Taoist Texts

乾坤定位，人物生焉。

Qian and Kun establish their positions (at creation of the world) so humans and things are born from there.

人物之生，亦来源于此炁。

at this birth of human and things also this qi originally comes.

 

 

I've heard some accounts of people flatlining for months even over a year.

 

It's quite a mystery why this phenomenon happens, has anyone got any insight on why this occurs?

 

Your basic instinct of procreation is a mechanism that rewards you with the feeling of pleasure when you obey its command to spill your sperm; on the other hand, when you try to resist this biological programming - it punishes you with the feeling of depression. Its an old biological carrot and stick, nothing more. Same with the feeling good when retaining initially, thats the carrot, because in these case you obey the command to accumulate a healthy sperm reserve for successful insemination.

So I've made the assumption that 勿 in this script meant 物.

defo;)

I ask for daoist criteria

I understand, thats a valid question with a disappointing answer: there is no such thing. There are no 'daoist criteria' as to who is a true daoist and who is a false one. There are two reasons for that:

A. 'daoism' is a western construct with no consensual definition

http://www.daoistcenter.org/daoist3.html

B. Any criticism historicaly levelled by some 'daoists' against 'other daoists' was not in a format of 'You are not a true daoist! - No, you are not! ' but was directed at methods or results rather than at schools, the schools themselves being posteriori notions of later outgroup historiographers, and not self-identifications by the former ingroups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingroups_and_outgroups

衜恆亡爲也 The Way is effortless;

侯王能支之 A ruler can lean on it,

而萬勿將自爲爲而欲作 And life will take care of itself;

將貞之以亡名之樸 Preserve purity with an unnamed piece of wood;

夫亦將智 If a man knows this,

智足以朿萬勿將自定 He knows enough to make life steady itself

you seem to ignore these 2 negations.

Thanks for the information. As I don't know, I would like to ask some questions:

Is it possible to say something about the features of a true school?

How to distinguish a false school?

There is no such thing as a false school. False is not definable, it is a subjective characterization.

many translators have simply misunderstood

all of them actually.

(from) 胎 foetus卵egg濕 moisture 化 transformed: 3 ways of being born into a living being.

also i goofed on this : 4 not 3

sure:

• birth from moisture (Sanskrit: Samsvedaja; Pali: Saṃsedaja; Chinese: 濕生; Standard Tibetan: Drod-skyes)—probably referring to the appearance of animals whose eggs are microscopic, like maggots appearing in rotting flesh;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C4%81ti_(Buddhism)

The chapter begins with a discussion of the grossest internal cycle, which is the recurrence of death, bardo and rebirth. In general, Buddhism asserts four manners of rebirth: from a womb, from an egg, from heat and moisture,

http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/e-books/published_books/kalachakra_initiation/pt2/kalachakra_initiation_04.html

Hi!

 

I am reading an Internal Alchemy Daoist Text and I have not been able to understand completely the meaning of the following sentence:

 

胎卵濕化, 眾生之形體, 皆輪迴囚禁之所也.

 

Mainly because of the first 4 characters. Although I know the meaning of each character (fetus, egg, moist and to transform), I do not understand the meaning of this 4 characters sentence. The other 2 sentences can be translated as: All forms of living beings are imprisoned by reincarnation.

 

Could you help me?

 

Thanks in advance,

Luciano.

Whether born by transformation from foetus, egg or moisture, all living beings....

(from) 胎 foetus卵egg濕 moisture 化 transformed: 3 ways of being born into a living being.

 

Those who focus on the infinite are well to be reminded it ever includes and depends upon the mundane.

In this yogi-ridden age, it is too readily assumed that ‘non-attachment’ is not only better than a full acceptance of earthly life, but that the ordinary man rejects it because it is too difficult; in other words, that the average human being is a failed saint. It is doubtful whether this is true. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings. If one could follow it to its psychological roots, one would, I believe, find that the main motive for ”non-attachment” is a desire to escape from the pain of living, and above all from love, which, sexual or non-sexual, is hard work. But it is not necessary here to argue whether the other-worldly or the humanistic ideal is ‘higher’.’ The point is that they are incompatible.

— George Orwell, Reflections on Gandhi

I am not sure the english word Saint will come close to meanings of 'immortal' as used in various ancient text.

A saint is one who has been recognized for having an exceptional degree of holiness. While the English term "saint" originated in Christianity, historians of religion now use the term "in a more general way to refer to the state of special holiness that many religions attribute to certain people,"^[1] with the Jewish Tzadik, the Islamic Mu'min, the Hindu rishi or guru, and the Buddhist arhat orbodhisattva also referred to as saints.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint

I will just add that it probably has a connection to shamanism and Wu (毉-reduced into 巫) and True man (眞-reduced into 真)

i like these goings-on for xian.

Cos the earthly sage dies eventually.

IMO the clue's in that word 'immortal'.

 

thats not bad for a top of the head explanation but stil could use more detail. You see xian 仙人 (which is translated as immortal) means a special kind of spiritual beings, who may or may not have been mortal at some point in time. Same with the sages 圣人 or 聖人, they might have been mortal or not, regardless of what happened to their physical bodies. Also TTC does not contain 仙人, only 聖人. On the other hand, Zhuangzi contains several appellations: an utter man至人a spiritual man 神人，a sage man 聖人; but no 仙人. In my translations i translate 仙人 as a saint, not an immortal, the latter being misleading.

The two are not the same,

How we know that they are not the same?

或命之或所屬

見素保樸 少私寡欲 Cherish simplicity, lessen selfishness and desire

 

That's what i've got so far. Not satisfied with anything i've come up with for the missing part.

所屬 is a combo meaning 'vassals, subordinates'

道德經19

《道德經》: 絕聖棄智，民利百倍；絕仁棄義，民復孝慈；絕巧棄利，盜賊無有。

此三者以為文不足。故令有所屬：見素抱樸，少私寡欲。

《老子河上公章句·還淳》: 絕聖棄智，民利百倍。絕仁棄義，民復孝慈。絕巧棄利，盜賊無有。此三者，以為文不足，故令有所屬。見素抱樸，少私寡欲。

《郭店·老子甲》: 絕智棄辯，民利百倍。絕巧棄利，盜賊亡有。絕偽棄慮，民復季子。三言以為文不足，或令之或乎屬。視素保樸，少私寡欲。

《馬王堆·老子甲道經》: 絕聲棄知，民利百負；絕仁棄義，民復畜茲；絕巧棄利，盜賊無有。此三言也，以為文未足。故令之有所屬：見素抱□□□□□。

《馬王堆·老子乙道經》: 絕聖棄知，而民利百倍；絕仁棄義，而民復孝茲；絕巧棄利，盜賊無有。此三言也，以為文未足。故令之有所屬：見素抱樸，少□而寡欲。

此三者，以為文不足，These three tactics make up for insufficiency of culture

故令有所屬。Therefore to make your vassals obedient

見素抱樸，少私寡欲。Observe your own simplicity, lessen your desires.

道德經46

《道德經》:

禍莫大於不知足；咎莫大於欲得。故知足之足，常足矣。

《老子河上公章句·儉欲》:

罪莫大於可欲。禍莫大於不知足，咎莫大於欲得。故知足之足，常足。

《郭店·老子甲》:

罪莫厚於甚欲，咎莫僉於欲得，禍莫大乎不知足。知足之為足，此恒足矣。

《馬王堆·老子甲德經》:

罪莫大於可欲；禍莫大於不知足。咎莫憯於欲得。□□□□□恆足矣。

《馬王堆·老子乙德經》:

罪莫大可欲禍□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□足矣。

《群書治要·德經》:

罪莫大於可欲，禍莫大於不知足，咎莫大於欲得，故知足之足，常足矣。

The idea is that when everything 僉that could have been desired and obtained IS obtained, then there is no other way further but downhill. Therefore:

A. that eventuality is the moment of greatest, inevitable danger.

B. One should stop before that point of no return is reached, that’s how one knows when to stop – before sufficiency is reached.

C. If stopping BEFORE sufficiency (obtaining everything obtainable) is optimal, then it follows that one should be ALWAYS in a stopping mode. (pun: sufficiency=stopping).

The variations of the first char. in diff. copies

http://ctext.org/text.pl?node=11610&if=en&show=parallel

are 有，所 ， 乎

to me that char. looks a lot more like suo than hu

a variation of the above.

As to the second char., this being a complicated char. on a meager bamboo slip, the scribe simplified it to the fullest retaining only the 2 base elements and discarding the top completely.

Note the retained middle roundel and the supporting vertical strokes.

"If" seems to be the operative word here;)

Can anyone explain to me why on the Guodian bamboo, the characters usually listed as "乎屬" (column 3 rows 11-12) do not seem to actually be those 2 characters...?

these 2?

Wow. Beautiful interpretation.

 

Do you write your own?

thanks, i do sometimes. its a thing of beauty to see how a bunch of characters decodes itself into a story that is both comprehensible and poetic.

《尋隱者不遇》

松下問童子
言師採藥去
只在此山中
雲深不知處

To gather herbs is the teacher gone

Said a lad under the pines

Somewhere he is in the mountains yon’

He told me with a sly smile.

I gazed at the clouds deep in the sky,

Then once more into the lad’s eyes,

There was the old teacher young again,

Under his new youthful guise.

As I said, I'm not about to take any kind of action that falls outside the accepted protocol, but were it left to me (purely hypothetical because it won't ever be), the moderation style would be more draconian, impersonal and immediate. Not because I have tyrannical tendencies but because I feel it's the most effective way to guarantee the best, and safest, in the spirit of Dawei's OP, experience for the largest number of guests/members.

Of course. Thats what every tyrant says: Its for the benefit of the people!

The tao that can be named is not the immortal tao.

 

It's all there

Thanks Woodcarver. I must be dense but what does that even mean? Whats a tao? Whats the connection beetwing naming and immortality? Why THE tao can not be named? Who says so? And why? What value did this statement add? In short, i dont understand this, seriously.

Perhaps this is germane to the concept of the first line:

 

The dialogue is between two unnamed speakers.

Can it be that a white horse is not a horse?

Advocate: It can.

Objector: How?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_a_white_horse_is_not_a_horse