Confucious classics translation

[nine tailed fox]

What are some of the best translations and the commentary of confucious classics  ??? 

 

Analects,  The Great Learning,  the doctrine of the Mean and mencius 

[Zhongyongdaoist]

As a start this is probably the best modern translation/commentary on "The Great Learning" and "The Doctrine of the mean"

Ta Hsueh and Chung Yung: (The Highest Order of Cultivation and On the Practice of the Mean)

 

For a modern person these two are the best to start with because they are short and their style is more approachable than either the Analects or the Mencius.

 

The Chung Yung (Zhongyong) in particular is very profound and Tu Weiming's

 

Centrality and Commonality

 

Is an excellent study of it.

 

All of Tu Weiming's books are excellent, it was his:

 

Humanity and Self-Cultivaton

 

That transformed my understanding and opened the path of Confucian Dao for me.

 

I'll post more as I have time.

[Mig]

On 10/16/2015 at 5:18 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

As a start this is probably the best modern translation/commentary on "The Great Learning" and "The Doctrine of the mean"

Ta Hsueh and Chung Yung: (The Highest Order of Cultivation and On the Practice of the Mean)

 

For a modern person these two are the best to start with because they are short and their style is more approachable than either the Analects or the Mencius.

 

The Chung Yung (Zhongyong) in particular is very profound and Tu Weiming's

 

Centrality and Commonality

 

Is an excellent study of it.

 

All of Tu Weiming's books are excellent, it was his:

 

Humanity and Self-Cultivaton

 

That transformed my understanding and opened the path of Confucian Dao for me.

 

I'll post more as I have time.

In which those books are excellent study and how it transformed your understanding of Kongzi Dao for you? Any online free PDF to share?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

On 3/19/2019 at 1:31 PM, Mig said:

In which those books are excellent study and how it transformed your understanding of Kongzi Dao for you? Any online free PDF to share?

 

I am  sorry to be so long in replying to this, but the last week was very busy and this is the firs time that I can really put in the time for a thoughtful response.  The most important book that I read was this one:

On 10/16/2015 at 5:18 PM, Zhongyongdaoist said:

All of Tu Weiming's books are excellent, it was his:

 

Humanity and Self-Cultivaton

 

That transformed my understanding and opened the path of Confucian Dao for me.

 

I read it back in late November of 2000.  It was only the second book that I  had read on Confucianism.  I realized about this time that I had spent decades studying Daosim very deeply and even Buddhism to some depth, but that I knew little about Confucianism except for commonly held ideas about it, but was otherwise embarrassingly ignorant of an important part of Chinese society and history and that I needed to rectify that in order to have a clearer idea of the historical and social context of the other two religious/philosophical movements.  I decided that I would rectify that and read Arthur Waley's edition of Confucius' Analects, and while I found nothing that really excited me, I found it less of a put off than I thought it would be.  However, reading Tu Weiming's book was a complete reframe, and I realized that everything that most people thought about Confucianism was wrong, that it had a long held and deeply developed spiritual aspect of which most people had no idea whatsoever and I came out of that reading with a deep respect for Mencius, the Zhonyong and the Daxue, and many other aspects of Confucianism, as well as what I was to call "the mystery of Confucius", the mystery of why someone whose only surviving work was The Analects could have inspired someone like Mencius, and been such a deep and powerful influence on Chinese culture and history.  I like to solve mysteries and while I still cannot give a satisfactory answer to the question of why Confucius was so influential, I did learn to respect and value the Confucian tradition as a valuable and viable spiritual tradition in and of itself and which complimented Daoism in a positive way, and also gave me a more practical framework for living in the world than I had before.

 

I have been looking into the group which Aetherous mentions here:

 

On 3/12/2019 at 4:20 PM, Aetherous said:

https://ruistassociation.org/

This group lays out a pretty extensive course of study for the topic. If I remember correctly, it's totally free (aside from getting necessary reading material).

 

and so far they seem to be both honorable and useful.  On their site they have some links to these works:

 

The first is a simple and readable text of The Analects which can be searched though online or down loaded as a PDF file:

• Stone Chimes: A modern English adaptation of The Analects of Confucius, searchable by book, topic, or person.

The second is a good readable translation of the Daxue and Zhongyong based on the authors years of teaching them on a college level:

• The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean: An online teaching translation by Robert Eno.

The next three are links to The Chinese Text Projects site where the Chinese Text is alternated with the translations of Legge, which while dated are satisfactory.

• Mengzi: A Chinese & English version of Mencius.
• Liji: A Chinese & English version of The Book of Rites.
• Xiao Jing: A Chinese & English version of The Classic of Filiality.

Finally this one:

• Yangzi Fayan: In Chinese & English.

is translated by Jeffrey Bullock.

 

My comments in this post are useful:

 

 

and include a link to my post in a thread on Confucian qigong which describe the more spiritual of Confucianism.

 

I hope that this is useful.

 

ZYD

[Mig]

19 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

 

I am  sorry to be so long in replying to this, but the last week was very busy and this is the firs time that I can really put in the time for a thoughtful response.  The most important book that I read was this one:

 

 

I read it back in late November of 2000.  It was only the second book that I  had read on Confucianism.  I realized about this time that I had spent decades studying Daosim very deeply and even Buddhism to some depth, but that I knew little about Confucianism except for commonly held ideas about it, but was otherwise embarrassingly ignorant of an important part of Chinese society and history and that I needed to rectify that in order to have a clearer idea of the historical and social context of the other two religious/philosophical movements.  I decided that I would rectify that and read Arthur Waley's edition of Confucius' Analects, and while I found nothing that really excited me, I found it less of a put off than I thought it would be.  However, reading Tu Weiming's book was a complete reframe, and I realized that everything that most people thought about Confucianism was wrong, that it had a long held and deeply developed spiritual aspect of which most people had no idea whatsoever and I came out of that reading with a deep respect for Mencius, the Zhonyong and the Daxue, and many other aspects of Confucianism, as well as what I was to call "the mystery of Confucius", the mystery of why someone whose only surviving work was The Analects could have inspired someone like Mencius, and been such a deep and powerful influence on Chinese culture and history.  I like to solve mysteries and while I still cannot give a satisfactory answer to the question of why Confucius was so influential, I did learn to respect and value the Confucian tradition as a valuable and viable spiritual tradition in and of itself and which complimented Daoism in a positive way, and also gave me a more practical framework for living in the world than I had before.

 

I have been looking into the group which Aetherous mentions here:

 

 

and so far they seem to be both honorable and useful.  On their site they have some links to these works:

 

The first is a simple and readable text of The Analects which can be searched though online or down loaded as a PDF file:

• Stone Chimes: A modern English adaptation of The Analects of Confucius, searchable by book, topic, or person.

The second is a good readable translation of the Daxue and Zhongyong based on the authors years of teaching them on a college level:

• The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean: An online teaching translation by Robert Eno.

The next three are links to The Chinese Text Projects site where the Chinese Text is alternated with the translations of Legge, which while dated are satisfactory.

• Mengzi: A Chinese & English version of Mencius.
• Liji: A Chinese & English version of The Book of Rites.
• Xiao Jing: A Chinese & English version of The Classic of Filiality.

Finally this one:

• Yangzi Fayan: In Chinese & English.

is translated by Jeffrey Bullock.

 

My comments in this post are useful:

 

 

and include a link to my post in a thread on Confucian qigong which describe the more spiritual of Confucianism.

 

I hope that this is useful.

 

ZYD

Excellent, I appreciate you sharing. I behind you as I am encountering the same problem, after reading the DDJ, I am continuing the ZZ and then KZ to understand better. Thanks again

[Toni]

Thanks Zhongyongdaoist for your recommendations. A quote from The Great Learning:

 

"From the Son of Heaven to the common person, for all alike, refining the person is the root. That roots should be disordered yet branches ordered is not possible. That what should be thickened is thin yet what is thin becomes thick has never yet been so. [This is the meaning of “knowing the root.”]"

 

And from the Zhongyong:

 

“Thus it is that great virtue inevitably gains its proper position, inevitably gains its proper stipend, inevitably gains its proper fame, inevitably gains its proper longevity."

Edited May 16, 2019 by Toni