Cobie

The Ancient Chinese thought the earth was flat and had four corners. At the corners were oceans. 太一生水 tai4 yi1 sheng1 shui3 - Great One gave birth to water. Stefan Kappstein, Shen Shu (p 476 Dutch translation): The oldest ancient Chinese had a worldview based on the 4 directions. This was the basis later on for yin-yang and ITjing.

Picture of monkey in bagua: 胡一桂 (Hu2 Yi1 Gui4) cited the source as 京房易傳. Houtian Bagua around 305 BC, at the end of the Warring States period. Monkeys in Daoism thread: https://www.thedaobums.com/topic/53654-monkeys-in-daoism/?do=findComment&comment=982124

Indo-Europeanen roots Sinologist Victor Mair thinks religious ‘Daoism’ was a Chinese response to the imported Buddhism. (Page 61) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350522856_Indo-Europeans_in_the_Ancient_Yellow_River_Valley Victor Mair was talking about “religious ‘Daoism’”. Religious Daoism is often said to have begun in the Later Han period [i.e., the 1st–2nd centuries CE] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/daoism-religion/

Picture of the ITjing number system on the walls of a Daoist Temple. ~~~ Does anyone know more about this picture?

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A Saint has reached “道法自然", he is “at one with Dao". Is that the same as saying a Saint has reached 虛無 (xu1 wu2 - nothingness)?

Doesn’t Daoism believe ‘nature’ is ‘naturally’ ordered? As in 道法自然 (Dao4 fa3 zi4 ran2 - Dao follows ‘nature’). … empties their minds … 虛 亓 心 xu1 qi2 xin1 And how could he possibly empty their minds … ? I am the only one with access to my mind.

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Seems you achieved 無 (wu2 - nothingness).

Why don’t you buy the book, I am curious to know why he deleted those chapters.

Anyone is free to create a new religion/philosophy from whatever is around, that’s fine with me.

PWT, we did that discussion on OD.

Me thinks Hoff is not really into Daoism.

Wang B was a Confucian who tried to adapt the DDJ to Confucianism.

Exactly.

??? Hoff uses the Wang B text, I think Wang B used a brush. So I totally fail to understand what Hoff is going on about with his pre-brush characters.

Have fun researching it. Please let me know what your findings are.

DIO picture of the Guodian text shows it was not done with a brush. Brushes caused the characters to be changed from round shapes to square shapes. E.g. see etymology 日

I could not find out a date for when they started to use a brush for writing literature.

That refers only to “decorative designs”. No mention of it being used for written literature. Fact is that the Guodian was still not written with a brush.

I couldn’t find any.

Everyone dies but no one is dead. (unknown)

Did not Wang B write with a brush? In the preview Hoff says: - he translated from the pre-brush characters - he uses the Wang B text Legend has it that the brush was invented by Meng Tian (? - 210 BC) Wang B (226-249 AD)