Geof Nanto

For me personally, the brief comments and opinions expressed within our Dao Bums discussion format can only ever scratch the surface of a complex topic such as Daodejing interpretation. These discussions however often serve the vital purpose of stirring my curiosity towards further research. The best overview I’ve come across of the Daodejing and its tradition is this essay by Alan Chan. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants nuanced insight into the vast body of commentary that this short text has inspired since it was written over 2000 years ago. In fact, I'd call it essential reading.

Thanks for your thoughtful contributions here Stosh. I've read and noted everyone's comments. I personally like silence but, unfortunately, engaged silence doesn't transmit well on a web forum. Hence this reply. I think there may well be more interest in discussing the differences between the various translations as this topic progresses and significant differences are revealed. So far, for me at least, they all say much the same thing. (There are significant differences in mainstream interpretations of these lines in chapter one: "Ever desireless, one can see the mystery, Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.", but none of the four referenced translations displayed these. However, Red Pine mentions it his notes.) As to the substance of your last comment, by way of reply I can only repeat my comment from the other thread:

“Trees depict the living structure of our inner self. Its roots show our connection with our physical body and the earth; its trunk the way we would direct the energies of our being–varied and yet all connected in the common life process of our being. The tree can also symbolize new growth, stages of life and death, with its spring leaves and blossoms, then the falling leaves. The top of the tree, by the end of the branches, are our aspirations, the growing bendable tip of our personal growth and spiritual realization. The leaves may represent our personal life which may fall off the tree of life (die) but what gave it life continues to exist. The tree is our whole life, the evolutionary urge which pushes us into being and growing. It depicts the forces or processes behind all other life forms– expressed through interpersonal existence.” (From: http://thejungian.com/2013/03/01/trees-depict-the-living-structure-of-our-inner-self/ ) Tree symbolism from Western alchemy: And a couple of contemporary images: (There is plenty of information on the web about tree symbolism. See, for instance: http://jungiangenealogy.weebly.com/cosmic-tree.html )

I like Dao Bums to be up as much as anyone else but I also smile inwardly when this site is unavailable. It’s very appropriate that a Daoist site should come and go with a degree of randomness. The Dao is not a machine! It’s a pity though we couldn’t have a more appropriate image than the SQL error message. I’d like this one: “Breathe” by Trunk

For me, the beauty of the Daodejing is that it lies coiled like a dragon in the liminal space between yin (unnameable mystery) and yang (meaning that’s expressible in words). Hence it’s meaning is intentionally fluid; its significance will always differ from person to person as well as according to the dominant worldviews of any particular time. From Red Pine…. “But trying to force the Taoteching into the categories of modern discourse not only distorts the Taoteching but also treats the traditions that later Taoists have associated with the text as irrelevant and misguided. Meanwhile, the Taoteching continues to inspire millions of Chinese as a spiritual text. And I have tried to present it in that dark light. The words of philosophers fail here. If words are of any use at all, they are the words of the poet. For poetry has the ability to point us toward the truth then stand aside, while prose stands in the doorway relating all the wonders on the other side but rarely lets us pass. Although I haven't attempted to reproduce Lao-tzu's poetic devices (Hsu Yungchang identifies twenty-eight different kinds of rhyme), I have tried to convey the poetic feel with which he strings together images for our breath and spirit, but not necessarily our minds. For the Taoteching is one long poem written in praise of something we cannot name, much less imagine.” From David Hinton….. “And perhaps the most impressive aspect of Lao Tzu's power as a poet is how his poetic strategies induce this meditative experience in the reader. Mysterious utterances, misty terminology, fragmentary collage form with open and enigmatic juxtapositions, an abounding ambiguity that exploits the uncertainty inherent to the syntax and semantics of ancient Chinese – these surprisingly modern strategies all keep the poetry as close as possible to the undifferentiated primal mystery of Way, forcing the reader to participate in the generative emptiness at the source of language, mind, and all heaven and earth.”

Red Pine’s notes for his translation of this verse….. I have used the wording of the Mawangtui and Kuotien texts for lines seven through twelve but have omitted the Mawangtui insertion of heng (is endless) after line twelve. In line fifteen, I have followed the Kuotien wording: ssu (look after) in place of the usual shih (begin). Between lines fifteen and sixteen, neither the Mawangtui nor Kuotien copies include the line sheng-er-pu-yu, "or possess what they beget,” which appears in the Wangpi and Fuyi editions and which was apparently interpolated from a similar sequence that appears in verse 51. The last two lines also appear in verse 77.

Thanks for the topic Dust. I live surrounded by trees in a semi-wilderness area of Australia. I've been here 19 years and it's no exaggeration to say trees and nature are the greatest source of joy and contentment in my life. Immersion within this natural environment is also my most valued teacher. View from my cabin. Enjoying Existence 1. Water dragons and snakes haunt marshes while wallabies graze sparse grasslands. Possums sleep content in tree hollows while platypus delight in river waterholes – And I’m just like them, in love with my rustic cabin, my simple ways pure delight. Applebox trees out front, lofty Tallowwoods in back, I could idle away old age here with ease. Everything stays close to what keeps it content, no idea what others may crave. 2. I treasure what front eaves face and all that north windows frame. Eucalypt winds lavish out windows, colours exquisite, earth and sky. I gather it all into isolate mystery, thoughts fading into their source. Others may feel nothing in all this but it’s perfectly open to me now: Such kindred natures need share neither root nor form nor gesture. (Adapted from a poem by Po Chü-i, circa 820 AD.) (For anyone interested there was a topic last year titled The Importance of Tree gong.)

Here’s how Carl Jung expresses much the same thing but with far more profound imagery and language skills than I’m able to convey. Of particular relevance to the OP is his final paragraph……. The Desert My soul leads me into the desert, into the desert of my own self. I did not think that my soul is a desert, a barren, hot desert, dusty and without drink. The journey leads through hot sand, slowly wading without a visible goal to hope for? How eerie is this wasteland. It seems to me that the way leads so far away from mankind. I take my way step by step, and do not know how long my journey will last. Why is my self a desert? Have I lived too much outside of myself in men and events? Why did I avoid my self? Was I not dear to myself? But I have avoided the place of my soul. I was my thoughts, after I was no longer events and other men. But I was not my self, confronted with my thoughts. I should also rise up above my thoughts to my own self. My journey goes there, and that is why it leads away from men and events into solitude. Is it solitude, to be with oneself? Solitude is true only when the self is a desert. Should I also make a garden out of the desert? Should I people a desolate land? Should I open the airy magic garden of the wilderness? What leads me into the desert, and what am I to do there? Is it a deception that I can no longer trust my thoughts? Only life is true, and only life leads me into the desert, truly not my thinking, that would like to return to thoughts, to men and events, since it feels uncanny in the desert. My soul, what am I to do here? But my soul spoke to me and said, "Wait." I heard the cruel word. Torment belongs to the desert. Through giving my soul all I could give, I came to the place of the soul and found that this place was a hot desert, desolate and unfruitful. No culture of the mind is enough to make a garden out of your soul. I had cultivated my spirit, the spirit of this time in me, but not that spirit of the depths that turns to the things of the soul, the world of the soul. The soul has its own peculiar world. Only the self enters in there, or the man who has completely become his self, he who is neither in events, nor in men, nor in his thoughts. Through the turning of my desire from things and men, I turned my self away from things and men, but that is precisely how I became the secure prey of my thoughts, yes, I wholly became my thoughts. I also had to detach myself from my thoughts through turning my desire away from them. And at once, I noticed that my self became a desert, where only the sun of unquiet desire burned. I was overwhelmed by the endless infertility of this desert. Even if something could have thrived there, the creative power of desire was still absent. Wherever the creative power of desire is, there springs the soil's own seed. But do not forget to wait. Did you not see that when your creative force turned to the world, how the dead things moved under it and through it, how they grew and prospered, and how your thoughts flowed in rich rivers? If your creative force now turns to the place of the soul, you will see how your soul becomes green and how its field bears wonderful fruit. Nobody can spare themselves the waiting and most will be unable to bear this torment, but will throw themselves with greed back at men, things, and thoughts, whose slaves they will become from then on. Since then it will have been clearly proved that this man is incapable of enduring beyond things, men, and thoughts, and they will hence become his master and he will become their fool, since he cannot be without them, not until even his soul has become a fruitful field. Also he whose soul is a garden, needs things, men, and thoughts, but he is their friend and not their slave and fool. (From Carl Jung, The Red Book)

I’ve certainly experienced real change in my life. Sure, it’s been slow with many ups and downs. The big change is that now most everything in my life feels deeply meaningful, significant. And my life certainly wasn’t always that way. I could say, in retrospect, up until a few decades ago my life was characterised by meaninglessness, although I certainly wasn’t aware of it at the time. I did normal things, school, university, work etc etc. I felt I had great freedom because I could choose between many options. But I lived entirely within the spirit of the times (conditioned mind); I had no sense of inner connection to the extent of total unawareness of this lack. I was entirely without connection to the spirit of the depths; to the Dao. In retrospect, I can see how I needed the catastrophe of heroin addiction to shatter my arrogance and begin to allow greater realities into my life. The decades since have been an interesting journey with much learning. I’ve had many teachers but my most profound learning has come from working through emotional pain and very real suffering. There’s an image I like from Castaneda where Don Juan describes Carlos as someone with a great hole at the centre of his being so that the flow of Dao passes straight through him without touching him. That was me sure; a person with a great void at my core. My practice in all its manifestations – physical, energetic, emotional, and spiritual – has slowly filled much of that hole. Now, more often than not, I feel as if the events in my life are being blown along by Dao; my being immersed in the stream of life outside and beyond that of societal conditioning. Hence, there’s an underlying sense of meaningfulness; of contentment and joy with everyday life. Yet, paradoxically, with that comes a great curtailment of freedom. Now most ‘normal’ activities feel without meaning for me. I can only do certain things otherwise my life quickly loses its meaning and that’s a terrible feeling.

To my mind this thread should be in general discussion as it's about our engagement with practice and life in general. It also ties in with CT's OP here about the nature of enlightenment: http://www.thedaobums.com/topic/43082-have-u-a-moment-then-please-read-this/

Yes, I like that imagery too. Red Pine is my current favourite Daodejing translator. The language of the Daodejing is poetic and Red Pine writes elsewhere about his method of translating poetry…… Of course, translators know that translating poetry is not the same as translating prose, that when you translate a poem you have to make a poem. But a translator doesn't work the same way as a poet. A translator has to go through a different process to bring a poem from one language into another. I don't know how others do it, but when I've tried to think of a metaphor for what I go through, I keep coming up with the image of a dance. I see the poet dancing, but dancing to music I can't hear. Still, I'm sufficiently enthralled by the beauty of the dance that I want to join the poet. And so I try. And as I do, I try not to step on my partner's feet (the so-called literal or accurate translation), but I also try not to dance across the room (the impressionistic translation or version —usually by someone who doesn't know the poet's language). I try to get close enough to feel the poet's rhythm, not only the rhythm of the words but also the rhythm of the poet's heart. For me, he succeeds in entering the heart of the Daodejing. He dances to the rhythm of the ancient yet timeless Dao, whereas many other translators – especially the more popular ones – turn the Daodejing into a modern dance in tune with contemporary sensibilities.

From my observation this is something that happens to almost everybody on a spiritual path. Practices bring very real power and often seemingly magical abilities. It's certainly something I've had to work through. I was enthralled by what I thought was my own power as a healer and teacher in years gone by. No one could tell me otherwise! Ego Inflation When a person becomes so identified with a particular spiritual archetype that they fail to separate their own ego from the archetype we call this inflation. A preacher or teacher, feeling that their insights and passion come from beyond them becomes a prophet proclaiming the words of God, a religious leader may develop a messianic complex and identify as a guru or as an incarnation of a god. Not all inflation is a bad thing! It can allow us to become more than our fragile selves. Every priest needs to become inflated with a priestly archetype to be effective, every healer needs to portray the confidence that the divine energy flows through them to be effective. These experiences of inflation, of course, are initiations of the soul – they send us off on some sort of divine quest. Inflation is common when we start on a spiritual path – we seem to be infused with divine energy, meditating and praying are easy, spiritual experience floods our souls. Inflation can be a wonderful and helpful experience but it is also dangerous. All religious traditions have techniques and ways of teaching their followers not to become inflated and these are important if we are to guard against dangers on the spiritual path. So Jesus can proclaim “Whoever wants to be my disciple me must take up his cross and follow me.” These allow the spiritual person to be in the presence of the holy and not to get carried away by it. Buddhists try to get disciples to focus on the impermanence of the self as an antidote to religious ego inflation. One aspect of this inflation is the sense that one knows the truth which is hidden from others. This is a kind of gnosticism (gnosis = knowing). It is common when we start on a spiritual path to think that we have found “THE TRUTH” and that we are somehow above others who do not have that same insight. This comes about because of the excitement of the “AHA” moment when we realize a deep truth about life. The ego can seize upon that feeling a use it to feel superior or part of a select special group. When we recognize the nature of inflation we can use it to expand ourselves. In the presence of an archetype we are temporarily inflated which means we expand as a person, we engage the divine and we feel deeply. But that is not our doing – it belongs to the archetypal realm and in the quiet of our minds we can deflate again and become our human searching selves again. (From https://archetypalspirituality.org/archetypal-energy/inflation/ )

The ones on the left symbolise the nameless Dao; the little one on the right the named (conceptual reality).

For Red Pine’s translation I think it's worth including his notes for each chapter. As well as the primary received versions of the Daodejing he also uses the Mawangdui A & B (Mawangtui) and Guodian (Kuotien) texts, and his notes explains what he has used and why. Mostly they are only a few sentences. This note from chapter one is his longest...... During Lao-tzu's day, philosophers were concerned with the correspondence, or lack of it, between name and reality. The things we distinguish as real change, while their names do not. How then can reality be known through names? In lines two and four, I've used the Mawangtui heng (immortal) over the standard ch'ang (eternal), which was introduced to avoid an emperor's personal name. Heng also means "crescent moon:' a not accidental usage in light of Lao-tzu's emphasis on lunar images when talking about the Tao. Around 1070 A.D. Ssuma Kuang and Wang An-shih punctuated lines five through eight in a way that made their subject wu (nonbeing) and yu (being). (Nonbeing is the name of the maiden of Heaven and Earth / being is the name of the mother of all things, and so on.) However, the grammatical particles in the Mawangtui texts make such a reading impossible. In line five, shih normally means "beginning" but China's earliest dictionary, the Shuowen, says, "Shih means 'a virgin'." Ma Hsu-lun suggests shih in this case might also be a loan word for the nearly identical t'ai. While tai normally means "fetus" the Shuowen says it means "a woman in her third month of pregnancy." Note too, that a woman did not receive her public name until after marriage. In lines seven and thirteen, most editions have miao (mysterious). But according to Pi Yuan, "In ancient times there was no miao [mysterious], only miao [small/beginning],” which is what we find in the Mawangtui texts. This verse is not present in the Kuotien texts.

To my mind, Bubbles raises a number of issues worthy of further discussion. For me, Off Topic discussions are an important part of this forum. It’s there I’ve gained a broader view of other members and this in turn has helped me better understand myself. Also these topics regularly host some of the most vigorously discussions. Hence it’s obvious Dao Members have a great need to express, and hopefully work through, these many and varied issues. And, of course, it also allows the discussion of interesting subjects outside of our main focus. However, I think it’s important for the health of this site that the focus stays firmly on our central topics. That what gives us some unity amongst our great diversity. That’s the purpose of this site; that’s what makes it meaningful. The web is big place with almost unlimited space for freedom of expression. Dao Bums can never be, and doesn’t need to be, everything for everyone. A possible way to better achieve these two goals would be to make Off Topic a members only forum. That way these discussions won’t be visible, and hence won’t attract the attention of the thousands of visitors to this site. Visitors here a huge invisible audience; regularly there’s more than ten visitors on board for every member. Hence, if someone wants to join Dao Bums it will be because they’re drawn to the main forums rather than these Off Topic subjects. Also, it will limit those with strong personal political (and other) agendas from exploiting the wide audience that this site attracts to publicize their own agendas. Further comments most welcome.

Sorry Dust, I just can't help but be serious on a subject so dear to my heart. When I read Susan Cain's book on introverts it totally change my perception of myself. I felt validated. (For anyone interested, there's also a TED talk video of her.) Carl Jung's insights are significant too. He is the one who coined the terms Introvert and Extravert . Here’s something I like based around the powerful hero archetype…… In the Jungian framework there are three types of hero. We are mixtures of all three in various proportions - one type no more valid than another. Briefly, they are as follows: - The aim of the extraverted type of hero is action - he / she is the founder, leader, and liberator whose deeds change the face of the world. The introverted type is the culture bringer, the redeemer and saviour who discovers inner values, exalting them as knowledge and wisdom, as a law and faith, a work to be accomplished and an example to be followed. The third type of hero does not seek to change the world through such struggles, but to transform the personality. Self-transformation is his / her true aim, and the liberating effect this has on the world is only secondary.

Such is the Way. I have no regrets in pursuing the topic. The feelings I expressed were authentic, including my final summation. I'm totally OK to leave the rest in the lap of the gods. (Or in the case of Dao Bums, the staff. )

Yes, I do that a lot. Perhaps even a little excessively. At this stage of my life I definitely could not - and have no wish to - function as a politician, even when it comes to the internal politics of this site.

This discussion has made apparent to me how Dao Bums has evolved to its current format through a slow process of natural selection. Nothing can be changed without unintended consequences. It wasn’t my intention to marginalise those who constructively use this forum as much, if not more, for its non-spiritual content. Having pondered the pro and cons of everyone’s suggestions (including my own) my wish now is to retain the current format. I’ve expressed something of my perspective. I’ve been listened to and others have responded in various thoughtful ways. That outcome is enough to leave me feeling satisfied.

It seems to me you've misinterpreted what I'm saying. Perhaps you could read all my posts on this thread again? By 'non-partisan and non-denominational' I was referring to the framework of this forum, not the content. In other words this forum doesn't have an editorial point of view. Its basic guideline comes from its name: "The Dao Bums: Discussions on the Way", and there are a minimal set of forum behavior rules that I'm sure you're aware of.

Although a great strength of this site is its diversity of opinion and subject matter, the last thing I had in mind was to create a space for more discussion of controversial topics. To my mind, other websites already more than amply cater for such discussions. What I was wanting was some means to limit these, so as to keep our focus on what makes Dao Bums unique - namely this site's non-partisan and non-denominational framework that allows and encourages a great diversity of discussion on all matters spiritual. For example, where else on the web could someone go for a discussion such as this one: Outsider's doubts. For me, this is Dao Bums at its best; such discussions are what makes Dao Bums special and unique, whereas controversy can be found anywhere.

My point wasn’t so much about determining the rights and wrongs of the various players, rather it was to highlight that we are all biased in our judgements, especially when it comes to our own self-interest. I agree with the saying, “To be human is to be hypocritical”. It’s all too easy to find faults with the world outside ourselves rather than within ourselves. For instance, if I owned shares in Apple Corp I would probably smile every time someone mentioned owning an Apple product. That said, I do not think all these large corporations are the same. I think that’s a cop-out. They all have their different personalities and strategies for survival. And I take this into consideration when buying products. But certainly, it’s only one many factors, and shaped by own biases for sure. It’s up to everyone to decide what works best for them. BTW I own a share portfolio that I’ve built up over the past decade, and corporate behaviour plays the major part in how I determine what shares I hold. I use the income it gives me to manage where I live as a small (75 acre) private wildlife sanctuary.

Yes. As well as what you write, a few decades ago when Apple was new they promoted their computers by giving them free to leading literary writers and intellectuals to use as word processors. That strategy has played out for Apple a bit like Europeans 'buying' native land by giving them beads and trinkets.

My original motivation for starting this thread was my concern for the amount of partisan political debate taking place. I have no problems with vigorous discussion as such. When it relates to spiritual traditions and practices I think it’s has a valid place here, and the moderation already in place works well enough. What I was wanting was some way to separate political discussions so that it’s obvious they are secondary. On further thought my original suggestion of making Off Topic private wouldn’t work because with the current software the headings of these topics still show to everyone. If the new version of software allows topics to be completely hidden I still think it could be worthwhile to try for a trial period of say 3 months. But as I’ve said it’s really only political partisan debate that concerns me. Discussions about the nature of politics itself I see have a legitimate place on the main board. As do many other Off Topic discussions. That said, the bottom line for me is that the harmony or otherwise of this forum will always be a function of our collective de – particularly that of those who are most active in posting; and especially the de of staff. The more rules we require, the more we are failing to harmonise with Dao. In that regards I think Dao Bums does very well for an internet forum. I don’t see any major problems here, quite the contrary. Any adjustments would only be minor fine tuning.

Apech, perhaps you could give me some insight into something that’s puzzled me for many years…. Why do so many left-wingers go for Apple products? Apple is one of the largest, if not the largest, corporate tax evader in the world. They also maintain a ruthless monopoly with their business model. "Apple worldwide in the past four years have avoided paying tax on $US44 billion," (see link below for reference.) As left-winger’s are against both corporate tax evasion and business monopolies, this love affair with Apple products seems more than a little hypocritical. To me it’s like a green conservationist decrying the destruction of old-growth rainforest and at the same time buying furniture made of rainforest timbers on the grounds that these timbers make good furniture. I don’t know about in your country, but in Australia the left-leaning intelligentsia laud Apple products, even though Apple employs relatively few people here and largely avoids paying Australian tax. At the same time, they condemn major local companies as being too big and selfish, even though these local companies employ many thousands of Australians and pay their full share of Australian taxation. Apple pays $193m tax in Australia on $27b revenue as Federal Government vows to capture lost taxes.