ChiDragon

Well, killing weeds was not considered to be abusive in LaoTze's philosophy but killing people would be....

Reed.... Can you just look at Chapter One alone by itself without any outside influence.....??? You are confusing yourself from what you have learned in the past. Everything was defined in the chapter with not assumptions. What I am try to do is to avoid the same mistake that you are making. As I was saying before, the TTC is a piece of stand alone document. It does not need any outside influence for its interpretation. However, there are exceptions when it was written in metaphors. BTW You have jumped the gun before I was finish with my analysis....!!! Reed: "Assuming visible means the five standard senses" 4. Visible, it(Tao) was named as the mother of all things. It was clear that line 4 was indicating the "Visible" is Tao, not the five senses as you'd assumed. Please keep in mind from a scholastic point of view, Lao Tze hasn't teaching any of his philosophies in Chapter One. Indeed, he was only given an introduction of Tao.

Scholastic analysis for: Common Version of Chapter 1. 3. 無名，天地之始。 3. Having no name, it is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. 4. 有名，萬物之母。 4. Having a name, it is the mother of all tings. 7. 此兩者同出而異名 7. These two come from one origin but differ in name, For the same token, where are the "two" come from one origin....??? I cannot find them in lines 3 and 4 as I would have found in the Received Version.

Scholastic analysis for: Received Version of Chapter 1. 3. 無，名天地之始。 3. Invisible, it was named as the origin of heaven and earth. 4. 有，名萬物之母。 4. Visible, it was named as the mother of all things. 7. 此兩者同出而異名 7. These two come from one origin but differ in name, The key to draw to a conclusion is based the logic in line 7. It says these "two" from one origin but differ in name. The two differ in name were referred to the "無" and "有", "Invisible" and "Visible", the two name given to Tao in two different states. The two states were: 1. The beginning(origin) of heaven and earth, Invisible, Tao was in an unmanifested state. 2. As the mother of all things, Visible, Tao was in a manifested state. The origin was referred as "Tao". Everything seems to be felt in place and the logic flows. PS.... Please keep in mind from a scholastic point of view, Lao Tze hasn't teaching any of his philosophies in Chapter One. Indeed, he was only given an introduction of Tao.

Let's discuss our way of life, according to our values and our attitudes, to find out how far off the mark we are in relation to the eternal Way (道 i.e.Tao). John Lennon's Way (道) of Living, as told in his song "Imagine" would be as follows: No Heaven, no Hell, and above us only sky. (Meaning no religion, shamanism, spiritualism.) All the people (百姓) living together for today. (No dwelling on the past, no planning for the future.) No countries. (No nationalism, no territorial divisions.) Nothing to live or die for. (No conflicts, no dreams and no wants.) No possessions. (Public or private.) Lennon said that his Way (道 i.e.Tao) will lead to: No need for greed and hunger. All the people, sharing all the world, living life in peace. Is John Lennon's dream practicable and consistent with the teaching of the Tao Te Ching?

FYI.... Since you can read the characters, you may copy and paste any character or phrase(s) on google or any search engine to find some good native sources.

It was not a confusion but just disturbing. I believe I always get to the point on some important issues for saving time. Sometimes, I was probing the brain of the counterpart in a special situation. I don't think it was quite the same as in your approach.

You are not trying hard enough. Maybe you should hire somebody.........

Common Version of Chapter 1 1. 道可道，非常道。 2. 名可名，非常名。 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。 7. 此兩者同出而異名， 8. 同謂之玄。玄之又玄， 9. 眾妙之門。 The commas in lines 3, 4, 5 and 6 has been moved one place to the right. This common version was used by many to do the translation. 3. 無名，天地之始。 3. Having no name, it is the beginning of Heaven and Earth. 4. 有名，萬物之母。 4. Having a name, it is the mother of all tings. 5. 故常無欲，以觀其妙。 5. Always without desire, one would grok its quale. 6. 常有欲，以觀其徼。 6. Always with desire, one would observe its boundary. With the comma in different a place, do you see the difference in the translation between the Received and Common Versions....??? As a scholastic approach, the first thing to do is to place the comma in their proper place. That will give the translator a general idea about the context within perspective to see the overall picture of a Chapter.

I am glad to hear that. I was expecting a response like this for a jump start to move forward. Thanks.

I understand all that. The thing that is when you quote someone, you do not make changes to the wording. That means you are changing the original idea of the initiator which is very misleading causing misunderstanding. It is better off for you to make your own statement. That is where I am getting at. To save time and effort, I think this kind of miscommunication should be avoided as possible. Most of the time I was spending here was to try to be clear of what you are saying. However, it was always one thing leads to another is very time consuming.

無為(Wu Wei): 不妄為(no abusive action) The philosophy behind Wu Wei is to take no abusive action to interfere with Nature. Let Nature take its course.

The part one might be missed, in the TTC, about "The Art of War" was: "To win a war is not to start a war." Thus no one wins is the biggest triumph of it all.

You are a gentleman and a scholar.....

That is the only correction.......???? Who gave you the right to change someone's intended meaning.....???

There are some chapters do speak about the things similar to "The Art of Wat". I was hoping somebody would be interested in that.

That is correct. I am study the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching as a 道家 other than a 道士. However, I may follow the principles of Tao and still practice Chi Kung and Tai Chi for health benefits as a 道士 without getting into the 道教.

Here is the book I am using written by most knowledgeable modern scholar, 陳鼓應. All the information there are in the world is in his book. The westerners are so happy with the ancient stuff and their one time translation and never bothered to update nor revise their work. Especially they treat their translations as a bible and never recheck the validity of the outdated work. Thus it's really getting on my nerves. The Received Version is in this book that the west was never aware of.

1. The Received Version is a latest edition done by the modern scholars. 2. I don't know what is the western readership has anything to do with it. As I had indicated before, I was using the Received Version for all my translations. Please don't get all heat up with the western thinking right now. Wait until I give you a presentation, then you will know what I am talking about.

There is one thing about classic; it has no punctuations. The reader has to know where to place a pause to get a good meaning out of the text. In a worse case, if the pause was place at the wrong spot, then the meaning may be completely different. Sometimes, it may be logical but wrong meaning or misinterpretation. It is better off when it is illogical because the reader may try to pause somewhere else to have the text to make sense. Chapter One has a very critical situation in punctuation. I will show how the comma was placed and cause the meanings to be out of whack. Thus, Chapter One is a best place to start with our discussion to shown this critical situation.

Why do we need the Received Version of the Tao Te Ching....??? There were many copies, not version, of the Tao Te Ching. Those copies could be written be anybody in any education level during the past couple centuries. Those were written by different people in different periods of time. When ideas passed around, there will be something gets lost in the translation. Some people do make changes to the TTC in their favor for whatever reason and it was done. The unearthed copies had shown phonetics and incorrect characters were used to cause the phrase to be out of context. For those who are, natives and foreign scholars, not familiar with the classic will be misled and cause misinterpretation. Unfortunately, as in the foreigner case, the translations may be resulted with greater errors inevitably.

I think it all depends on the level of perfection that the person is in pursuit. In addition, it also depends on the intelligence and ability of the person and how to get there. However, if a person does not yield to any obstruction by not making changes or corrections due to stubbornness, stupidity and ignorance, then the answer would be yes. It is stagnancy.

"I don't see the DDJ as saying there should be no emperor, just that s/he should rule as subtly and unobtrusively as possible. Which implies that s/he does need to rule." MS..... You are 100% right. The TTC also says that the people are living in peace; thus they don't even know that there was an emperor ever existed.

Correction: ..................as cosmetics for immature audience like us.

....................as cosmetics for immature audience.