Walker

Done well, 500 characters of modern Chinese would probably cost you $60 US, maybe $50 if you get lucky. Five bucks for 500 characters is slave wages (and nobody so unlucky as to be working in a translation farm or cranking out bit rate gigs online will be able to give you anything of quality) or some asshole who you're paying to use Google Translator on your behalf. And we're still talking standard fees for modern Chinese. There are probably only a handful of people on earth who can honestly claim to be qualified to understand most of the Daoist Canon (I sincerely doubt anybody understands it all). To employ even a modestly qualified translator would (and, given the bitter such a person had to eat to become that versed in arcane language, should) cost a very pretty penny. This person would have to understand grammar from multiple dynastic periods, hundreds of obscure characters, and have the ability to "read between the lines," which is only possible for a very learned person who likely has been taught by Daoists directly. Then this person has to be able to put that into legible English for you! If anybody tells you s/he can render Daoist writings (or anything in any foreign language, really) into English for you for $0.01 a character, either you've found a saint with a lot of spare time, or somebody with a wall in Mexico to sell you!

Hi all, I'm doing some research into Daodejing translation and am wondering if any bums have read translations of the countless classical Chinese commentaries on this text? From what I can tell there is this translation of Wang Bi's early commentary, and then Red Pine's more recent of his two DDJ translations, which includes selections from numerous commentaries, but is not a complete translation of any of them. Then there's this old, obscure translation of a translation of the He Shang Gong commentary, which you can find for free on JStor if you're interested and have a way to log on there. Can any of you think of any others? And, if anybody happens to have Red Pine's or the Wang Bi commentary in their collections, would you be willing to photograph/scan the introductions and first chapters as a favor to a fellow wanderer? Thanks...

http://www.homeinmists.com/ (In Chinese)

Dawei, that was an extremely useful reply, thank you!

I feel the need to take a few minutes and reply to you in detail, Marblehead. I am a busy man but I have the time to use TDB from time to time, and as this is a discussion board where debate is permitted, I will ignore your demand to not challenge your opinions. In all honesty, I agree with very little of what you say about most things, but most of time I see that as no reason to make a post. However, I have noticed that you are now beginning to offer meditation advice and you are also making statements about certain topics of potential relevance to spiritual seekers with an air of certainty, as though you were stating facts. See this exchange: You: Any translation based on Wang Bi's rendering of the Tao Te Ching is biased by Wang Bi's Buddhist mentality. Me: By the way, Wang Bi is usually criticized for putting a Confucian slant on the DDJ, not a Buddhist one. What Buddhist ideas are you speaking about? You: I can't speak to your question. My opinion was formed many years ago and it would be too difficult to find individual examples that caused me to form my opinion. But we all have our individual opinions, don't we? That, brother, is a response that would not pass muster in a third grade classroom. Now, if you had prefaced your first statement with something like, "hey, I thought...," and then replied with, "well, you know, I'm not sure but I thought...," then I wouldn't have a single qualm with you. But you're here with a tone of voice like you're telling it like it is--and when asked for some very basic corroboration, what do I get? The opening salvos of a flame war, actual threats, orders to shut up, and name-calling. I accept that I am not without blame here. My tone of voice was condescending, and my comments to Taoist Texts (who I indeed feel has an "impish instigator's" tendency to jump into conflicts in search of schadenfreude--for the record, I have taken the long-overdue step of putting the man on Ignore) may have seemed to be aimed at you. However, that is not an excuse for your bullying behavior. Frankly, Marblehead, being able to back up your statement about Wang Bi, or anything else, is your homework, nobody else's. If you think that you can here or anywhere say any old thing that pops to mind and then declare freedom from the responsibility to do just a bit of corroboration because "it's my opinion," then you are setting the bar for yourself way too low. Again, as I said above, I don't agree with much of what you (and plenty of other people) say here, but there's no need to tire myself and everybody else out with endless disagreements. But there are some important things I feel strongly about, and one of them is the spiritual path. As somebody nearing 50,000 posts here, your word count is in the millions on the site that is the number 1 Google search result for anybody searching for "Daoism forum." Though your words may not be on paper, you are published here, and again, by force of sheer volume (please pay close attention to that turn of phrase: I do not accuse you of typically "using force," except for where you have used threatening, dictatorial language with me here and one or two others in the past) you have ensured that your posts will be read by a lot of people who are curious about Daoist ideas and practices. What the word "Daoism" encompasses is vast, old, complex, and beyond the purview of any individual or group to define. That means this forum must be open to a variety of disparate interpretations, including yours. But just because one people can contend that just about anything counts (or doesn't) as Daoism, should not mean the basic norms of backing up an opinion should ever be suspended. And saying things like you did about Wang Bi without feeling the slightest shred of responsibility to make a few clicks and keystrokes to Google your ideas is about as ridiculous as this slightly alternated scenario obviously would be: Marblehead goes to sports bar and gets into conversation about MJ: Jordan's basketball in the end of his career was messed up by the mentality he picked up playing for the Bears after he retired from the Bulls for the first time. Every other guy in the sports bar: Huh? Jordan played for the Sox minor league team when he was retired. When the hell did he ever play for the Bears? Marblehead: I can't speak to your question. My opinion was formed many years ago and it would be too difficult to find individual examples that caused me to form my opinion. But we all have our individual opinions, don't we? Every other guy in sports bar: Geddafuggouddaheah... Marblehead: I do not need support my opinions. I don't even need to support my understandings... I have done my work. You are trying to make me do your work. You know where you can shove that, don't you? See, man, if it wouldn't pass muster in a bar and it wouldn't pass muster in third grade, then it doesn't pass muster anywhere. The reason I said I hesitate to use the word "sacred" before is because that's another word loaded with contention, but my point was that in my eyes--and the eyes of every other Daoist I've met in my long years studying and practicing with teachers in four countries--this path (and the Buddhist one) has the potential to offer people something we in English might call "salvation." What all that means is a discussion for another time: the reason I bring it up again is because the power and potential of Daoism to utterly alter human life paths means that certain responsibility is called for when talking about its practices and theories. I do not mean that everybody needs to be right (who could be?). But I mean that one should take care in not wording one's opinions as though one were stating facts--and not blow his or her lid when facing something that every single published writer is subject to: criticism. My last comment is that I find your habit of making comments which you might feel are "just opinions" as though they were factual can be worrisome. If you do so with offers of meditation practice advice or comments on Daoist theory in the future, and I have time and a wanton, I may well criticize you again. For my part I will try to speak without any sarcasm, but I will be nothing less than direct and I will not accept threats like, "therefore, Don't challenge my opinions and I won't challenge yours. But if you start bad-mouthing me you will get a response and I assure you, you won't like the response." Good day to ya.

Madness, madness, and partly my responsibility. To the pit we go...

You are welcome to challenge my opinions and disagree with me, even stridently and passionately. If I see opinions here that I feel strongly need to be challenged, I hope I am free to challenge them.

And the amateurs are impish instigators, c'est la vie...

I see. But I see no reason why I should refrain from publicly disagreeing with you, even strongly.

He's blithely saying he doesn't give a damn if what he's saying about Wang Bi has any basis in fact or is just some random misrememberance--it's his opinion, he likes it, and it would be "difficult" to go to Google and do five minutes of reading. Therefore he won't change it. I hesitate to use loaded, controversy-inducing words "sacred," but considering what Daoism transmitted properly has the potential to mean in people's lives, I see it as problematic for a man who by sheer force of volume dominates one of the internet's most trafficked Daoism websites to believe he has absolutely no responsibility to at least to try and do his homework.

That's a shitty attitude to have for a guy who inserts himself into literally thousands of conversations to spout off opinions about Daoism.

Thank you, but aside from the Cheng Man Ching volume, these are all modern commentaries written in English for English speakers by people who understand/understood the modern, western mind quite well; Cheng's work is modern, too. I'm interested in commentaries written in China for Chinese audiences before the fall of the Qing Dynasty. Great link, many thanks! Its bibliography seems to have answered my question... There really aren't many translations of the commentaries to choose from in English. Yes, like assholes, we all have opinions. And like anuses, opinions need to be freshened up and polished from time to time, lest one start to exude that stubborn old fart smell. Of all the people on this forum, you're the least able to claim to be too busy to do a bit of due diligence, broski.

Thanks Marblehead... I'm not at all concerned with accuracy or lack thereof in whomever's eyes; rather I'm trying to figure out how many classical commentaries have been translated into English in full. By the way, Wang Bi is usually criticized for putting a Confucian slant on the DDJ, not a Buddhist one. What Buddhist ideas are you speaking about? I see, no need to apologize, but may I ask, do enlightened ones surpass the realm of tautology, or is that a thing on the other shore, too?

Now that's some gongfu! Will definitely watch this on Amazon sometime, thanks for the heads up.

In the not-so-distant past (and in the living memory of some older Chinese and Tibetan Daoists and Buddhists I know), life expectancy was short. To travel distances we hardly notice today required huge investments of time and effort in the face of real danger. It was common in many lands to speak a dialect unintelligible to people just a mountain or two away, greatly limiting the number of teachers one would ever have the chance to learn from. Literacy was a rare luxury, and books hard to come by. It is somewhat paradoxical that in the face of all this inconvenience, cultivators of the past were marked by their patience, whereas impatience is endemic today amid seekers who can very reasonably hope to live into their 80s or beyond. Imagine: if you read a poem and eat a sandwich at the same time, but you respond to the poem in far less time than it will take for your digestive system to extract the nutrients from your sandwich and shit out the rest, then don't expect your mind to have time to extract any nutrients from that poem before you react to it. I assure you, given that the human mind is capable of pooping on command, it in fact digests surprisingly slowly. Many years ago when I first lived in Beijing I had tea at Andrew Nugent Head's house. To those of us who'd wandered there that Sunday morning, he rattled off pieces of advice gleaned from his many years on "the path." One memorable thought was this: If you have a teacher, always wait at least seven days before you ask any question you think of. This will give you time to find the answer yourself (as often times you will if you just wait and use your good mind) and it will also give you time to notice if a question is not worth asking (very many are not). Anyway, your questions and anxieties are pretty typical of beginners. Years, perseverance, circumspection (especially regarding your experiences and goals), and equanimity will gradually put things into perspective. There's probably no other way. A problematic statement. Worth contemplating.

鴉鳴鵲噪、咸自天機。蟻聚蜂遊、都歸神理。是則何語非禪、何法非道？ The quacking of ducks and the squawking of magpies, it all comes from the celestial mechanism. The gathering of ants and the journeying of bees, it all goes back to the spiritual principles. Thus, what words aren't Chan? Which methods aren't Dao?

You mean hot like a fever or literally hot like a giant oven for melting metal?

Umm humm. Reminds me of the famous koan, "what is the sound of one hair splitting?" To the OP: The definitions of the words you mention are all worth contemplating. Many Daoist and Buddhist texts, including those aimed at beginners, both make use of these words as well as devote time to trying to clarify their implications. Thought: This might be a translation of 念/nian, 心念/xin'nian, or 念頭/niantou. Roughly speaking, that refers to the verbalized "voice in the head" and various images that pop into the mind. Intention: This may be a translation of 意/yi. In the context of some Daoist meditation techniques, it is very close in meaning to "attention," or even, "where you happen to place your mind." If you were instructed to pay attention to your breath, a Chinese teacher might say, "注意你的呼吸." The first two characters, 注意/zhuyi, are a word which would be translated for meaning as "pay attention." However, it literally means to "pour your thinking into," or something along those lines. There's no need to try and figure out what the hell it means to pour your attention somewhere; the point of this hyper literal translation isn't to enforce a hyper literal meaning--rather it's to try and soften the effect of the words and reveal the meaning. Observation: This may be much the same as 注意/zhuyi. It could also be the character 觀/guan, or any of several others that are used in meditation texts and oral teachings. Sometimes 觀 means to see things in a certain way, as in when Avalokiteshvara (觀音/Guanyin) "looks upon the five aggregates as all being empty" in the opening lines of the Heart Sutra, which is a text that influenced countless Daoist writings over the last 1,000+ years. Awareness: Likely refers to 覺/jue. We might call this "awareness in the raw." Awareness is what underlies all of the sensory faculties (hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, knowing the contents of one's own mind), but it is not those faculties, nor is it the sensory data they are associated with. Losing a sense faculty--e.g., becoming blind--would not lessen your awareness. Gaining a new sense faculty--your third eye opens--would not increase it. Awareness cannot be added to nor subtracted from. It has no beginning and no end. From the standpoint of we mortal humans in the world, however, it is often or usually "invisible" to us, seems to have beginnings and end, and seems to be able to be covered up or occluded. Therefore, to "become aware of awareness" is a step one finds in the teachings of many traditions, not just Daoism. These ideas can be (and in some circumstances should be) discussed at great length and in great detail, but all of that grinding of mental gears must be balanced out by actual practice if it is to be anything more than a grey hair inducing hobby. I defer to Joe Blast's posts here when it comes to actual meditation instructions. He has offered valuable insights.

It's true that it is generally accepted in Chinese medicine for the last many centuries that there are six yang organs, called the 府/腑/fu in Chinese. However, Daoist alchemy texts like Secret of the Golden Flower rarely place heavy importance on discussions of the fu organs, and I don't remember there being any in there at all (though it's been a few years since I read it). Although I haven't seen the lines from the book that s/he is talking about, the OP gave us an important clue by mentioning that this was discussed alongside the hexagrams (卦). When Yijing hexagrams are being discussed in the context of Daoist internal alchemy, what is being mentioned is the way in which a person who is past his or her youthful prime in terms of primordial qi (元氣/yuanqi; this prime age for qi is placed sometime during the teenage years, different for males and females), there is a gradual diminishing of primordial qi that occurs while the person ages. Full depletion of this vital energy is usually said to have occurred sometime in middle age--again, different for men and women. The depletion of this qi means the depletion of one's ming (命). However, the teaching does not seem to be that you die directly as a result of this process--obviously people live past middle age. Rather, you continue to live, but sapped of the vitality that lends itself to excellent physical and mental health and which is also recognized by Daoists as being requisite for serious spiritual practice. The presence of yuanqi in the body can be represented by unbroken yang lines (陽爻) in a hexagram. After they are "full" (the character for this is six yang lines, called 乾/Qian/Heaven), yin lines (陰爻) are depicted replacing yang lines, growing up from the bottom of the hexagram, one by one. When all of the yuan qi is gone, then you have a hexagram comprising six broken lines--it is 坤/Kun/Earth. Restoring all of the lines in the hexagram that represents you relative level of primordial qi happens in Daoist alchemy through the practice of ming gong (命功), those practices which don't simply promote "good health," but which actually allow you to "return to spring" in terms of your qi. To have accomplished this in ming gong can be represented by an all-yang "Heaven" hexagram.

I seem to remember you saying on this site before that you don't meditate. Am I mistaken?

Nothing to apologize for. There's no reason not to discuss the conceptions people have about Wang Liping.

He is almost certainly a Dragon Gate lineage holder, but so are lots of people, including some who grace this board from time to time. If you envision the entire Dragon Gate sect as a very big tree, WLP is somewhere out on the branches, not on the trunk; nobody you could place near the trunk has been alive for a very, very long time. Generally speaking, it doesn't really mean much that anybody is a lineage holder, unless that person happens to be your own master. Wang Liping is of great importance to the relatively small number of people who train with him and his students, and to those practice using the books attributed to him. To the rest of Daoism, he's really neither here nor there--lots of Longmen monks, nuns, and lay students don't even know who he is. To illustrate this, three days ago I mentioned WLP's fame in the English-speaking world to a Longmen monk of 30 years who has spent time on many of the famous holy mountains in China. He had to think for a minute before he could remember having heard of Wang.

Pretty bad. The fact that WLP's actual role in Longmen Daoism is far smaller than what many outside of the Chinese-speaking world imagine has been discussed more than once on this forum. This issue was talked about in some depth (amid the acrimony) here.

Heaven help us.

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffffftttttttt. I got money sez you actually kind of believe this. 45,358 posts? Hot damn, son. To the OP, of the 20th century masters, one name I have heard come up numerous times is that of Master Kuang Changxiu (匡常修), seen below looking rather dapper. If whispers circulating on the Daoist grapevine are to be believed, then he is one who reached very high levels of cultivation before leaving this world. Other than Laozi and Zhuangzi, in terms of semi-legendary ancient Daoists of great historical importance, Lu Dongbin (呂洞賓), is without a doubt numero uno. He is widely credited with being the source of transmission for many, many schools of inner alchemy. Master Lu, master of swordsmanship and poetry, also cut quite a dashing figure and worked his way deeply into the imaginations of Chinese novelists and playwrights of the last millennium. Women's names are recorded with far less frequency in the Chinese historical record than men, but this does not mean that Daoism has only known male masters. In addition to the well-known immortal Sun Bu'er (孫不二, who you can find described in the Eva Wong translation mentioned above), another great female Daoist master was Cao Wenyi (曹文逸) of the Northern Song era, who wrote The Song of the Great Dao's Numinous Source (《靈源大道歌》), which is still studied today. Unfortunately I couldn't find her portrait online. Finally, not particularly well-known in the English-speaking world is that the fellow of convinced/importuned Laozi into writing down the Daodejing before he left civilization, Guanyinzi (關尹子), star of Waysun Liao's novel Nine Nights with the Taoist Master, is credited with himself becoming a great master and passing down a very powerful set of inner alchemy teachings. As to whether or not there are any masters alive in this day and age on par with these historical greats, I do not know, and I suspect that few if any people on this board know, either.