ChiDragon

takaaki..... I wish you to have a happy new year too; and thank you for your deepest respect. There are twelve calendar signs in the Chinese zodiac dedicated to twelve animals. The order goes like this: rat, ox, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, cock, dog, and boar. The cycle repeats itself every twelve year. This coming new year is the year of the water snake. The reason it was called the 'water' snake has something to do with the five elements such as metal, wood, water, fire, and earth(soil). I need to find out how the water was related for the year of the snake(2013). In regarding to how to greet each other appropriately for the New Year, In the north part of China, people speaks mandarin, they will say: 过年好(have a good year throughout). The Cantonese in the South will say: 恭喜發財(Kung Hay Fat Choy) hope you'll get rich 新年快樂(happy new year) They are the same as the appropriate greeting to all. @dawei... "she does a good job of making sure I am not a Taoist." Why was that...???

I have the book of Gu Zhengkun (辜正坤). His is a professor in the English department at the University of Beijing. His explanation about the philosophy of LaoTze in Chinese was perfect. Somehow, his translation of the Tao Te Ching into English was not quite satisfactory. He was using Chinese-English other than English-English.

You'll see the nuance, only if you understand definition of Taoist in the mind between an American and a Chinese thinking. It is very clear to me that the definition of Taoism, in the west, are very inclusive; while the Chinese definition is very exclusive.

The nature of things do not constitute an action. However, any action interfered with the natural flow of things like 1. The course of water in a river was disrupted by building a dam on it. 2. The bird in the air was shot down by a gun. 3. If a third party came into the scene between you and your love one. All these three conditions were interfered by some kind of abusive action which considered to be violated the concept of Wu Wei.

Nature of things: 1. The natural flow of water in a river. 2. The birds flying in the air. 3. The harmony between you and your love one.

Careful planning is okay for Wu Wei as long it does not harm to the nature of things. Again, the emphasis is on "non interference".

Yes, you are only the right track. You have the right concept about Wu Wei but there is only one notion that need to be considered based on the philosophy of LaoTze. Wu Wei is to take no abusive action to interfere with the course of Nature. In the point of view of the Tao Te Ching. It doesn't matter how good are the deeds that one was doing; if there was any abusive action interfered with the flow of things was considered not being Wu Wei. The emphasis is based on the word "abusive" where the abusive action may be in any magnitude.

Do you all see the nuance in the two statements....???

This is a good place to clear the air about the Chinese characters, thoughts and concepts. In Chapter One, it has three main characters, 道, 無, and 有. Let's just look at the characters first. 1. 道: Tao, it was not defined in Chapter One but only have a description of it. 2. 無: none, doesn't have it, 3. 有: have (implying something that exists) Thoughts: 3. 無，名天地之始。 4. 有，名萬物之母。 3. Invisible, it was named as the origin of heaven and earth. 4. Visible, it was named as the mother of all things. Lines 3 and 4 are using the characters 無, and 有 as an introductory descriptive for the manifestation of Tao. Tao is a potentiality(無) but formless before the creation of Heaven and Earth. Tao become an actuality(有) when all things were created. In Chapter 40 substantiate the usage of 無, and 有 as a concept. 3. 天下萬物生於有， 4. 有生於無。 3. All things of the world came from Visible(有). 4. Visible came from Invisible(無). The characters 無 and 有, in Chapter 40, are identical to the 無 and 有 in Chapter One. If we link the thoughts together we have the following interpretative concept. Line 3, in Chapter 40, says: 3. 天下萬物生於有， All things in the world came from the actuality of Tao(有), Line 4, in Chapter 40, says: 4. 有生於無。 The actuality of Tao(有) came from the potentiality of Tao(無).

So far there is no one has the wisdom and philosophy which is comparable to Lao Tze.

Lots of people including the Chinese cannot keep in mind that the Tao Te Ching is a piece of stand alone document. The most common mistake they had made was interpreting it in their flavor with what they had leaned in the past. They tend to interpret the Tao Te Ching with a mixture of philosophies such as Confucian, Buddhism, and western influence.

An American who studies Taoism may be called as a Taoist. Thus an American Taoist may not be practicing the religion of Taoism. A Chinese who practice the religion of Taoism is called a Taoist. Those Chinese who only study Taoism may not be called as a Taoist.

I always let him pass by without a challenge to MH. I'd accepted of just what he said because that is his style. I know that is his way of understand as an American Taoist. I don't think I can get anymore out of my friend here.......

Very nicely said. I agree that there are different Chinese versions of the Tao Te Ching but actually there are merely just copies. The original version written by Lao Tze was never found. However, I wouldn't consider that there was a single English version because any English message about the TTC is just a translation which has no bearing to the authenticity of the Tao Te Ching. The Chinese only have to deal with interpretation of the Tao Te Ching classic. The non Chinese have two problems. They have to deal with the language and the interpretation of Chinese classic. Knowing how to speak the modern language and the meanings of the characters has no merits in doing the interpretations without the cultural heritage, history and the native philosophy. Lots of people including the Chinese cannot keep in mind that the Tao Te Ching is a piece of stand alone document. The most common mistake they had made was interpreting it in their flavor with what they had leaned in the past. They tend to interpret it with a mixture of philosophies such as Confucian, Buddhism, and western influence. Especially, the westerners, each translator tend to interpret it as one pleases. That is why there are thousands of different translations. The Chinese interpretations are sharing a common language and there is a great advantage for improvement of understanding the Tao Te Ching. Scholars always come up with different ideas to get closer and closer the original intended meanings of the Tao Te Ching. In the west, there was no update in their translations and just become stagnate. Besides, there were many copy cats by just revising the wordings of others' translations and called their understanding of the Tao Te Ching.

Yes, that is the reference of Wang As Shi(王安石).

Received Version: The 名 in lines 3 ans 4 was used as a verb in the Received Version. 3. 無，名天地之始。 4. 有，名萬物之母。 5. 故常無，欲以觀其妙。 6. 常有，欲以觀其徼。 According to my native reference in page 三九六(396) . 王安石(Wang An shi), in the Tang Dynasty, was the first scholar who reads 無 and 有, followed by a comma, as shown in Lines 3, 4, 5 and 6. Here is a very good native explanation about 道，無 and 有 for Chapter One:

太武斷了。　Ｉ can be as objective as I can and as I want to. However, I do admit that I'm being subjective, only one time, to be objective. It is analogous to 有為 for being 無為.

The natives scholars do aware that there are many errors made by the ancient scholars from copy-to-copy. In order to make the correction, the native knowledgeable scholars have attempted to put their greatest scholastic effort to come up with a Received Version. In the event, they studied each copy by comparison to see what characters were missing in one copy and replace with what they thought was logical from another copy. In the contrary, there are extra characters were added but removed in the Received Version. Sometimes, some characters are in reverse order based on the improper arrangement made by the ancient scholars and was corrected also. However, the worse errors ever made by the ancient scholars were using illogical homonym characters in some phrases. These errors were causing the phrases to be out of context. As a result, the idea of the whole chapter was out of whack. The worse of it, it looses the continuity of thoughts within the Tao Te Ching. IMMHO It is not wise for someone who just pick up any copy of the Tao Te Ching and starting doing translation without considered all the errors were made by the ancient scholars. The accuracy of the translation is very questionable. Unless otherwise, accuracy was considered not a serious matter. Therefore, further mistakes and errors are multiplied causing the real meaning of the Tao Te Ching to be jeopardized.

This situation is quite frustrating but eventually things will be back into balance. It is just one of those things that Nature has to be taken its course.

By definition of "quarrel": an angry argument or disagreement between people, often about a personal matter. Have we seen anything that says Zhuang Tze was angry in discussing any personal matters. Most of the time he was presenting his philosophy in a parable by given his reasons at his best. Was that considered to be a quarrel....???

Profound......!!!

Okay, is Watson an American Taoist.......???

No, that was Zhuang Tze's whole philosophy to have an enjoyable life without quarrel. Maybe I can dig something up for you......!!!

We are not quarreling; we are just teasing each other with Taoist thoughts from time to time to kill time.