Feng-English: Discuss The TTC

[joeblast]

This is what eventually led me to the conclusion that "Tao" is not a noun (a thing) but rather a verb (a process).  Included in this is that oftentimes we see "Tao" translated as "Way" (a process).

 

Names are only labels we use to define a thing or a concept.  If to say "Tao" is the same thing as saying "Way" then neither words are eternal.

 

What was the process that started the beginning of all beginnings (if there is such a thing)?  Sure, we can say "Tao".  But what have we said when we say "Tao was the beginning of all beginnings"?  Nothing, really.  We might as well have remained silent.

 

And the last line?  The named?  Tao gave birth to One.  So One is the mother of all things.  But even saying this isn't saying anything because we have not defined "One".

 

But it does indicate that the Ten Thousand Things are a subset of One (whatever that is).  Perhaps "One" is also a verb and not a noun?

 

So we see in its very early stage the dualistic concept of wu/yu, Mystery/Manifest, Spiritual/Material.

Perhaps, but would you describe something like an electrical charge as a noun, or a verb?  Its nature is to move where there is potential gradient to be found, it can be stored chemically, its entire usefulness has to do with  its process of transformation and usefulness thereof

 

The tao is the same, the reason is because manifestation will never be able to perfectly describe the Unmanifest. 

[rene]

D.A.D., hiya (-:

 

Didn't think for a second you were referring to me, heh, nor was I referring to you or anyone specefic. All good.

 

You raise a great point, though, which really kinda makes mine re finding the spiritual within the physical - regardless of the environment in which one dwells.

 

Dont be fooled, there is as much hell here as there is heaven. Every moment is one of equal creation and destruction; such is the Way and I wouldn't change it. (-:

 

Ready for Ch2 anytime!

[Jonesboy]

These two:

 

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.

Sorry, so many different translations we are using. It would be nice if we could stick to one.

 

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.

 

The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

 

The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.

 

The named is the mother of ten thousand things.

 

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

 

Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.

 

These two spring from the same source but differ in name;

 

This appears as darkness.

 

Darkness within darkness.

 

The gate to all mystery.

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

 

This is about being present in the moment. Like in meditation when one is able to let go, not get lost in the thoughts, in the grasping at the creation of thoughts, then one is able to achieve higher states of Samadhi. This is telling us to do the same in normal life, let go, be present and one can see/be the mystery.

 

Ever desiring, one sees the manifestations.

 

When you are caught up in thoughts, in grasping one sees the manifestation... form.

 

These two spring from the same source but differ in name;

 

Like the Heart Sutra. Void/Tao/Emptiness=Form/Mother/Ten Thousand Things.

 

This appears as darkness.

 

Darkness within darkness.

 

The gate to all mystery.

 

Beyond the light is emptiness

Edited September 29, 2016 by Jonesboy

[rene]

Nice to see you haven't given up on the "mutual arising" concept.

 

Sure, reduce desires in order to find harmony (balance) between the mystery and the manifest.

 

As you pointed out, many of our desires lead us toward being able to live a better life.

Mutual arising = Both. Not possible for me to 'give up' who I am, lol.

[rene]

 

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.

 

This is about being present in the moment. Like in meditation when one is able to let go, not get lost in the thoughts, in the grasping at the creation of thoughts, then one is able to achieve higher states of Samadhi. This is telling us to do the same in normal life, let go, be present and one can see/be the mystery.

 

This is telling us to do the same in normal life, let go, be present and one can see/be the mystery.

 

Yes, agree. Why is it, do you think, that many folks (and traditions) say one needs to turn their back on 'normal life' - rather than realize the mystery within it?

[Jonesboy]

I don't see it as a turning ones back on normal life. It is an fully engaging in life without all of the hurts and pains that come from attaching to things one thinks one needs to be happy.

 

They are trying to show, explain the path to a way of life that is so much better.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Jonesboy

[Albion]

OK Let's use only ONE translation.

 

'Lao Tsu Tao Te Ching', translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English.

 

Almost everyone knows, or has, this translation.

 

My coffee book version is down the hall in my storage closet.

 

But my 'Plain Text Only' version is right beside me.

 

Chapter 2:

 

'Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.

 

All can know good as good only because there is evil.

 

Therefore having and not having arise together.

 

Difficult and easy compliment each other.

 

Long and short contrast each other;

 

High and low rest upon each other;

 

Voice and sound harmonize each other;

 

Front and back follow one another.

 

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.

 

The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,

 

Creating yet not possessing, 

 

Working, yet not taking credit.

 

Work is done, then forgotten.

 

Therefore it lasts forever.'

 

 

Now, I've gotta do some work on my computer, but I will get back to all of you this afternoon.

 

I've already felt like I've learned from each of us doing this together, so..........I'm at Peace with that.

 

We need to keep going, and I have a feeling that we all will learn from each other, which is exactly what I had hoped for!

 

In Dao,  Differently Abled Daoist

[joeblast]

is the true tao te ching, the tao te ching that any of these translations point at

[Marblehead]

Perhaps, but would you describe something like an electrical charge as a noun, or a verb?  Its nature is to move where there is potential gradient to be found, it can be stored chemically, its entire usefulness has to do with  its process of transformation and usefulness thereof

 

The tao is the same, the reason is because manifestation will never be able to perfectly describe the Unmanifest. 

That argument has been presented to me before.  You were easier on me than the other person was.   Hehehe.

 

True that it is impossible to describe potential prior to its manifestation.  The battery has potential.  The energy of Tao simply transmutates.

[Wu Ming Jen]

'Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.

 

All can know good as good only because there is evil.

 

Maybe we can fix this translation 

 

once one consider something as beautiful that can only exists in comparison of what that person considers ugly. This point out how the mind in duality can not penetrate the mystery, a higher awareness is needed.

 

This principle is repeated with a different topic Good and evil to fix this translation we must understand evil is not present in nature so a person from a different culture is trying to use words they know to describe what they are reading.

 

Good and bad are dependent on each other they can not be split apart. What is once good like an apple turns bad and then seeds grow and is good and no one eats the apple and it rots and is bad again.

 

Lao Tzu is pointing out reality. Encouraging people to use a higher mode of Awareness. He will test our ability to see through the the Fail-icy of our own minds and how it is just a tool for earthly survival not to be used for realizing reality..

[Albion]

is the true tao te ching, the tao te ching that any of these translations point at

 

Hey Joe,

 

   Look, I've got up to somewhere between 45 and maybe 60 versions (this includes some downloaded from the internet) of the TTC/DDJ, are ANY of them the *originals*???  NO, I seriously doubt it.

 

This includes the Ma Wang Dui Silk, and Gaoudian Bamboo 'slats' DDJ.  Are any of them the originals?? NO, I seriously doubt it.

 

So, we decided to use the translation by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English. It's easy to understand, and most people either have a copy, or you can download one for free from the internet.

 

We would be honored to have you join us in our wee study here, if you'd like to. You are most welcome!  Deep Bow.

 

 The Dao be with you!      Differently Abled Daoist

Edited September 29, 2016 by DifferentlyAbledDaoist

[Jonesboy]

Chapter 2:

 

'Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.

 

All can know good as good only because there is evil.

 

Therefore having and not having arise together.

 

Difficult and easy compliment each other.

 

Long and short contrast each other;

 

High and low rest upon each other;

 

Voice and sound harmonize each other;

 

Front and back follow one another.

 

One notices these things because they are caught up in thoughts, attachments, duality.

 

Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking.

 

The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,

 

Again, this is about letting go, non grasping, being present and letting it all float on by.

 

Creating yet not possessing,

 

Working, yet not taking credit.

 

Work is done, then forgotten.

 

Therefore it lasts forever.'

 

This is all about not grasping about having a thing, don't get caught up in the ego of needing credit for a thing, not thinking about the past after doing a thing.... Let it go and it lasts forever.

[Albion]

I personally consider The San Francisco Peaks right outside of Flagstaff, Arizona, to be the most beautiful mountains that I've ever seen. They are an ancient extinct volcano.

 

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/San_Francisco_Peaks,_winter.jpg&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphreys_Peak&h=3600&w=4800&tbnid=KDnFalMrRH37BM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=213&docid=go5Ivimu-osYFM&itg=1&usg=__eOPJKvupSB5EukRjQRya72EY1hw=#h=3600&imgdii=KDnFalMrRH37BM%3A%3BKDnFalMrRH37BM%3A%3BM3gctFJegFX8xM%3A&tbnh=160&tbnw=213&w=4800

 

 

This isn't a very good photo, even compared to some that I've taken, but never-the-less it is the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain that is very 'Holy' to both the Hopi's and the Navaho (Dineah [spelling?]) people's.

 

This mountain is very beautiful to ME. But somebody else might say: "Well, the Colorado or the Canadian Rockies are way more beautiful then these mountains are!"

 

I've also lived in the Mojave Desert, and there are some really UGLY mountains in the Mojave.

 

This is the first part of verse 2 in the TTC: "Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty, only because there is ugliness."

 

This mountain comparison is a perfect example of this.

 

"All can know good as good only because there is evil".

 

The TTC doesn't say that there is NO evil, but that we can know good as good, when it's compared against evil. 

 

I don't know if floods, volcanoes, earthquakes or mud slides are evil, they are just an intense part of nature, and therefore part of the Great Circle of All Life on Earth.

 

But I DO know that there are evil people. Look at the present American presidential election.

 

This may be a vast oversimplification, but if the shoe fits...........

 

"Therefore having and not having arise together.

 

Difficult and easy compliment each other.

 

Long and short contrast each other;

 

High and low rest upon each other;

 

Voice and sound harmonize each other;

 

Front and back follow one another."

 

All of these are much like the choice of mountains.

 

They all contrast, and even balance each other out.

 

"arise together" as verse three in this passage says.

 

But then Laozi tells us:

 

"Then the sage goes about doing nothing (wu wei?), teaching no-talking".

 

*Sometimes* in handling bad stuff (not every time I think), the BEST way to handle it, is to *do nothing*.

 

And honestly, NOT TALKING about it takes away some of it's power too.

 

Who can understand what *you've gone through* that they have never even experienced?

 

It's best left undiscussed.

 

In my opinion, the sage is a learner (and teacher) of life's lessons, and HOW to absorb them, or NOT.

 

"The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease............"civilizations rise and fall.... literally without cease,

 

"Creating, yet not possessing",

 

Look at the megalithic builders.......no one knows from where they came, or where they went, but there are their stone monuments all over Western Europe and Britain and Ireland..........but they possessed these places a very short time, in linear time, as time as we understand time now, and the way that it goes.

 

"Working, yet not taking credit.

 

Work is done, then forgotten.

 

Therefore, it lasts forever."

 

I could wax poetic here, but these three lines summarize it all.

 

The things that "a sage" does, are done. And forgotten.

 

When forgotten, the sage's work, "lasts forever".

 

A strange, but enduring   concept!  Please forgive me, I just couldn't help it!

 

I'm sorry for being so wordy here, I'm just very much a regular guy, learning daily, just as we all do.

 

I hope that in trying to take on such a great task as this, I don't blow it, by being too wordy.

 

That's it for me, I'd love some feed back.

 

Peace, D.A.D.

Edited September 29, 2016 by DifferentlyAbledDaoist

[dawei]

its all about the framework you think within...

 

Ch. 1 has shown two sides of the same coin:  Manifest and Mystery

 

Ch. 2 now unleashes the irony of it all... 'the sage teaching no-talking' yet it takes it 5,000 words to get it out  

 

LZ is an everyday man (manifest)... maybe the Yang side to Zhuangzi's (ZZ) approach of  sitting and forgetting it all.    

 

LZ makes you face the music... and calls it music Because that is how man talks, thinks and sees the world.  He makes you ponder the usefulness of words.

 

LZ is also a sage (mystery)... maybe the Yin side to his everyday man side.

 

LZ makes you then ponder the uselessness of words and how they effectively keep one from 'going about doing nothing'... work is done and then forgotten.   And it's not about the 'work' or being 'done'... as they are forgotten.

 

He would make a much better therapist than ZZ on some level but just not as funny 

[joeblast]

That argument has been presented to me before.  You were easier on me than the other person was.   Hehehe.

 

True that it is impossible to describe potential prior to its manifestation.  The battery has potential.  The energy of Tao simply transmutates.

The energy of the electrical potential transmutes, when the avenue is provided - such it is with the quantum mechanical windings of the tao.   I guess its just because I dont see your words actually go as far as your conclusion   Do you go out and tao?    imho its clumsier trying to fit it into the verb box than fitting it into the noun box.

 

Hey Joe,

 

We would be honored to have you join us in our wee study here, if you'd like to. You are most welcome!  Deep Bow.

 

 The Dao be with you!      Differently Abled Daoist

It was more a play on concepts than anything else.  I'm studying other things, dont quite have time for a ttc study, but sometimes I comment here and there.   Sometimes disagreement on verbiage doesnt mean disagreement in general concept, either /\

[Wu Ming Jen]

But I DO know that there are evil people. Look at the present American presidential election. That is hilarious d.a.d.

 

For something to be evil means it has to act from selfish desire with no regard for the rest of humanity. Luckily we have nature to teach us a lesson

 

On the 7 day men created God in their own disgusting image so they can act as nasty as they want and not be responsible kind of the opposite of what Lao Tzu is showing humanity, their true divine nature.  A tangled web we weave.

[Marblehead]

The energy of the electrical potential transmutes, when the avenue is provided - such it is with the quantum mechanical windings of the tao.   I guess its just because I dont see your words actually go as far as your conclusion   Do you go out and tao?    imho its clumsier trying to fit it into the verb box than fitting it into the noun box.

 

Yep.  I do indeed out go and Tao.  Sometimes I stay in and Tao.  The processes of me.  But I am not Tao as Tao is not an "it".

 

I doubt that I will ever convince anyone that Tao is a verb and not a noun.  But at least anyone who reads me mentioning the thought will have thoughts of their own.  Nothing wrong with that.

 

Should I even ask for proof of the existence of a thing called "Tao"?  No.  That would be just as wrong as asking a Christian to provide proof of the existence of a thing called "God". 

[Marblehead]

Yeah, Chapter 2 is a carry-over from Chapter 1 regarding dualities.  Comparing apples with oranges and stuff like that.

 

But then near the end we are told that just acknowledging the "what is" is preferable. 

 

We really can't avoid dualities as this is how our brain works.  But we can avoid making so many judgements based on dualities.

[Jonesboy]

I admit I look at this from a Buddhist perspective, yet I hope this helps with the topic of desire and good, bad, tall and short.

 

MAHAMATI SAID to the Blessed One: Is error an entity or not? The Blessed One replied: Error has no character in it making for attachment; if error had such a character no liberation would be possible from its attachment to existence, and the chain of origination would only be understood in the sense of creation as upheld by the philosophers. Error is like maya, also, and as maya is incapable from producing other maya, so error in itself cannot produce error; it is discrimination and attachment that produce evil thoughts and faults. Moreover, maya has no power of discrimination in itself; it only rises when invoked by the charm of the magician. Error has in itself no habit-energy; habit-energy only rises from discrimination and attachment. Error in itself has no faults; faults are due to the confused discriminations fondly cherished by the ignorant concerning the ego-soul

 

p. 69

 

and its mind. The wise have nothing to do either with maya or error.

 

Maya, however, is not an unreality because it only has the appearance of reality; all things have the nature of maya. It is not because all things are imagined and clung to because of the multitudinous of individual signs, that they are like maya; it is because they are alike unreal and as quickly appearing and disappearing. Being attached to erroneous thoughts they confuse and contradict themselves and others. As they do not clearly grasp the fact that the world is no more than mind itself, they imagine and cling to causation, work, birth and individual signs, and their thoughts are characterised by error and false-imaginations. The teaching that all things are characterised by the self-nature of maya and a dream is meant to make the ignorant and simple-minded cast aside the idea of self-nature in anything.

 

False-imagination teaches that such things as light and shade, long and short, black and white are different and are to be discriminated; but they are not independent of each other; they are only different aspects of the same thing, they are terms of relation not of reality. Conditions of existence are not of a mutually exclusive character; in essence things are not two but one. Even Nirvana and Samsara's world of life and death are aspects of the same thing, for there is no Nirvana except where is Samasara, and no Samsara except where is Nirvana. All duality is falsely imagined.

 

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bb/bb09.htm

[rene]

Yep. I do indeed out go and Tao. Sometimes I stay in and Tao. The processes of me. But I am not Tao as Tao is not an "it".

Part of you is Tao... unless you've found something Tao is not.

 

I doubt that I will ever convince anyone that Tao is a verb and not a noun. But at least anyone who reads me mentioning the thought will have thoughts of their own. Nothing wrong with that.

Maybe Tao is an idea (noun) and a verb. Both. (-:

[rene]

He would make a much better therapist than ZZ on some level but just not as funny

Warrants repeating.

 

:pokes at MH:

 

Edit to add: Your whole post warrants repeating, dawei. Nice summary.(-:

Edited September 29, 2016 by rene

[sagebrush]

thank you for the who wants to study ddj.

I did but had hesitation to just spontaneously allow a response. that is not even correct. I stopped myself from just saying yes I do.-observation in self

not good with following along-erratic schedule, but will try

I just read the 82 small chapters.

it seems like a damned if you do and damned if you don't

one sentence negates another sentence. etc.. etc..

what I did like is that it was fascinating.

it was from a study Indiana university-google searched.

I like the simplicity of it in small sentences related to nature, trees, valley, etc etc

I read fast and tried to do my best translation.

ok thanks

 

I think buying a copy at book store would be good. As it can be digested in fragments in the evening before sleep.

Edited September 29, 2016 by sagebrush

[Marblehead]

Part of you is Tao... unless you've found something Tao is not.

 

Yes, agree.  However, while being a part that completes the whole I have become One and as there is nothing beyond One how could I ever point to One?  How can anyone point to One when we all a part of it?  Only something beyond One could point to One.  What is left?  Tao.  But it is beyond all things so how could it be a thing?

 

Maybe Tao is an idea (noun) and a verb. Both. (-:

Actually, that was my initial understanding when I began feeling a little more comfortable with the philosophy.  Credit (or blame) goes to Henricks because of the way he uses "Tao"  and "Way".  Same original word, here a noun, there a verb.

 

[sagebrush]

hey can you toss me the tao?

 

like the towel with a stuffy nose...trite yes--

 

going to the bookstore NOW

 

what is the deal with zz-not funny

and what about laozi disappear from china going to india to become Buddha?

Edited September 29, 2016 by sagebrush

[Marblehead]

thank you for the who wants to study ddj.

Please join in any time.  This is a casual conversation, not a textual study.  We can even ask questions and give answers to questions that haven't been asked yet.