Which Lièzǐ English translation

[Mig]

Which English translation will you recommend to read Lièzǐ 列子? And what did you learn about his writing and why one translation and not another one.  Thanks 

[Cobie]

I think @wandelaar knows a lot about that.

 

 

Edited January 6 by Cobie

[wandelaar]

There's not much to choose from in case of the Lieh tzu. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liezi#Translations

 

I have the the ones by Graham and Wong. Graham is scholarly, Wong is practical. So both are interesting, but for different reasons. I don't know the one by Liang Xiaopeng.

[ChiDragon]

2 hours ago, Mig said:

Which English translation will you recommend to read Lièzǐ 列子? And what did you learn about his writing and why one translation and not another one.  Thanks 

I don't think that there is one translation or interpretation is better than the other. It is best to read a few books to get the general theme of the philosopher to form your own conclusion. It is not wise to have someone tell you which is good or not.

[Mig]

2 hours ago, wandelaar said:

There's not much to choose from in case of the Lieh tzu. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liezi#Translations

 

I have the the ones by Graham and Wong. Graham is scholarly, Wong is practical. So both are interesting, but for different reasons. I don't know the one by Liang Xiaopeng.

What was good about Graham translation? What did you learn from Graham that other translations didn't cover? Was that helpful to understand what Daoists preach or talk about Daoism?

[Mig]

2 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

I don't think that there is one translation or interpretation is better than the other. It is best to read a few books to get the general theme of the philosopher to form your own conclusion. It is not wise to have someone tell you which is good or not.

Thanks and understood. What books would you recommend to get the general theme?

[ChiDragon]

You have to find some books on your own. I don't have any in particular.

[Mig]

6 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

You have to find some books on your own. I don't have any in particular.

A few books about what? Which books are you referring to?

[wandelaar]

In this case it's very simple because there are only a few (Wikipedia names three) complete English translation, so there's hardly anything to choose from. The Lieh tzu is not the Tao Te Ching where you can choose from hundreds of translations. The question which translation to choose is a non-issue here.

 

Asking for advise is sensible as long as you take into account who's giving the advise. The advise of a random person is worth almost nothing, but the advise of a Dao Bum with a known perspective on things is worth somewhat more. Translations are not good or bad in any absolute sense, but they are good or bad when measured along certain standards. That's why I said that Graham's translation is scholarly (meaning good as a scholarly translation) and Wong's translation is practical (meaning good as a guide to practical living). It's been some time ago since I read the translations so I don't remember the details.

Edited January 7 by wandelaar

[wandelaar]

7 hours ago, Mig said:

Was that helpful to understand what Daoists preach or talk about Daoism?

 

In my understanding religious and esoteric Taoism are very different from the early forms of Taoism as found in the TTC, the Chuang tzu and the Lieh tzu. There are wise and foolish people in the three classics, there are seekers, fantastic creatures, miracles, parables, etc. But there's no basis to be found in the three classics for the organized religious forms and rituals Taoism took on later.

 

The (largely absent) relation between the three Taoist classics and later Taoism is somewhat comparable to that between the New Testament and the Catholic Church. Don't let yourself be fooled by those (post)modernists who want to obfuscate the difference between philosophical (or mainly early) Taoism and religious Taoism.

Edited January 7 by wandelaar

[Master Logray]

 

12 hours ago, Mig said:

Was that helpful to understand what Daoists preach or talk about Daoism?

 

Taoists generally don't preach.  They don't have Sunday service.  Temples don't teach.....

 

 

4 hours ago, wandelaar said:

 

In my understanding religious and esoteric Taoism are very different from the early forms of Taoism as found in the TTC, the Chuang tzu and the Lieh tzu. There are wise and foolish people in the three classics, there are seekers, fantastic creatures, miracles, parables, etc. But there's no basis to be found in the three classics for the organized religious forms and rituals Taoism took on later.

 

The (largely absent) relation between the three Taoist classics and later Taoism is somewhat comparable to that between the New Testament and the Catholic Church. Don't let yourself be fooled by those (post)modernists who want to obfuscate the difference between philosophical (or mainly early) Taoism and religious Taoism.

 

I think Taoist thinkings permeates into the society, as life teachings, folklore, way to cook, way to fight, way to govern, medical, Feng Shui and so on, even into other religions' believers.

 

[Dao of Rob]

On 1/7/2024 at 9:12 AM, ChiDragon said:

I don't think that there is one translation or interpretation is better than the other. It is best to read a few books to get the general theme of the philosopher to form your own conclusion. It is not wise to have someone tell you which is good or not.

 

Everything about daoism is 'relational' in the sense that a line of the text gets its meaning by its relationship to the reader and the reader's life-world. That's true about all texts, but especially daoist texts because they tend to start from the premise of the 'unwriteability' of knowledge that must be perceived directly. I read the Graham Lieh Tzu translation a long time ago and was absolutely mad about it -- it was my favourite book at the time. But when I read it these days if feels a bit more ho-hum. So I think the translation that suits depends upon where you're at in life, and about the direct knowledge you've gained along the way. In 2007 I spent a year learning zazen meditation with a very traditional japanese teacher and everything I had read in the past was reinterpreted after that. Zen is sometimes called 'daoism in buddhist robes' and I certainly found it to be so ...

One more point: as there are relatively few good English translations for the major daoist works, I enjoy ordering them online (or finding in the increasingly rare bookshops) and adding them to my shelf anyway. That way when I find a really great couple of lines I can check in with the other translators and form an opinion (or 'author' a meaning that other readers might not experience). I speak no Chinese languages, modern or ancient, so I rely on translations. In the same way, I have a poet friend who comes up with his own 'translations' of Baudelaire, despite not speaking any French. He reads all the translations and then makes his own judgement about meaning. 

In JJ Clarke's book 'The tao of the west' he uses the metaphor of a creeping vine to describe how ALL taoist strands have evolved over time. A vine puts a tendril out in one direction and finds the environment harsh, and the leaves and stems it tries to grow there will wither away (as would an unfruitful translation of some daoist lines). Other parts of the vine flourish, thicken and become like the trunk of the vine. In this sense, translations are not right or wrong, but are themselves searching for the readers and the conditions in which this radical and wonderful kind of thought an action can live.