ChiDragon

Marblehead... This one is not in Korean. Next time you do your own homework....!!! Confucius meets Lao Zi

According to the ancient historian 司馬遷, his record had indicated that Confucius did meet Lao Zi three times in his life time before 521 BCE. Also, we have records of their dialogue. Ref: http://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/question/question?qid=1509110203787

So far, no!

It was known the Lao Tzu is Lao Tan for century. Why the hell you bring Derek Lin into this? What the hell he knows? IMO He mistranslated chapter one so bad as a Native speaking Chinese. I can cite you more than one Chinese source in saying that Lao Tzu is Lao Tan.

Yes, there were many codex of the Tao Te Ching with errors before the Guodian version. Some of the errors were corrected based from the unearth copies of Guodian and MWD. Even these versions have lots of errors by use phonetics to replace the actual characters at the time. Btw, the unearth copies were still not the original of the Tao Te Ching. They were codex just like the rest of the existing ones. If they were not written, then it would be recitals passed on by the word of mouth. If people decided to write it down, some characters may be just phonetics which why we are seeing so many errors and the original meanings of some phrases were twisted.

Bull's eye. You did it. Thanks H.E. That was no assumption, Lao Tan(老聃) is Lzo Tzu(老子) himself. Now, we may come to a conclusion that Zhuang Zi did read the Tao Te Ching after all.

Exactly, they are just going in the opposite direction. It works for both. However, I have to give the credit to Lao Zi because he was born way before Zhuang Zi. Somehow, Zhuang Zi has to be stolen the idea from Lao Zi in order to apply the concept on himself.

Well, if you put it that way. Actually, both are trying to deal with the government one way or the other. Lao Zi wants to improve it while Zhuang Zi tried to run away from it all. Another words, Lao Zi want the government to take the initiative to give freedom to the people. However, Zhuang Zi wants to free himself from the government on his own. He is not against the government but just want to have nothing to do with it to save all the headaches.

Yes, that proves the point that a military order is a serious matter under any situation.

FYI... Chang Chou or Zhuang Zhou is ZZ's real name. The character 子(Zi) was added the surname of each scholar to indicate as a philosopher of some kind. Hence, we have Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi and Sun Zi.

FYI: Sun Zi was demonstrating to the ruler that the art of war can be applied to train women too. The concubines of the ruler were used for the training. Two of the ruler's favorite concubines were assigned as troop leaders. They were executed in front of the ruler for being disobedient.

hmmmm..... Don't you think you are slamming the door on me too soon.....???

This is interesting and something new to me. Let me try on my end to see that is true of not....!!!

Rara.... I know you have locked in your head that a Taoist do not kill. Why do they learn martial arts and practice with the swords and sabre? There are situations where they can apply the Taoist principles in major cases; and sometimes can't. Nothing is perfect you know?

HI, Rara..... Thank your invitation. You see, one must understand the definition of Tao but not "Taoism". Tao(道) for Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi are different. Lao Zi's Tao have various definitions; and Zhuang Zi's definition for Tao is 宇宙最高的法則, the Supreme Natural Law of the Universe. The definition is also one of the definitions of Lao Zi for Tao. However, ZZ borrowed the idea from the Tao Te Ching and use the natural law to explain why things are the way they are as reasons. The western term "Taoism" is very ambiguous and confusing which was never clearly state what it is all about. Zhuang Zi had observed that Nature was constantly changing which effects the human lives. He had come up with many principles from the observations of Nature and applied to the humans. The principles are actually called Tao(道 or 道理) in Chinese which means reasons. Hence, Zhuang Zi becomes a philosopher of principles in reasoning. In English, he may be a Taoist but one must understand what it means. There is one chapter in the classic Zhuang Zi is called 天道, the Principle of Heaven, which also known as the "Natural Law". The character 道 was used in many places. Anyway, it was immaterial whether the Tao character was used or not. It was the contents in the classic which made him a Taoist.

Daniel Reid's Book: A Complete Guide To Chi Gong(氣功) is a very good book for information about Chi Gong but it does not have a good method of Chi Gong to learn it on your own. Btw I have this book and used many times as reference. You should get the book and read it to get an idea what Chi Gong is all about before you go into practicing it. Also, there is no need to be in a hurry to learn about Taoism. Just do one thing at a time. FYI.... Daniel Reid practice western medicine as a doctor. He has very good knowledge about TCM. He married a Taiwanese woman which helped him to translate the Chi Gong information from Chinese to English. In addition, he used modern science in relation to explain the traditional Chinese concepts. When I was reading his English book, it seems as I was reading it in Chinese. It comes that close. I think he did a good job in the translation.

Yes, I had read it in the post above.

Good acting. IMO.

What is "real chi"? Where was measured from? How do we know that is the "real chi" that was being measured but not something else?

Rara... I like to follow your thoughts...!!! You know if Zhang Tzu was not a Taoist to begin with, then where would we get all the Taoist ideas from? Zhuang Tzu was ridiculing Confucius in many ways is because he didn't appreciate the trouble of going through the ritual motions by bowing to greet someone. Zhuang Tzu thought that was hypocritical and unnecessary.

Don't worry about the house but help to heal the troubling mind which where the problem was to begin with.

CT..... Thanks for your advice, but please reread my comments. Thanks....

聖人以必不必，故無兵； 眾人以不必必之，故多兵。 順於兵，故行有求. 兵，恃之則亡。 Sage consider a necessity as unnecessary, thus no military action. The majority consider the inessential as essential, therefore, there will be more abusive military action. One who misuse of military power, then there are demands need to be met. Military action, who insist upon it will lead to self destruction.

Yes, I may consider myself is tending to be a Taoist because I am practicing some of the Taoist principles. However, I may not be considered myself as a true Taoist because I am still living in a modern life style. In general, since I do practice the DCXM(see post #26), thus that will make me a Taoist or semi-Taoist. Edited to add: In regards to imitation, if I practice something without any understanding and just do it, then it would be an imitation. However, it is not in my case. I do understand the principles behind all my practices.

Perhaps xiejia was literally meant what was in the quote from Marblehead: