Translated commentaries of the DDJ in English?

[dosa]

1 minute ago, Marblehead said:

Fine.  If you feel you are the rule of the world then go ahead and challenge everyone who has an opinion that differs from your.  That will be a full time job but I'm sure you can handle it.

 

 

Hold your breath for a second.
Second, hold your breath for three seconds.
Take in a deep breath and hold it as long as possible. 

Try to let it pass. 
And have a good breakfast and enjoy.

 

[Walker]

Madness, madness, and partly my responsibility. To the pit we go...

[Marblehead]

10 minutes ago, dosa said:

 

Hold your breath for a second.
Second, hold your breath for three seconds.
Take in a deep breath and hold it as long as possible. 

Try to let it pass. 
And have a good breakfast and enjoy.

 

Thanks Dosa.  I'm not emotional yet.  No worry.

 

If I get emotional I will stop posting for a while.

 

When I was younger I could hold my breath a lot longer than I can now.  I don't even hold my breath when I jump into the abyss but I do hold it when I jump into the depth of the ocean.

 

I don't eat breakfast.  Maybe I should.  Nah.

 

[Marblehead]

Just now, Walker said:

Madness, madness, and partly my responsibility. To the pit we go...

Hehehe.  But we are still friends as far as I know.

 

I think we are still in Daoist Discussions.  Nothing has been said by anyone here that would cause this thread to be sent to the Pit.  This is all Dao, after all.  Cause and effect too.

 

 

[dawei]

On 10/6/2018 at 2:47 AM, Walker said:

Hi all, 

 

I'm doing some research into Daodejing translation and am wondering if any bums have read translations of the countless classical Chinese commentaries on this text? From what I can tell there is this translation of Wang Bi's early commentary, and then Red Pine's more recent of his two DDJ translations, which includes selections from numerous commentaries, but is not a complete translation of any of them. Then there's this old, obscure translation of a translation of the He Shang Gong commentary, which you can find for free on JStor if you're interested and have a way to log on there. 

 

Can any of you think of any others?

 

And, if anybody happens to have Red Pine's or the Wang Bi commentary in their collections, would you be willing to photograph/scan the introductions and first chapters as a favor to a fellow wanderer?

 

Thanks...

 

You can look through several here although none prior to Qing Dynasty :

 

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/_index.html

 

Wagner's translation of WB is really good with the chinese text as well.  Richard John Lynn also did one on WB but I prefer Wagner's.   I'll try to scan something and send to your registered email.

 

Wagner did a trilogy set, and his second book is very good too... from an Amazon review: 

 

"The Craft of a Chinese Commentator" is the first, and probably by far the most accessible, of Rudolf G. Wagner's three volumes on Wang Bi (226-249; Wade-Giles transliteration, Wang Pi), and his commentary on the "Laozi," or "Daodejing" (Wade-Giles, Lao-tzu, Tao Te Ching). The text of the "Laozi" usually translated by Western Sinologists is the edition known as the "Wang Pi text," and three English translations of the "Wang Pi Commentary" had appeared when this book was published.

 

I"ve seen some translations based on Heshang Gong and the earlier manuscripts like was mentioned.  Unfortunately I lost all my e-files due to inadvertently wiping out my backup external drive !

 

The legalist, Han fan zi, wrote a loose commentary using stories on many chapters of Laozi.  This is technically the earliest commentary.   Lost that file too !   

 

Early Daoist Scriptures by Stephen R. Bokenkamp has a translation of the Xiang'er commentary to the Laozi. 

 

best. 

 

[Walker]

On 10/7/2018 at 8:36 PM, Marblehead said:

Are you intentionally trying to piss me off?  You really don't want to do that.  That is a promise.

 

I did not say I don't give a damn.  I said I don't want to go through the various translation in order to support my opinion for your sake.  Do your own fucking work and form your own opinions.

 

I don't need to go to Google and re-reading the many different translations that allow me to establish my opinions would take a lot longer than five minutes.  No, I am not going to go look up someone else's opinion and say, "Oh!, I like that.  I will call it mine."  I know how to think for myself.

 

So why the fuck would I change something that is working so well for me?  That would be like changing from a conservative to a liberal just because 3bob is a liberal.

 

Therefore, Don't challenge my opinions and I won't challenge yours.  But if you start bad-mouthing me you will get a response and I assure you, you won't like the response.

 

I feel the need to take a few minutes and reply to you in detail, Marblehead.

 

I am a busy man but I have the time to use TDB from time to time, and as this is a discussion board where debate is permitted, I will ignore your demand to not challenge your opinions. In all honesty, I agree with very little of what you say about most things, but most of time I see that as no reason to make a post. 

 

However, I have noticed that you are now beginning to offer meditation advice and you are also making statements about certain topics of potential relevance to spiritual seekers with an air of certainty, as though you were stating facts. See this exchange: 

 

You: Any translation based on Wang Bi's rendering of the Tao Te Ching is biased by Wang Bi's Buddhist mentality.

 

Me: By the way, Wang Bi is usually criticized for putting a Confucian slant on the DDJ, not a Buddhist one. What Buddhist ideas are you speaking about? 

 

You: I can't speak to your question.  My opinion was formed many years ago and it would be too difficult to find individual examples that caused me to form my opinion. But we all have our individual opinions, don't we?

 

That, brother, is a response that would not pass muster in a third grade classroom. Now, if you had prefaced your first statement with something like, "hey, I thought...," and then replied with, "well, you know, I'm not sure but I thought...," then I wouldn't have a single qualm with you.

 

But you're here with a tone of voice like you're telling it like it is--and when asked for some very basic corroboration, what do I get? The opening salvos of a flame war, actual threats, orders to shut up, and name-calling.

 

I accept that I am not without blame here. My tone of voice was condescending, and my comments to Taoist Texts (who I indeed feel has an "impish instigator's" tendency to jump into conflicts in search of schadenfreude--for the record, I have taken the long-overdue step of putting the man on Ignore) may have seemed to be aimed at you. However, that is not an excuse for your bullying behavior. Frankly, Marblehead, being able to back up your statement about Wang Bi, or anything else, is your homework, nobody else's. If you think that you can here or anywhere say any old thing that pops to mind and then declare freedom from the responsibility to do just a bit of corroboration because "it's my opinion," then you are setting the bar for yourself way too low.

 

Again, as I said above, I don't agree with much of what you (and plenty of other people) say here, but there's no need to tire myself and everybody else out with endless disagreements. 

 

But there are some important things I feel strongly about, and one of them is the spiritual path. As somebody nearing 50,000 posts here, your word count is in the millions on the site that is the number 1 Google search result for anybody searching for "Daoism forum." Though your words may not be on paper, you are published here, and again, by force of sheer volume (please pay close attention to that turn of phrase: I do not accuse you of typically "using force," except for where you have used threatening, dictatorial language with me here and one or two others in the past) you have ensured that your posts will be read by a lot of people who are curious about Daoist ideas and practices. 

 

What the word "Daoism" encompasses is vast, old, complex, and beyond the purview of any individual or group to define. That means this forum must be open to a variety of disparate interpretations, including yours. But just because one people can contend that just about anything counts (or doesn't) as Daoism, should not mean the basic norms of backing up an opinion should ever be suspended. And saying things like you did about Wang Bi without feeling the slightest shred of responsibility to make a few clicks and keystrokes to Google your ideas is about as ridiculous as this slightly alternated scenario obviously would be: 

 

Marblehead goes to sports bar and gets into conversation about MJ: Jordan's basketball in the end of his career was messed up by the mentality he picked up playing for the Bears after he retired from the Bulls for the first time.

 

Every other guy in the sports bar: Huh? Jordan played for the Sox minor league team when he was retired. When the hell did he ever play for the Bears? 

 

Marblehead: I can't speak to your question.  My opinion was formed many years ago and it would be too difficult to find individual examples that caused me to form my opinion. But we all have our individual opinions, don't we?

 

Every other guy in sports bar: Geddafuggouddaheah...

 

Marblehead: I do not need support my opinions. I don't even need to support my understandings... I have done my work.  You are trying to make me do your work.  You know where you can shove that, don't you?

 

See, man, if it wouldn't pass muster in a bar and it wouldn't pass muster in third grade, then it doesn't pass muster anywhere. The reason I said I hesitate to use the word "sacred" before is because that's another word loaded with contention, but my point was that in my eyes--and the eyes of every other Daoist I've met in my long years studying and practicing with teachers in four countries--this path (and the Buddhist one) has the potential to offer people something we in English might call "salvation." What all that means is a discussion for another time: the reason I bring it up again is because the power and potential of Daoism to utterly alter human life paths means that certain responsibility is called for when talking about its practices and theories. I do not mean that everybody needs to be right (who could be?). But I mean that one should take care in not wording one's opinions as though one were stating facts--and not blow his or her lid when facing something that every single published writer is subject to: criticism.

 

My last comment is that I find your habit of making comments which you might feel are "just opinions" as though they were factual can be worrisome. If you do so with offers of meditation practice advice or comments on Daoist theory in the future, and I have time and a wanton, I may well criticize you again. For my part I will try to speak without any sarcasm, but I will be nothing less than direct and I will not accept threats like, "therefore, Don't challenge my opinions and I won't challenge yours. But if you start bad-mouthing me you will get a response and I assure you, you won't like the response."

 

Good day to ya. 

[Walker]

Dawei, that was an extremely useful reply, thank you!

[Taoist Texts]

1 hour ago, Walker said:

You: Any translation based on Wang Bi's rendering of the Tao Te Ching is biased by Wang Bi's Buddhist mentality.

 

Me: By the way, Wang Bi is usually criticized for putting a Confucian slant on the DDJ, not a Buddhist one. What Buddhist ideas are you speaking about? 

Actually Marbles is quite correct.

 

Its a recognized fact that although there is no proof that WB borrowed buddhist concepts,  but he obviously exhibited Buddhist (or Buddhism-like, if you wish) mentality, since his treatment of DDJ, similarly to buddhism, was based on a concept of  emptiness.

 

 

 

And no, neo-confucianism is not quite confucianism.

 

 

 

[wandelaar]

@ Walker

 

In my experience/opinion you will meet a large amount of nonsense here on the Dao Bums and only time will tell you who are the more knowledgeable posters. I personally have a large list of ignored users and some Bums went on and off my list before I could finally make up my mind. There are also some Bums who are mostly right but who present their opinion in an irritating manner. When you plan to dispute anything you see in here that you think is harmfully wrong than that will give you a full time job. And you will not achieve anything useful by that because just as you are motivated to defend your point of view others will be motivated to defend theirs. It will usually end in both parties becoming more convinced of the correctness of their own position. See: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Backfire_effect

[Marblehead]

5 hours ago, Walker said:

Frankly, Marblehead, being able to back up your statement about Wang Bi, or anything else, is your homework, nobody else's.

Okay.  I will  offer you a response.

 

My opinion was established over thirty years ago.  It was established after reading Nietzsche and trying to understand enough of Buddhism to consider a serious study.  I dropped Buddhism because it was not speaking to me.  I almost dropped Taoism because the first couple of translations were older ones using the Wang Bi translation.

 

Fortunately I came across a copy of Henricks' translation.  It presented me a different picture than did the first couple I read.

 

But really, I have no homework to do.  I am at peace with my understandings and opinions.  I have never asked anyone to fully accept anything I say.  If I do say something that interests another they are welcome to ask for clarification.  But no way am I going to attempt to go back 30 years and point out specific examples of why I established my opinions and understandings.

 

So, bottom line, it is you who has the homework to do.  I tried to be helpful.  Seems you did not accept what I offered.

 

[Marblehead]

5 hours ago, Walker said:

But you're here with a tone of voice like you're telling it like it is--and when asked for some very basic corroboration, what do I get? The opening salvos of a flame war, actual threats, orders to shut up, and name-calling.

I have said many times that I make no pretenses of speaking any "truths".  Not my fault that  you missed them.  Unless I am quoting someone all I am doing is sharing my opinions and understandings.

 

What happened is I stated an understanding I have.  You replied that others have a different understanding and then challenged me to support my understanding.  Most time I can do that.  In this case, the understandings were established 30 years ago.

 

I will always submit to any challenge of anything I have said that has been presented as a truth.  Most times I can support what I say.  But to challenge my understanding?  No, I do not allow anyone to do that.

 

I made no threats.  I did not order you to shut up.  I did not call you names.  You don't need to defend yourself with aggression toward me.  We are seeking an understanding between the two of us.  If we get aggressive we will surely fail.

 

[Marblehead]

5 hours ago, Walker said:

Again, as I said above, I don't agree with much of what you (and plenty of other people) say here, but there's no need to tire myself and everybody else out with endless disagreements. 

That's fine.  There are a number of members here who do not agree with me.  You are not the first and I doubt you will be the last.  If it hurts to read my posts I would recommend putting me on ignore.  And you wouldn't be the first to do that either.

 

[Marblehead]

5 hours ago, Walker said:

Marblehead goes to sports bar and gets into conversation about MJ: Jordan's basketball in the end of his career was messed up by the mentality he picked up playing for the Bears after he retired from the Bulls for the first time.

 

Every other guy in the sports bar: Huh? Jordan played for the Sox minor league team when he was retired. When the hell did he ever play for the Bears? 

 

Marblehead: I can't speak to your question.  My opinion was formed many years ago and it would be too difficult to find individual examples that caused me to form my opinion. But we all have our individual opinions, don't we?

 

Every other guy in sports bar: Geddafuggouddaheah...

 

Marblehead: I do not need support my opinions. I don't even need to support my understandings... I have done my work.  You are trying to make me do your work.  You know where you can shove that, don't you?

 

I don't go to sports bars.  I don't drink.  I don't argue with those who I know know more than I know.  I don't discuss concepts I have no knowledge of.  I wouldn't recognize M Jordan even if he walked up to me and looked me dead in the eyes.

 

Do you see what you are doing?  I do.  Condescending.  Taking our exchange and presenting a more extreme example with your scenario.  You don't know me.  Don't pretend you do.

 

[Marblehead]

5 hours ago, Walker said:

My last comment is that I find your habit of making comments which you might feel are "just opinions" as though they were factual can be worrisome.

My only recommendation is that you put me on "Ignore".  I have never presented my opinions and understandings as being truths.  That is for those who read what I have said to determine.  And it is true, while there are many here who do not always agree with me, there are many here who agree with me and believe that I may have stated a truth.

 

I am a Nietzschean and a Taoist.  I walk along side Nietzsche and Chuang Tzu.

 

You say you are doing a study.  I offered my opinion.  That is all.  Accept it as something worthy of investigating or simply reject it.  Please don't counter what I said with what someone else has said.  (That is what you did.)

 

So please don't worry yourself over my activity on this forum.  It has never been my intention to cause others worry.

 

 

[Marblehead]

57 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

There are also some Bums who are mostly right but who present their opinion in an irritating manner.

I'm not suggesting that I am mostly right but I will admit that I can be rather irritating at times.  Don't look at me wanting warm and fluffy.

 

[Marblehead]

Okay.  In my opinion that is finished.  We really should return to the topic of the thread.  But if I am quoted I will likely respond even though it will likely be very unhelpful.

 

[wandelaar]

@ Marblehead

 

I think you are mostly right and generally a pleasure to discuss with. No problem here.

 

[Marblehead]

7 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

@ Marblehead

 

I think you are mostly right and generally a pleasure to discuss with. No problem here.

 

Thank you.  Yes, you and I managed to learn each other very quickly after you joined the forum.  I consider it a pleasure when we manage to get in a discussion together.

 

[dawei]

9 hours ago, Walker said:

Dawei, that was an extremely useful reply, thank you!

 

I have emailed you two files with scans.  

[dawei]

Sino-Platonic Papers has some papers which may be applicable:

 

http://sino-platonic.org/

 

 

http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp199_laozi_hanfeizi.pdf

 

 

[Shubin]

On 10/7/2018 at 1:42 AM, Walker said:

I'm interested in commentaries written in China for Chinese audiences before the fall of the Qing Dynasty.  

 

Hi，Walker,

 

I am not sure if you are still interested in commentaries written in China for Chinese audiences, but I put two links below for you, and for others in case someone would like to take a look.

From my point of view, it is the latest one written by a Chinese guy who could be a practicer of 文始门,

and it may be one of the best commentaries. He only released about 19 chapters of DDJ so far.

Hope it could help,

-Shubin

 

1.

The link of "Articles" at the author's website, that contains all of his wonderful articles: 

https://www.zhihu.com/people/zhizhezhengdao/posts

BTW, the titles of his articles of DDJ always start with the number of that chapter, for example:  第三十七章：道恒无名

2.

The link of a post of me that only contains a few of his articles and most links of his DDJ articles . 

http://www.xiulian.cn/Discuz/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=86822&extra=page%3D1

 

Edited October 11, 2018 by Shubin

[dawei]

On 10/11/2018 at 10:37 AM, dawei said:

Sino-Platonic Papers has some papers which may be applicable:

 

http://sino-platonic.org/

 

 

http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp199_laozi_hanfeizi.pdf

 

 

 

For those interested, here is another Sino-Platonic paper on LZ:

 

http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp221_dao_de_jing.pdf

 

And the intro to the Wagner book mentioned by the OP:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305918783_The_Wang_Bi_Recension_of_the_Laozi

 

[flowing hands]

On 10/11/2018 at 5:45 AM, Walker said:

 

I feel the need to take a few minutes and reply to you in detail, Marblehead.

 

I am a busy man but I have the time to use TDB from time to time, and as this is a discussion board where debate is permitted, I will ignore your demand to not challenge your opinions. In all honesty, I agree with very little of what you say about most things, but most of time I see that as no reason to make a post. 

 

However, I have noticed that you are now beginning to offer meditation advice and you are also making statements about certain topics of potential relevance to spiritual seekers with an air of certainty, as though you were stating facts. See this exchange: 

 

You: Any translation based on Wang Bi's rendering of the Tao Te Ching is biased by Wang Bi's Buddhist mentality.

 

Me: By the way, Wang Bi is usually criticized for putting a Confucian slant on the DDJ, not a Buddhist one. What Buddhist ideas are you speaking about? 

 

You: I can't speak to your question.  My opinion was formed many years ago and it would be too difficult to find individual examples that caused me to form my opinion. But we all have our individual opinions, don't we?

 

That, brother, is a response that would not pass muster in a third grade classroom. Now, if you had prefaced your first statement with something like, "hey, I thought...," and then replied with, "well, you know, I'm not sure but I thought...," then I wouldn't have a single qualm with you.

 

But you're here with a tone of voice like you're telling it like it is--and when asked for some very basic corroboration, what do I get? The opening salvos of a flame war, actual threats, orders to shut up, and name-calling.

 

I accept that I am not without blame here. My tone of voice was condescending, and my comments to Taoist Texts (who I indeed feel has an "impish instigator's" tendency to jump into conflicts in search of schadenfreude--for the record, I have taken the long-overdue step of putting the man on Ignore) may have seemed to be aimed at you. However, that is not an excuse for your bullying behavior. Frankly, Marblehead, being able to back up your statement about Wang Bi, or anything else, is your homework, nobody else's. If you think that you can here or anywhere say any old thing that pops to mind and then declare freedom from the responsibility to do just a bit of corroboration because "it's my opinion," then you are setting the bar for yourself way too low.

 

Again, as I said above, I don't agree with much of what you (and plenty of other people) say here, but there's no need to tire myself and everybody else out with endless disagreements. 

 

But there are some important things I feel strongly about, and one of them is the spiritual path. As somebody nearing 50,000 posts here, your word count is in the millions on the site that is the number 1 Google search result for anybody searching for "Daoism forum." Though your words may not be on paper, you are published here, and again, by force of sheer volume (please pay close attention to that turn of phrase: I do not accuse you of typically "using force," except for where you have used threatening, dictatorial language with me here and one or two others in the past) you have ensured that your posts will be read by a lot of people who are curious about Daoist ideas and practices. 

 

What the word "Daoism" encompasses is vast, old, complex, and beyond the purview of any individual or group to define. That means this forum must be open to a variety of disparate interpretations, including yours. But just because one people can contend that just about anything counts (or doesn't) as Daoism, should not mean the basic norms of backing up an opinion should ever be suspended. And saying things like you did about Wang Bi without feeling the slightest shred of responsibility to make a few clicks and keystrokes to Google your ideas is about as ridiculous as this slightly alternated scenario obviously would be: 

 

Marblehead goes to sports bar and gets into conversation about MJ: Jordan's basketball in the end of his career was messed up by the mentality he picked up playing for the Bears after he retired from the Bulls for the first time.

 

Every other guy in the sports bar: Huh? Jordan played for the Sox minor league team when he was retired. When the hell did he ever play for the Bears? 

 

Marblehead: I can't speak to your question.  My opinion was formed many years ago and it would be too difficult to find individual examples that caused me to form my opinion. But we all have our individual opinions, don't we?

 

Every other guy in sports bar: Geddafuggouddaheah...

 

Marblehead: I do not need support my opinions. I don't even need to support my understandings... I have done my work.  You are trying to make me do your work.  You know where you can shove that, don't you?

 

See, man, if it wouldn't pass muster in a bar and it wouldn't pass muster in third grade, then it doesn't pass muster anywhere. The reason I said I hesitate to use the word "sacred" before is because that's another word loaded with contention, but my point was that in my eyes--and the eyes of every other Daoist I've met in my long years studying and practicing with teachers in four countries--this path (and the Buddhist one) has the potential to offer people something we in English might call "salvation." What all that means is a discussion for another time: the reason I bring it up again is because the power and potential of Daoism to utterly alter human life paths means that certain responsibility is called for when talking about its practices and theories. I do not mean that everybody needs to be right (who could be?). But I mean that one should take care in not wording one's opinions as though one were stating facts--and not blow his or her lid when facing something that every single published writer is subject to: criticism.

 

My last comment is that I find your habit of making comments which you might feel are "just opinions" as though they were factual can be worrisome. If you do so with offers of meditation practice advice or comments on Daoist theory in the future, and I have time and a wanton, I may well criticize you again. For my part I will try to speak without any sarcasm, but I will be nothing less than direct and I will not accept threats like, "therefore, Don't challenge my opinions and I won't challenge yours. But if you start bad-mouthing me you will get a response and I assure you, you won't like the response."

 

Good day to ya. 

 

Just to correct you as I know you like to have things right, there is no such word as 'Daoism/Daoist'. This is an English made up word that is now accepted, but when the Chinese talk of 'Do' it is just that. It may be used with other pictograms to then describe something else, but it still remains 'Do'.

[dawei]

On 10/24/2018 at 4:29 PM, flowing hands said:

 

Just to correct you as I know you like to have things right, there is no such word as 'Daoism/Daoist'. This is an English made up word that is now accepted, but when the Chinese talk of 'Do' it is just that. It may be used with other pictograms to then describe something else, but it still remains 'Do'.

 

My impression is that usages like Daoism or Daoist are from two chinese characters and not just 'Dao'.   For example:

 

Dao zhe 道者 - Dao - One Who is [ist]

 

and related (lots of discussion on TDB on this): 

 

Daojia 道家 - Dao - Family:  Those thinkers who studied the Dao and the text they wrote

Daojiao 道教 - Dao - Teachings: - The study of Dao

 

 

 

  

[flowing hands]

On 10/27/2018 at 8:44 PM, dawei said:

 

My impression is that usages like Daoism or Daoist are from two chinese characters and not just 'Dao'.   For example:

 

Dao zhe 道者 - Dao - One Who is [ist]

 

and related (lots of discussion on TDB on this): 

 

Daojia 道家 - Dao - Family:  Those thinkers who studied the Dao and the text they wrote

Daojiao 道教 - Dao - Teachings: - The study of Dao

 

 

 

  

 Ah yes when describing or asinging 'Do' to a school, a teaching, or teacher a pictogram is used with it. But when we talk about 'Do' it is in the singular. When we describe the 'Do' it is singular. If we add on practices of the 'Do' then we assign other characters. We cannot say he is a 'Do' ist, or studies 'Do'ism, but we can say he is a 'Do' Shi, 'Do' Ren etc etc . When we talk about 'Do' we talk in the singular, like in the text of Le Erh. When we study we are part of the 'Do' jiao. When we are part of a school and involved in practices we are 'Do' jia. Schools of 'Do' are looked upon like families.