Quote or misquote

[Mig]

I diligently searched for this quote I found in the internet:

“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.”

― Laozi

Is it a real quote or is it a misquote, if it is real, where that quote came from or where one can find it in the DDJ?

[EmeraldHead]

I cannot authenticate it but I would say it is true. It refers to your real, rootless, mind.

 

[Mig]

1 hour ago, EmeraldHead said:

I cannot authenticate it but I would say it is true. It refers to your real, rootless, mind.

 

The quote says Laozi, where can I find this quote in the original Chinese?

[SirPalomides]

Sounds like it could be a paraphrase of part of the Daxue to me:

 

The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the kingdom, first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their persons. Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things. 

Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their persons were cultivated. Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole kingdom was made tranquil and happy.

 

Of course similar ideas have been voiced all over the place.

[Zhongyongdaoist]

2 hours ago, Mig said:

I diligently searched for this quote I found in the internet:

“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place.”

― Laozi

Is it a real quote or is it a misquote, if it is real, where that quote came from or where one can find it in the DDJ?

 

While it has been a while since I have read the Dao De Jing, from 1966 to 1977, it was fundamental to my approach to life and I read it many times in many translations, and basically this does not have the "feel" of the Dao De JIng at all.  I did some searching and while it is everywhere attributed to Laozi, no one gives a specific source citation in the Dao De Jing, which made me even more suspicious.

 

Digging a little deeper I found a likely source in the Huahujing, based on this:

 

Quote

 

If you correct your mind the rest of your life will fall into place.

 

Lao Tzu

Hua Hu Ching: Teachings of Lao Tzu (ed. 1992)      (Libquotes)

 

 

I have this translation, Ni Hua-Ching. The Complete Works of Lao Tzu: Tao Teh Ching & Hua Hu Ching, The Shrine of the Eternal Breath of Tao and the College of Tao and Traditional healing, 1979, however the text is 81 chapters and about 111 pages long and I am not going to try to find a more exact location for you.

 

The Huahujing is considered authentic by many Chinese, but is usually considered to be a late Polemical treatise, AKA forgery, created to show that after Laozi arrived in India he taught the "Barbarians" all they knew about spirituality which was then brought back "home" to China as Buddhism.

 

I hope this is useful.

 

ZYD

[Mig]

Thank you and certainly your help is much appreciated. Just checked and found this from Hua hu Ching, Chapter 45

Edited May 15, 2020 by Mig

[Zhongyongdaoist]

For good or ill, I really can't let go of things until I have either found the answer or proved to myself that it can't be found.  I looked at Master Ni's text and decided that it was too wordy to be the direct source of the quote and remembering that Brian Walker's text was characterized as sparse and poetic more like Laozi's writing, so I decided to look at it and here is the result:
 

Quote

"If you correct your mind,the rest of your life will fall into place"

 

Brian Walker; Huahujing 45

 

Walker credits Master Ni as his teacher who introduced him to the Huahujing and and it is easy to see how this is a simplification of Master Ni's text.

 

Also this seems to be based on ideas in the text of Daodejing Chapter 66:

 

Quote

江海所以能為百谷王者，以其善下之，故能為百谷王。是以聖人欲上民，必以言下之；欲先民，必以身後之。是以聖人處上而民不重，處前而民不害。是以天下樂推而不厭。以其不爭，故天下莫能與之爭。   (Putting one's self last) That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive the homage and tribute of all the valley streams, is their skill in being lower than they; - it is thus that they are the kings of them all. So it is that the sage (ruler), wishing to be above men, puts himself by his words below them, and, wishing to be before them, places his person behind them. In this way though he has his place above them, men do not feel his weight, nor though he has his place before them, do they feel it an injury to them. Therefore all in the world delight to exalt him and do not weary of him. Because he does not strive, no one finds it possible to strive with him.  (Chinese Text Project, DaodeJing, 66)

 

Thus "rectifying oneself" by becoming like the "sea" allows one to receive "tribute" from all directions without effort.

 

Now I can let go of this.

 

ZYD

[Earl Grey]

27 minutes ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

For good or ill, I really can't let go of things until I have either found the answer or proved to myself that it can't be found.  I looked at Master Ni's text and decided that it was too wordy to be the direct source of the quote and remembering that Brian Walker's text was characterized as sparse and poetic more like Laozi's writing, so I decided to look at it and here is the result:
 

 

Walker credits Master Ni as his teacher who introduced him to the Huahujing and and it is easy to see how this is a simplification of Master Ni's text.

 

Also this seems to be based on ideas in the text of Daodejing Chapter 66:

 

 

Thus "rectifying oneself" by becoming like the "sea" allows one to receive "tribute" from all directions without effort.

 

Now I can let go of this.

 

ZYD

 

A very big difference in meaning and literally lost in translation; the original quote from the opening post here comes off as changing one's attitude to shape reality, but this longer quote serves to impart the idea that humility rather than Rhonda Byrne-like platitudes will open more wisdom and understanding that are beneficial. 

[Mig]

3 hours ago, Zhongyongdaoist said:

For good or ill, I really can't let go of things until I have either found the answer or proved to myself that it can't be found.  I looked at Master Ni's text and decided that it was too wordy to be the direct source of the quote and remembering that Brian Walker's text was characterized as sparse and poetic more like Laozi's writing, so I decided to look at it and here is the result:
 

 

Walker credits Master Ni as his teacher who introduced him to the Huahujing and and it is easy to see how this is a simplification of Master Ni's text.

 

Also this seems to be based on ideas in the text of Daodejing Chapter 66:

 

 

Thus "rectifying oneself" by becoming like the "sea" allows one to receive "tribute" from all directions without effort.

 

Now I can let go of this.

 

ZYD

 

Thanks so much. I still haven't found the original text in chinese from that quote. Couldn't find it in the internet. Any idea where to find it?

[Zhongyongdaoist]

 

2 hours ago, Mig said:

Thanks so much. I still haven't found the original text in chinese from that quote. Couldn't find it in the internet. Any idea where to find it?

 

Unfortunately finding the "original Chinese" will probably be very difficult.  This is because the work was controversial and eventually proscribed:

 

Quote

Destruction of copies

 

In 705, the Emperor Zhongzong of Tang prohibited distribution of the text.^[3]

Emperors of China occasionally organized debates between Buddhists and Taoists, and granted political favor to the winners.^{[clarification needed]} An emperor ordered all copies to be destroyed in the 13th century after Taoists lost a debate with Buddhists.

 

Ancient fragments have been found, but no complete text:

 

Quote

Dunhuang manuscript

 

Parts of chapters 1, 2, 8 and 10 have been discovered among the Dunhuang manuscripts, recovered from the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang and preserved in the Taisho Tripitaka, manuscript 2139.

 

. . .

 

Its contents have no direct relation to later oral texts available in English.

 

As noted what has been found doesn't seem to correlate well with the English text which is claimed to be a transcription of an Oral Tradition:

 

Quote

Oral tradition

 

The work is said to have survived in oral tradition. A full translation into English by the Taoist priest Hua-Ching Ni was published in 1979. He claimed to have derived his translation from the preservation of the Huahujing through oral tradition, having been handed down through generations of Taoist priests.

 

. . .

 

Based on the teachings of Hua-Ching Ni, a shorter English-language text claiming to be the Huahujing has been written by Brian Walker. His version is in a spare, poetic form reminiscent of many translations of the Tao Te Ching

 

So the only people who would have a Chinese text of this version are Master Ni's sons who carry on his work here:

 

the College of Tao and Integral Health

 

Here is the quote in Master Ni's book, from section 45, p. 144:

 

Quote

Because the mind is the central aspect of a Human being, the rectification of the mind in turn rectifies all of one's life activities so that they flow in one appropriate channel.

 

If you contact them they may help you, however there is probably no way of establishing the relation between this "oral tradition" which Master Ni translated and the original Huahujing, nor is there anyway to establish whether Laozi wrote any of it.  Either text might have interesting information on different aspects of later Daoist tradition, but neither may contain anything written by Laozi himself.

 

ZYD

[SirPalomides]

Ah, Hua-Ching Ni’s Huahujing. I remember reading it when I was a teen and basically forgetting it because it seemed pretty dull. It’s definitely a forgery (of a forgery, in this case). The actual text was a polemical work and a recurring cause of outrage for Tang Buddhists.

 

Derek Lin translates an excerpt that gives the real flavor of it (Laozi is addressing some Indian kings):

 

“Your hearts are malicious, you like to kill and maim, you eat only bloody meat, and you end many lives. I will now explain the Yaksha Sutra to you, and command you to stop eating meat, to eat only wheat, and to stop butchering. Those who cannot stop, will consume their own flesh. Barbarians are very violent. You do not know friends from strangers, you like only greed and lust, and you have no compassion or righteousness. You are so hairy that grooming and washing are very difficult. You have a foul stench, and there is much filth on your bodies.”

[Earl Grey]

11 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

Ah, Hua-Ching Ni’s Huahujing. I remember reading it when I was a teen and basically forgetting it because it seemed pretty dull. It’s definitely a forgery (of a forgery, in this case). The actual text was a polemical work and a recurring cause of outrage for Tang Buddhists.

 

Derek Lin translates an excerpt that gives the real flavor of it (Laozi is addressing some Indian kings):

 

“Your hearts are malicious, you like to kill and maim, you eat only bloody meat, and you end many lives. I will now explain the Yaksha Sutra to you, and command you to stop eating meat, to eat only wheat, and to stop butchering. Those who cannot stop, will consume their own flesh. Barbarians are very violent. You do not know friends from strangers, you like only greed and lust, and you have no compassion or righteousness. You are so hairy that grooming and washing are very difficult. You have a foul stench, and there is much filth on your bodies.”

 

I bought the other translation by Brian before because it was the first I had ever heard of another work by Laozi, stumbling across it in a used bookstore. Even if it felt off, I bought it for the sake of study anyway before finding several chapters in that it sounded nothing like Laozi's teachings and was at best a mistranslation or mere marketing.