[TTC Study] Chapter 56 of the Tao Teh Ching

[Taoist Texts]

seriously? the only one in the western academic community who knows about thousands of comments to Laozi, contemporary texts and use them in the translation / explanation? I don't think it's true. Many people do that, as far as I know. What they publish is another story. 

Of course many people do that, they just keep vewy vewy quiet about it for some reason. May be the reason is that they do not exist?

 

Right, though it's obvious from DDJ itself.

You see it is so very obvious that i am the only one who put this into writing. To all the others it was so obvious that they never did that. They just winked at each other and moved on. Or may be they did not have a clue.

 

 

And next step of any serious research is to find such people and ask them how did they achieved Dao. 

Find for a fee. Ask for a fee. Then realize that if these ppl need fees - they achieved nothing. Or may be realize it before, not after being ripped off. Or may be not realize that at all. To every one his own.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Taoist Texts

[Taoist Texts]

Part (2)

 

(2)He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness,

塞其兑，閉其門，挫其銳，解其分，和其光，

 

Note that the diversity of notation in different variants of DDJ means that by the time it was written down, the scribes did not understand the meaning exactly. To compensate for that they concatenated the phrases which they felt mean the same thing, hoping that the point will be somehow preserved by the redundancy.

 

Also note that 銳=兑. Therefore the first 3 phrases mean the same instruction: close your organs of sense. But how and for what end? DDJ does not explain that because it is a garbled text written down in a short-hand, by which time the meaning was almost forgotten in the milieu this text was circulating. Luckily, the meaning has been preserved by the ruists.

 

It is explained in Xunzi and a number of other texts. One example will suffice.

 

 

《荀子 - Xunzi》[Warring States (475 BC - 221 BC)]

 

故先王圣人为之不然：知夫为人主上者，不美不饰之不足以一民也，不富不厚之不足以管下也，不威不强之不足以禁暴胜悍也，故必将撞大钟，击鸣鼓，吹笙竽，弹琴瑟，以塞其耳；必将錭琢刻镂，黼黻文章，以塞其目；必将刍豢稻粱，五味芬芳，以塞其口。然后众人徒，备官职，渐庆赏，严刑罚，以戒其心.

The former kings and sages: by knowing they become the highest of men, so they never embellished themselves but were one with their people. That is why, they closed their ears to the sound of music instruments; blocked their eyes to decorations; blocked their mouths to rich foods and aromas. Therefore the multitudes followed them…

 

This is the gist of the 56: the kings had to be moderate, they had to engage in inner work (meditation) by blocking off the temptations, so their people follow them. Why do they kings needed to be followed and be one with their people? To survive physically. This is what the DDJ is all about, ultimately it is a manual on king’s personal survival.

 

Moving on to the last 2 phrases of part (2)…

 

解其分， means ‘to untie the fetters’ here 分 (紛) =縛. The metaphorical sense of it was preserved in ZZ:

 

解其桎梏 Lao Dan said, 'Why did you not simply lead him to see the unity of life and death, and that the admissible and inadmissible belong to one category, so freeing him from his fetters? 

 

While the literal format of解其縛 was preserved in Han Shu and elsewhere.

 

Finally,

 

和其光，here 光 does not mean some kind of inner light shining in meditation (which does not preclude it from being germane to the latter). It is a technical term meaning the glory of a king. Of course in archaic time the kings did literally radiate light in the eyes of their people. Preserved meaning:

 

《問神卷第五 - Asking About Shen》

 

為之而行，動之而光者，其德乎？或曰：「知德者鮮，何其光？」Those who handle affairs capably and display honor through their actions—do they not have de? The other said: Confucius said, "Those who recognize de are few." What about honor?

 

《孝至卷第十三 - The Priority of Filial Devotion》

 

堯、舜之道皇兮，夏、殷、周之道將兮，而以延其光兮。The dao of Yao and Shun was august!

 

The instruction to the king here is to dial down the glory he radiates. Naturally some introspection (inner work/meditation) was required for that on his part.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

So much for the part (2) of 56. Of course here I am stating the obvious, the simplest things other folks figured out long ago. They just kept mum about it. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

[opendao]

Part (2)

 

(2)He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness,

塞其兑，閉其門，挫其銳，解其分，和其光，

 

Note that the diversity of notation in different variants of DDJ means that by the time it was written down, the scribes did not understand the meaning exactly. To compensate for that they concatenated the phrases which they felt mean the same thing, hoping that the point will be somehow preserved by the redundancy.

 

Also note that 銳=兑. Therefore the first 3 phrases mean the same instruction: close your organs of sense. But how and for what end? DDJ does not explain that because it is a garbled text written down in a short-hand, by which time the meaning was almost forgotten in the milieu this text was circulating. Luckily, the meaning has been preserved by the ruists.

The former kings and sages: by knowing they become the highest of men, so they never embellished themselves but were one with their people. That is why, they closed their ears to the sound of music instruments; blocked their eyes to decorations; blocked their mouths to rich foods and aromas. Therefore the multitudes followed them…

 

This is the gist of the 56: the kings had to be moderate, they had to engage in inner work (meditation) by blocking off the temptations, so their people follow them. Why do they kings needed to be followed and be one with their people? To survive physically. This is what the DDJ is all about, ultimately it is a manual on king’s personal survival.

 

That's all very funny, and I doubt anybody sober can take such arguments seriously, but obviously, closing ears, eyes and mouth won't change anything: such practices are not important to obtain De and to attain Dao. It's easy to check, and easy to find detailed descriptions of life long experience (in Christianity, for example). Maybe that's why between ruists there is nobody even close to Huang Di or Fu Xi... Or consider Zhang Daoling or Wang Chongyang: do you really think people followed them because those Masters needed to survive and read DDJ as a "survival manual"? No sense.

[Taoist Texts]

 Or consider Zhang Daoling or Wang Chongyang: do you really think people followed them because those Masters needed to survive and read DDJ as a "survival manual"?

Yes.

No sense.

No clue.

[Marblehead]

I suggest that care be used regarding the Guodian.  It really isn't an original source according to what I have read about it.

[Aetherous]

http://www.daoisopen.com/downloads/CC56.pdf seems more accurate.

 

Just a heads up that there's a discrepancy between their Guodian Laozi and their comparison chart for this character in particular. I also wonder where 分 came from in the version I was using on ctext? On ctext, the source says it's from James Legge's translation from 1891...perhaps that version was rewritten from word of mouth. 紛 is pronounced just like 分, at least in modern times.

 

As for the daoisopen site's discrepancy, the comparison has Guodian as 塵 instead of 紛, whereas the Guodian section which shows the bamboo slip has what looks something like 紛. This makes me question all of those comparison charts of theirs! Hard to see what's written on the Guodian bamboo at that page...anyone have a better source for viewing those bamboo slips? Apparently it was written in a type of seal script, but the tiny blurry image doesn't really look like the seal script for 紛 or 塵, or even 分.

 

This has become quite an enlightening thread for me!

 

edit: whoops, apparently this quoted Marblehead, instead of opendao who said it. My bad.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Aetherous

[Marblehead]

 

This has become quite an enlightening thread for me!

 

edit: whoops, apparently this quoted Marblehead, instead of opendao who said it. My bad.

Hehehe.  That's okay.  I have been falsely blamed for many things before during my lifetime.

 

Nina's abilities in this area far outreach mine.

 

But, yes, I too am enjoying this thread.  You guys are mostly over my head but the concepts are my main concern anyhow so I am being fed further understandings.  This is good.

[Marblehead]

PS  That link to Daoisopen didn't work for me.

[Aetherous]

You guys are mostly over my head

 

The only reason this isn't completely over my head (only partially) is because of being able to plug things into Wenlin, and use Kroll's classical dictionary as an add on to the free Pleco app.

[opendao]

As for the daoisopen site's discrepancy, the comparison has Guodian as 塵 instead of 紛, whereas the Guodian section which shows the bamboo slip has what looks something like 紛. This makes me question all of those comparison charts of theirs! 

 

the comparison chart is by position, not by meaning or characters... 

[opendao]

Yes.

No clue.

 

Time has another opinion. Any claims can be checked practically, so I can wait until yours become something more solid then just pessimistic complain on everything.

[dawei]

 

Just a heads up that there's a discrepancy between their Guodian Laozi and their comparison chart for this character in particular.

 

I don't see the discrepancy for this character but the next one (Bao on one and Cuo on another).  The use of Chen and Fen in both seem consistent.

 

I also wonder where 分 came from in the version I was using on ctext? On ctext, the source says it's from James Legge's translation from 1891...perhaps that version was rewritten from word of mouth. 紛 is pronounced just like 分, at least in modern times.

 

If you are trying to compare to ctext, then use the Guodian there:

 

http://ctext.org/guodian

 

As for the daoisopen site's discrepancy, the comparison has Guodian as 塵 instead of 紛, whereas the Guodian section which shows the bamboo slip has what looks something like 紛. This makes me question all of those comparison charts of theirs! Hard to see what's written on the Guodian bamboo at that page...anyone have a better source for viewing those bamboo slips? Apparently it was written in a type of seal script, but the tiny blurry image doesn't really look like the seal script for 紛 or 塵, or even 分.

 

You can use the concordance at DaoIsOpen... find the character in question and then where else it exits in the Guodian... then compare the scripts and you might find a better image.

 

http://forum.daoisopen.com/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=13

 

Nina (owner of that site) seems to rely a bit on Hendrick so his Guodian book would be good to have the notes for as well.

[9th]

I also find this kind of discussion fascinating even though I have absolutely no clue about the chinese language.  

 

或問「人」。曰：「艱知也。」曰：「焉難？」曰：「太山之與蟻垤，江河之與行潦，非難也。大聖之與大佞，難也。烏呼！能別似者為無難。」   Asking About Shen:

 

Someone asked about people.
Yangzi said: They are difficult to understand.
The other said: Why are they difficult to understand?
Yangzi said: Telling the difference between Mt. Tai and an ant-hill, or the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers from drainage ditches is not difficult. But telling the difference between a great sage and a glib talker is difficult. Indeed, one who can discriminate between things that are similar can understand people without difficulty.

 

[dust]

Aetherous.. I'll first say, I liked your translation. Though I must also say it is my general preference not to add words or ideas that are not specified or strongly implied in a text. One of the beautiful things about the language in the text is that it is open to interpretation. There are texts from those hundreds of years ago that are definitely not as open to interpretation, but the Laozi always has been (which is, of course, why we're all here debating the details )

 

Then, I must point out that my character choice (seen earlier in the thread) was never intended for wider use. Apart from the fact that I got it a bit wrong (and never bothered to correct it on here) the modern characters I used are intended only to resemble as closely as possible in structure the writing on the GD slips. This created 2 problems: firstly, in many cases it is not possible to find a modern character that has the same structure as one on the slips; secondly, when it is possible to find one that is identical in structure (such as 紛) these characters often have a different meaning now than they did when they were written (other characters now taking their places).

 

That being said, the character in question is (IMO beyond a reasonable doubt) written as  紛  in the GD, and I doubt the meaning has changed all that much since, really.

 

My original translation, 'untangling knots', could be taken in a number of ways.

[Taoist Texts]

Parts (3) and (4)

 

(3)and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.'

 

同其塵，There is no such set phrase, and塵(dust) is almost never used metaphorically so 塵 must be a scribal error. However there is a technical phrase与天下同其利《汉书 - Han Shu》 ‘to have the same purpose with the Underheaven’, which is the most likely reading here.

There is also a weak similarity to an analogy in The Book of Songs:

 

《诗经 - Book of Poetry》[Western Zhou (1046 BC - 771 BC)]

 

 

无将大车、祇自尘兮。

无思百忧、祇自疧兮。

Wu Jiang Da Che:      

Do not push forward a wagon; -

You will only raise the dust about yourself.

Do not think of all your anxieties; -

You will only make yourself ill.

无将大车:      

无将大车、维尘冥冥。

无思百忧、不出于熲。

Wu Jiang Da Che:      

Do not push forward a wagon; -

The dust will only blind you.

Do not think of all your anxieties; -

You will not emerge from imperfect views.

无将大车:      

无将大车、维尘雝兮。

无思百忧、祇自重兮。

Wu Jiang Da Che:      

Do not push forward a wagon; -

The dust will only becloud you.

Do not think of all your anxieties; -

You will only weigh yourself down.

 

But the issue remains moot.

 

是謂玄同。 ‘'the Mysterious Agreement' remains unexplained in DDJ but is explained in 《文子 - Wenzi》as 万物玄同 ‘a dark unity with all things’ i.e. with own people and the affairs of the state, also as something to do with self-cultivation 《下德》.

 

 

The part (4) is straightforward:

(4)(Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; beyond all consideration of nobility or meanness: - he is the noblest man under heaven.

故不可得而親，不可得而踈；不可得而利，不可得而害；不可得而貴，不可得而賤。故為天下貴。

 

The king who follows the instructions in DDJ56, and conducts internal cultivation accordingly will survive. What about the king who does not?

 

 

《韩诗外传 - Han Shi Wai Zhuan》《卷七》
[Western Han] 180 BC-120 BC

 

卫懿公之时、有臣曰弘演者、受命而使，未反，而狄人攻卫，于是懿公欲兴师迎之，其民皆曰：“君之所贵而有禄位者、鹤也，所爱者、宫人也，亦使鹤与宫人战，余安能战？”遂溃而皆去。

狄人至，攻懿公于荧泽，杀之，尽食其肉，独舍其肝。

弘演至，报使于肝，辞毕，呼天而号，哀止，曰：“若臣者、独死可耳。”

于是，遂自刳出腹实，内懿公之肝，乃死。

桓公闻之，曰：“卫之亡也，以无道，今有臣若此，不可不存。”

于是复立卫于楚丘。如弘演、可谓忠士矣，杀身以捷其君，非徒捷其君，又令卫之宗庙复立，祭祀不绝，可谓有大功矣。《诗》曰：“四方有羡，我独居忧，民莫不榖，我独不敢休。”

 

In Wei, during king Yi-gong’s rule, there was a minister named Hong-yan, who was sent on a mission and have not come back yet, when the Di barbarians attacked the kingdom of Wei.

 

When Yi-gong wanted to mobilize his army to counterattack them, all his people said: ‘Whom king valued were his nobility and the pet cranes in his park. Whom he loved were his court dames. Well, let the dames and the cranes fight for him, why should the rest of us fight?’ And they all run away accordingly.

 

The barbarians came, engaged the king Yi-gong by the lake Ying, killed him, and ate all his flesh, only throwing away his liver.

 

When the minister Hong returned, he went there, reported to the liver, and, handing back his mandate, cried to Heavens and wailed.

Then finishing his mourning he said: ‘Once a minister is left behind - he can die’.

Upon that he cut up his belly, put the king’s liver inside, and died.

 

Huan-gong, hearing about this said: ‘The kingdom of Wei was lost because there was no Dao, but now, with such a minister, it can not but survive’.

Accordingly, Wei was reinstated at Chuqiu.

 

Thus, the minister Hong could be called a loyal gentleman. Not only his killing self brought victory to his king, but also led to reestablishment of Wei’s ancestral temple, where the sacrifice continued uninterruptedly. Truly a great deed.《小雅 - Minor odes of the kingdom》say:

 

Distant far is my village,
And my dissatisfaction is great.
In other quarters there is ease,
And I dwell here alone and sorrowful.
Every body is going into retirement,
And I alone dare not seek rest.
The ordinances of Heaven are inexplicable,
But I will not dare to follow my friends and leave my post.

 

[Taoist Texts]

Time has another opinion. Any claims can be checked practically, so I can wait until yours become something more solid then just pessimistic complain on everything.

Oh yes, would not it be nice if we could  keep doing what  we doing, till something better comes along?

 

Unfortunately the world does not work that way. You can wait for the time, but the time will not wait for you.

 

When you are in a hole, the first thing to do is not to watch others, to see if they can get out. The first thing to do is to stop digging.

[Marblehead]

If we start digging horizontal instead of vertical we will eventually be on level ground.