Stosh

I like this question so I would like to expand on it Back in the old days , there was no TV , people venerated the texts and the people. Remember this as I bring up this quote from Chuang. Means and Ends The purpose of a fish trap Is to catch fish, And when the fish are caught The trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare Is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught The snare is forgotten. The purpose of words Is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped The words are forgotten. Now on the first hand this can be read that the means is not so important as the ends, and one can walk off feeling that they get the passage. But dwell on it , like a venerating person might. Those words are important to him , the snare will need to be re-used , and at least one would need to extricate the rabbit. From this standpoint , one can see a downside to ends justifying the means , the import of the snare gets lost on the impulse to grab and go. The many applications of snares isnt investigated , and snares would be left all over the place injuring inocent wildlife, and people, long after ones belly was full. So this statement so far , is a reflection or note , on human nature. Proceeding more .... Where can I find a man Who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to.” ― Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu Now we need to ask why it is that Chuang would want to have a word with the impulsive leaver of snares It could be that he wants to talk with a person who is just being genuine and simple , who gets the basic idea and moves on... but it could also be to point out to the guy that the words mean more than first impulse might have revealed, and deliver a verbal thrashing. (The words of courtesy memorized might be forgotten and yet still used habitually , and maybe he prefers to talk with someone who has learned to be courteous , its not just a waste of time, to show respect.) ANyway .. There seems here now, possibilities of there being both pro ,and con, sides to the un-reflective mind set being discussed. I am in accord with this , there are more tidbits to be gained, and one needs to consider the ramifications of ones justifications. to ,, Consider the text in the light of someone else's eyes.

My own answer is to look to the contexts , the broad connotations , and compare to what I think a wise person might want to pass on to the next generation of his own kids. Thus, the anchor becomes the character of people themselves. I always ask myself to give them the benefit of a doubt;, How is it that this comment CAN be seen as true? In the West we have a tradition coming from the greeks , that we try to punch holes in every point , every angle. ANd , if we find a hole , we deem the statement as false . In the East I think the tradition was more to have more respect for the person, the teacher or elder, making the statement. In this case one leaves themselves open to the fact that sometimes someone else could be wrong before you and you would be perpetuating their error. SO.. How then to deal with the fact that Granpappy said something which doesn't jive with ones own experience , or learnin? I think that one needs to take a Granpappy seriously , but with enough spin that one can be comfortable with it. Its likely that Granpappy meant it in this way. He wasnt an idiot. That's my starting presumption.

I suppose thats quite close, but inverted in sentiment. Little by little, meanings and words Can shift in the retelling reuse. Eventually the old Chinese text becomes a forgotten anchoring point and the ship drifts free. Just speaking mandarin doesnt mean one understands the grammar, the associations, but it is going to make you think you do.

I figure the greater number of translations, the more likely that they collectively indicate the common bias about the words themselves. From there on, one has to derive the larger meaning and extricate it from the 2000 years of conventional massage,.

I figure it an ironic possibility, that the number of books probably goes up the more folks would just prefer to hear it from the horses mouth instead.

Change of venue, to a situation in which one can prosper is a very fine idea, it obviates all that disciplining. But yes people do- learn- to do self destructive things , and you're perfectly well adapted to handle consumer goods, because plenty of people do so. But,, if you're going to be switching up , from pronouncements of laziness , to victim besieged by abundance,, well, I leave you to the doom scenario of your choice , find a nice mud hut somewhere.

What makes you think the mobile phones , overeating, and sloth ,are unconscious 'natural' behaviors rather than learned foibles? It seems then , that you consider your true nature to be lazy ,over indulgent, self absorbed . And going farther , that you need to be disciplined , modified , corrected , to be that which you approve of. Dao encourages the expression of your true self, (the uncarved wood ) , and unless its saying that you should intend to be self destructive, or antagonistic to others , it is not considering your true nature to be so.

Yeah , great penetrating question . IMO the Tao , is manifested as physical forces, and the consequences of them follow. There are the basic rules like gravity , ice formation , and even basic human nature. It, Tao , is invariable in what those 'laws' and principles are, but how they play out in the tapestry of events is the sum total we call causality. EX: Bring the heat fuel and oxygen together and voila , you get a chain reaction event, which may bang ,or burn ,depending on the fuel. Similarly , as a human you have your nature , which we may call attitudes or propensities etc. and these play out a tapestry one calls a life , depending on the exact local circumstance. So , if a person were being flexible like the Tao , it doesn't mean you have to be a weenie, it means that you abide by your true nature without deviation , regardless of the particular circumstance. Often its called being like water. The water , an elemental force , does its thing , Always. Whether sitting in a bowl reflecting , or pounding a shore.

Be as water ,... and try to kick people in the face like I do .

.. speaking of being smothered by cow pies..

No one is perfect.

Occasionally all succumb to forces beyond their scope. The lowly grass is smothered by a single cowpie.

Yes , by being rigid, the tree stands tall , grass being floppy , falls over , and so the tree sucks up all the sun and water, and the floppy grass dwindles to nothing , it dies. Unless one forcibly skews the environment, the oaks dominate , the grass is trampled and eaten and just dies out. Pathetic grass.

I like to adapt to wind by becoming rigid and well defined, like an Oak tree. Then the wind has to go around, like wind should.

Not everyone is familiar with the commercial , character-meme. I figured whoever got the joke, would get a chuckle

..General Discussion, may I introduce you to ,,, Captain Obvious?

Crazy world,.. I , here, can download in a few minutes a hundred translations of Chapter one. What qualifies someone else to critique- proofread what you wrote? and why would you , or anyone , want to print in a hostile printing environment ? I couldn't help you in any way that I know of , though I was wondering who your target audience would be. Scholars?

Did you say your book was Already in print or available? I am a bit curious about whether the earliest versions are written in vernacular Chinese , or whether it can be shown to be formal.

I like the use of boo boo. Well chosen. This translation you have presented , is nice and structured , it makes a sensible rendering , its fine. However reading the other translations , I take them as indicating that one should , yes , be aware of their shortcomings, but in a position of leadership one may have to gloss over them re Machiavelli being a practical approach to leadership) , if not quite sweet to hear. ( Gibbs translation ) Another rendering seems to suggest that the sage , is less corrupt , simply because he is tired of the self-defeating nature of his own corruption. Which seems like a spiritually justified attitude. ( Correa's translation ) So while all of these may indeed be justified. I feel most comfortable with one of them , the last. It resonates with me, and corruption has connotations which broadly covers falsity , illness, and maladministration, in one comprehensive swoop. But , like I said , I appreciate the rendering as it stands too.

.. Or astronomers are 96% worse at math than they think they are.

I asked her already, she said ,"next to the paprika"

You set me a task, and thats how I went about it.The behavior of others is no excuse of yours ,you get the full credit. If you wanted your own opinion ,you should have just kept it. I regret taking my time to relate to you any of the meaning, since you appear to want to rummage around the text of a fairytale to be chinese.

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Frankly this "chapter" -40- is not any kind of self contained explanation , its more like a summary statement. One can impose the meaning on this from comprehension of the larger Taoist message. I see that some translators settled on leaving the word ' weakness' as such, but that for some it has the connotation of 'loss though death'. From these it isn't really important to divine one of these as more correct than the other they are both simplified in the act of translation. A) Considering 'weakness' in a non-moral context, , that it is not a trait implying failure, and the same for death as not a 'failure to continue'... it can be described as a non-insistence of the continuation of a particular character... as in 'failure to yield a right-of-way results in a traffic citation' is not suggesting that yielding is undesirable. B.) As a thing is refined , to a purpose, from a non-specific origin ,,, like a sword might be made from an iron blob , the many other potentials of the iron drop away . The fullest "potential" is in its blob state , and AS it becomes less and less ANY of those items ,, it becomes the item we call a sword. Bonsai is another example , where one starts with huge potentials and over time the plant is developed to represent an aged tree. c) it is a normal or conventional mindset to consider the dulled or rusty sword as being not as good as the sharpened version , and that the sharp version , is the fullest expression of the iron blob , but the destiny according to dao is that the sword returns from whence it came , it gets dulled , rusty falls apart and so forth, until it is completely not a sword anymore. It returns to its full potential of resource , when it is no longer any developed item at all. SO, the chapter is merely stating that the way of the world is for things to return to the situation of greatest potential , its greatest entropy . Lowest common denominator and so forth. Simultaneously or conversely , with this entropy -trend , it requires more and more effort to exert an influence , to be special , to excel , to get yet older. Its a Situation of Diminishing returns , and unending rebirth.

OK , I'll attend to that, but understand I'm at work which takes priority , though I have sporadic free time. I have several translations at home which I cross connect . This chapter expects one to understand and emphasize the underlying ironies of what is being said overall.

Personally , I don't think it actually discussed any gods whatsoever , I figure 1) it was written in a time when one had to be careful about what one said , and 2) as a philosophical component of the work overall , the text was intended to be overtly readable from nonexclusive perspectives. ( but I believe these are unequal ultimately ) Shaman Flowing hands , I would group as being with those of Daojiao perspective , certainly has different views than I , but .. he actually has done some really nice translations , to my ear. So my gut feel is that while there are differences , I think they aren't actually alienating. Being a work of ' creative writing ' I think its best to recognize that things like the intent of a chapter , can be 180 degrees reversed, of an initial blatant reading, but certainly accurate renderings of text such as they stand in print is always helpful.