ChiDragon

土 is Soil or earth 地 is Earth

Yes, what you said is true, but if you are a Tai Chi Chuan practitioner, it is an esoteric term for the Tai Chi group. Please do not lump all the definitions in one thought. Besides, we are talking about Tai Chi Chuan not cooking. BTW People are too lazy to say the three characters "Tai Chi Chuan", instead they preferred to say it in two characters such as "tai chi" for short. The term "tai chi of cooking" was really saying "the Art of Cooking", and tai chi is really has nothing to do with cooking.

Let it go for few days until you can do deep breathing again. Then, concentrate on your deep and slow breathing and focus on the pained area, while laying down, for fast healing. Take your breath to a deepest point where there is no pain and stop there as your threshold for a baseline. Repeat your breathing process until your breaths can go deeper and deeper to pass the threshold point. If you can have your breath reach the abdomen without any more pain, then you are home free...

We can learn a lot from this chapter. First is LaoTze's writing style; and, secondly, is the way he present his philosophy with metaphors. There are three levels of interpretation for the Tao Te Ching. First is the superficial meaning of the phrases, second is the interpretation, and third is the hidden message in the metaphor. However, if the first and second levels are illogical or make no sense at all, then go to the third level. In this chapter, the first three lines are written in metaphors. Line 1 was suggesting that one shall not rely on what it seems to be or superficial, the truth is always there in the world. One must use one's own intuition and impartial judgment to find out the truth. Line 2 was suggesting that one does not need to look outside to determine the Laws of Nature. It is because the Laws of Nature are always the same which do not change. Line 3 was suggesting that the more one sees, the more confusions that are deceiving one's principled thoughts.

太極拳(Tai Chi Chuan) and 太極(tai chi) are the same thing. 太極 was short for 太極拳 as you've said. These two came from the same source but differ in name.

Yes, it is. I would like to hear from you how would you interpret these three paradoxes based on your understanding of LaoTze's philosophy...?

Is there anybody have an open mind to answer my question....??? Please....!!!

hehehe.... You still did not answer my question....!!! PS.... Sorry, my comment wasn't aiming at you. It was to all the Tai Chi practitioners.

Go for it. I started with the 108 movement Tai Chi. It took lots of time and space, therefore, I cut down some of the movements just by repeating some of the simple movements. As the matter of fact, I had been doing some of the simple movements just by standing at one spot. In the meantime, I am doing both Tai Chi and sitting qigong. I've found it was very effective to build up my body energy. The reason I can do this is because I knew the basic concept about Tai Chi, why and how it works, after more than thirty years of practice and from lots of reading. It would be easier to learn Tai Chi, if you knew the basic concept. The Tai Chi principle is based on the yin-yang concept. So far, I have not seen it explained in English....

lienshan... Nice to see you here and there. I don't mean to dispirit nor to despise you. I know you are making a big effort in learning the characters, but IMO you are in desperate need for some proper guidance. If you continue to make those erroneous assumption about the meanings of the characters, you are really confusing the public here.....

1. Based on common sense. In Chinese, the Characters 名(ming2) and 明(ming2) were interchangeable in the ancient time. However, "name" and "understanding" are not interchangeable in English. IMO It would be a very poor translation if 明(ming2) was translated as "names". 2. If 明(ming2) was used, in the first place, for both Chinese and English, then the incredibly detailed in describing the nuances of the classical text could have been avoided and have less confusion. Hence, that was why a Received Version was introduced to eliminate all the unnecessary confusions.

Tai Chi practitioners... I am so curious about your comments. Based on your comments, it'll reveal how much you know about Tai Chi. Please comment on the gesture in this picture. Is that what you have learned from your Tai Chi lessens....???

Experienced as energy. I'll buy that. To me, I always thought the Experienced Energy as ATP.

You have a nice sense of humor... Here is the translation of the interpretation of an knowledgeable scholar 陳鼓應. 1. During the golden era, the people don't even know that the government had ever existed. 2. The second best, people are very close to and praise the government. 3. The worse government, the people are feared. 4. The next worse, the people are resented. 5. The government was untrustworthy, 6. The people will not trust it. 7. The best government doesn't issue decrees lightly, 8. And complete all affairs in an orderly manner. 9. All the people will say: for us that was only natural. Received version. 1. 太上,不知有之。 2. 其次親而譽之。 3. 其次畏之。 4. 其次侮之。 5. 信不足焉， 6. 有不信焉。 7. 悠兮其貴言， 8. 功成事遂， 9. 百姓皆謂我自然

I guess people just can't run away with the notion that Chi is not "ENERGY". No matter how hard I tried....

Yes, it takes one to know one.

oops.... Sorry, my bad English. I misinterpreted "extraneous" and thought it was "strenuous". Maybe this was the cause of your sore in the muscles. Smoking this kind of stuff may deplete all the oxygen in your body. For the same reason, your glucose turns into lactate due to hypoxia and causing the soreness in the muscles. That's all I can think of it is the marijuana was doing something undesirable inside your body. IMO Energy should not have any adverse effect on your body but make it better. It seems to me that you have lots of toxin in your body. Why don't you try to stop smoking that stuff and see what happens...???

1. When you do Chi Kung(vipassana or samatha), it was detoxicating your body. The bubbles were the toxin that your body wants to get rid of. 2. The bubbles formed around your wrist, it means your body was going through a healing process. Your white blood cells were repairing your damaged tissues. The little bubbles are the liquids leaked from the damaged body cells. 3. The soreness in your muscles was due to your extraneous physical activity. It was because your muscles had used up all the oxygen and the glucose was turned into lactic acid or lactate. Lactate will cause soreness in the muscle until your oxygen debt was paid back to the muscles. 4. It is not healthy for your body. In order to prevent the soreness just do your extraneous physical activity moderately or don't do it at all but just do Chi Kung only. Chi Kung will provide ample of oxygen to your body to prevent hypoxia, lack of oxygen, in the muscles.

氣(chi), in the west, was only known or translated as energy. Unfortunately, the character was abide by the sole definition restricting to move forward for other explanations. If the character was traced back to its root, then, its multi-definition may be more versatile to be used in other fields. Its usage in the meaning of the character in the Chinese society is not very clear. The most common meaning in an ordinary daily life, it means 'air.' When a TCM practitioner says your chi is low, then, that is where the confusion starts. It didn't mean as air for sure but most people took it as chi without clarity. Unfortunately, when a chi kung master use the term to explain what it is, most people would think of it as the chi term in TCM. Despite to the simplified Characters, there are three basic characters for chi in the Chinese language which are 气(Chi), 炁(chi) and 氣(chi). 气(chi) is the ancient character for air. 炁(chi) is an ancient character with the meaning as the primordial substance which is the basic essence of all matters. The essential chi comprised of the yin-yang chi as a whole. In order for matter to be formed, the yin-chi(yin substance) and yang-chi(yang substance) must react together and become a harmonized chi. 氣(chi) is a character with multi-definition. Its meaning depends how and where was used and applied in different fields. This character was used, in the modern time, almost anywhere without an explicit definition. That's why it was so confusing around the world. To a Taoist with the notion of preserving life, 炁(chi) is the energy source within the human body. After breathing and taking the nourishment, it becomes 氣(chi) as human energy or body strength. 氣(chi) in TCM(Traditional Chinese Medicine), it means the functional activities of the organs. For example, when the TCM practitioner says that the liver chi was clogged, it simply means that the functional activities of the liver has come to a halt. When the liver chi was low, it was said to be that the liver is malfunction or not functioning to its full capacity. 氣(chi) in Chi Kung, the character by itself means 'air.' When compound with 功(Kung), chi means breathing; and Chi Kung means the ultimate method of breathing to be practiced or cultivated to its perfection. By the way, the tremendous energy in the human body resulted from Chi Kung was by the biochemical reaction of the functional activities of the organs. In western term, the bio-energy was known as adenosine triphosophate(ATP). In this case, the bio-energy can be referred as the chi-energy in the body. Nowadays, the modern Chinese are trying distinguish the two characters by defining 炁(chi) as energy and 氣(chi) as air or gaseous substance.

I am thinking the same that the horses were returned to the farms after the war. Ｔhe commentary of my source: 陳鼓應：卻：　屏去，退回(returned)。 吳澄說:「卻，退也(it's return」 Ref: http://www.doc88.com/p-99425151684.html Point the mouse to the bottom of the screen to download first. Go to page 二四四(page 244). For those who read Chinese, scroll to Chapter 46 or other chapters for future references. It makes very interesting in studying the Tao Te Ching.

A little over kill for a small chapter in the TTC, don't you think...???

dawei.... I preferred this approach. As long one display the original characters, regardless of what version that the translator was using, I can relate to the translation without guessing. Your translation of Chapter 17 reflects and in sync with the classic text. Indeed, it went so smooth that I do not have any comment to make.

Yes, I couldn't agree more on your last thought. It seems Henricks didn't know the Characters 名(ming1) and 明(ming2) were interchangeable in the ancient time. Otherwise, he would have had translated differently. BTW I've just found that out myself from my source, today, since dawei had brought this up to my attention.

Wang Bi 1: (Classic version) 5. 不見而名 (Wang Bi's commentary confirms he used this) Wang Bi 2: (unknown source altering the Wang Bi) Received Version 5. 不見而明(Without looking but understands)<---- exact direct translation. It sounds awkward. Yes, that's exactly how awkward it sounds in the Classic Chinese; and to a modern Chinese too. Why can't we make the English sound exactly like the Classic Text...??? So nothing gets lost in the translations. Line 5 was meant to say "Understood without looking." The character 明(ming2) means "to understand" in Modern Chinese. Any modern native would know what that means right away. In the other hand, 名(ming2) it's really meaningless within context without further explanation. PS... As I indicated before, I am working with a Received Version which used Wang Bi as basis. All the characters were corrected by logical interpretation within context. It seems to me it would be more feasible to work with to convey the thoughts of the TTC instead of jumping back and forth over the different versions. Indeed, that will save lots of time and explaining.