OldDog

You got that right!

Perhaps the sages understood that to undertake to inform the people was in itself manipulation. Its not that the sages made the people ignorant ... they chose to leave them to their simple ways. To undertake an action is to have intent. Having intent often results in being against the natural flow of things, even if inadvertently. Once something is set in motion (intent) who can tell what the outcome will be ... even the greatest minds wrestle with the possibilities. Great caution in action is always necessary. Perhaps that is why the sages would rather trust to the Dao for the unfolding of things.

It is interesting in these passages to see how virtue is defined. Virtue as Integrity ... kindness ... as care and understanding ... Suitable for dealing with hatred and ill will.

I also like Flowing Hands interpretation ... It treats all things equally and sees the good and bad in all men. and ... He sees the world as one whole and so treats all things alike. I appreciate the way the sense of underlying unity is preserved in the interpretation. I do take exception to the use of the term sin though. Seems to convey too much of a western bias. Rather offences, shortcomings or even failures.

Sunday morning jazz ...

I am always a little disturbed when I read daoist texts that interpret the relationship between some things in terms of male/female. While such comparison is common ... even classical ... I think the relationsship often is not expressed well. Terms like conquers, overcomes, submissive, while carrying a bit of truth tend to cast the relationship as one side .... male/female, female/male ... being at disadvantage to the other at the expense of its identity. While this usually gets a point across it doesn't always describe the relationship well. Such dualities are common the daoist texts and discussions; great/small, superior/inferior, etc. Such terms often carry a very strong preference bias. That bias can shift over time. Given a choice, who would choose to be the conquered, the lesser, the ever submissive. I think what we tend to lose sight of when using such pairs of terms is the underlying central unity of what is being talked about. It is worthwhile remembering that one side in these dualities has no meaning without the other. Each side has a role, a purpose, to fulfill in the overall relationship. If one goes to the Yijing as a source for defining these dualities and reads/compares the first two hexagrams ... qian, kun ... it sets up the basis for dualities it terms of the roles and functioning in a way that defuses the preference bias and underscores their complementary nature and points to the central unity of all existence. Then when one encounters such dualities ... female/male ... it is easier to see them as potential to fulfill a particular influence in the unfolding of things. Of the samples of Ch 61 above, Flowing Hands interpretation does the best job of defusing the preference bias and gets to the heart of the relationship between countries.

Therefore it is that there is often chaos in the world, and the love of knowledge is ever at the bottom of it. For all men strive to grasp what they do not know, while none strive to grasp what they already know. - Chuangtse

I had just about forgotten about Bo Diddley. Back in the day, there were two schools of thought ... Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Where Bo Diddley had a grounded and persistent rhythm thst tended to dominate ... Chuck Berry's guitar just seemed to take off running.

Fair enough. I tend to fall into discussion over specific points. I do like exploring others ideas. Going forward, I will try to throttle that back. If it looks like a lengthy discussion wants to develop, I'll try moving it to General Discussion. mea culpa

Here we are back at a question of what is knowable. The rational mind proceeds from the viewpoint of what is tangible ... what can beobseved through the senses ... that which can be measured, weighed or quantified. Might be better to approach the question of virtue from the point of view ... if we can acknowledge virtue as existing, how can we know it? Does wisdom exist and can we find a standard of measure that is universally suitable for quantifying wisdom? How about love? Can we acknowledge love comes into being and agree on how to measure it. So, I suspect, it is with virtue. Wisdom, love, virtue can develop and grow. Easy enough to acknowledge, but measure? These are things that rational mind has trouble with. But, if we can conceed that there is more to knowledge than what the rational mind can understand through the senses ... and therefore, measure ... then we are at a launching point for further discovery.

Another ...

My thoughts as well.

Generally, I think, it can be anything. The theme here seems to be to prepare, save, be thrifty and not expend frivolously. More as a way of life in accord with Dao. Never too much. Address things while they are small and dealing with them while it is easy, which requires one to be far seeing. Specifically, they (translators) are speaking of virtue and/or integrity, of which, much has been written on this site.

The Platters are great. It is easy to see where Doo Wop evolved to in the late 50s, early 60s. For example ...

... and then ...

Instrumental rock was a genre of its own.

Thinkin back to the 50s ... this came to mind.

OK, I'll go along with that.

Honky Tonk

But for these emotions I should not be. Yet but for me, there would be no one to feel them. So far we can go; but we do not know by whose order they come into play. - Chuangtse

True enough. In a sense, people bring troubles on themsleves through the things they choose to be involved in. All to often the basis for involvement is ego driven self-aggrandizement which easily leads to contention. Its difficult to go along in the world without a sense of expectation.

You sure of that? I got the Kindle version of Burton Watson's The Complete Works of Zhuangzi. It shows the part about Master Bian (Pien in Mair) as the last story in chapter 19. The story matches quite closely. It appears as a continuation of the text following Artisan Chui, without any delimitation. I don't own Mair to make a direct comparison. Terebes' Online shows Watson the way my Kindle version does.

It's not that the Dao doesn't care. In that sense, it doesn't not care either. Dao simply does. It is the human mind that renders a judgement on how that doing is viewed ... kind/unkind, caring/not caring ... judgments. What the lessons in Laozi are trying to get at is that the changes in the world can be understood through the workings of Heaven and Earth. Knowing those workings puts the ultimate man in the position of being in harmony with the world. Hence, the ultimate man has no expectation.

Doing the right thing is its own reward. I'm sure somebody said that somewhere. I'm not sure that the Dao is indifferent ... that is, does not care.

I usually don't care much for Monet but this one really is quite remarkable. I will have to put this somewhere where I can reflect on it until I can understand its appeal. Thanks!