Taoist Texts
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This chapter is a logical chain of reasoning, albeit with unobvious logical connection between the links
治人事天莫若嗇。In governing people and serving heavens there is nothing like good harvesting
夫唯嗇，是謂早服；good harvesting means early victory 蚤服
早服謂之重積德；early victory means accumulation of De
重積德則無不克；accumulated De means invincibility
無不克則莫知其極；invincibility means no limit
莫知其極，可以有國；no limit means getting the country
有國之母，可以長久；getting the country’ mother means longevity
是謂深根固柢，longevity means deep roots strong base
長生久視之道。 deep roots strong base means Dao of long life eternal vision
To simplify it further
治人事天=>嗇/穑=>蚤服=>重積德=>無不克=>莫知其極=>有國=>有國之母=>長久=>深根固柢=>長生久視
General connection of ‘managing people, serving Heaven’ with invincibility, De and ‘having the state’ is broadly discussed in
[Han (206 BC - 220)]
少閒:
乃有商履代興。商履循禮法，以觀天子，天子不說，則嫌於死。成湯卒受天命，不忍天下粒食之民刈戮，不得以疾死，故乃放移夏桀，散亡其佐。乃遷姒姓于杞。發厥明德，順民天心嗇地，作物配天，制典慈民。咸合諸侯，作八政，命於總章。服禹功以脩舜緒，為副于天。粒食之民昭然明視，民明教，通于四海，海之外肅慎、北發、渠搜、氐、羌來服
When planning the sacrifices – observe Heaven, Heaven does not speak - catastrophe is suspected. Tang, the first ruler of the Shang dynasty received Heavenly mandate, would not tolerate the grain-eaters being exterminated…. displaced Jie of Xia* …deployed his spiritual De, settled the obedient people in harvest lands 穡地 according to Heaven’s heart, matched crops 作物 with Heaven’s will, … the grain-eaters (peasants) saw his spiritual eye 明視 on them …. to the four seas and beyond, all the barbarians submitted.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jie_of_Xia
Jie with a halberd, representing oppression, and sitting on two ladies-
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Watson's done a much better job of keeping it readable, if not necessarily always 100% accurate.
He he;) what does parable of the fishes say in his translation?
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well, since the inquiring minds want to know...
道德經12
《道德經》: 五色令人目盲；五音令人耳聾；五味令人口爽；馳騁田獵，令人心發狂；難得之貨，令人行妨。是以聖人為腹不為目，故去彼取此。
《老子河上公章句·檢欲》: 五色令人目盲；五音令人耳聾；五味令人口爽；馳騁畋獵，令人心發狂，難得之貨，令人行妨。是以聖人為腹，不為目，故去彼取此。
《馬王堆·老子甲道經》: 五色使人目明；馳騁田臘，使人□□□；難得之貨，使人之行方；五味使人之口爽；五音使人之耳聾。是以聲人之治也，為腹不□□，故去罷耳此。
《馬王堆·老子乙道經》: 色使人目盲；馳騁田臘，使人心發狂；難得之貨，○使人之行仿；五味使人之口爽；五音使人之耳□。是以聖人之治也，為腹而不為目，故去彼而取此。
This is a fairly straightforward passage but again with a specific meaning, forgotten by the time it was written down.
Luckily this meaning was preserved in just one locus
陛下以使者為腹心，而使者以從事為耳目
http://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E7%82%BA%E8%85%B9&page=2#n74907
the emperor makes his ambassadors into his belly and heart, and the ambassadors use their clerks as eyes and ears.
Whatever that means, it has something to do with the chain of command, whereas the decision makers and the informants are on separate rungs thereof.
So the meaning of the chapter is that the sages should be kept by the emperor or self-limit themselves to staying within the seat of the government, getting info from officials on the perimeter. Otherwise the sages will be as dazzled by the info as the sensory organs of the people in the preamble sentence, making the sages unable to govern effectively.
In other words sages should 去彼 stay away from what is far 取此 and keep to themselves. Qù bǐ qǔ cǐ appears to be a proverb describing a self evidently optimal behavior in those times.
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they seem to be 2 different individuals in the same generation, with the same surname
（1）李涵虚——周道山、吴天秩、李道山、李道育、银道源等；
（2）吴天秩——柯葆真、汪东亭、柯载书、李云岚、周俊夫等；银道源－－张义尚（1910－2000）
（3）柯葆真——柯兆平（子）、孙吉甫；汪东亭——魏尧（则之）、汪臻卿（子）、徐颂尧（海印子）、蔡潜谷等；
（4）魏尧——陈孟；徐颂尧——李仲强、陈宗涛、徐竹茂、施菊英、李廷光、胡澄阳等；蔡潜谷——陈毓照（天乐）、朱彩娟（天真）等；附录：徐颂尧－－李仲强－－吴君确－－马炳文（合阳）、马寿俊（谷阳）〔台湾一派〕
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yes, but only partially. You see, TTC is a practical manual and as such should contain instructions in a basic three part format
1. Premise/Problem 2 Instruction 3 Results. What you offer is a description, while i believe that there is an instruction in there.
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Why not just work the Received Version to avoid lots of misunderstanding, mistranslation,misinterpretation, misleading and arguments....???
'cause we really really like all of those
also... work is a four letter word
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with references to sex, femininity, immortality (the absurdity of), and of course Tao..
you had me at sex
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Ascribe it to the simplicity I've been cultivating, perhaps, but I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not...
I am genuinely laudatory and elated at your insight
Also I am sarcastic about all poor souls who held forth on the subject of valley spirits. What can you do thou? Elvis has left the building.
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Guodian
30
不谷以兵强於天下 Are without desire to wage war
57
我谷不谷而民自樸 I desire no desire and the people simplify themselves
46
咎莫僉唬谷㝵 No fault is more common than greed
The GD author, at least, very certainly used 谷 as desire
Excellent, excellent Dusty, that finally settles it. One mystery less, there is no valley spirit in TTC, there never have been, and 2500 years of cryptic vocabulary is owed to a simple misread. Brilliant.
I had 綿綿 as "continuous" -- where does 'guard' come from?
hmm i just noticed that ctext does not GD for ch. 6. By guard I meant 存
道德經6
《道德經》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。
《列子·天瑞》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地之根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。
《老子河上公章句·成象》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。
《馬王堆·老子甲道經》: 浴神□死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃□地之根。縣縣呵若存，用之不堇。
《馬王堆·老子乙道經》: 浴神不死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃天地之根。縣縣呵其若存，用之不堇。
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also in favor of neigong theory from a roughly contemporaneous text
容成公者，自稱黃帝師，見於周穆王，能善輔導之事。取精於玄牝，其要谷神不死，守生養氣者也。髮白更黑，齒落更生。事與老子同，亦云老子師也。
http://ctext.org/lie-xian-zhuan?searchu=%E7%8E%84%E7%89%9D#n285625
take semen send to the Dark Female wanting the gushen not to die
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浴神不死 The desire to be immortal [a god that does not die]
i would love 浴 or 谷 to be variants of 欲 but is it supported elswhere?
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Why instructive?What instruction?
to guard 'it' non-stop 綿綿若存，
Gu Shen is also in Liezi and Baopuzi... have you see these? I can send this as needed.
Liezi just quotes TTC so its not an independent source; could not find it in BPZ on ctext
http://ctext.org/baopuzi?searchu=%E8%B0%B7%E7%A5%9E
so yes please if you could
. This makes me think of the Central Scripture of Laozi...
me too, since they belong to same tradition but different strands of it since TTC nomenclature is not in Zhongjing
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道德經6
《道德經》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。 《列子·天瑞》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地之根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。
《老子河上公章句·成象》: 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。
《馬王堆·老子甲道經》: 浴神□死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃□地之根。縣縣呵若存，用之不堇。
《馬王堆·老子乙道經》: 浴神不死，是胃玄牝。玄牝之門，是胃天地之根。縣縣呵其若存，用之不堇。
This chapter is a mess on a completely different level from the rest of the TTC which is a fine mess in its own right. Almost none of its terminology is attested anywhere else besides TTC and is not repeated within TTC.
Its two lines are different in purpose. The first one appears to be definitive,
谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。
in the same format as formulas in other early texts like
三面之人不死，是謂大荒之野。(Shanhai jing)
… here is a three faced man who doesn’t die, he is called the savage of great wilderness
The second one seems to be instructive.
綿綿若存，用之不勤。
The first protagonist in the chapters is a ‘valley spirit’, which is not attested at all besides as in TTC, which makes it is a dismissible misunderstanding. The second variant, ‘a bathing spirit’ is not attested either, however there is a rare combo graphically similar to the latter
內官不過九御，外官不過九品，足以供給神祇而已，豈敢厭縱其耳目心腹以亂百度？.
《國語 - Guo Yu》 [Warring States (475 BC - 221 BC)]
to feed spirits 給神.
The first sentence then would be a short hand for: The place where the spirits are fed is called 玄牝 (a combo unique to TTC). However 玄 is an alias for Heaven 天
指海。 汉 扬雄 《太玄·饰》：“次五，下言如水，实以天牝。” 司马光 集注：“牝，谷也。天牝，谓海也。
http://www.zdic.net/c/9/3f/99771.htm
玄牝 is the same as 天牝 which is a sea, in this case a sea inside the human body as per
天牝從來，復得其往，氣出於腦，即不邪干。
..what comes from the Heavenly female send back again, let qi rise to the brain then no evil will interfere.
《黃帝內經 - Huangdi Neijing》《素問 - Suwen》
Further, this sea within the body precedes a location of 天地根 as in Wenzi
體本抱神，以遊天地之根 …embrace spirit within body, travel to the root…
http://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E5%A4%A9%E5%9C%B0%E4%B9%8B%E6%A0%B9#n58545
which must be some vestige of ancient cosmogony later relocated within the body.
The second part of the chapter is garbled and obviously cut short since there is no description of the results anticipated from the instructions in the chapter.
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So you say it is basically an energetic process?
Yes, and the end result, 'the root' is a state of pure eternal energy. Paradoxically this process is decribed as both 'most simple and easy' and 'the hardest thing possible'.
Great post. Timeconstraints, but reading your thoughts about how the senses are limited, I recall Chuang Tzu´s notion of listening to the tuneless tune, and this is seen as the way "home". However, beyond the senses, what is really "there"? My girlfriend lost her vision on one eye, and that made her aware that losing the sense of sight is also losing a part of the world.
h
I am very sorry for her loss and hope not to appear insensitive but this seems pertinent to the subject of return as well as Chuang Tzu you quoted:
Socrates's idea that reality is unavailable to those who use their senses is what puts him at odds with the common man, and with common sense. Socrates says that he who sees with his eyes is blind, and this idea is most famously captured in his allegory of the cave, and more explicitly in his description of the divided line. The allegory of the cave (beginsRepublic 7.514a) is a paradoxical analogy wherein Socrates argues that the invisible world is the most intelligible ("noeton") and that the visible world ("(h)oraton") is the least knowable, and the most obscure.
Democritus | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
... and that, in order to master his intellectual faculties, he blinded himself with burning glass-
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So, beyond the riddle, and beyond ideas, if we are allready That, how do we return to it?
Question: they say that each person has everything that he needs (for enlightenment) in sufficiency, then why do we need training?
Answer: if you don’t train your heart it will be like gold hidden in mineral ore, if the great melter puts it into a kiln, melts away the dirt, refines out the true thing, then it will become gold, if not it will remain ore. The practitioners also can stay in the state of ore if they keep dimness and pollution in their heart. But if they make their correct intent into the great melter, their saintly wisdom into the great carpenter, till not a hair of pollution left, this would be your initial unpolluted true heart. Once the true is complete it will not return into falsity anymore, protect it properly, guard it firmly, so it is self-sufficient and fit to use, which is a timeless, eternally bright, priceless gem.
(Wáng zhì-jǐn, 1177—1263, Yuan dynasty, first generation teacher of Quanzhen)
What part of alchemical practice are you pointing to?
The reason I inquire about this is that there is very little consistency about this very central point of the "root" (no pun intended), and the notion of "return".
The return is the true practice process; the root is the end result of that practice. It is defined variously as 'rising to Heaven', 'obtaining the yang spirit-body', 'the body in the mundane world, the heart in Heavens' etc.
In my experience, this is where all practices in Daoism point; the return, the root, the origin.
very true and consistently so.
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What does returning to the root, or origin mean for you guys?
h
It is a techinical formula in alchemy and is not possible or comprehensible without a successful practice of alchemy.
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Based on the Chinese linguistic structure, 谷神 means the "spirit of the valley". 谷(valley) is an adjective or modifier and 神(spirit) is the subject. 谷神 is one term with compound characters. They are not two entities. It should be interpreted as the "spirit of the Valley"
oh noes....!!!!
Prayers Against Spirits of the Valley † His Kingdom Prophecywww.hiskingdomprophecy.com/spirits-valley/May 7, 2011 - Prayers Against Spirits of the Valley are taken from Apostle John Eckhardt's book “Prayers that Rout Demons”
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Dear friends,
I have found another sentence that I am not quite sure about its meaning. Could you please help me?
渾淪無際
Thanks a lot,
Luciano.
Hunlun (the primal chaos) without borders
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Just be gentle with my Valley Spirit. I rest with her often.
Absolutely. No worries thats a totaly different spirit in a completely different valley i am talking about.
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Excellent! Well in the spirit of the season lets do the 'valley spirit' next, may be we can glean more from it.
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If, on the other hand, one just follows the Way and stops micromanaging, gods go out the window and everyone stops fighting. Virtue returns.
Thoughts?
Questions
who is that 'one'?
what is 'following the Way'?
what is 'the Way'?
and last but not least
"everyone stops fighting" . How so?
these are delicious tidbits;)
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What does it say, exactly, then?
TTC is a governing manual. Governing is always religious since there is no such thing as an atheist nation, a vociferous sliver of over-privileged libertines notwithstanding. Throughout the history any state was a theocracy: be it Aztek or Roman empires where the emperor was the head priest or a living god, or modern day UK sovereign appointing the head of the state church. Ancient China was a polytheistic theocracy, with many local and familial gods (manes) backed by powerful local clans vying to become state-level gods. Concurrently, in those axial times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_Age the humans were curiously terrified by an onslaught of foreign spirits which threatened to overran the human world, hence i.g.
Psalm 81:9 You shall have no foreign god ... - Bible Hub
You must never have a foreign god; you must not bow down before a false god. ... "Let there be no strange god among you; Nor shall you worship any foreign ...
Or
Thou shalt have no other gods before me - Wikipedia, the ...
“Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you
Or
《論衡 - Lunheng》
《解除》
貴人之出也，萬民並觀，填街滿巷，爭進在前。士卒驅之，則走而卻；士卒還去，即復其處；士卒立守，終日不離，僅能禁止。何則？欲在於觀，不為壹驅還也。使鬼神與生人同，有欲於宅中，猶萬民有欲於觀也，士卒驅逐，不久立守，則觀者不卻也。然則驅逐鬼者，不極一歲，鬼神不去。今驅逐之，終食之間，則舍之矣；舍之，鬼復還來，何以禁之？暴穀於庭，雞雀啄之，主人驅彈則走，縱之則來，不終日立守，雞雀不禁。使鬼神乎？不為驅逐去止。使鬼不神乎？與雞雀等，不常驅逐，不能禁也。
When a royalty exits into a city, the crowd of commoners rush to gawk at them, filling the alleys and the street. When the royal guards are quick to chase them away – they retreat; and when the guards return to the royal train – the crowds come back; but if the guards would only protect the perimeter in place then the crowds would never leave and they can only be made to stop at the perimeter but can not be made to go away. Why is that? Because the crowd’s desire is to gawk, not a desire to go back and forth.
Likewise, would the ghosts and spirits be on the same plane with the living people, would they have a desire to dwell among us, then the commoners would like to see them, and if the guard chases them away, and then stops to guard the perimeter then the gawkers would not retreat on their own.
So if the chasing out of ghosts would ever stop, then in less than a year the ghosts and spirits would crowd us and would never leave. Even if we chase them away and then stop for as short as a time for a meal – the spirits and ghosts would come back, so how to banish them?
Here is another example: if there is a patch of wheat in the yard, and birds flocked to peck it, then the owner rushes out and chases them away; when he leaves – they fly back in. And unless you guard your yard all day long – there is no banishing the birds.
Now lets take those ghosts that are gods. Those should not be chased away or stopped from coming. But those ghosts that are not gods should be treated like the pest birds. If we constantly do not chase them away there would be no banishing them.
Such was the historical backdrop against which the chapter 60 recommends to use the local ancestral sacrifices as a regulatory instrument based on following reasoning:
Governing of the state must be based on local sacrifices with each family sacrificing to its ancestors only and not elevating a ghost of an individual family to the state of a god. Why not? Because such a god would be a partisan of his clan, giving preference to it and hurting other people. Also the familial gods would fight among themselves (hurting each other), which in turn will imbalance the government of the sages causing it to inadvertently hurt people as well. All that is needed to prevent this havoc is to use the local sacrifices properly, resulting in profusion of beneficial De.
So, that’s what chpt 60 says in a simple and elegant pronouncement (as opposed to mind –boggling gibberish produced by the expert translators.) Small fish fry for everyone!
[TTC Study] Chapter 59 of the Tao Teh Ching
in Daodejing
Posted
thats actually pretty good because an early harvest of own crops would mean the ability to wage wars on the neighnours as was the wont of archaic agricultural societies.