exactly a third) I suppose that using small numbers like this is the easiest way of talking percentages with as few characters as possible. It's fairly common even now. A modern example: 八成 is a simplified way of saying 十分之八 ”10 divided by 8“ (and is used to mean "the most part" or "quite likely") So... I'd translate as "a third" in each line... which makes a whole! There is no other tenth.

Damn you... I was wroooonggggg Well, in that case, perhaps it contains both meanings...? As much of the Laozi seems to do A Chinese site explains the chapter thusly: Well, it makes sense up until the last part. What is the realm of death? And why haven't they entered it? Nonsense!

Could you find an example in another text?

Interesting. The Fool is of course compared to hexagram 56, Sojourning, The Wanderer... Very curious that he's depicted as being attacked, unharmed, by a tiger. However, I have to maintain my agreement with TT, at least about the numbers. It seems unlikely to me that anyone wrote the number 13 as 十有三。 The 有 ("have") is there for a reason, I think, and a number of translators have willfully ignored it to make it seem more mysterious than it is. 十有三 ten has three 3 in 10

Hmmn perhaps. What kind of immortality? Aside from not interpreting the middle part very idiomatically, my translation there relies on the MWD text for meaning. The meaning I've inferred dies without the question particle. I would suggest that the later versions were edited to change the meaning to something more in line with emerging/evolving Taoist practices that were supposed to lead to immortality. Maybe.

Well. Here is the correct translation ( hehehe) MWD text filled with the received where missing 出生入死 To be born is to die. 生之徒十有三 Those just born number a third, 死之徒十有三 Those dying number a third, 而民生生 And the people multiply, 動皆之死地之十有三 Moving the earth of their burial ground, and number a third; 1 夫何故也 Why is this so? 以其生生也 As they multiply, 蓋聞善執生者 It is said that there are those who are good at clinging to life: 2 陵行不辟矢虎 Walking the land, they need not ward off arrows or tigers, 入軍不被甲兵 In battle, they wear no armour or weapons; 矢無所投其角 Arrows find no place to enter, 虎無所昔其蚤 Tigers find no place to scratch, 兵無所容其刃 Weapons find no place for the blade to strike; 夫何故也 Why is this so? 以其無死地焉 Do they have no burial ground? 3 In bold, every character with a root in earth (土 、生) 1 i.e. working the land where they will end up dying/buried 2 This seems important: 蓋聞 -- "it is said" He's not talking about what he thinks, in the following lines, but about what some people say 3 And in the MWD, the final character magically turns it into a question Not "They have no place for death", but "Do they have no place for death?" or "How is it that they have no burial place?" It's rhetorical: everyone has a burial place. To think otherwise is silly.

I find it interesting that both 徒 and 地 are used, and both originate with the 土 earth radical. As well as 生 of course being related to the earth. 徒 = 辵 + 土 地 = 土 + 阜 + 人 + 又 + 【尸体】 (earth, mound, person, hand, dead body) 地 originally meant earth as the place where people are buried -- carrying someone to their burial mound I think this chapter is about people belonging to the earth -- coming from it and returning to it -- but I find no evidence that we're talking about population control I'll post my own translation later and you can see how much you disagree