lienshan

There were two standard phrases in pre-Qin classical chinese:

無 以 to not have whereby which

有 以 to have whereby which

The 也 characters in between in the Mawangdui version exclude to read the lines this way.

That'll say the desire occurs when observing the manifestations and doesn't occur when observing the mysteries.

I'm not familiar with the Han classical chinese, the language of the Received version, but reading your translation

I get the impression, that sages only observe the mysteries and everybody else only observe the manifestations?

07 故常無欲,

gù cháng wú yù ,

The sages of the past always maintained absence of desire

08 以觀其妙。

yĭ guān qí miào,

And so were able to observe 妙The Subtle Underlying Beauty (of life)

 

09 常有欲,

cháng yŏu yù,

“always, existing, desire”

Most people try to grasp it in the desire to possess it

10 以觀其徼。

yĭ guān qí jiăo.

Thereby only observing the surface (and names)

The two lines 5 and 6 are preceeded by the character 故 "therefore".

That'll say they are by logic the consequences of the lines 1 to 4 statements.

The grammatical structure of the lines 5 and 6 is in the Mawangdui version marked by two 也 ye characters:

常無欲 也 以觀其妙

常有欲 也 以觀其徼

The first three characters in the two lines are marked as a subject phrase to the verb 觀 "to observe".

That'll say the first three characters describe a person who is observing either mysteries or manifestations.

Can you show me the character for cang?

亡

I remembered wrong; the character is named wang and not cang

I didn't see that you quoted a translation and I'm pleased to see your own translation of the Received version

Line 4 is no problem:

有名萬物之母。

yŏu míng wàn wù zhī mŭ.

There is the name the mother of everything.

有 yŏu preceeding a sentence, as in chapter 25, means There is / There was

無 wú preceeding line 4 is therefore meant to be read as There isn't / There wasn't

Laozi wrote Tao Te Ching while the negotiation character wú became popular replacing cang.

That's why there are two versions of chapter 64 in the Guodian version; one with cang wei and one with wu wei.

wu meaning "There isn't" became not a standard, but there was still no standard, when Laozi wrote his chapter 1.

無名天地之始

wú míng tiān dì zhī shĭ,

There isn't the name the beginning of heaven and earth.

Is tao both "the beginning of heaven and earth" and "the mother of everything"?

If so then tao isn't a name and is a name. That's how I understand his pointe!

Nonetheless, I think there may be enough poetic flexibility when looking at those 6 words to give it the feel of a noun while using it as a verb, though that is up to the perception of the reader and it would still lead to the same overall meaning as when it's a verb.

I've had no objection, if we were talking the Received version, but your translation of the lines 3 and 4 is of the Mawangdui version, because you in line 3 use the original term "myriad things" instead of the later editted term "heaven and earth"

Wu names the beginning of the myriad things;

Yu names the mother of the myriad things.

The shi (to begin) character followed by an ye character was pre-Qin equal to the timephase: at the beginning

Your translation is therefore incorrect.

Nobody are naming at the beginning.

Everybody are naming Mum.

mu followed by a ye character marks mu as a personal name; the personal name of a mother is Mum in english.

My english is bad, sorry, I can't produce a real translation, but the above indicates how I read Laozi's arguement.

the way of The Way.

The character ke (maybe/or) did always mark the following character as a verb in pre-Qin classical chinese.

The first three characters of chapter 1 are: tao ke tao

That'll say the second tao must be read/translated as a verb and the way of The Way is a noun.

I have finally had enough of reading only translations of the Daodejing, fascinating though many of them are.

 

Can anyone recommend a book for learning Classical Chinese? English language please.

http://books.google.dk/books/about/Outline_of_Classical_Chinese_Grammar.html?id=viWF1UZqKC8C&redir_esc=y

The above is a MUST if you want to read e.g. the Guodian and the Mawangdui Tao Te Ching versions.

Pulleyblank is the one who knows best how the very important ye character was used grammatically in pre-Qin classical chinese. The ye character declined to be an exclamatory marker in Han-times but was earlier used in many ways. An example from the Mawangdui Tao Te Ching chapter one line one:

tao ke tao ye fei heng tao ye

Pulleyblank explains,that X ye fei Y ye was a standard formula meaning: it's X it isn't Y

Pulleyblank explains too, that ke (maybe/or) always marks the following character as being a verb!

The author wants to point out how limited human mind is

It's a walk or walking. It's not always a walk.

That's how I read and translate the opening line of the exavacated Mawangdui chapter one versions.

The author wants to point out that the character tao is both a noun and a verb!

who is really speaking the truth and which truth is that person speaking?

Tao, emptied and made useful, has not to be filled.

I read the truth of the above Mawangdui line 1 version this way:

Try model a lump of clay into a cup; the form makes the clay useful, because the clay is made empty.

you have never learned the Chinese the correct way

道沖而用之有弗盈也 is the oldest (Mawangdui version of chapter 4 line 1

You know modern Han-dynasty and foreward chinese, but are unable to read classical pre-Han chinese.

So I'll explain to you how to read the line above:

The 也 character signals in this case a subordinate verb clause; I show you with commas:

道 , 沖而用之 , 有弗盈

The main clause is simple: Tao, .... , has not to be filled.

The subordinate clause means: when emtied and being used

A few details:

用之 ... 之 after a verb 用 was in classical used to create an adverbial phrase; litteral translated 'made usefull'

有弗盈 ... the negative 弗 marks 盈 as an objective verb; litteral translated 'has not its filling'

The 'its' comes from an by regular rule omitted 之 character after the negative 弗

This will be my last response to any of your translations.

The character occurs in the Guodian Tao Te Ching version of chapter 45 where Laozi made a lot of contrasts;

that'll say the character 盈 in pre-Qin classical chinese meant the opposite of the character 沖

沖 meant according to Nina Correa: rinse with water, make empty (that which is constantly being emptied)

盈 should thus have meant: make full (that which is constantly being filled)

What reconciles yin and yang in Taoism is everything!

Laozi wrote in chapter 42:

Everything carries yin on the back and embraces yang.

That'll say the trinity of everything, yin and yang.

That'll say Laozi rejected the yin and yang theory with a simple oneliner!

Let's try to challenge his arguement with this oneliner:

Nothing carries yin on the back and embraces yang.

What reconciles yin and yang of nothing?

It does have some disadvantages:

1. It is confusing.

That the translations of Tao Te Ching into english are confusing is a disadvantage.

The Guodian Tao Te Ching version copied before 312 BC in the original classical chinese isn't confusing!

It isn't the text that is confusing ... it is the translators who are confused

It's a great adventure living here in the origin of Taoism.

You're according to your profile living in Beijing

Taoism originated in the modern Hubei province 650 miles/1000 kilometers to the south of Beijing

It's the same if I living here in Copenhagen said:

that it's a great adventure living here in the origin of the french revolution

But what is a good foundation?

A pair of shoes

Probably too dualistic an answer to most onenessfreaks in here

There are so many masters here.

 

All we need to do to actually recognize them

is to emulate their total absence of self-absorbed importance,

and they will appear to us in all their simple, profound glory.

How many masters are needed to make a forum awesome

Then why limit it to Germans? I've heard US and English tourists being widely unpopular.

We do not limit to Germans! We limit to whole Western Culture:

The beauty of Tao Bums to me is that it encourages people to take part in that practice, and to begin to find the words that I am convinced will one day transform our Western culture.

Just don't believe everything that you read

Esspecially not this blind old man's socalled 'native (yellowskinned) Tao Te Ching translation'

Before we get carried away. Let me clarify something. What I mean by 'negative sense in every aspect' was how LaoTze view things.

 

2. He puts emphasis on "Wu Wei" rather than its complement "You Wei". "You Wei" is the doing and the Wu Wei is the not doing.

Your "You Wei" is not Laozi's complement to "Wu Wei" according to this chapter 48 passage:

損之又損 以至於無為

無為而無不為

They decrease and decrease, until they reach the point where they do nothing at all.

They do nothing, yet there is nothing left undone. (Henricks)

Laozi's complement to "Wu Wei" (無為) is "Wu Bu Wei" (無不為)

I can't quite follow the quote from Ta Yi Sheng Shui- duty sounds Confucian, but I have no idea what's being expressed in these lines. Does it really translate "not boned"? Help, can you clarify this translation?

It's brushed on the slips 10-12 in this link: http://www.tao-te-king.org/taiyi_shengshui.htm

That translator prefers 'task' to 'duty' and 'suffers no harm' to 'not boned'.

What's expressed in these lines is very early 'pre-Laozi' taoism!

On wu wei, I like the monk who when asked what he was doing, replied he was doing nothing.

When his questioner said that was idleness, the monk replied that if he were doing something,

that would be idleness.

The monk was conversating with the questioner and was thus doing something.

That's the problem with 'doing nothing': we are when living always doing something e.g. respirating.

I do often read Laozi as opposed to passages of the earliest known 'taoist' text Ta Yi Sheng Shui e.g.

Below the soil is similar to the word earth.

Above the air is similar to the word heaven.

Dao is also its character; Early Dawn is its name.

Why Dao follows what's duty surely rely on its name.

Therefore is the duty completed and itself prolonged.

That the sage follows duty does also rely on its name.

Therefore is the merit completed and himself not boned.

That'll say I understand wu wei as opposed to the duty of dao and the sage.

As I was reading this thread I was thinking "to me, Wu Wei is about being rather than doing"

then I saw the same comment from Cat.

Wei meant doing or being or activity or existence in classical pre-Qin chinese.

There were four different negatives used to define which one: Bu or Fu or Wu or Fei

Wu marks thus Wei as a subjective noun: "to have no activity".

(bu and fu marked verbs, wu and fei nouns, bu and wu subjective, fu and fei objective)

This very strange grammar dates back to the earliest development of the written chinese language:

The diviners used two negatives defining verbs or nouns, when writing their pronostiques on one side of the turtle plastrons, and they used two other negatives defining verbs or nouns, when writing what really did happen on the other side of the turtle plastrons.

WoW! I didn't realize that 'wu wei' was so complicated.

聖人無為故無敗也

無執故無失也

慎終若始則無敗事矣

Sages have no activity and therefore no errors.

They have no grip and therefore no losses.

Caution ends as well as begins a rule of the flawless office.

'wu wei' isn't complicated; the term means 'no activity'.

We know from the oldest Guodian Tao Te Ching, that Laozi originally wrote the term as 亡為 wang wei

There are two versions of chapter 64 in the Guodian Tao Te Ching. One with 亡為 and one with 無為

That'll say Laozi changed the term from wang wei into wu wei and rewrote the chapter 64 text.

This Guodian chapter 64C text passage is thus Laozi's own mature definition of the term:

聖人無為

故無敗也

無執

故無失也

慎終若始

則無敗事矣

Valley streams would of been better than Valley in 66.

I agree so lets try valleystreams here in this chapter.

A term like 'the spirit of vallystreams' makes no sense so a grammatical plausible solution is:

Valleystreams and spirits do not die.

This is called the mysterious femaleness.

That'll say Laozi points at a principle and not something specific.

That valleystreams are inside valleys and spirits are inside bodies might be what they have in common?

If so then the second last line of the chapter 綿綿若存 means:

The softness of softness is equal to being alive.