"Spirit" in the DDJ

[ChiDragon]

5 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Here in America, an Atheist can believe in spirits, ghosts, baba-yaga ( link ), whatever.  It's like I said.  Atheism is a very simple theological position, at least where I am.  It takes a position on 1 thing and 1 thing only.  "I do not believe in God or gods".  That's it.  They might believe in spirits or ghosts, one would need to ask them.

I see. Atheism to me do not believe anything spiritual.

[Daniel]

Just now, ChiDragon said:

I see. Atheism to me do not believe anything spiritual.

 

In America, that would be a physicalist or a materialist.

 

I know at least 1 atheist who believes in ghosts and spirits.

[ChiDragon]

2 minutes ago, Daniel said:

 

In America, that would be a physicalist or a materialist.

 

I know at least 1 atheist who believes in ghosts and spirits.

Now, I see the cultural difference in thinking. That is why different people interpret the TTJ in many different ways. That was how the meaning got lost in the translations.

[Daniel]

1 hour ago, ChiDragon said:

I thought we got over that and the subject was closed!

 

For me, only speaking for myself, I would want to go through all the chapters identified in the thread with the English word "spirit" chosen for the translation.

 

And also the first reply to the thread included : "the only spirit in the TTC would be Tao".

 

So, that, I think, leaves the issue of Laotze's position on "spirit" ambiguous.

 

But I am not asking for an explanation of it.  I think that's premature for me.  Only speaking for me.

 

I'm just writing this to hopefully explain why I asked what I did even though, as you said, the issue seemed closed.

[Daniel]

57 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

Now, I see the cultural difference in thinking. That is why different people interpret the TTJ in many different ways. That was how the meaning got lost in the translations.

 

Naturalism also needs to be discussed a small bit, I think.  In America spirits can and often are considered natural.  This is common among druids, pagans, and pantheists, and, well, a lot of people.

 

The idea, basically is, nothing is "super-natural".  It's just natural "laws" which are not yet understood.  At one point people did not understand illness and disease, gravity, or rotation of the contellations, or the sunrise, or sunset, etc.  These were considered "super-natural" at that time and now they have been demystified.  

 

People who consider "spirits" and "ghosts" to be natural think these phenomena will at some point be understood at some later time in the same way that gravity, and illness, and constellations, etc are now understood.

 

This is not intended to be a spiritual post, just providing some additional detail on why these terms need clarity from the perspective of a modern American, aka, me.

[ChiDragon]

All the spiritual beliefs are the legendary of the Chinese people. The highest human authority believes that the sky is governing the earth. They do not believe anything else but the sky has the highest universal authority. FYI The Ching dynasty forbidden the people to believe in deity and ghost or witch craft in the Forbidden City.

 

In the TTJ，Laotze created Tao that is the highest universal authority.

Edited September 22, 2023 by ChiDragon

[Cobie]

 

11 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

… Chen GuYing( 陳鼓應 ) …

Yes, I remember you mentioned him before. At the time I looked him up online and he has impeccable credentials. He did write many books, what’s is the title of your book?

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Cobie

[Cobie]

@ChiDragon is it this book:

 

The Annotated Critical Laozi With Contemporary Explication and Traditional Commentary 

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/amb.pdf 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Cobie

[Daniel]

1 hour ago, Cobie said:

@ChiDragon is it this book:

 

The Annotated Critical Laozi With Contemporary Explication and Traditional Commentary 

https://terebess.hu/english/tao/amb.pdf 

 

 

 

This looks outstanding.

[ChiDragon]

3 hours ago, Cobie said:

@ChiDragon is it this book:

No, Cobie. This one is all in English. The one I have is all in Chinese. I think you had seen it before but you forgot.

 

PS Yes, this is the English translation of original Chinese version.

Edited September 22, 2023 by ChiDragon

[Daniel]

22 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

No, Cobie. This one is all in English. The one I have is all in Chinese. I think you had seen it before but you forgot.

 

hmmmm.... I wonder if the accuracy of the english version can be evaluated, at least in a small way,  based on whether or not it matches what was established here in this thread. 

 

In my own tradition, there are many faulty engish books about it, because, it has becomes trendy to learn "kabalah", and it's rather easy to tell if the book or source is good or not based on flaws that are in the book.  A diagram will be incorrect, or a word will be translated wrong forcing it to match another "spiritual" tradition, presumably the author is applying, overlaying, their own ideas onto the text in translation.

 

I wonder if that could be done here.

 

 

[ChiDragon]

4 hours ago, Daniel said:

hmmmm.... I wonder if the accuracy of the english version can be evaluated, at least in a small way,  based on whether or not it matches what was established here in this thread. 

@Daniel

Yes, I think it can be done with a bilingual person.

I am glad to do it with you if you want to point something out.

 

@Cobie

This is the book title I was talking about. 老子註譯及評介ISBN 962 231 107 5.

The whole book was posted both in The Open Tao and The Original Tao.

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by ChiDragon

[ChiDragon]

58 minutes ago, Daniel said:

In my own tradition, there are many faulty engish books about it, because, it has becomes trendy to learn "kabalah", and it's rather easy to tell if the book or source is good or not based on flaws that are in the book. 

The term "constant Tao" for " 恆道’’ was used in the English translation. However, I prefer using the term "eternal Tao" is more appropriate.

[Michael Sternbach]

On 20.9.2023 at 1:13 AM, ChiDragon said:

I don't believe in God. However, I can talk about your God with you.

 

There's just one God. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you speak of Dao, Jehovah, Vairochana, Brahman... They are all but different ways to refer to the ultimate source of being.

 

On 20.9.2023 at 1:13 AM, ChiDragon said:

Do you believe in Tao?

 

Dao isn't something you would have to believe in. I am interested in knowledge, not belief.

[Michael Sternbach]

On 20.9.2023 at 12:29 AM, Michael Sternbach said:

I beg to differ. Yes, Laotzu is a naturalist. But he isn't an atheist. Unless perhaps you would have a particular definition of God in mind.

 

On 20.9.2023 at 1:20 AM, Daniel said:

And that's precisely what I was hoping to discuss at some point in this thread.  Thank you for saying this.

 

You're welcome. Glad to discuss this further.

 

On 20.9.2023 at 1:20 AM, Daniel said:

a-theist.  theos.  greek.  are we talking about a greek god concept?  if so, then I think we can all agree that Laotze would be completely atheist.

 

No, I don't think so. I don't see Plato's God as different from the Dao.

[ChiDragon]

11 minutes ago, Michael Sternbach said:

There's just one God. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you speak of Dao, Jehovah, Vairochana, Brahman... They are all but different ways to refer to the ultimate source of being.

I thought that means I don't believe in spirits.

If I say I don't believe in spirits, would that change in meaning?

[Michael Sternbach]

21 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

I thought that means I don't believe in spirits.

If I say I don't believe in spirits, would that change in meaning?

 

What do you mean by 'spirits'?

 

Also, do you believe in chi? Do you believe in dragons?

Edited September 27, 2023 by Michael Sternbach

[Cobie]

On 19/09/2023 at 7:28 AM, Mig said:

… The ancient Chinese apparently didn't rely on tones …

I remember you said so before on OD. But why is it of importance? What impact does it have on my reading of the DDJ?

 

 

Edited September 27, 2023 by Cobie

[Mig]

4 minutes ago, Cobie said:

What impact does that have on my reading of the DDJ?

 

 

Mostly on the meaning of words as many commentators have pointed out some words have evolved and you find in today's mandarin it doesn't mean the same thing 

[Cobie]

33 minutes ago, Mig said:

… some words have evolved and you find in today's mandarin it doesn't mean the same thing 

Yes, very true. This is a pitfall for native speakers.
 

But it doesn’t affect me as I do not use a modern-mandarin dictionary.
 

Anyway, I leave it up to the palaeographers to sort all that, way beyond my scope. I just use their findings as they are presented in the Kroll dictionary.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by Cobie

[ChiDragon]

2 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 

What do you mean by 'spirits'?

 

Also, do you believe in chi? Do you believe in dragons?

 

Spirits means diety, ghost, devil or any spiritual thing that is not human.

 

I recognize what chi 气 is but not in a matter of belief. I believe there are/were dragons existed.

Edited September 28, 2023 by ChiDragon

[Cobie]

.

Edited September 28, 2023 by Cobie

[Michael Sternbach]

On 28.9.2023 at 3:24 AM, ChiDragon said:

 

Spirits means diety, ghost, devil or any spiritual thing that is not human.

 

I recognize what chi 气 is but not in a matter of belief. I believe there are/were dragons existed.

 

Great.

 

How would you define chi?

 

And do you consider to be dragons physical or spiritual beings?

 

I feel that it's important to try and clarify our views regarding these questions before we would delve deeper into our individual perspectives on Life, the Universe, and Everything. 🙂

[ChiDragon]

1 hour ago, Michael Sternbach said:

How would you define chi?

 

You've just opened a can of worms. The characters 炁 and 氣 both have their own separate meaning. The former is a substance was not touched by fire. The letter is 气(chi) and 米(rice) becomes 氣(chi). Chi cannot be translated with one meaning. Unfortunately, when the westerners see the character, immediately it was assumed as energy. Thus it becomes a very narrow definition. To define chi requires a new thread to discuss it.

 

Your question about dragon. I think it is spiritual. It is because the imaginary dragon is fierce and powerful. People tend to think that they want to be as powerful as dragon.

 

[Michael Sternbach]

2 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

You've just opened a can of worms.

 

Well, I'm kind of notorious for doing that...

 

 

2 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

The characters 炁 and 氣 both have their own separate meaning. The former is a substance was not touched by fire. The letter is 气(chi) and 米(rice) becomes 氣(chi). Chi cannot be translated with one meaning. Unfortunately, when the westerners see the character, immediately it was assumed as energy. Thus it becomes a very narrow definition. To define chi requires a new thread to discuss it.

 

It would definitely be interesting to discuss the concept of chi based on its Chinese characters!

 

I am myself not too happy with equating it with 'energy.' At any rate, chi isn't energy in the way of light and other forms of energy understood in modern mainstream physics.

 

2 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

Your question about dragon. I think it is spiritual. It is because the imaginary dragon is fierce and powerful. People tend to think that they want to be as powerful as dragon.

 

 

So first you stated that you don't believe in spirits, and yet you believe in the existence of dragons as you said here. And now you are telling me that dragons are actually of a spiritual nature.

 

I must say, I am a bit confused now. How do you reconcile those different views which seem to contradict each other? 🤔