dawei

I would not try to explain a purpose for a single chapter; there are 81 chapters worth reading. But it seems you actually did find a purpose for the chapter. That's good. I'm not into memorizing and reciting although oral history required it before books came along.

It shows the character is a negation... It is a rather strange comment to say that when it comes to "classic", one cannot rely on Etymology (origin of a word)... It is a good resource. I think people can decide for themselves if it is useful for them or not.

I think everyone has access to nature. To argue one needs books is just an excuse on some level... But as I said, our modern day and age has broken our natural connections in some way and we apply our idea of self-improvement by turning to books and teachers.

I think it is a valid question. Just as later versions changed words for clarity it would also not be uncommon to add a word for clarity.

That works. I was thinking along the lines of: Listening without hearing [it], we name it silence.

What about: These three objects are impossible to measure (or immeasurable) Their resulting mixture blends as one I think there needs to be some logic between the mix/blend as one as opposed to when they are three; The three are beyond measure yet they come together as one.

希 = also can mean 'to become silent' 德 = this just seems out of place given the parallelism the opening three lines offer. I am certain Hendricks drops it due to such issues as he often comments to the structure of sentences, parallelism, and rhythm.

The title says it: Each chapter is a study. Some deeper than others. Thoughts and questions are welcomed about the text.

浴神 is also found in the Bao Pu Zi, written around 300 A.D.

http://www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?submitButton1=Etymology&characterInput=%E5%BC%97

There was a time when there were no books... and Lao Zi mentions this period of ancients... it is times which have changed and people lose their connection to nature. IMO, It has nothing to do with faultless living; that's an excuse to rely on books instead of nature. Nature has not changed.

Actually, I only asked one question and you didn't answer that one. But thanks for that link as another reference is always good to have.

You learn to live the right way from nature... book reading puts in you suspended animation of virtual living. Put the book down and your back to real-life and nature. Lao Zi said "the ancients"... what books did they learn from? In a word, NONE. BTW: The oldest texts have the first three lines differently: MWD A: 視之而弗見名之曰微 聽之而弗聞名之曰希 昏之而弗得名之曰夷 MWD B: 視之而弗見□之曰微 聽之而弗聞命之曰希 德昏之而弗得命之曰夷 Fu Xi, Heshang Gong, Wang Bi: 視之不見名曰夷。 聽之不聞名曰希。 搏之不得名曰微。 I would recommend that if you are going to quote a text then state the source. You are translating from Fuxi's changes which Heshang Gong and Wang Bi follow... and ChiDragon follows. The ultimate test is life.

The MWD A and B has "Yu" not "Gu" as the first character: A = 浴神□死是胃玄﹦牝﹦之門是胃□地之根∠縣﹦呵若存用之不堇 B = 浴神不死是胃玄﹦牝﹦之門是胃天地之根縣﹦呵亓若存用之不堇 Source: http://home.pages.at/onkellotus/TTK/_IndexTTK.html This would be an interesting book to talk about. Thanks for sharing this.

I have gone from liking Hendricks to simply appreciating what he has done for the older texts as he is one of the very few who has translated the Guodian and MWD versions. I have both of those books and they are indispensable for studying and comparing the versions. I tend to think he sticks more towards book definitions with an eye towards the kind of scholarly and sinology sense one would expect of a guy in his position of translation classical chinese... but I am not sure he "feels" the text, like say Feng does. Look at how he ends one of the most important chapters: "This is called the beginning of the thread of the Way." That is as awkward as it gets... You might of noticed my word choice in translation tries to evoke the meaning more than a dictionary would. I would need to look closer at MWD versions to see how I would translate it, but I will say this: His notes on this chapter are good and shows he sees that the older texts has something to offer which the later texts loses; particularly in lines 9-11 and 18-21.

I aligned the five texts side by side and can easily see where Fu Xi made changes to the Ma Wang Dui A and B which all later texts follow. There are some interesting changes and some which are a non-issue (simply a modernization in usage). 1. 名曰 - Ming (name) Yue (to call, to name, to say). This is in all the latter text but was originally as: MWD A = 名之曰 - Ming (name) Zhi (of) Yue (to call, to name, to say) MWD B = 命之曰 = Ming (fate) Zhi (of) Yue (to call, to name, to say) While Ming and Ming are the same sound, and it was not uncommon to have phonetic loan words, it is interesting that Ming (fate) was used in pre-Han. Even ZZ uses this word formula but in most all cases it appears to simply mean the same as "to name" something. So it is like "this is named", as differentiated from, "this is called" (是謂). For me, this is enough proof to accept the meaning as carried forward in later texts; "To name" something. 2. The first interesting change is that the MWD versions have the last word different in Line 1 and 3; the later text reverse the word to the lines and what we see in almost every translation is NOT the oldest two texts. And the third line has the character different in the three groups and in MWD B it is De (Dao virtue). It seems Fuxi took some liberty to try and clean up the lines. MWD A: 視之而弗見名之曰微 聽之而弗聞名之曰希 昏之而弗得名之曰夷 MWD B: 視之而弗見□之曰微 聽之而弗聞命之曰希 德昏之而弗得命之曰夷 Fu Xi, Heshang Gong, Wang Bi: 視之不見名曰夷。 聽之不聞名曰希。 搏之不得名曰微。 3. The middle section has differences which can be seen by looking at the Hendrick's translation, particularly lines 9-11.

We should keep in mind that Hendricks is using the older text... so you should be instead asking [rhetorically]: How much has Fu Xi, Heshang Gong, and Wang Bi added to the older text... and the answer is quite a bit and this chapter is a good example. And I think a good example of where to stick to the older text to get a better understanding for the chapter.

Ah... I overlooked that point... I now want to look again at it closer.

One issue is that 名曰 is a common formula in pre-han to mean "it is called", "it is named", "named as", etc While I agree with your basic idea on why you questioned it, I also think that the entire text may not be written down by the same scribe and we see some different phrases used for the same idea.

Rene... it is just my idea... but I do find that we have many similar ideas... that makes it easy to talk on some level but when we disagree then the talk is more important on another level. Thanks.

Consider the life experience of Flowing Hands and ChiDragon... it is a joke to say Chidragon is a 'sifu'... but your free to follow any pickpocket you want. You seem to have a fast reaction to emotional responses to many issues here... that is ok... but the result is usually in the wrong direction... that is also ok... If you want a serious conversation about any chapter, do not ask a single person or follow a single person... ask many people and ask many questions and then follow your nature.

治 = to govern, to manage to control, to harness (a river) cure treatment, to heal It is about BOTH ruling AND curing people... Is there a difference in ruling countries??? But realize that an earlier line says: 是以聖人之治 Do you translate that as 'cure'? (or another similar meaning)...

Here is another: http://www.uky.edu/~mgwach2/ChinesePoetry/Chinese_Poetry.pdf I would like to ask the mods to split out the original thread from what is going on with ChiDragon... I think their discussion is worthy on it's own but does not belong here. I think your original idea should try to collect resources for learning classical chinese.

That's a great question which we don't see discussed so much. I'll tell you my inclination but I am willing to be wrong. I am inclined to think that Dao is the essential transforming process in every state; Wu to You. It does not itself arise because it is simply the process of transformation. But in the void, the process is dormant; so Dao is akin to a sleep state. You'll see where I get this idea from in a minute... Now... when we look at the opening of DDJ25 it may suggest as some have translated that 'something was formed', but most translations are ambiguous enough to not explicitly say if they mean Dao formed or simply that something formed and this formative process is called Dao. There are some translations which clearly state the latter and I lean towards the latter formative process. There are two great ancient cosmologies which are worth referring to when talking about beginnings. The Tai Yi Sheng Shui and the Huainanzi. The former is interesting due to its detail and it has some of the same lines as DDJ25 in some parts. We talked about this work in the subforum and one can look there (The Water Book). The focus of that is Tai Yi (Great One) and Dao appears as simply the process-part. In the latter work, the focus is on Tai Zhai (what I call the Primal Illumination) and I translate the opening lines as: Prior to the Opening of the Universe and pouring down of all life forms This is called the Primal Illumination. Dao awoke in this boundless void. The boundless void gave rise to the cosmos; The cosmos gave rise to [Primal] Qi. [Primal] Qi spread as a shoreline. That which was clear and bright formed into Heaven; That which was heavy and impure formed into Earth. It is easy for that which is clear and bright to uniformly gather [as the sky] But difficult for the heavy and impure to solidify [as earth and matter]. I stick to the idea that Dao was there in the void but it's transforming nature was dormant (void); and when some *bang!* occurs (Primal Illumination) it is because Dao woke up (transforming begins). Now, I will further say that to me, Dao is not the highest level as it is the process-part which keeps to whatever state it is in... And as the process-part it is part of a larger whole. Some call this divine (but not the western religious context) or The Great One or The Great Unity, etc.

That looks like a gem of a book... thanks. Realize that it is prior to Pinyin and simplified characters so the pronounciation may not be what you would hear or see written here in Pinyin. You can also try to get Hendrick's translation of the bamboo Guodian text of the DDJ... he has a ton of information to help untangle classical usage and modern equivalents. This would of been a useful thread for classical resources except for the hijacking that occurred