Daniel

Thank you, Per Hendricks in the MWD: "what to us is chapter 40 comes between chapters 41 and 42". I will consider the flow both 38-39-40-41-42, and 39-41-40-42-43, and compare. Also I noticed that there were not chapter divisions originally, or at least, they were not established and fixed until later. So zooming out to look at the surrounding context is justified.

Does this make sense? A thing being born into 有 if the next line has 有 being born into 无? If it is 'into', then isn't this describing "unbecoming" a process of being deconstructed and re-assimilated into non-being? If so, does "born" describe it? Is "into"a good fit here? I see 'from' listed above. Doesn't translating it as "from" fit better with "born"? Then the verses consistently describe "becoming". Choosing "into" instead of "from" makes the verb "born" awkward to me. Not that I cannot accept the idea of birthing being part of a process of unbirth / unbecoming / deconstructing...

@Taoist Texts, It looks like you are using a different version of DDJ40. Not that it's wrong, but, I was not aware of this. In the OP all the versions agree that DDJ40 has "於" in the last line. But you have it as "天下万物生于有，有生于无" I see this is how yellowbridge.com has the verse as well. They have 于 not 於. Also, note the last character is different. I think it would be good to have some detail on where this difference is coming from. From there, I propose looking at the previous verses and perhaps the following verses to see if there is a thematic flow which will help to discern whether it is a better fit for the verse to be communicating 'conceived from' vs. 'conceived into'.

Are you asking about manifest non-manifest? 'word-salad' is an insult which is not welcome in this thread.

The OP has been editted indicating the error on the characters that were identified by Cobie.

Thank you!!!

Thank you. This is the sort of information and detail I was hoping for when I created he thread.

Book and chapter please?

Yes, that's what I used in the OP. The differences between it and the WangBi are bold and purple.

But why? Why delete them?

No clue. I saw they were different especially legge with the other two. Saw words were added, and basically ignored them. I included them in order to be complete, and have them here for easy reference. My intention was to attempt a word-for-word translation making choices based on their coherence to my understanding of Lao-tzu's philosophy. That was my plan. Then this would have been a skeleton, a first draft, first attempt, which others could critique. But I'm not sure if I will need to do any of that considering the replies that are being posted. At the very-very least, it's good to have those english translations to see how wrong they are. Many thanks.

What happened? It looks like you brought something useful and important. The first question that popped into my head when I read the comment about the equivalence of the characters was, "I wish I had some confirmation of this, but, someone who knows the language is telling me, so..." And then, you posted the info, the confirmation, that spoke directly to my inner dialog. Why did you delete it? Was it inaccurate? Page# was wrong?

thank you.

It fits, but, I'm not commiting to it as *the* intended meaning. What I embrace is the method for analyzing the text in detail. My question was about the bellows being a euphemism as described. I wanted to see any other text of this genre using the bellows as a euphemism in this way.

@ChiDragon, If the last character is changed as listed below, does it change the meaning? 有生於亡

Awesome. I am loving this! Manifest/Non-Manifest. I need to spend some time on it. Many thanks!

No, not at all. I think we should move it to a new thread, quite honestly. The thing is, I thought we had already moved on from the bellows, and were instead talking about the 'valley' which is actually a 'soaring-immortal-spirit'.

You are cordially invited, and I will very much appreciate your input if you choose to share. You too.... naturally.

I very much hope that the pictures in the book are actual pictures of the text found in the tomb. Maybe that's silly. Feel free to laugh. Is this not the case? You say Henricks is using another font? Does that mean the images I'm looking at are **not** the actual text itself?

@Cobie, thank you! First, In support of the distinction you're making and the careful study of the characters, chapter 39: The author/scribe of this version certainly distinguished between the two characters, but the other versions do not. If you check out ctext.org, chap 39 has identical characters here. And, it's important to note, the comparison charts on daoisopen.com do not accurately relate these differences in spite of claiming to analyze the characters from the MWD. Second, please look at the two pictures below from chap 6 and chap 32? Do you think these two are the same character? This becomes handwriting analysis. I'm thinking they are. And if I look at chap 39, I think that's the same character too. If so, then I think the next step, as I said earlier, is to use context to discern the intended meaning of the character. Process of elimination, from the distinction brought in chap 39, I think it's safe conclude it is *not* 'valley'. If it were, there would be no difference in the characters in 39. So, what is it? Hopefully you understand why I was considering 裕, abundant, as a possible candidate? It fits the theme of chap 5 & 6, both, nicely. It's inexhaustble. However, 浴, soaring, like a bird or a flock, might fit well too. Chapter 6: From chapter 32: All of that said, now that we are looking at the same thing, I agree, the character in question, looks to be a closer match to the character Kroll has on the bottom of pg 572, left column, rather than top of pg. 573 on the right column. It's the two 45deg strokes compared to a perfectly horizontal stroke that I think makes the difference.

No, not familiar, I was being cukey silly.

motto: if your cuke isn't crooked... you're doing it wrong! ~kidding~ Looks neat Mark! I'll check it out!

Just so we're looking at the same thing, I'm seeing 'yu', and the character displayed in the screenshot on pg. 573, right column, 2nd from the top. 2015 edition, Kroll dictionary of classical and medieval chinese, Brill. Is that what you're looking at too?

@cobie, Thank you, that's good advice. My copy of the kroll dictionary arrived on Friday afternoon. Any others which you consider required reading?

this is where my brain skids to a screaching halt. would become, future tense, doesn't fit for me. Are there translations that render it this way? I'm not understanding why this is in parentheses? This was your literal word-for-word translation, right? So, my friend is chatting with me on a deeper level. I think I've convinced him that I'm not going to play immature word-games. He's confirmed the "a" indefinite article is not included. But, it's tricky making steady forward progress because of the time-zone difference. Hopefully, towards the end of the convo, if I do well, he will humor me, and do a word-for-word literal translation of just that one line. I'm debating with myself whether or not I should remind of "that one time" I did him a favor. On the other hand he is over 30 years my senior...