Group Re Translation of Taoist Yoga by C. Luk

[mwight]

I would really like to do a retranslation of Taoist Yoga By Charles Luk.

 

As it is the translation is barely intelligible by my feeble western mind.

 

I am going to OCR it to a text file and then replace terms I find useless with more western descriptive ones.

 

Would anyone here be up for helping me redefine terms, I plan on making the re-re-translation available to everyone who own a physical copy of this book.

[Brian L. Kennedy]

Ummm, I am fairly sure Charles Luk wrote his books in english, he was if I remember right a British citizen by way of Hong Kong (although I am not 100% sure of that)...in any event if you go from english to english it is not translation it is editing.....it is also intellectual property theft.

 

If you want to write a book, that is grand...but don't fucking steal other peoples' books. I take this seriously as a professional writer. And "no" his books are not pubic domain, I am looking at the copyright page right now and I see the copyright to his written works is owned by "The Estate of Charles Luk" (which would be his family or some kind of trust fund he set up).

 

And as a side issue, your knowledge of chinese to english translations is up to this task? My full time translator wife would laugh at that. She is pulling her hair out doing some of the translations for she and I's upcoming book on Daoism.

 

I take all of this seriously because I have great respect for Daoism, Daoist practices and the Chinese Daoist way of life. And there is tons of nonsenese in english about Daoism and a fair percentage of the nonsense comes from half assed translations (e.g. Thomas Cleary, Eva Wong and others) and space hippies just deciding they are going to "fix" some writings about Daoism.

 

Go out and buy legal, legit books...there are plenty of them out there.

take care,

Brian

Daoist Authors Defense League

[mwight]

Brian,

 

I am not planning on stealing his book. If you re-read what I said I would give out copies only to people who actually could prove they own a copy. It's just this translation is so poor it is not understandable, at least not to me. Perhaps if I ever finish this undertaking I will give it away free along with a physical copy of the original book itself. I have no intention of ripping off Mr. Luk.

 

All I want to do is make a translation which people can actually understand, not rip off some one elses hard work.

 

 

I hate this deja vu, I knew I was going to get flamed by a gray bearded man... I could feel it.

 

 

Ummm, I am fairly sure Charles Luk wrote his books in english, he was if I remember right a British citizen by way of Hong Kong (although I am not 100% sure of that)...in any event if you go from english to english it is not translation it is editing.....it is also intellectual property theft.

 

If you want to write a book, that is grand...but don't fucking steal other peoples' books. I take this seriously as a professional writer. And "no" his books are not pubic domain, I am looking at the copyright page right now and I see the copyright to his written works is owned by "The Estate of Charles Luk" (which would be his family or some kind of trust fund he set up).

 

And as a side issue, your knowledge of chinese to english translations is up to this task? My full time translator wife would laugh at that. She is pulling her hair out doing some of the translations for she and I's upcoming book on Daoism.

 

I take all of this seriously because I have great respect for Daoism, Daoist practices and the Chinese Daoist way of life. And there is tons of nonsenese in english about Daoism and a fair percentage of the nonsense comes from half assed translations (e.g. Thomas Cleary, Eva Wong and others) and space hippies just deciding they are going to "fix" some writings about Daoism.

 

Go out and buy legal, legit books...there are plenty of them out there.

take care,

Brian

Daoist Authors Defense League

Edited January 21, 2008 by mwight

[Oolong Rabbit]

 

And there is tons of nonsenese in english about Daoism and a fair percentage of the nonsense comes from half assed translations (e.g. Thomas Cleary, Eva Wong and others) and space hippies just deciding they are going to "fix" some writings about Daoism.

 

 

Hi Brian,

 

That seems like a pretty bold statement. I always thought Cleary and Wong's works were held in high esteem. I believe both are practicing taoists as well.

[Procurator]

half assed translations (e..., Eva Wong ..)

 

hmm a guy whose last name is kennedy denigrates chinese translation by a lady whose last name is wong...hmm

 

 

As it is the translation is barely intelligible by my feeble western mind.

 

perhaps you should leave this to sturdier minds then , no? Edited January 21, 2008 by Procurator

[mwight]

hmm a guy whose last name is kennedy denigrates chinese translation by a lady whose last name is wong...hmm

 

perhaps you should leave this to sturdier minds then , no?

 

 

Perhaps, but no one else is doing it, for that reason alone I would like to. I don't think it would be too hard to look up an interpret each meaning and translate it into something understandable. It's a lot of work, but I don't think it would require a Ph.D or anything.

[voidisyinyang]

Any mention of Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality is good news to me. I continue to get profound insights from that book. Charles Luk is an amazing translator and this is obvious if you read his other books as well. He's a master of the English language and Chinese meditation philosophy.

 

For example he states, after chapter 10, that it's very tempting to "scatter vitality" through the eyes as what I call "yang bliss light." Or "the O at a D." The book states you can maintain your health this way but that's it -- you won't develop chi. Now I had been thinking that "vitality" meant chi or electromagnetic energy. But I glanced at my notes I have posted on my wall and realized "vitality" means "lead" or jing -- electrochemical energy. So vitality is indeed the "bliss" light as I had been calling it. Chi is mercury.

 

In fact the previous translation error I thought I had discovered (the difference between dragon and tiger) turned out to just be a misunderstanding on my part. I assure you that the book is really complex -- for example the difference between yang spirit, yin spirit and essential nature.

 

If you cross reference the meanings it all pans out.

 

The book ends by stating "scatter vitality" across the universe. This is immortality. It also lines up with Tsung Tsai's meaning of the "diamond body" -- which is a combination of crystallized blood and semen left in the cremated remains of a master. So again scattering the vitality would appear to refer to the life force.

 

As the alchemists state the process begins and ends with jing.

[Procurator]

Perhaps, but no one else is doing it, for that reason alone I would like to. I don't think it would be too hard to look up an interpret each meaning and translate it into something understandable. It's a lot of work, but I don't think it would require a Ph.D or anything.

i am speachless, i am without speach. Man, i know that the fact of you not knowing any kind of chinese language will not deter you. But do you even know what was the original text that Luk translated?

[mwight]

i am speachless, i am without speach. Man, i know that the fact of you not knowing any kind of chinese language will not deter you. But do you even know what was the original text that Luk translated?

 

No, mostly I want to do this for myself. Even with drew's interpretations of what mercury, lead, etc mean it still leaves me wondering WTF are you talking about. I need to break this down so a 5 year old could understand it, before I can. Break it down into its simplest terms possible. I want to rewrite it so I can understand it, bounce it off a few more advanced students, and then release it for general peer review to people who actually own a copy of this book.

 

I don't see this as an attempt to defraud, or steal luk's work.

[thelerner]

Proofs in the pudding.

 

Why don't you start out small. Post the areas that seem most mysterious. Let us chew on an issue for a few weeks.

 

We have a couple of Chinese readers who know there way around the classics. Everyone here has some experience with philosophy, someones bound to get it right . This board is all about synthesizing an understanding of Tao from the classics and our own myriad experiences.

 

I'll have to dig up my copy and reread it. Good stuff there as I recall.

 

 

Michael

[Procurator]

Everyone here has some experience with philosophy, someones bound to get it right . This board is all about synthesizing an understanding of Tao from the classics and our own myriad experiences.

 

 

....No aspect of the fantasy Taoism created by immature, self-centered

Western minds has any basis in the facts of Taoism in China....

 

 

 

(Russell Kirkland, University of Georgia)

 

http://kirkland.myweb.uga.edu/rk/pdf/pubs/pres/TENN97.pdf

 

 

No, mostly I want to do this for myself. Even with drew's interpretations of what mercury, lead, etc mean it still leaves me wondering WTF are you talking about. I need to break this down so a 5 year old could understand it, before I can. Break it down into its simplest terms possible. I want to rewrite it so I can understand it, bounce it off a few more advanced students,

 

so let me get this straight

 

-u dont understand it

- u dont know chinese

- u dont care about the original

-but you gonna rewrite it.

 

then you gonna bounce it of folks who

-dont understand it

- dont know chinese

-dont know what the original is

 

yeah, that will work.

[mwight]

....No aspect of the fantasy Taoism created by immature, self-centered

Western minds has any basis in the facts of Taoism in China....

(Russell Kirkland, University of Georgia)

 

http://kirkland.myweb.uga.edu/rk/pdf/pubs/pres/TENN97.pdf

 

 

so let me get this straight

 

-u dont understand it

- u dont know chinese

- u dont care about the original

-but you gonna rewrite it.

 

then you gonna bounce it of folks who

-dont understand it

- dont know chinese

-dont know what the original is

 

yeah, that will work.

 

 

Well we do the best we can my friend. I will post my retranslation (if I ever finish it) of his terms and descriptions in as simply as I know how, to make sense of them. If some more advanced student disagrees I assume we can change it, its not set in stone ya know. I actually do plan on learning mandarin soon, before I train with Dr. Verdesi.

[Wayfarer64]

Go for it !!

If yr intention is selfless and you just want to interpret what it is you see as problematic, then it is an effort that should not affront anyone worth interacting with anyway...

 

Approach it as a work of art/ act of love and it will have wings...

 

The stodgy world (They believe that they know what is so!) be damned!

 

Please just express yrself and let it flow from you as if you are but the vehicle for the meaning to be transponded - translated is not what yr doing as i read it -but if you can bring a new life to the work then why not?

 

It does not need to follow the old precepts of accepted canons or any other guidline. It is a new work in progress and the Tao will rejoice that someone has taken the effort to get involved...

 

The Tao is change, It is not the proscribed distillation of ancients alone... it is also the new becoming what will soon be old...

 

Yr mind has grasped something that you wish to address in honest and well intentioned exertions... just remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions... You will catch shit 'round here and in the wider world for yr brave and intrepid adventure...

[Procurator]

If some more advanced student disagrees I assume we can change it, its not set in stone ya know. I actually do plan on learning mandarin soon, before I train with Dr. Verdesi.

good luck with that, except with you guys when i think i am done shaking my head in disbelief you go and just top that.

 

Anyway, if you be so kind coul you tell me what science "Dr" Verdesi is a Doctor of and which university has bestowed that degree on him?

[Wayfarer64]

Procurator-why should anyone have to answer to you about anything?

 

Prove you have a life . I doubt you can, when all you seem to do here is run down anyones expression of anything just to see what yr shit in the fan will amount to-

[mwight]

good luck with that, except with you guys when i think i am done shaking my head in disbelief you go and just top that.

 

Anyway, if you be so kind coul you tell me what science "Dr" Verdesi is a Doctor of and which university has bestowed that degree on him?

 

Verdesi has a PhD. In Anthropology. You can read more about his credentials on his website. I might be wrong but as far as I know he is the most advanced western student and scholar of the Lei Shan Dao.

 

 

 

 

Procurator-why should anyone have to answer to you about anything?

 

Prove you have a life . I doubt you can, when all you seem to do here is run down anyones expression of anything just to see what yr shit in the fan will amount to-

 

 

It's ok, I can take healthy criticism. I can certainly see why he would be skeptical. I am re translating a book that was translated from Chinese, to English. I am sure everyone has played the game of telephone when they were in 1st grade. It is easy to see how I could totally screw up translating a book, that has already been translated back and forth between languages a few times.

More than anything I just want to make sense of what is being said so that I can understand it.

stuff like this:

Stand in dragon stance, while focusing on the moon, and sun, and merge the dragon and the tiger in the lower cauldron and then plunge that into the original cavity of the spirit, convert lead into mercury, and nourish the sacred fetus. WTF makes no sense to me.

 

 

That makes so frigging sense to me. sorry I must be ignorant as piss. I want to retranslate this text using only wording an English speaking 5 year old could understand.

 

 

 

Perhaps if I could accurately define in western terms what those things mean, and replace all instances of them in the text, at the very least it would be alot more understandable than it is right now.

[Larry]

Ummm, I am fairly sure Charles Luk wrote his books in english, he was if I remember right a British citizen by way of Hong Kong (although I am not 100% sure of that)...in any event if you go from english to english it is not translation it is editing.....it is also intellectual property theft.

 

If you want to write a book, that is grand...but don't fucking steal other peoples' books. I take this seriously as a professional writer. And "no" his books are not pubic domain, I am looking at the copyright page right now and I see the copyright to his written works is owned by "The Estate of Charles Luk" (which would be his family or some kind of trust fund he set up).

 

And as a side issue, your knowledge of chinese to english translations is up to this task? My full time translator wife would laugh at that. She is pulling her hair out doing some of the translations for she and I's upcoming book on Daoism.

 

I take all of this seriously because I have great respect for Daoism, Daoist practices and the Chinese Daoist way of life. And there is tons of nonsenese in english about Daoism and a fair percentage of the nonsense comes from half assed translations (e.g. Thomas Cleary, Eva Wong and others) and space hippies just deciding they are going to "fix" some writings about Daoism.

 

Go out and buy legal, legit books...there are plenty of them out there.

take care,

Brian

Daoist Authors Defense League

 

 

Somebody took the day off from Taoism. Nice use of attitude and explicatives. Flowing softly like water, not hardened at all by your surroundings. Lets butt heads instead of realizing that this is just the physical world, not anything that actually matters. Lao Tzu would pat you on the back for that posting, I'm sure of it. WWLTD??? What Would Lao Tzu Do???

[seadog]

Hey M.

I found Dr Yang Jwing-Ming Qigong Meditation book an excellent resource for dechipering Taoist alchemy.He has a wonderful command of language and backs up all his refrences from the Taosit cannon.

[mantis]

check the back of the book mwight, he might have a description of the terms there. the sun is in your sexual organ and the moon where your head is.

[Taomeow]

Grrr... Eva Wong is a lineage taoist. (Are you, Mr. Kennedy?) Her feng shui guide is a professional quality manual suitable to be used as a textbook for bright beginners, and a fine antidote to the multitudes of McFengshui books out there. I've come across her detractors before, but not one of them was a taoist, interestingly enough...

 

Understanding of taoist terminology comes from studying the basics -- hetu and luoshu, yin-yang, wuxing, bagua, ganying, I Ching -- and practicing the nonverbal arts and sciences of taoism. Alchemical instructions are obscure by design -- one is not supposed to understand them without a good grasp of the taoist basics, and indeed doesn't in most cases, not just the finest translator but even a native Chinese speaker who is not familiar with the foundations of taoist cosmology. The terminological difficulty is secondary; the primary difficulty is a lack of taoist education, and no amount of linguistic prowess is a good substitute for that.

 

I remember reading, years ago, Cleary's little intro to a few taoist classics -- "Vitality, Energy, Spirit" (that's something Cleary does, he "overtranslates" -- instead of calling things their proper Chinese names -- "jing, qi, shen" -- and providing extensive footnotes...) -- anyway, as I was saying, I was reading this little book before I ever got to study taoist cosmology, and some alchemist goes, by way of instructions, "Heaven above, thirty-two, Earth below, thirty-two." I was so baffled. And I'm so NOT baffled today... What about you, Mr. Kennedy? Do you, or your translator wife, know what this means, and why?

 

As the Yuan Dao first put it (to be repeated by Laozi and Zhuangzi), you use nets to catch fish, once the fish is caught, the net is forgotten; you use snares to catch rabbits, once the rabbit is caught, the snare is forgotten; you use words to catch principles, once the principles are caught, the words are forgotten. To this I would add that if you are a pike, you don't need a net to catch fish to begin with; if you are a fox, you don't need snares to catch rabbits to begin with; and if you know taoist basics, you don't need precise translations... Call it Heaven or Tian or True Yang or The Creative or The Ruler or whatever you like, I still understand exactly what it's about and why it's thirty-two above. Do you?..

[Procurator]

; and if you know taoist basics, you don't need precise translations... , I still understand exactly what it's about

we need no stinking translation. lets just make up stuff as we go. works wonders.

Edited January 21, 2008 by Procurator

[Wayfarer64]

TaoMeow you are a tigress amongst us and do know yr canons - I too have had a problem with Cleary from time to time, not so much with Buddhist tracts as Taoist, but that is ok too...He translates as he sees fit and seems sincere...

 

One of my oldest and dearest friends is teaching Chinese studies at U Tex. ... He is fluent in written chinese and has a few spoken dialects under his belt as well. He is also dry and stodgy in his explainations of Taoism and does not seem to "get" the inner meanings as principles that are to be lived -not just thought about and "revealed" ...

 

That aspect is one many here grasp- we study and strive to live as we have been taught by masters and books that Taoism is a way to live, and there are several useful "practical" disciplines that help us on our "effortless ways"...

 

The written Tao that some here are tauting as the "bottem line" and only way- is not the Tao-as we all know the Tao that can be spoken (written about) is NOT the Tao anyway !~

 

The Primary fact of Tao is being -In the moment as the phrasiology goes- That can not be gleaned from a book no matter who writes it...

 

I Know that my way is not the way of the ancients -that way exists no more. the world is so very different that the ancient ways just do not apply -nor should they...

 

The only constant is change, that is basic to Taoism - and so we have ...

Social structures preclude the practice of many attitudes and morals that were well thought of at one time-The subserviance of women being an obvious one...

 

It is often true that one needs to know and practice within the rules before breaking them can be useful to growth ... But rules will get broken and progress will arrive dispite the anachronistic bent of those who wish to hang onto that which they know and that which protects them from their fearful " unknowable" future... Where everything will be different- dispite the reluctance that is inherant in the positions they wish to maintain...

[三江源]

The point is, you need to do the journey of finding out what the metaphors mean. And your route will be the education.

 

None of this was written for a 5 year old to understand for good reason.

 

 

Start discovering,not simplifying. simplifying holds the danger of being reductive.

Edited January 21, 2008 by cat

[Wayfarer64]

Expanding is the answer to contraction... There is no nutshell to hold the Tao...Just breath, expand , contract...

 

Take a walk and read a book... the light of reason may yet prevail...But if in the dark -be at rest -inner calm belies the angst we may face as the changes we most fear arrive... only to be dealt with as the rest have been...

 

This banter has gotten me restive -so walk I shall...

 

Peace to all- and don't forget to breath!!!

[Taomeow]

we need no stinking translation. lets just make up stuff as we go. works wonders.

 

Mutilator,

don't mutilate my posts anymore or I'll install a Wheel of Shadows in your cochlea.