Cobie

The secret is there is no secret.

Hi Welcome to the forum.

Sorry I used sarcasm. I actually quite liked the Matrix movies.

Imo De only became male Western Zhou onwards. See the Shang oracle bone scripts on the Wiktionary pages of 目mu4 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/目 and 德 de2 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/德 The meaning ‘kindness’ (from the second definition on the Wiktionary page) would be the better choice imo, De (德 de2) - kindness (a female quality).

Imo both, an overlay of the uncontrollable physical with a controllable (rituals/virtue) metaphysical. 治人事, 天 … - ruling people’s affairs,Tian (the Zhou’s sky deity) … Thanks for the quote.

Hi Jim. Welcome to the forum.

You posted a wonderful quote that said, “De … came to refer to an inner strength, power or potency within all sorts of things, and in humans, “moral excellence” So he says, in things De is power etc.; in humans De is virtue (dictionary: virtue - behaviour showing high moral standards). Chinese thinking (at the time of writing of the DDJ) * put as opposites: 天下 tian1 xia4 and 天地 tian1 di4 天下 - society, the ‘human’ world. 天下 has 事 shi4 事 - what’s man-made, human interactions. These can be controlled [with virtue]. 天地 - nature, the physical world. 天地 has 物 wu4 物 wu4 - things in ‘nature’ (including the human bodies). Floods, droughts very scary [very powerful etc.]. These cannot be controlled. * (Chad Hansen, p29 & 34 Dutch copy)

Yes exactly. Start Damdao’s quote: "The Tao is all-pervasive; it transforms all from the beginning. Virtue arises in its following; it completes all beings to their end. They thus appear in birth and the completion of life. In the world, they have two different names, yet fulfilling their activities, they return to the same ancestral ground. They are two and yet always one. They are two and yet always one. Therefore there is no Tao outside of the omnipresence of Virtue. There is no Virtue different from the completion of life through the Tao. They are one and still appear as two.The Tao is found in endless transformation and pervasive omnipresence. Virtue shines forth in the completion of life and in following along. They are always one; they are always two. Two in one, they are all-pervasive. All-pervasive, they can yet be distinguished. Thus their names are the Tao and the Virtue." End Damdao’s quote Righto, that's great!

Hi SpiritualHulk. Welcome to the forum.

wrong thread.

Thank you, that’s a great message.

thanks I had similar experience. Yes, for others it’s important to find out what’s right for them.

Omg, it was in “the Matrix movie”, , well that proves it then. (sarcasm)

For me, I still like my own translations best (using my Kroll dictionary).

Quite right. After many, many convos (on OD), I came to appreciate your point of view.

Yes I thought that post you are referring to, was displaying a total ignorance of Chinese characters.

wow, you have ling Qi 靈氣 ling2 qi4.

lol, in your quote “Sleeping for less than six hours may cause early death …” But if you add up all the daily gained hours, you might still have gained time.

Yes, that fits too. Interesting. Ah yes, now you say so I remember I heard about that before. Do you apply it in your own life? thanks for the info. Yes, every society needs such rules.

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nitpicking

That was interesting to read, thanks.

Maybe they got it confused with the idea of the nurturing De in DDJ Ch 51 道 生 之; 德 畜 之 dào shēng zhī ; dé chù zhī - Dao created you; virtue raised you.

The 5 relations refers to Wuxing (五行 wu3 xing2); 5 precepts are the Buddhist morality. Yes?