Taoist Texts

A lot of what has happened down there doesn't make sense.

I donno. To me its obvious that demographics is the key. 2 or 3 centuries of prosperous white rule have distorted the demographics: the prosperity made whites to stop procreating while th same prosperity created a black urban boom. As an inevitable consequence he former were overran by the latter. Simple.

The employer isn't. They can choose a white man over a black man. If they value the White man more then that's who will get the job.

Then the minimum wage has nothing to do with the employer's choice.

 As it stands, a minimum wage is a protectionist policy for white males/ females as it stops blacks/youths/low skilled undercutting them. Black, low skilled and youth are synonymous with each other which puts them at a distinct disadvantage. It could be said that minimum wage is actually racist.

/Black, low skilled and youth / has nothing to do with minimum wage. An employer who does not like such employees would not hire them at any wage. Sorry, Karl. Does not compute.

 The method would be to fix a minimum rate for an occupation or craft so high that no Native would be likely to be employed.”

 A minimum rate is color-blind. This does not make sense.

@karl - they really are on the rise

so are the Tornados

 

Bundeswehr: "Tornado"-Jets starten Einsatz über Syrien und dem Irak

I suspect the ghosts of 8th century Iberians would encourage learning from history.

¡Santiago y cierra, España!

I think that open-carry is more logical than concealed-carry.  We do not have open-carry in Florida but some folks are trying to get it legalized.

Texans remember the Alamo. You guys gotta remember the Luisiana Purchase or something.

You can't go attacking the Government officers, they are the guardians of the government narrative, they also have killing weapons as opposed to the innocent public gunned down in nightclubs, restaurants, offices and beach holidays.

Well things change. The public is gonna lose their innocence soon enough.

 

Texas Businesses Adapt To Open Carry Law : NPR

The truth is whatever they decide .... The West has become so convinced of its omnipotentence by narrative control that it is blind to external aggression. The West pretends flag waving, political consensus and tough talk is effective action. It's deluded and weak. Reality will run us down before we wake up from this self imposed dream state.

weak? gee i donno about that.

 

This is just in

 

 

Un homme a été tué par les policiers ce matin devant un commissariat du 18e arrondissement de Paris, alors qu'il tentait de pénétrer dans le bâtiment.

 

Selon une source policière, plusieurs témoins l'ont entendu crier «Allah akbar»

http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2016/01/07/97001-20160107FILWWW00148-un-homme-abattu-devant-un-commissariat-de-police-de-paris.php#xtor=AL-155-[twitter]

The problem is very nasty.

Do you propose a nice lovely solution?

 

 

Will 2017 see 10 millions then?

You see Shanlong while your anger is understandable, it is also a bit misplaced. First of all, people in charge of censorship everywhere hate Europe. Second of all, the population of Europe is 740 mln, even if the parasitic immigration reaches 100 mln in 5 years, it will only make the dole run out faster. Imagine, no job, no skills, no mate to procreate, no dole for the offspring, no dole at all and most importantly outnumbered 1 to 7 by the very angry aborigines. In historical terms it will be over sooner than you can say allahu akbar.

Was there anything the Mao-shan sorcerers were proven or reputed to do? 

reputed yes, proven no.

  Any sorcerers, shamans, wizards, giving the party a hard time?

You see they cut a deal. Mao Tse-tong commies rule by day , Mao-shan sorcerers rule by night. Scary!

What are the Chinese characters for his name? Can't watch this video on this side of the firewall, but maybe there's a copy on Baidu...

Chen Yiren/ Chan Yik Yan/ 陳亦人

 

The Lokhupbafa paradox is that while according to legend, it predates each of the internal arts of Tai Chi, BaGua and XingYi , it contains elements of all three.

http://www.moytaichi.org/lok-hup.html

Time has another opinion. Any claims can be checked practically, so I can wait until yours become something more solid then just pessimistic complain on everything.

Oh yes, would not it be nice if we could  keep doing what  we doing, till something better comes along?

 

Unfortunately the world does not work that way. You can wait for the time, but the time will not wait for you.

 

When you are in a hole, the first thing to do is not to watch others, to see if they can get out. The first thing to do is to stop digging.

Parts (3) and (4)

 

(3)and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.'

 

同其塵，There is no such set phrase, and塵(dust) is almost never used metaphorically so 塵 must be a scribal error. However there is a technical phrase与天下同其利《汉书 - Han Shu》 ‘to have the same purpose with the Underheaven’, which is the most likely reading here.

There is also a weak similarity to an analogy in The Book of Songs:

 

《诗经 - Book of Poetry》[Western Zhou (1046 BC - 771 BC)]

 

 

无将大车、祇自尘兮。

无思百忧、祇自疧兮。

Wu Jiang Da Che:      

Do not push forward a wagon; -

You will only raise the dust about yourself.

Do not think of all your anxieties; -

You will only make yourself ill.

无将大车:      

无将大车、维尘冥冥。

无思百忧、不出于熲。

Wu Jiang Da Che:      

Do not push forward a wagon; -

The dust will only blind you.

Do not think of all your anxieties; -

You will not emerge from imperfect views.

无将大车:      

无将大车、维尘雝兮。

无思百忧、祇自重兮。

Wu Jiang Da Che:      

Do not push forward a wagon; -

The dust will only becloud you.

Do not think of all your anxieties; -

You will only weigh yourself down.

 

But the issue remains moot.

 

是謂玄同。 ‘'the Mysterious Agreement' remains unexplained in DDJ but is explained in 《文子 - Wenzi》as 万物玄同 ‘a dark unity with all things’ i.e. with own people and the affairs of the state, also as something to do with self-cultivation 《下德》.

 

 

The part (4) is straightforward:

(4)(Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; beyond all consideration of nobility or meanness: - he is the noblest man under heaven.

故不可得而親，不可得而踈；不可得而利，不可得而害；不可得而貴，不可得而賤。故為天下貴。

 

The king who follows the instructions in DDJ56, and conducts internal cultivation accordingly will survive. What about the king who does not?

 

 

《韩诗外传 - Han Shi Wai Zhuan》《卷七》
[Western Han] 180 BC-120 BC

 

卫懿公之时、有臣曰弘演者、受命而使，未反，而狄人攻卫，于是懿公欲兴师迎之，其民皆曰：“君之所贵而有禄位者、鹤也，所爱者、宫人也，亦使鹤与宫人战，余安能战？”遂溃而皆去。

狄人至，攻懿公于荧泽，杀之，尽食其肉，独舍其肝。

弘演至，报使于肝，辞毕，呼天而号，哀止，曰：“若臣者、独死可耳。”

于是，遂自刳出腹实，内懿公之肝，乃死。

桓公闻之，曰：“卫之亡也，以无道，今有臣若此，不可不存。”

于是复立卫于楚丘。如弘演、可谓忠士矣，杀身以捷其君，非徒捷其君，又令卫之宗庙复立，祭祀不绝，可谓有大功矣。《诗》曰：“四方有羡，我独居忧，民莫不榖，我独不敢休。”

 

In Wei, during king Yi-gong’s rule, there was a minister named Hong-yan, who was sent on a mission and have not come back yet, when the Di barbarians attacked the kingdom of Wei.

 

When Yi-gong wanted to mobilize his army to counterattack them, all his people said: ‘Whom king valued were his nobility and the pet cranes in his park. Whom he loved were his court dames. Well, let the dames and the cranes fight for him, why should the rest of us fight?’ And they all run away accordingly.

 

The barbarians came, engaged the king Yi-gong by the lake Ying, killed him, and ate all his flesh, only throwing away his liver.

 

When the minister Hong returned, he went there, reported to the liver, and, handing back his mandate, cried to Heavens and wailed.

Then finishing his mourning he said: ‘Once a minister is left behind - he can die’.

Upon that he cut up his belly, put the king’s liver inside, and died.

 

Huan-gong, hearing about this said: ‘The kingdom of Wei was lost because there was no Dao, but now, with such a minister, it can not but survive’.

Accordingly, Wei was reinstated at Chuqiu.

 

Thus, the minister Hong could be called a loyal gentleman. Not only his killing self brought victory to his king, but also led to reestablishment of Wei’s ancestral temple, where the sacrifice continued uninterruptedly. Truly a great deed.《小雅 - Minor odes of the kingdom》say:

 

Distant far is my village,
And my dissatisfaction is great.
In other quarters there is ease,
And I dwell here alone and sorrowful.
Every body is going into retirement,
And I alone dare not seek rest.
The ordinances of Heaven are inexplicable,
But I will not dare to follow my friends and leave my post.

 

 Or consider Zhang Daoling or Wang Chongyang: do you really think people followed them because those Masters needed to survive and read DDJ as a "survival manual"?

Yes.

No sense.

No clue.

Part (2)

 

(2)He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness,

塞其兑，閉其門，挫其銳，解其分，和其光，

 

Note that the diversity of notation in different variants of DDJ means that by the time it was written down, the scribes did not understand the meaning exactly. To compensate for that they concatenated the phrases which they felt mean the same thing, hoping that the point will be somehow preserved by the redundancy.

 

Also note that 銳=兑. Therefore the first 3 phrases mean the same instruction: close your organs of sense. But how and for what end? DDJ does not explain that because it is a garbled text written down in a short-hand, by which time the meaning was almost forgotten in the milieu this text was circulating. Luckily, the meaning has been preserved by the ruists.

 

It is explained in Xunzi and a number of other texts. One example will suffice.

 

 

《荀子 - Xunzi》[Warring States (475 BC - 221 BC)]

 

故先王圣人为之不然：知夫为人主上者，不美不饰之不足以一民也，不富不厚之不足以管下也，不威不强之不足以禁暴胜悍也，故必将撞大钟，击鸣鼓，吹笙竽，弹琴瑟，以塞其耳；必将錭琢刻镂，黼黻文章，以塞其目；必将刍豢稻粱，五味芬芳，以塞其口。然后众人徒，备官职，渐庆赏，严刑罚，以戒其心.

The former kings and sages: by knowing they become the highest of men, so they never embellished themselves but were one with their people. That is why, they closed their ears to the sound of music instruments; blocked their eyes to decorations; blocked their mouths to rich foods and aromas. Therefore the multitudes followed them…

 

This is the gist of the 56: the kings had to be moderate, they had to engage in inner work (meditation) by blocking off the temptations, so their people follow them. Why do they kings needed to be followed and be one with their people? To survive physically. This is what the DDJ is all about, ultimately it is a manual on king’s personal survival.

 

Moving on to the last 2 phrases of part (2)…

 

解其分， means ‘to untie the fetters’ here 分 (紛) =縛. The metaphorical sense of it was preserved in ZZ:

 

解其桎梏 Lao Dan said, 'Why did you not simply lead him to see the unity of life and death, and that the admissible and inadmissible belong to one category, so freeing him from his fetters? 

 

While the literal format of解其縛 was preserved in Han Shu and elsewhere.

 

Finally,

 

和其光，here 光 does not mean some kind of inner light shining in meditation (which does not preclude it from being germane to the latter). It is a technical term meaning the glory of a king. Of course in archaic time the kings did literally radiate light in the eyes of their people. Preserved meaning:

 

《問神卷第五 - Asking About Shen》

 

為之而行，動之而光者，其德乎？或曰：「知德者鮮，何其光？」Those who handle affairs capably and display honor through their actions—do they not have de? The other said: Confucius said, "Those who recognize de are few." What about honor?

 

《孝至卷第十三 - The Priority of Filial Devotion》

 

堯、舜之道皇兮，夏、殷、周之道將兮，而以延其光兮。The dao of Yao and Shun was august!

 

The instruction to the king here is to dial down the glory he radiates. Naturally some introspection (inner work/meditation) was required for that on his part.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

So much for the part (2) of 56. Of course here I am stating the obvious, the simplest things other folks figured out long ago. They just kept mum about it. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

seriously? the only one in the western academic community who knows about thousands of comments to Laozi, contemporary texts and use them in the translation / explanation? I don't think it's true. Many people do that, as far as I know. What they publish is another story. 

Of course many people do that, they just keep vewy vewy quiet about it for some reason. May be the reason is that they do not exist?

 

Right, though it's obvious from DDJ itself.

You see it is so very obvious that i am the only one who put this into writing. To all the others it was so obvious that they never did that. They just winked at each other and moved on. Or may be they did not have a clue.

 

 

And next step of any serious research is to find such people and ask them how did they achieved Dao. 

Find for a fee. Ask for a fee. Then realize that if these ppl need fees - they achieved nothing. Or may be realize it before, not after being ripped off. Or may be not realize that at all. To every one his own.

There are three kinds of people who are interested in DDJ.

 

The first one are numerous visitors from outer space. The DDJ is written by the shamans for the shamans; it is a neidan manual; it is not comprehensible without paying a fee into an MLM teaching pyramid, etc. There is really no arguing with such folks.

 

The second one are honest amateurs who are trying to translate the DDJ without being informed by the huge contemporaneous literature. They substitute word for word using a basic dictionary, which does not include the technical language of that era. Sometime they get the gist of a passage right, most of the time they don’t.

 

Intriguingly, I am the only one (including the academic community), who translates DDJ by cross-referencing it to the received contemporaneous corpus.

 

So…

 

道德經:           56

 

The DDJ56 is a short essay in 4 parts (using Legge for initial bearings):

 

 

(1)He who knows (the Dao) does not (care to) speak (about it); he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it.

知者不言，言者不知。

 

(2)He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals (of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the complications of things; he will attemper his brightness,

塞其兑，閉其門，挫其銳，解其分，和其光，

 

 (3)and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others). This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.'

同其塵，是謂玄同。

 

(4)(Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is beyond all consideration of profit or injury; beyond all consideration of nobility or meanness: - he is the noblest man under heaven.

故不可得而親，不可得而踈；不可得而利，不可得而害；不可得而貴，不可得而賤。故為天下貴。

 

The part (1) 知者不言，言者不知 (the knowledgeable do not talk, the talkers do not know) sounds mysterious but only to those who are ignorant of ZZ and Kong-zi. It’s a simple and widely accepted in those times idea that speech is an inadequate tool for governing. There are better tools. Which ones exactly? They are specified in the rest of 56.

 

Two examples would suffice:

 

 

《庄子 - Zhuangzi》                        [Warring States] 350 BC-250 BC

 

世之所贵道者，书也，书不过语，语有贵也。语之所贵者，意也，意有所随。意之所随者，不可以言传也，而世因贵言传书。世虽贵之，我犹不足贵也，为其贵非其贵也。故视而可见者，形与色也；听而可闻者，名与声也。悲夫！世人以形色名声为足以得彼之情！夫形色名声果不足以得彼之情，则知者不言，言者不知，而世岂识之哉！

What the world thinks the most valuable exhibition of the Dao is to be found in books. But books are only a collection of words. Words have what is valuable in them - what is valuable in words is the ideas they convey. But those ideas are a sequence of something else - and what that something else is cannot be conveyed by words. ….The form and colour, the name and sound, are certainly not sufficient to convey its real nature; and so it is that 'the wise do not speak and those who do speak are not wise.'

 

《論語 - The Analects》, [spring and Autumn - Warring States] 480 BC-350 BC

 

子曰：「予欲無言。」子貢曰：「子如不言，則小子何述焉？」子曰：「天何言哉？四時行焉，百物生焉，天何言哉？」

The Master said, "I would prefer not speaking." Zi Gong said, "If you, Master, do not speak, what shall we, your disciples, have to record?" The Master said, "Does Heaven speak? The four seasons pursue their courses, and all things are continually being produced, but does Heaven say anything?"

It's a good point, that coming to this chapter with ideas about it being about meditation might skew the results of the translation. However, I think that's exactly what it's about...other translations that point to something else don't make sense,  

 

At the time it was written, Daoism and its schools and initiates didn't exist. The Confucian tradition did...Laozi was its own thing, though. People never really grasped it.

 

I realize that sitting empty meditation 

 

If by meditation you mean an inner work in general then your interpretation is correct. That work is not limited to sitting empty but includes it among other types of inner work. Also this inner work was conducted not only for personal betterment but for the purposes of governing the state.

 

Good work on the notes too.

I can read the Chinese myself... what does it matter what Wong says.

Excellent. So you are another non-Chinese who claims to know classical Chinese better than a highly educated native Chinese woman, who is an internationally acclaimed translator and a true Taoist. Such a claim is patently absurd, but then again you must be an initiated taoist too. You guys sell, live and breath absurdities. Good for you.

Why do you use an impish, gremlin-like manner in these discussions?

Because this old ronin is amused by absurdities. Please take no offence, its all in good fun.

Whatever the reality of the situation discussed here may be, I have no idea. However, the written Chinese is very clear: according to the text (I believe it's Zhongli Quan speaking here), ghost immortals are not in the circle of rebirth-redeath.

 

Taoist Texts is free to disagree with the text, but to blithely misinterpret it to fit his/her beliefs is strange behavior.  

Hi Walker;)

 

What about Eva Wong's translation of this bit? Wong is Wrong?

 

hehe;)

I hope we are still talking about immortal ghosts and haven't digressed to talking about mortal men.

Ah you see those two are actually one and same thing.

  Taoist Texts know that it's bad to lie.  

Like i always said these guys have no clue to a true tradition. No, I and Yamamoto do not know that it is bad to lie.

 

Yamamoto Jin'emon always said to his retainers, "Go ahead and gamble and lie. A person who will not tell you seven lies within a hundred yards is useless as a man. "

 

Hagakure | The Way of the Samurai  1716 | Yamamoto Tsunetomo

 

 

 

as usual, all "arguments" by TT in 1 silly  ... same lies. No probs. RIP 

RIP? Is this how the initiated daoists wish death on their opponents? Talk about the 'yin-beings in human bodies'.

 . Charlatans and liars. 

 

To continue about ghost immortals, we see the danger and we see those who tell us "it's ok, nothing to worry". Who to believe: charlatans or  

The insults and the rage is explained by the loss of an important sales tool.

 

They used this phrase about the terrible fate awaiting the ghost immortals to attack  all other schools and to drum up their seminar sales.

 

Now,  it is demonstrated that, due to their Chinese illiteracy, the phrase never meant anything scary, and a ghost immortal is just a regular ghost.

 

They can't use it anymore to attack; they are scared for their sales. Hence the insults and the rage. Sad really. But still ok, nothing to worry about.

 loose the main message as you and Eva Wong...

Hmm, let me get this straight. A non-Chinese somebody claims that he knows Chinese language better than a native Chinese woman. That native Chinese woman also happens to be a genuine Taoist, who published dozens of highly regarded translations.

 

And yet this non-Chinese guy claims that he knows her native language better than her. Strange. I dont really know whom to believe, but i think this has something to do with the sales link in his sig.