Interpretation of the Classic Title - 道德經 - Tao Te Ching

[Harmonious Emptiness]

My more recent reflection on the later part of the chapter:

 

1. Heaven and Earth are not ren;
2. They regard the the thousand things as straw dogs.
3. The Sage is not ren;
4. He regards the common people as straw dogs.

 

5. The space between Heaven and Earth—is it not like a bellow?
6. It is empty and yet not depleted;
7. Move it and more [always] comes out.
8. Much learning means frequent exhaustions.
9. That's not so good as holding on to the mean.

 

(Henricks trans.)

 

It’s important to recognize the poetic ingenuity of the Dao De Jing, which is comparable to the openness of meaning found in the I Ching even. Being familiar with the culture of meaning-associations present in Daoist culture, it's easy enough to fathom the presence of many levels of meaning in any chapter of The Classic of Dao and De.

 

Straw dogs were burned. How do you ensure they burn well in ancient China? With a BELLOWS.

Straw dogs were burned in place of living dogs as sacrifices to heaven and earth.

 

The sage is like Dao, the space between heaven and earth (partially referring to Dao) is like a bellows, so the sage is also like a bellows.

 

The bellows blows on the straw dogs to send up the offering.

The sages’ duties essentially involve being covert wu wei leaders of humanity who lead by example and aid in the harmonic alignment of Heaven, Humanity, and Earth.

In the same way that the bellows’ wind blows on the straw offerings, the sages’ cosmic virtue has it’s effortless force which influences the harmony between Heaven, Earth, and Humanity. This is the sages’ offering. Like Native Americans, the sages’ offerings to the Great Ultimate are of their own effort or body, rather than simply offering things which already belong to Heaven and Earth (see Lame Deer “Seeker of Visions). The sage’s virtue is also like a bellows. There is much more being said here that “is not being said.”

 

 

Another side/direction of meaning:

 

The chapter speaks to the transiency of life. “From ashes to ashes.” We are always aging. Heaven is always moving and sometimes (by hurricanes or destiny, for example) expediating that process. The space between Heaven and Earth is, thus, like a bellows, and all beneath it will always pass “from dust to dust.”

 

 

6. It is empty and yet not depleted;
7. Move it and more [always] comes out.
8. Much learning means frequent exhaustions.
9. That's not so good as holding on to the mean.

 

In addition, the barrage of tests that heaven and destiny affords us will never run out. No amount of cleverness will outsmart the Dao. It’s best not to try, but to just go with whatever heaven affords you. This of course includes going with the opportunities presented to you.

 

 

[edited to add concluding sentence, and that pasting this to my Personal Practice Discussion on the chapter put me at 3081 posts. ]

Edited July 24, 2014 by Harmonious Emptiness

[Marblehead]

Well, without a doubt you have been thinking on this chapter.

[GrandmasterP]

BTW -I read and liked that thing you posted about Buddha the other day.

 

Ironic thing about those training books, generally the thing that needs training is the owner.

 

The other book looks interesting but , is it about nihilism?

 

... Ok , The country is run by supposed nihilists

 

It's really funny.

Been around for years I read it in school.

Sort of like Animal Farm but with nihilism.

The country is called Nihilon and the narrator guy is a visitor who schlepps about there having adventures , talking to the local Nihilists and commenting on what he sees.

Very well written but then Sillitoe ( RIP) IMO never wrote a dud book.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

the original character for De in the time of laozi has an eye in the upper area of the character.

Last time I was in Kaifeng I was lucky enough to see an entire scroll written in the text that was used at the time of laozi - couldn't read it, because my fantizi aren't good enough, but still bloody interesting.

 

De can also mean a way of observation, or a way of practicing something.

So dao de jing can also be interpreted as the way to practice observation of the dao.

 

this fits in with laozi's idea that dao can not be viewed directly, but rather must be seen through the lense of de.

[Marblehead]

 

 

this fits in with laozi's idea that dao can not be viewed directly, but rather must be seen through the lense of de.

This also fits in with Chuang Tzu's assessment.

[dust]

the original character for De in the time of laozi has an eye in the upper area of the character.

Last time I was in Kaifeng I was lucky enough to see an entire scroll written in the text that was used at the time of laozi - couldn't read it, because my fantizi aren't good enough, but still bloody interesting.

 

De can also mean a way of observation, or a way of practicing something.

So dao de jing can also be interpreted as the way to practice observation of the dao.

 

this fits in with laozi's idea that dao can not be viewed directly, but rather must be seen through the lense of de.

 

Very interesting!

 

Of course, it depends on when one believes Laozi lived as to which text is really relevant, and I would really suggest that there was never a Laozi and that the DDJ was written by many, over time. But either way, we can just go back to the beginning.

 

Looking at the original meaning of the character, it appears that the original form of 德 was constructed very similarly to 道 , and had a much closer meaning.

 

道 彳人 亍 a person travelling on a road

德 彳直 亍 “straight” along the road

("straight" being an eye with a straight line attached, signifying direct light / looking straight ahead)

 

 

看清道路的方向，没有困惑迷误，大道坦然直行

See clearly the way ahead, without confusion or loss of direction, the road is straight

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

whether laozi was one or more person is not very important,

the importance is in the message of the text.

a common idea is that the text was collected over a certain period of time, as opposed to written at once.

that means that the order of the chapters is changeable. This is cool, in that you can allow the text to take on whatever order of meanings you want - and it is not required to follow it from beginning to end in a linear fashion each time you read it.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

the other valuable point is that even if some characters appearing in the book have taken on different meanings since the time they were written, it is perfectly fine to read those meanings into the book when we look at it now.

quite similar to the book of changes, laozi wants us to know that all things change into each other as they return back to the root.

[dust]

I apologize if it seemed like I wanted to argue about whether or not Laozi was a real person. I don't...!

It seemed relevant to mention in justifying going back to explore the 甲骨文 version of 德 , which I found very interesting. I suppose it wasn't all that relevant!

 

As far as your second point, of course, everything changes. But the original meaning of something is always the original meaning -- whether or not the meanings of characters in the Laozi have changed, the original meanings will always be the same, whether we know them or not. I just enjoy trying to figure out what they were...

[Marblehead]

I suppose it wasn't all that relevant!

No, it's not relevant. We have had that discussion here before and the vast majority agree that it really doesn't matter if Lao Tzu was a real person or, if he was, that it was he who spoke with the "Keeper of the Gate".

 

It is the TTC that is important.

 

And yes, I do agree that we should try to understand the significance of the words used back then so that we can better understand the concepts within the TTC.

[dawei]

Looking at the original meaning of the character, it appears that the original form of 德 was constructed very similarly to 道 , and had a much closer meaning.

 

道 彳人 亍 a person travelling on a road

德 彳直 亍 “straight” along the road

("straight" being an eye with a straight line attached, signifying direct light / looking straight ahead)

 

In the Guodian chapters:

 

Dao: 9, 15, 16, 18, 25, 30, 32, 35, 37, 40, 41, 48, 55, 59

De: 41, 54, 55

 

 

These appear pretty close to Chu bamboo characters used in the only chapters where Dao and De both appear:

 

 

 

Ch. 55:

De:

 

 

 

 

Ch. 41:

 

De

 

 

 

Ch. 41 and 55:

 

DAO

 

 

[dust]

No, it's not relevant. We have had that discussion here before and the vast majority agree that it really doesn't matter if Lao Tzu was a real person or, if he was, that it was he who spoke with the "Keeper of the Gate".

 

It is the TTC that is important.

 

Well, I'm not saying that it's not relevant at all, just not to the above information.

Actually, I think whether or not it was one person or many who wrote the DDJ certainly has a bearing on how we perceive the DDJ: if it was one person, the worship of an all-knowing man called Laozi might seem more justified; if it was many, it is simply a collection of wisdom from many wise people. I prefer that idea of connectedness. Authorship also has a bearing on how we translate -- if written by different people at different points in time, the same words might have different meanings in different chapters.

But that's not relevant here, I agree.

Edited October 11, 2014 by dustybeijing

[dust]

In the Guodian chapters:

...

 

These appear pretty close to Chu bamboo characters used in the only chapters where Dao and De both appear:

 

Aha. It seems that de has lost the left-hand 彳radical in Chu script..?

 

Is it just me or does the one in chapter 55 look a lot like an apple?

 

[dawei]

Aha. It seems that de has lost the left-hand 彳radical in Chu script..?

 

Is it just me or does the one in chapter 55 look a lot like an apple?

 

What I find interesting is that I was inclined to always go back to the oldest possible pictogram which has the road and NOT any heart component... but the chu script appears to drop the road and has the heart part.

 

I suddenly felt that Flowing Hands emphasis on "Dao Xin" (The heart of Dao) made sense given Dao De...

 

 

apple? The 'apple of my eye'

[dust]

What I find interesting is that I was inclined to always go back to the oldest possible pictogram which has the road and NOT any heart component... but the chu script appears to drop the road and has the heart part.

 

I was too (just now)

 

As far as the modern character, the connection should have been clear to me from the beginning -- 辶 is 辵 -- or 彳with the added 止...!

 

There are some characters which I learnt right near the beginning of the learning process (before I could string a sentence together in Chinese), when radicals didn't mean all that much to me, or when I hadn't learnt to use them fully to infer meaning.. and they always just meant what I was told they meant. 德 is one of those, I guess. Just "virtue". I've never picked it apart.

 

You know what I mean?

 

Picking it apart...

 

"walk with a straight heart" / "walk straight with a (full?) heart"

 

And in the case of the Chu script, just "straight-hearted"..?

Edited October 11, 2014 by dustybeijing

[dawei]

"walk with a straight heart" / "walk straight with a (full?) heart"

 

And in the case of the Chu script, just "straight-hearted"..?

 

An upright heart?

 

IMO, there is an academic / scholar approach to understanding it and there is a Daoist point of view (POV).

 

for an academic POV, this is a good read:

http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp235_de_character_early_China.pdf

[dust]

Really interesting paper. I'll be reading it at intervals.

 

So far the central idea seems to be that there is no one "correct" version of the character throughout history, either in terms of writing or pronunciation or meaning. It would be nice if more people were to realize this about certain characters when discussing ancient texts!

 

 

in texts like the Laozi and Zhuangzi, De (as an “excellence”) was more connected to a serene or tranquil heart and mind and demonstrated in non-contentious, forbearing and non-interfering dispositions as well as a “channeling” of Nature’s benefic potency

[Taoist Texts]

for an academic POV, this is a good read:

http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp235_de_character_early_China.pdf

 

Yes, Scott A. Barnwell did a great job for an amateur.

 

 

 

I agree with Donald Munro that the character’s use on the OBI seems to be that of a verb pertaining to

“looking” (hence the eye), as in “looking directly at/to” something or someone and perhaps also

“to consult,”12 in that in some religious rites one might look directly up to the sky, to one’s

ancestors, to consult them on some important matter.13

 

this is very astute, except for the eye being not that of the man looking up but rather the eye of Heaven watchin over the man's heart.

[dawei]

this is very astute, except for the eye being not that of the man looking up but rather the eye of Heaven watchin over the man's heart.

 

I would agree that you are much closer!

 

I would say it is Heaven's awareness of man's heart... in much the same way we are aware of the heaven's actions (and influences on our bodies).

 

There are some who think this is basically the oldest representation... An eye from above which sees all the roads traveled.

 

 

 

It is interesting that the Chu Script replaces the impersonal road with the human heart... Then all three come together in othe scripts.

[Taoist Texts]

... An eye from above which sees all the roads traveled.

 

 

 

It is interesting that the Chu Script replaces the impersonal road with the human heart... Then all three come together in othe scripts.

Is that a road? I never paid attantion to this variant, thanx. lemme peer at it some more.

[Marblehead]

Is that a road?

Well, it's not a tree. The branch is pointing the wrong way.