Jing of Tranquility ( 清淨經)

[Wu Ming Jen]

Great point since we are talking about yin and yang and its function. the point is that yin is in yang and yang is in yin giving rise to all things. The pure and impure exist together.

 

Man (yang) is pure, woman (Yin) is impure. Man (Yang) is active, woman (yin) is passive; going to the base, it is these elements give rise to all other things.

Edited September 11, 2016 by Wu Ming Jen

[Wu Ming Jen]

Tiger and dragon join giving birth to new life.

 

When yin and yang join in our own bodies we give birth to the higher divine self, this is the true virgin birth, no physical intercourse required.

 

The other great thing is that all is within us and eliminates the search in the outside world that man has created to mislead us.

[cheya]

Taomeow, another stellar post. Thank you!

 

Don't think this has happened here... but can anybody talk about the components of the chinese character that is translated as "impure"? And maybe historical context of the components? Or give a link if it has been addressed elsewhere?  Thanks!

[liminal_luke]

What a pity. To me, Jing of Tranquility sounds soothing and feminine in the best way, like water tripping gently over smooth stone. Perhaps it should be redubbed Jing of Misogony: The Ancient Chinese Roots of the Coming Nuclear Holocaust.  

[Taomeow]

Maybe we're putting the negative connotation on impure.  Maybe it's speaking to something opaque.

 

If by "we" you mean "everybody," I agree.  Negative connotations.  Just like when we call someone "a fucking idiot," we may merely mean "a person in a pristine state of mind suitable for engaging in sexual relations with."  Why would anyone be bothered by the negative connotations when called that?  Just reinterpret it to mean not what it says and it becomes completely acceptable.  

[Taomeow]

As one of them, I submit translators don't always appreciate, and occasionally abuse on purpose, the power they wield.  A whole generation was raised in fear and hate due to a mistranslation (which is what a literal dictionary translation always is if it does not take into account the context, both the local context of the overall text and the wider context of the foreign cultural backdrop) of what Khrushchev said that was rendered as "we will bury you." 

 

For a more recent example, it has been widely reported that Putin has called Trump "brilliant."  This may scare a whole bunch of potential pro-Trump voters into the arms of Hillary (from the frying pan into the fire) -- look, turns out Trump and Putin are  buddies in a mutual admiration club, if we choose Trump, he will get in bed with Russia!..      

 

The term Putin really used that was translated as "brilliant," яркий, might mean that --  if you are talking of the color of a gemstone, or someone's pretty eyes...   but it means something entirely different when applied to a person.  Depending on the context, it may mean anything in fact, from a compliment to his good looks to an acknowledgement of his ability to draw attention to himself (without specifying how exactly, by making sense or by wearing a circus clown's wig), to a sarcastic put-down, and is best translated as "colorful."  Putin called Trump "colorful," not "brilliant."   Quite a different set of connotations, right?  But translators made sure that yet another urban legend with no basis in reality is born.   

 

By the way, I own Wieger's "Chinese Characters" monumental treatise that can elucidate the origin of a key term like 'impure" (which sadly is encountered in countless translations of countless texts, by far not just this one or I wouldn't mention it, and perhaps means what I suspect it means in every taoist school influenced by every non-taoist ideology to a significant extent) -- will look it up when I have a moment.  Still, I doubt a dictionary is ever enough to understand the "connotations..."   

Edited September 11, 2016 by Taomeow

[silent thunder]

In the gutters, where the water carries the sludge downhill effortlessly to the sewers filled with lumps of our collective coagulating turds, there is tao.  There is jing.  Is it male or female? 

 

Male and female are not two things... they are the varied expressions of the one human energy.

Within male and female, there are masculine females and feminine males, as well as the 'accepted roles'.

None of them are wrong or right.  There is unified human energy on our planet.  

 

tao is tao.

words are no more real than thoughts... though sometimes I sure enjoy them, other times I enjoy to not enjoy them it seems.

[Walker]

If someone tells me that the real word is "fertile" rather than "impure," and another real word is "capable of fertilizing" rather than "pure," I'll apologize to the author of the treatise and hold the makers of the dictionaries responsible rather than him.  

 

There is much to be said about this question as well as much else in this thread, and hopefully I'll have time to jump in later on.

 

Regarding your point here, I think that you've identified an important point. While it is true that sometimes the character zhuo/浊 is used to refer to something dirty, mucky, and undesirable (especially in its modern usage), in my strong opinion that is not what is meant by the Qingjingjing.

 

An easy example of why that is can be seen in the way the relationship between qi and blood was envisioned in Chinese medicine. In a healthy human being, qi and blood should be a totally-integrated "substance." The blood, rich and full-bodied thanks to a good diet and healthy living, should be able to fill the body. Importantly, it must be rich and full-bodied to provide a good medium for qi to be carried in. But, of course, a body full of fluid that does not move and is not imbued with heat is, essentially, a corpse. So, to the yin of blood, one adds the yang properties of movement as well as heat, so that constantly-flowing blood reaches all parts of the body, warms the body, and overcomes the stasis-causing effects of gravity, tight spaces, and the millions of corners in all our vessels. The yang is what gives blood that "energy," but again, it must have its material basis in the yin of blood for a person to be healthy--otherwise you're talking about a frazzled, jittery, unrooted yang that shoots upwards and stays there.

 

A vial of blood drawn and left on the table will immediately begin to separate. Immediately, it looses its motion. Yang has fled away. Then, quickly, its heat will leave it, and it will become cold. More yang has flitted off, and now yin and yang have really begun to draw apart. Then its physical constituents will separate, with the cells falling down in the vial, leaving the relatively-transparent of plasma and serum above. Yin and yang are now really far apart. Pretty soon the blood is going to be "dead"--no longer usable for a transfusion, and then breaking down, rotting, and becoming poisonous.

 

Yang with no zhuo/浊 to root itself in flits away and disperses into oblivion. Yin with no yang to enliven it sinks down into stagnation. The marvel of the human body (and all bodies) is in providing a vessel in which both elements are relatively sealed in, wherein they constantly cycle together, so well integrated as to go from being distinct parts to a unified whole.

 

Yang without yin is like a churn of great ideas, flitting about in a mind, but never organized and put down on paper, they are just madcap dreams, bouncing around. "Giving form to one's ideas," "putting them down on paper," means uniting the dispersed yang qing/清 of ideas with the yin zhuo/浊 of a book's structure.

 

A beautifully bound book without a single word within, is all zhuo/浊 with no qing/清. It's not really a book. Structure, no function.

 

Daoists are and were sophisticated enough not to believe that what the Qingjingjing here is saying about males and females is a rigid, blanket description of how men and women are and/or should be. After all, Daoists will be the first to tell you that any living being is in all ways an amalgam of yin and yang--the humans who seem to be the perfect embodiment of so-called masculine and feminine traits are no exception. Given that in some ways alchemy can probably be described as taking advantage of an "internal mating" function in the human body, it may be more fruitful to think about what the delineations between yin-yang, qing-zhuo, male-female, heaven-earth, etc. mean within the individual than within societies. Not that these points don't apply to society, but rather that they need to be viewed in a more "raw" form than that which has already been so heavily chiseled at and mutilated by centuries of contrivance and power play.

[Mig]

When I look up at the text I find 清靜經;  Qīngjìng Jīng and found then this in Wikipedia: qingjing could interchangeably be written 清靜 or 清淨, for instance, the Daoist concept qingjing wuwei 清靜無為 or 清凈無為 "quiet and non-action; discard all desires and worries from one's mind". Chinese Buddhism used qingjing 清淨 to translate Sanskrit parishuddhi or Pali vishuddhi "complete purification; free from defilement" (cf. vishudda). So it seems there is confusion or misinterpretation regarding the word 淨 and 靜 which for some is purity and others is clarity. Or is there a better interpretation?

[Mig]

As I am learning how to read this short, I see that  there is a combination of Daoist and Buddhist ideas. Many phrases, concepts and words can be found in several chapters of the DDJ and some are Buddhist interpretations (which movement or faith, I don't know) which can be very confusing for someone who's a newbie either Daoism or Buddhism ( among the ten schools in China). For those who have already read it or learned it, how important is the reading of this small canon and how do you interpret it or use it in practical life?

[SirPalomides]

To complement Walker's 2016 explanation above, in translations of Confucian texts I see 浊 rendered as "turbid." Turbid qi is necessary for the physical formation but if one has too much turbid qi it can darken one's original nature and prevent one from achieving virtue. Humans are distinguished from other animals in being endowed with a greater amount of pure qi to balance the necessary turbid qi.

 

From Zhang Zai:

 

The Great Vacuity is clear. Being clear, it cannot be obstructed. Not being obstructed, it is therefore spirit. The opposite of clearness is turbidity. Turbidity leads to obstruction. And obstruction leads to physical form. When material force (qi) is clear, it penetrates; and when it is turbid, it obstructs.

Edited July 10, 2020 by SirPalomides

[exorcist_1699]

觀空亦空，空無所空。所空既無，無無亦無。無無既無，湛然常寂。寂無所寂，欲豈能生。欲既不生，即是真靜。真常應物，真常得性。常應常靜，常清靜矣！

 

如此清靜，漸入真道。既入真道，名爲得道。雖名得道，實無所得。爲化眾生，名爲得道。能悟之者，可傳聖道。

 

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In fact , it already includes the ontology related to Tao and the methodology of entering its core here . 

Edited August 25, 2020 by exorcist_1699

[alphone]

Hello friends of Tao,

 

Here is an English translation of this Taoist Scripture :

https://universalalphaomega.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-wonderful-scripture-spoken-by-ultra.html
 

It was translated and published on my previous Taoist website since 200X, last revised in 2007.

My previous Taoist website was shut down in 2018 / 2019, here is an archived version of it :

https://web.archive.org/web/20170517120411/http://www.taoistresource.net/doe_idx.htm

 

You can still find many English translations of Taoist Scriptures in the archived website.