[TTC Study] Chapter 16 of the Tao Teh Ching

[sree]

Being at one with heaven and earth, you will still have a body and have to do a boring job to pay for your life! But once you have been enlightened you can look forward to an everlasting life as a spirit.

 

Each one of us have a body and have a boring job, or a sticky situation, in which we are stuck. This is the crux of the matter.

Looking forward to an everlasting life doesn't help me in the present predicament. I still have to suffer till the body dies.

 

To meditate is to start to let go of all the things that you have learnt, all the things that you are, until the mind is completely empty. Once there you can be what you want to be for you are at one with the great source.

 

What you say here points to the following lines of Chapter 16:

 

13.知 常 容 ，

14.容 乃 公 ，

15.公 乃 全 ，

16.全 乃 天 ，

17.天 乃 道 ，

18.道 乃 久 ，

19.沒 身 不 殆 。

 

If meditation is for real, then liberation has to be immediate. Otherwise, it is just make-belief or self-hallucination.

[sree]

To add to what I said earlier and what MH & Manitou said the 'self' is the key to all things, its knock-on effect to the world is ENORMOUS.

 

Can you elaborate on this "knock-on effect to the world", as you put it? What do you mean?

[Marblehead]

If wisdom can be gained through knowledge, then every Harvard MBA would be billionaires. Have you ever experienced wisdom? Is there such a thing at all?

That's not a fair question. If I respond "Yes" I would seem to be arrogant, if I respond "No" I would be lying.

 

I have often said in personal conversation that our (USA) politicians all must have slept through their history classes because they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Sure many of them have vast knowledge but it appears that little of that knowledge has transformed into wisdom.

 

Wisdom, IMO, is understanding some of the eternal processes of the universe.

Edited December 13, 2012 by Marblehead

[Marblehead]

Knowledge can certainly be gained through reading the Tao Te Ching if one wants to study the literary style of classical Chinese. It certainly is a masterpiece in poetic expression. I cannot see what else can be gained from a bunch of Chinese characters. The foreign translations of the Tao Te Ching are something else. As Mr Chi said, most people, namely translators and their readers, would like to have their own personal interpretations and that is fine. But personal interpretations are just that - personal, nothing more.

I would disagree with you here. When we look at the TTC through many different translations we begin to see root concepts regarding how the universe works and especially how man acts and reacts.

 

This is one of the reasons why I enjoyed working with ChiDragon when he was posting his translation of the TTC. I was looking at it from another prespective (his).

 

There is great wisdom in the TTC. But we need to look at the root concepts, not just the words.

[Marblehead]

I still have to suffer till the body dies.

Hehehe. That sounds like some of my Buddhist friends here. Stop suffering!!!!!!

[flowing hands]

Each one of us have a body and have a boring job, or a sticky situation, in which we are stuck. This is the crux of the matter.

Looking forward to an everlasting life doesn't help me in the present predicament. I still have to suffer till the body dies.

 

 

 

What you say here points to the following lines of Chapter 16:

 

13.知 常 容 ，

14.容 乃 公 ，

15.公 乃 全 ，

16.全 乃 天 ，

17.天 乃 道 ，

18.道 乃 久 ，

19.沒 身 不 殆 。

 

If meditation is for real, then liberation has to be immediate. Otherwise, it is just make-belief or self-hallucination.

 

Its called freedom from bondage and takes to some talent and definately perserverance and a very good teacher who has trod that path !!!

 

The body may suffer but the mind has gone else where, so pain and suffering are relieved to some extent.

 

If you read my DDJ on my site it was given to me by Lao Tzu, it is the classical in the best possible English words we could find to express what he wanted to put over. Although some meaning is lost in the translation because some words do not have a direct translation in our language and undersatnding of the world around us.

 

Good luck from me

[manitou]

Each one of us have a body and have a boring job, or a sticky situation, in which we are stuck. This is the crux of the matter.

Looking forward to an everlasting life doesn't help me in the present predicament. I still have to suffer till the body dies.

 

If meditation is for real, then liberation has to be immediate. Otherwise, it is just make-belief or self-hallucination.

 

We have to suffer until the body dies only if we are living in attachment to our body. it's our choice whether to transcend the limited self or not - and to realize that our thoughts are All One, that we are All One, and that our individual limitations are in our own mind. We are gods acting like god-damn fools, to quote lester levenson.

 

The way to wisdom is to study and reform the self. Best started, at this stage of development, by examining one's motives for everything we do. the real motives, not the excuses.

Edited December 13, 2012 by manitou

[XieJia]

If meditation is for real, then liberation has to be immediate. Otherwise, it is just make-belief or self-hallucination.

 

How do one know that the opposite of liberation (suffering) is not make-belief or self-hallucination?

 

If one can prove that indeed Suffering is real then that should answer one's question.

[Stosh]

You've nailed it, pal. But do you get it?

 

No one gets it. That's why we all read it.

 

I think I do , at least most of it , but I can google a hundred interps of chaper one alone in under thirty seconds.

my view is rather mundane , that is I do not read the lofty otherworldly interps in it. I see practical advice which meshes quite nicely with everyday circumstance.

Like if your spouse isnt happy with your bedroom performance , you might hand her the reins for a change.

It may just be the lenses of my own perceptions , or those of the three versions which Ive gone through in full ,,which color it all in the way that I see it ,but even if that is true , and it wasnt the intended view to be taken ... I dont care ,

Its been the best presentation of things , given me the clearest advice and seemed the most honest evaluation of the human condition Ive come across.

The first time I started reading it , I didnt get a darn thing . I put it down for several years , read commentary about it and then picked it up again , which made all the difference to me.

One can find many interpretations in the very same characters , but thinking that there is not more than right read, or that there are no wrong reads ,, is a boo boo. IMHO

Stosh

[sree]

I see practical advice which meshes quite nicely with everyday circumstance.

Like if your spouse isnt happy with your bedroom performance , you might hand her the reins for a change.

 

Which Chapter gives you this advice?

[sree]

How do one know that the opposite of liberation (suffering) is not make-belief or self-hallucination?

 

If one can prove that indeed Suffering is real then that should answer one's question.

 

Good argument.

 

Maybe Stosh needs to review his bedroom performance and not seek sex therapy in the Tao Te Ching.

[sree]

The way to wisdom is to study and reform the self. Best started, at this stage of development, by examining one's motives for everything we do. the real motives, not the excuses.

 

Self-observation. How would you go about this?

 

Examination can only begin when you have the incriminating motive in hand.

 

It would be like giving a fair shake to a condemned criminal.

This is psychotherapy. No self-denial, no excuses. Accept the fact and deal with mess.

Reform the criminal.

 

But Chapter 16 is unforgiving.

10. 知 常 曰 明 。

11. 不 知 常 ，

12.妄 作 凶 。

 

The above lines admit no reformation: it is either black or white, this or that, right or wrong, my way or the highway.

[sree]

If you read my DDJ on my site it was given to me by Lao Tzu, it is the classical in the best possible English words we could find to express what he wanted to put over. Although some meaning is lost in the translation because some words do not have a direct translation in our language and undersatnding of the world around us.

 

Good luck from me

 

Ok, my friend. I will read your version of the Tao Te Ching. Thank you for your contribution.

[Jeff]

Ok, my friend. I will read your version of the Tao Te Ching. Thank you for your contribution.

 

It is very good.

 

[sree]

Mr, sree. I had given you the scholastic interpretation. Most people would like to have their own personal interpretation which is fine. However, personal interpretation is not my expertise. Anyway, I will be glad to contribute my assistance in case you have encountered any difficulty with the meaning of the characters or phrase. You may use as reference in your own interpretation. If not, it's fine too.

 

Your scholastic approach is very helpful on account of your expertise on the Chinese language and your considerable information on the Classic itself. In this regard, I would invite your comment on the inconsistency between your version of Lines 16 and 17 and that of Gia Fu-Feng.

 

Yours:

15.公 乃 全 ，

16.全 乃 天 ，

 

Gia Fu-Feng's:

 

15.公 乃 王 ，

16.王乃 天 ，

 

Do you see the difference? Gia Fu-Feng was supposed to be a scholar. Naturally, his English translation is way off base. And he is a Chinese for crying out loud. Can you imagine the monstrosities fathered by foreign translators? God knows where Stosh got his bedroom performance advice from.

 

I have seen "Western science" was used often in your posts. May I ask what is the reason behind that...???

 

I think it is fairly obvious that the post-Christian West is spiritually destitute and many people are hungry for meaning in their lives. Exotic teachings from the East - such as the Tao Te Ching - have been a hot commodity for some time. A number of people, including western academics and intellectuals, have decided to profit off this hunger. They have appropriated this Chinese Classic and cooked it up for the western palate the way Chow Mein, Kung Pau Chicken and Chop Suey are dished up to westerners in London, Paris and New York.

 

Chop Suey (杂碎) is mixed bits and pieces of leftovers swept off wedding dinner tables, after the feast, into pails (Chinese version of western doggie bags). Western science, which conditions the mind of westerners, does this to the Tao Te Ching. It chews up this marvellous, wholistic work of art into bits and pieces and spit it out slathered with saliva into mental the bins of hungry minds.

 

You are Chinese. So, I don't think you would care for Chop Suey. How about some dim sum and 龍井 ?

[Stosh]

I think it was 36 or 61 but I dont have the book chapters memorized.

Maybe you should review that statement and decide if it really needed to be said.

The book also suggests quite clearly that drawing problems to yourself is contraindicated

but I didnt follow that advice either by bothering to post in response to your self contradiction

of discussing a tome that you felt so inadequate.

Im sure there are others willing to discuss with you methods of breathing out your rear.

Like I said outright , my view is mundane.

Edited December 13, 2012 by Stosh

[ChiDragon]

sree....

 

Most people outside of China were using the Wang Bi version of the Tao Ta Ching for translation.

Wang Bi version

 

The version was putted into his favor as dogma for the purposes of his Taoist religion. It is a legend that Wang Bi was a high cultivated Taoist but there was not much information about him.

 

 

The contemporary Chinese scholars are using the Received Version.

The Received Version

 

The Received Version had been edited by the most knowledgeable scholar of the Tao Te Ching in the world. His name is 陳鼓應. He had been researching and collecting all the commentaries of the scholars from the past to present. He finalized the text by using the correct characters to reflect the logic within reason to put things into perspective.

[sree]

Mr Chi, thank you for clarification. I now have both the Wang Bi and Received Versions for my review. You have been a wonderful source of information.

 

陳鼓應 is a strange name for a scholar.

 

I suppose Gia Fu-Feng was an "outsider". He suffered and died from lung disease as a result of a wanton life among pot- smoking hippies in America. He has done more harm to the Tao Te Ching than western science by posing as a scholar in Chinese philosophy.

[deci belle]

Harm the TTC?

[sree]

Mr Chi, shall we now study Chapter 36 and 61 to find out how Stosh found sex in those Chapters? They could be Wang Bi Versions corrupted by hedonistic translators like Gia Fu-Feng.

[sree]

Harm the TTC?

 

Yes, the way one harms you by stealing your identity.

[sree]

That's not a fair question. If I respond "Yes" I would seem to be arrogant, if I respond "No" I would be lying.

 

Be arrogant. If you are wise, you have the right to strut.

 

I have often said in personal conversation that our (USA) politicians all must have slept through their history classes because they keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Sure many of them have vast knowledge but it appears that little of that knowledge has transformed into wisdom.

 

Those politicians are crammed with the same knowledge that they conscientiously applied over and over again resulting in repeated mistakes from Washington to Obama. None of them ever learn. No wisdom.

 

Wisdom, IMO, is understanding some of the eternal processes of the universe.

 

I could buy that. Never mind the understanding of it but just name me one eternal process of the universe. While you are at it, please define eternal.

[Marblehead]

I said: Wisdom, IMO, is understanding some of the eternal processes of the universe.

 

I could buy that. Never mind the understanding of it but just name me one eternal process of the universe. While you are at it, please define eternal.

I was hoping that I would be challenged on that.

 

First to define "eternal". The period of time that this universe is in existence. (One cannot speak to what might have been before nor of what is to become.)

 

Processes:

 

Cause and effect.

 

Conservation of energy.

 

Cycles and reversion.

 

Birth, life, and death.

 

And I agree, there is no need to "understand" these processes but I suggest that it is important to recognize them.

[flowing hands]

Anybody can tranlate the DDJ, if they have the original! Gia fu Feng translated according to his own view what the characters mean't to him and so do thousands of others. The Dao is not something that can be defined as scholarly, philosophical, spiritual or practical. It is one mans view of the world and how it works and of human interaction within this. We all can do this to some extent.

Lao Tzu of course was the incarnation of a God, he was surrounded by a culture that was destinctly shamanistic. He was enlightened, so what he said has great importance to us all in the way we live our lives. When Lao Tzu was alive in a mortal body, people persued the Dao as a way of life and anybody who was learned in this way was greatly revered. Almost all people then wanted to become wise. Now most of the Chinese want to be rich and get their first Ferrari!

 

I have many times thought about writing down my own thoughts on the Dao. As the years roll by I learn something new about the world and about human nature. But I can't see myself in any way surpassing the great perception of my Master.

 

To know the self as Lao Tzu says requires great strength, very few people have the chance to really know themselves or the ability to change. It does take a life time of a teacher showing you through circumstance and realistic situations to know something of yourself. Words are very easy to say, deeds are more difficult. The self is the greatest challenge anyone could have.

Edited December 14, 2012 by flowing hands

[manitou]

Self-observation. How would you go about this?

 

 

 

Self examination is to begin the self realization of one's self. There's not a sage around that hasn't done this. it's a peeling the onion proposition, a do-it-yourself project. There are many ways to get there; but most importantly it's to determine one's own motives at any given time - to look under the reasons and motivations for your own actions and your own reactions. To recapitulate how you've lived your life up to this time, to make the amends to people you've sort of screwed over in the past. To make amends here in the present, if warranted. To keep your side of the street swept off always, always attempting with everything inside you to be the channel, the voice of the Wisdom that is inherent in all of us. It's just that it's the pony at the bottom fo the manure pile. It takes some serious work to get down there. it's the very thing that gives the sage the clarity to see things as they really are, as he sees himself as he really is. Once the self is conquered all other things can be seen, as we are all One and it's merely to witness the dynamics not only in ourself but in others as well. It all springs from the same source, the Void.