Geof Nanto Posted January 2, 2018 —26— The mysterious qi resides within the heart-mind. One moment it arrives, the next it leaves. So subtle, there is nothing inside. So vast, there is nothing outside. The reason why we come to lose it Is because of the harm caused by agitation. When the heart-mind holds to stillness, The Dao will naturally come to settle. Considering humans who have realized the Dao, It permeates their whole body to their pores and their hair. Within their chests, they remain unsoiled. Follow this way of restraining sense-desires, And the ten thousand things will not harm you. (That’s the final verse. Tomorrow I’ll add some acknowledgements, and then open this thread to comments.) 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Geof Nanto Posted January 3, 2018 (edited) Neiye – Ancient large seal script Background: The Inward Training text (c. 350 BCE), as contained in the received Book of Master Guan, consists of a series of rhymed poetic stanzas. Inward Training contains two or three divisions, thus dividing it into three or four long sections. It has been further partitioned into a varying number of verse stanzas by different scholars. Allyn Rickett, following Ma Feibai, has translated the text as dividing into fifteen stanzas, with most of these being further subdivided into shorter units of varying length. Harold Roth, developing the work of Gustav Haloun and Jeffrey Riegel, divides the work into twenty-six verse stanzas. Thus, the appearance of the text as a series of verse stanzas or poetic chapters is a modern hermeneutical development. A.C. Graham, a renowned scholar of Chinese intellectual history, has commented, “'Inward Training'...is important as possibly the oldest ‘mystical’ text in China. And in reference to verse two, “This may well be the earliest Chinese interpretation of the experience of mystical oneness.” Moreover, Harold Roth believes that “Inward Training assumes a significance that has not heretofore been appreciated: It is the oldest extant expression of the distinctive mystical practice and philosophy that is the basis of the entire Daoist tradition from its obscure origins to the time of the Huai-nan Tzu [Huainanzi] in the mid-second century B.C.” Inward Training represents one of the key “foundations of Daoist mysticism.” It very possibly links the methods of early Chinese Shamanism with what later emerged as a distinctive Daoist approach. Acknowledgements: All translations are also interpretations – and that’s especially the case with works as distant from us as ancient Chinese texts. My thanks to all those translators / interpreters who have put effort into making this particular text accessible to English speakers, of which several can be found on the web. I especially thank Harold Roth and Louis Komjathy. The above translation presented in 26 verses is based on the critical Chinese text compiled by Roth and published in Original Tao: Inward Training (Nei yeh) and the Foundation of Taoist Mysticism. It is a composite of Roth's work and Louis Komjathy's translation that’s also based on Roth’s critical text. Komjathy keeps much of Roth’s English wording with alterations based on his own extensive knowledge of classical Chinese language, Daoist textual history, theory and praxis. His translation is published in the Inward Training volume of his Handbooks for Daoist Practice. (The background information above is edited from his extensive introduction to the text.) I have sometimes used Komjathy’s variations, other times kept Roth’s wording, depending on which I found more lucid. Roth’s Original Tao is a must read for anyone who wants to broaden their knowledge of the text and related early Chinese thought, practice and lifeways. There’s an abundance of translation notes and other relevant material based on over a decade of research and reflection. Moreover, it’s a work written with great personal conviction as to the value of the Neiye. Although far briefer than Roth’s, Komjathy also gives excellent background and interpretive information in the Inward Training volume of his Handbooks for Daoist Practice series. I particularly like learning about this period of proto-Daoism when the meaning of key concepts such as jing 精 (vital essence), de 德 (inner power), qi 氣 and even Dao 道 was still fluid and practice hadn’t been systemised. But above and beyond what can be conveyed in words (as helpful as they can be), to my mind, the only way to gain authentic insight into what the original author of the Neiye was trying to convey is by personally practicing inner cultivation over an extended period of time. In the utter silence Of a temple, A cicada’s voice alone Penetrates the rocks. I’ll leave off here and open this thread to anyone who’d like to comment. Edited January 6, 2018 by Yueya 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
