Gain The Way And Its Power: Lao Tzus Tao Te Ching And Its Place In Chinese Thought Composed By Lao Tzu Conveyed As Paper Copy
read this translation by Sam Torode every day on my phone, with a hard copy of another translation I will review soon.
The simplicity of Torode's translation makes it my favorite so far and lines up with the Taoist philosophy of simplicity, I may consider other works translated by Torode, He has some interesting works out there, such as "The Song of Solomon, "
Update:
Third translation I've read, my favorite of the three, I love this book of philosophy, It gives great common sense and helps pave new thought patterns not taught in American culture, paths that lead to peace and sanity, My favorite book of philosophy,
: Great translation, helped me understand it, My favorite religious/ philosophical book aside from the Christian Bible, Shows a path of peace, contentment and subtle, quiet, managable power,
Update,:
I found this quote in my notebook, the only one I wrote down, Beautiful.
"Heaven is longenduring and earth continues long, The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue this long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.
This is how they are able to continue and endure, "
“Nothingness cannot be defined the softest thing cannot be snapped, ” Bruce Lee
My favorite quote from Bruce Lee, thus far, stretches across this page, above, The quote has reminded me of the power of humility, and the deceptive and dichotomous nature of that power, Humility clothes itself in rags of weakness and frailty but draws superhuman strength, and the Tao Te Ching calls this an empty vessel being filled with another power.
Bruce Lee based much of his life and work on the Tao Te Ching, so I read it, I admire this amazing and deeply profound piece of religious literature, The philosophy coincides with my own faith, I hear echoes of teachings Ive heard in Christianity, The book teaches, as already mentioned, the power of humility, It teaches the value of things considered meaningless, such as empty space, We build houses, form rooms with four walls, but the basis of this structure lies upon the importance of the empty space, Empty space provides room to live, to breathe, to walk, to make love, to work,
The author also likens the paradox and there are many, sometimes frustrating paradoxes, confirming the understanding cant be grasped in one simple read to that of the empty space between the spokes of a wheel.
The power and mechanics of a wheel depend on the empty space,
Thus, we consider worthless things, abased things, as meaningless, We say we live life to the fullest when we have what we want, and when we lose it all, we have no meaning, no purpose, no life.
The book attempts to explain this, Balance. The YinYang. The point of the argument concludes with something underlying the whole of existence, One constant, the Tao. I like to think of this, in my personal paradigm of faith, as God, The book says Tao came before the existence of God, which I believe refers to mans interpretation or attempt to understand God, The Tao exists as the fundamental, underlying essence of the universe, Above the Tao, we have the evidence of “life,” the events, the good, the bad, acceptance, rejection, bliss, pain, heaven, hell, male, female you get it.
Under all these events we also have a soul, eternal and unchanging in nature,
The book changed my perspective, Ive recently divorced. As I experience grief, the thoughts come: life has no purpose now, Right now, in the present situation, Im in a low, one side of the YinYang, If I look back, and as Sarah Mclachlan says, “dont let life pass me by hold on to the memories,” I see the whole YinYang, the whole balance, the beauty, the essence of life itself.
I see a proud mother, her warm, soft hand holding mine as she says, “Lord, we come now to the throne of God, ” I see a shriveled woman with tubes in her nostrils taking final breaths and slurring the words, “My son, ” I see triumph as a child pitching a nohitting season of baseball, I see my mothers tears, and hear her weeping as we came home from my first attempt and fail at college because of partying.
I see a Father who loves me, and plays baseball with me, fishes with me, I see a father choking to hold back tears by my mothers casket, The high, the low. The wave. Up, down, up, down. I see a beautiful lady with seablue eyes lying on my chest of happiness, I see a house Im leaving as I gather my last things, and a babydog Ill never see again, crying upstairs because Daddys going away and he knows I wont return to walk him again.
See it all, See life. See the beauty, the lesson, See the tenderness of a mother deer licking her baby, See the lion chasing and biting the bleeding neck of her prey, See it all. This is life. The wonder, the blessing. Life. We live. We experience. The experiences only flow through a constant medium, us, I believe we exist in a timeless place called soul, and this place holds it all, the good and bad, in memories, We extend from the underlying Principle, the “Tao,” or some call it the Universe, some God, I believe this God has a face and He wants to be seen,
The author points out the paradox of softness, He refers to women as feminine, or weak, but then turns to say weakness stands stronger than strength, because strength depends on the weakness, as the walls depend on the space for meaning.
He says maturity is the end, the death, and Tao has no place with this, When we master something, it ends, A fullgrown tree has only to be fullgrown, and eventually wither, A new tree has begun to grow, and has a softness, and in this potential to grow, most of life abounds, because the process has just begun.
My end becomes a new beginning, always, so long as air feeds oxygen into my lungs and body, Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
The Tao Te Ching, also known by its pinyin romanization Dao De Jing, is a Chinese classic text traditionally credited to thethcentury BC sage Laozi.
The text's authorship, date of composition and date of compilation are debated, The oldest excavated portion dates back to the lateth century BC, but modern scholarship dates other parts of the text as having been writtenor at least compiledlater than the earliest portions of the Zhuangzi.
The Tao Te Ching, along with the Zhuangzi, is a fundamental text for both philosophical and religious Taoism,
It also strongly influenced other schools of Chinese philosophy and religion, including Legalism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, which was largely interpreted through the use of Taoist words and concepts when it was originally introduced to China.
Many Chinese artists, including poets, painters, calligraphers, and gardeners, have used the Tao Te Ching as a source of inspiration, Its influence has spread widely outside East Asia and it is among the most translated works in world literature,
The highest good is like water, Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive, It flows in places men reject and so is like, . . In action, watch the timing, No fight: No blame. Lao
Tzu
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز سوم ماه آگوست سالمیلادی
عنوان: استاد پیر: تائوته چینگ یا کتاب پیروی مستقیم از راه و روش هستی و حیات با راهنمائی درک درونی دل نویسنده: لائو تزو مترجم: مهدی ثریا نشر قوانیندرص موضوع نوشتارهای نویسندگان چین سده شش پیش از میلاد
عنوان: تائو ته چینگ نویسنده: لائو تزو مترجم: امیرحسن قائمی ویراستار ایوب کوشان تهران چاپ مترجمهادرص شابک
عنوان: تائو ته چینگ نویسنده: لائو تزو مترجم: فرشید قهرمانی تهران سیاه مشقدرص شابکچاپ دیگر تهران مثلثچاپ سومشابکچاپ چهارمپنجم و ششمهفتم و هشتمنهمیازدهمدوازدهمسیزدهم تا پانزدهمشابکموضوع راهنمای هنر زندگی از نویسندگان چینی سدهپیش از میلاد
مترجمهای دیگر آقایان: اردلان عطارپور محمدرضا چنگیز سید حسین نصر
این متن کهن را به لائو تزو یا لائو دزو نسبت داده اند لائو تزو ششصد سال پیش از میلاد مسیح و همزمان با کنفوسیوس میزیسته است لائو تزو همان مرشد پیر یا استاد هستند تاریخنگار و کتابدار دربار امپراطوری جو بوده اند و تنها همین کتاب از ایشان به یادگار مانده راهنمای هنر زندگی و خرد ناب است گفته اند: لائو تزو یک زندگی ساده و هماهنگ با طبیعت داشته اند که همان پیام تائو میباشد عمری دراز زیسته اند گویا بین یکصد و شصت تا دویست سال زیسته باشند, . .
نقل از متن: خوب همانند آب است بدون تلاش همه را سیراب میکند جمع شدن در گودها را کوچک نمیشمارد پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی هجری خورشیدی هجری خورشیدی ا, شربیانی I'm an unbeliever and have been since the first time I played hooky from Sunday services and the Eye in the Sky didnt say boo.
So it may seem strange that Im reviewing the Tao Te Ching, the widely known and influential Taoist text, written by LaoTzu and poetically translated in this edition by Stephen Mitchell.
For me, the Tao Te Ching is more folk wisdom than religious treatise and is more useful than a million sermons,
Where the Tao Te Ching parts company with religious attempts at morality such as theCommandments is in its inclusiveness.
Seven of theCommandments dont mention God and are sound advice designed to facilitate peaceful community relations: respect your elders, don't kill, don't cheat on your spouse, don't steal, don't tell lies, and don't lust after another's spouse or his belongings.
For me, the tragedy of the Great List is that the three that top it serve only to divide the world into believers and nonbelievers: regardless how closely you follow the last seven, if you dont believe in God youre not worth a fig.
In doing so the first three create division where the last seven seek harmony, With Taoism, even if you dont believe in the Forcelike nature of the Taoand in case theres any question, I dontyou can still consider yourself a Taoist.
Taoism seeks harmony by freeing the individual from the caustic effects of judgmental thinking, desire, and greed, and its fulcrum is the concept of “nonaction,” or literally “doing notdoing.
” Nonaction, Mitchell writes in his introduction, is not the act of doing nothing but instead is the purest form of action: “The game plays the game the poem writes the poem we cant tell the dancer from the dance.
”
This slim book is both a quick read and a long study, Mitchells lyrical rendering of the Tao Te Ching might read to some like silly hippie clichés, but theres more to it than that.
Take chapter, a photocopy of which hung on my office corkboard for years:
Fill your cup to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt,
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench,
Care about peoples approval and you will be their prisoner,
You can almost see the hacky sack and smell the patchouli, But theres a truth to it that, if grasped, will change the way you think,
As chapterstates: “The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao, /The name that can be named is not the eternal Name, ” Analogy, then, plays an important role in understanding the Tao Te Ching, and the reader has to do quite a bit of workthe long study partto fathom the books richness.
Take chapterin its entirety, where nonaction is discussed:
We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want,
We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable,
We work with being, but nonbeing is what we use,
There is more to the book than philosophical abstraction, In fact, common sense pervades the Tao Te Ching, Take these lines, which discuss the roots of crime: “If you overvalue possessions, people begin to steal” chapterand “If you dont trust the people you make them untrustworthy” chapter.
Or these, from chapter, which describe the toll of illusory thought:
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness,
When goodness is lost, there is morality,
When morality is lost, there is ritual,
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
The beginning of chaos,
Therefore the Master concerns himself with the depths and not the surface,
With the fruit and not the flower,
He has no will of his own,
He dwells in reality, and lets all illusions go,
Im telling you, had I been born into Taoism I might actually believe in something, .