lienshan
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Posts posted by lienshan
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瀟呵: [lol, (free laughter) and/or] spontaneously correcting and teaching
始萬物之宗: the first ancestor of the the 10,000 Things
始 to begin / the first ... the Mawangdui A version
佁 ????? .................... the Mawangdui B version
似 to seem ................. the Received versions
Both the Mawangdui A version and the Received versions are scolarly editted versions with a lot of changed characters expressing the editors interpretation/misinterpretation of the original text written in the pre-Qin classical chinese language. The outdated ancient character 佁 is probably the original character. What 佁 meant is indicated by the substitutional character in the chapter 52:
殆 to endanger / dangerous ... both in the Mawangdui A version and in the Received versions! ... That'll say:
The laughing sound of an abyss endangers the lineage of the Ten Thousand Things.
The laughing sound of the depth endangers someones existence.
The above reading of the character supports the connection between this chapter 4 and the trigram Water/Abyss
because the trigram is also named The Dangerous!
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I don't know whose child it is.
Oh Dear, you have been listening too much to Chidragon's modern newspaper chinese
The interrogative 誰 who / whose did in pre-Qin classical chinese always preceed the verb!
The verb of your sentence is 知 to know yet the order of his characters are 吾不知誰之子
The order of the ancient Mawangdui characters are 吾不知其 , 誰之子也象帝之先
I don't know him. Whose child is the ancestor of the physical Di?
The interrogative 誰 was only used in connection with human beings so put in my own words:
I don't know the author. Who invented the Shuo Gua nonsense, that "Di comes forth in Zhen"?
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I tend to agree with Spirit and Light.
See Yong-yun Lee's paper and comments on 神明
Laozi's take on 明 (light) was 光 (brightness) that'll say something that can be seen
It moderates its cheerful talk. (something that can be heard) (the echoes of the wind from the valley)
It releases its fragrance. (something tat can be smelled) (like e.g. sulfur springs in the valley)
It complements its brightness. (something that can be seen) (the physical sides of the valley)
It equalizes its dust. (something that can be felt) (the quakes forming the valley)
The last one refers to Shuo Gua §5 帝出乎震 Di comes forth in Zhen
Zhen is the trigram today known as Thunder but the character does actually mean Quake
Kan 坎 is today known as Water but the character does actually mean Pit / Hole / "valley"
The laughing sound of the depth started someones existence.
I do not know it; whose child is the ancestor of the physical Di?
誰之子 means Who is the child?
誰之子也 means Whose child is it?
象 means the outward appearance or expression of anything - especially weather, heavenly bodies, etc.
I've have chosen the word physical in my reading of the term 象帝
but I see the connection between the bodyless Tao in line 1 and Di with a heavenly body in the last line!
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If Tao is applied to the bathwater there will be no overflowing.
The laughing sound of an abyss started the lineage of the ten thousand things.
It moderates its cheerful talk.
It releases its fragrance.
It complements its brightness.
It equalizes its dust.
The laughing sound of the depth started someones existence.
I do not know whose child it is; the ancestor of the physical Di?
The spirit of the Mawangdui chapter four is hidden in the line 5
The line refers to the Ta Yi Sheng Shui term 神明 spirit and light
Light is a litteral translation and the scholars disagree with how to read the term?
Mind is my choice, but it's impossible to say what's complementary with a spirit?
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I've seen you mention the Shuo Gua quite a few times recently.
I wondered if you had thought the following line applies in any way to this chapter:
"The number 3 was assigned to heaven, 2 to earth, and from these came the (other) numbers."
Yes I have. I think that the first four lines of chapter 42 is a commentary to the Shuo Gua numbers,
while the line five is a commentary to the Yin-Yang position in the Ta Yi Sheng Shui cosmology,
and the line six is a commentary to Shui as meaning both the Yellow River and the Milky Way.
My reading tells me, that both the taoist paragraphs of Shuo Gua and the Ta Yi Sheng Shui cosmology
are composed by one single author!
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North peak = Cloud Terrace Peak
East peak = Facing Sun Peak
South peak = Landing Wild Goose Peak
West peak = Lotus Peak
Center peak = Jade Maiden Peak
The ancient cultus center 7 kilometers to the north of the five peaks Mount Hua has been exavacated.
The divination method used was named Lienshan (Mountains standing together).
It's put in short a binary shamanic practise which is at least 8.000 years old according to exavacations
of shamans burried with eight tortoise shells placed in circles instead of their heads.
North, East, South, West and center. Each have their own color and element.
Nine is an important number in Daoist magic. nine x nine = 81, another important number.
The nineth one is a around 340 BC HuangLao school invention described in §5 of Shuo Gua:
http://ctext.org/book-of-changes/shuo-gua 帝出乎震 Di comes forth in Zhen (Thunder)
Di comes also forth in the last line of the Tao Te Ching chapter four.
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Actually, a time or two I have considered "Chi" to be synonymous with "spirit".
It is extremely difficult, IMO, to speak of a non-thing. Yes, I know, people do it all the time.
Laozi, Zhuangzi and I have no problems with speaking of the Spirit
Laozi said that the Spirit of the valley never dies.
Zhuangzi talked about the pipes of Earth.
I say that my speaking is the sound of air pressed through the hole formed by my lips.
We are all three referring to the I Ching Shuo Gua §6 definition of the Spirit: 神也者妙萬物而為言者也
The Spirit is a single ten thousand things that has been speaking.
So when I peeped the next five characters of this chapter four:
淵 abyss
呵 laughing sound
佁 foolish
萬 ten thousand
物 things
then there was no doubt in my mind concerning what's the subject of this "bodyless Tao" chapter
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but I differ in that 'eternal' or 'eternity' never seems to be the usage of Heng in the most ancient texts.
It is much closer to the meaning of Ji as ultimate or fully expansive.
I buy your arguement and use the word infinity that is complementary with eternity (space-time):
It's a tao or to tao, it isn't the tao of the infinity.
It's a name or to name, it isn't the name of the infinity.
At the beginning of everything isn't a name!
The Mother of everything is a name!
Consequently:
The infinity isn't a desire, considering its singleness.
The infinity is a desire, considering her offsprings.
It's a pair of the same origin, different words with the same meaning.
They are the swing gates of the darkening darkness and the singleness of the multitude.
The reason why is, that a mother with her offsprings needs more space (not more time) than a single!
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I got it!!! Tao is my bubble bath soap!!!!
Your bubble bath soap has mass that'll say a body
and will therefore cause owerflowing when sunk in your bathtub bathwater!
The chapter 4 opening line tells that Tao has no body
and the other lines explore if the bodyless Tao can be considered the Spirit?
The Spirit is taboo to you so I'll spare you for a translation of the other lines
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Henricks' translation of that line reads:
"The Way is empty; Yet when you use it, you never need fill it again."
The Tao that can be spoken of isn't the empty Tao
Most of Laozi's opening lines are special syntaxes and this is no exception:
The exposure of an object that isn't the subject was done by placing the character in front
and repeating the character by a 之 placed behind the verb of the sentence. That'll say:
道沖而用之有弗盈也 is equal to 沖而用道有弗盈也
The character 而 meant If, when its position was behind the subject of the sentence.
The 也 character marks 有弗盈 as a subordinate then clause.
So when you sink Tao into your bathtub's bathwater there will be no overflowing,
because Tao isn't matter or mass ... which isn't equal to Tao being empty.
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We may have to realize that of all the cosmologies, Lao Zi offers no cosmology per se.
It is a summary without footnotes, except to look at the other cosmologies.
Laozi treated the cosmologies as the classical question: Which one came first; the egg or the hen?
I've put the egg stuff in bold and the hen stuff in italic bold:
It's a tao or to tao, it isn't the tao of the eternity.
It's a name or to name, it isn't the name of the eternity.
The beginning of everything has not a name!
The mother of everything has a name!
Consequently:
The eternity had not desire, considering its singleness.
The eternity had desire, considering her offsprings.
It's a pair of the same origin, different words with the same meaning.
They are the swing gates of the darkening of dark and the multitude of singles.
The terms 非恆道 and 非恆名 are difficult to translate into English without interpreting.
非 nomilized by rule in classical pre-Qin chinese the following character as a noun.
That'll say it isn't the eternal Tao and it isn't the eternal name are mistranslations,
because the following character 恆 is read as an adjective and not as a noun.
There are two grammatical correct possibilities:
it isn't the eternity and the Tao or it isn't the Tao of the eternity
it isn't the eternity and the name or it isn't the name of the eternity
The first ones are unproblematic while the latter ones demand, that the eternity and the Tao are complementary?
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And yes, the bathwater. I always drain mine out after I am finished with my bath.
But I have become a part of that bathwater after the bath is finished.
道沖而用之有弗盈也 (the Mawangdui line 1 of chapter 4)
If Tao is applied to the bathwater there will be no overflowing.
I'll spare you for the grammatical details
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But Tao gave birth to One. Y'all know that.
Tao gave birth to one.
One gave birth to two.
Two gave birth to three.
Three gave birth to everything.
Everything carry Yin on the shoulders and embrace Yang.
Bathwater and Qi are considered complementary.
An awake reader reads the last sentence as Laozi is making a distance to what he has written.
That was Laozi's way of telling the awake reader, that he is actually quoting somebody else!
People hate being orphaned, lonely, and unworthy.
Yet kings and nobles call themselves such.
And the two next lines indicate, that the opposite of what he has quoted is the fact, that'll say:
Tao didn't give birth to one.
One didn't give birth to two.
Two didn't give birth to three.
Three didn't give birth to everything.
Everything do not carry Yin on the shoulders and embrace Yang.
Bathwater and Qi are not complementary.
The problem is quite simple, that most readers read the Tao Te Ching straight as if it was a cookbook
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I wanted to focus on the point by FH: "Before there was Dao there was no separation."
If there is a 'time' when there is no Dao but only singularity, then 'eternal Dao' would be an oxymoron.
If there isn't a 'time' when there is no Dao but only singularity, then 'eternal Dao' would be a tautology.
That'll say 'saying the same thing twice' like for example 'darkening dark' and 'the multitude of singles'.
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It's a tao or to tao, it isn't the tao of the eternity.
It's a name or to name, it isn't the name of the eternity.
The beginning of everything has not a name.
The mother of everything has a name.
Consequently:
The eternity had not desire, considering its singleness.
The eternity had desire, considering her offsprings.
It's a pair of the same origin, different words with the same meaning.
They are the swing gates of the darkening dark and the multitude of singles.
眇 a one eyed man (the Mawangdui version of the character read as meaning single) -
That is why I wouldn't use 'eternal' as it conveys singularity on some level.
IMO, Dao emerges out of the singularity; the eternal, undifferentiated.
I've spent some time trying to find another word but the eternity is simply what's meant IMO (now).
妙 mysterious, subtle, wonderful, excellent, clever, ingeniousThe above character occurs in chapter 1 line 5 and can be read as meaning single, a point
I think that it's the most close to singularity found in Tao Te Ching defined as:
A point in space-time at which gravitational forces cause matter to have infinite density and infinitesimal volume,
and space and time to become infinitely distorted.
A point at which the derivative does not exist for a given function but every neighborhood of which contains points
for which the derivative exists. Also called singular point.
The character occurs in I Ching Shuo Gua §6 where The Spirit is defined as 神也者妙萬物而為言者也
The Spirit is a single ten thousand things but has been speaking.
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Do you mean there was a prior state when Dao does not exist or that in that prior state, there is simply no differentiation of Dao?
What flowing hands says is pure logic to me because there's no time in a singularity!
What Laozi says in the exavacated versions of chapter 1 is that "it isn't the eternity and Tao".
That'll say a term like "eternal Tao" is to say the same twice. That'll say Laozi's Tao isn't a singularity.
I do not believe in an unnaturally singularity and the socalled big bang was naturally caused by a collision.
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(1) How can we determine what kinds of human-nature interactions follow the Dao, and what kinds do not?
(2) Yet we are told in DDJ 63 and 64 to solve problems before they get big, or even before they even begin to exist.
There's no we but I in taoism.
There's no organisation to join. There's no membershipfee to pay. There's no leader to follow.
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The Big Bang,The matter/dark matter/dark energy, Heaven, Earth (the scientists)
The Great One, The Milky Way/Yellow River, Heaven, Earth (Ta Yi Sheng Shui)
Heaven, Earth, The Dao, The ten thousand Things (Flowing Hands/Li Erh)
Tao, heaven, earth, The Unifying Power (dynamictao)
There are in this thread four Great explanations of the four Great ones.
They do all have Heaven and Earth in common.
The "singularity" has four different names yet refer to the same "oneness".
But the fourth Great one (put in bold) seems to be very different at first sight?
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I was referring to the miss-translation of a King being one of the great powers in the universe, which obviously they are not.
There are tthree head components to consider when traslating this chapter:
The first is that one was unexpressed
The second is that 大 X means great X while X 大 means large X
The third is that nonsense means that the subject and the predicate are reversed = a rethorical question
天大地大 the large sky and the large ground ... read straight litterally with this alternative:
The great one of the sky is the great one of the ground.
The last one relates to "the remoteness"/"the Milky Way" and "the dam failure"/"the Yellow River"
that'll say to the duality of "Water" in the "The Great One gave birth to Water" cosmology.
The character is called Tao.
My powerful one becomes a name called a great one.
The great one is called a dam failure.
The dam failure is called a remoteness.
The remoteness is called a return.
The great one of the sky is the great one of the ground.
道大 Is the great one Tao?
The large Tao ... is nonsense so this line must be a rethorical question!
王亦大 Likewise the great one is the King?
The King is also large ... is too nonsense so this line is too a rethorical querstion!
域中有四大而王居一焉 The empire has four great ones and the King is one of them.
人法地 Is the ground the attraction of the men?
Men attract the ground ... is nonsense so this line must be a rethorical question!
地法天 Is the sky the attraction of the ground?
The ground attracts the sky ... is nonsense so this line must too be a rethorical question!
天法道 Is Tao the attraction of the sky?
The sky attracts Tao ... is nonsense so this line must too be a rethorical question!
道法自然 Tao attracts itself.
I read/translate the text as if Tao was the only one to Laozi expressed in these two lines:
My powerful one becomes a name called a great one.
Tao attracts itself.
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But yeah, I would still prefer it read "the Ten Thousand Things" instead of "king" though
as this would make it compatible with other chapters that speak to the Tao giving birth (the processes; Tzujan) to all things.
The taoist school was in the second half of the fourth century BC divided into two fractions:
The majority fraction, headed by Shen Dao, claimed that the Tao could give birth to something
which obeys the law of gravitiation (even a clod of earth can't miss the Tao) (the objective Tao).
The minority fraction, headed by Laozi, claimed that Tao could not give birth to something
which obeys the law of gravitiation (Tao must be experienced through Te) (subjective Tao).
The philosophy of majority fraction is pure opportunism; everyting benefitting can be incorporated.
The Tao Te Ching is therefore incorporated; but with an editorial hand making the text pleaseing.
This has created a 2000 years old taoist tradition ... until the exavacation of the Guodian texts ...
Almost all taoists stick to the Received version because they actually prefer Shen Dao's taoism!
Laozi would probably have been banned from this nonsecteric forum within 24 hours
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You got too technical for me. Hehehe.
But then, I have never considered a king to be a great one. I also have problems with some presidents.
Okey
less technical:Everything that can be named "a great one" must obey the law of gravitiation.
That'll say the kings/men, the presidents/women, the heaven/sky, the earth/ground and the ten thousand things.
But Tao doesn't obey the law of gravitiation and can therefore not be called "a great one".
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I actually agree with Flowing Hands here. Then we would have: Tao, Heaven, Earth and The Ten Thousand Things (not just the king or man).
I disagree, because I read/translate the lines 5 and 6 of the exavacated versions this way:
The character is called Tao.
My powerful one becomes a name called a great one.
吾 my (is commonly possessive and occurs only in front of the word on which it depends)
強 powerful (one) (one was unexpressed in classical chinese)
為之 becomes (a standard verbal phrase expressing future)
名 a name
曰 called
大 a great (one) (one was unexpressed in classical chinese)
The character 吾 is omitted in the Received version!
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Line 16 is an editorial comment to line 15.
My take is, that line 16 is an editorial comment to both line 15 and line 17.
I read the two different Guodian orders (heaven3, earth2, Tao1, king0) and (man, ground, sky, Tao) as referring to:
天兩地而 The heaven is 3. The earth is 2. (I Ching Shuo Gua §1)
數往者順知來者逆 One counts the past forewardly. One knows the future backwardly. (I Ching Shuo Gua §3)
The two orders are in all later versions (Tao, heaven, earth, king) and (man, ground, sky, Tao)
Maybe because those transmitting the text couldn't understand the first order and therefore changed it?
[TTC Study] Chapter 4 of the Tao Teh Ching
in Daodejing
Posted
http://www2.unipr.it/~deyoung/I_Ching_Wilhelm_Translation.html#51 hexagram 51 Zhen
The Judgement:
SHOCK brings success.
Shock comes-oh, oh!
Laughing words -ha, ha!
The shock terrifies for a hundred miles,
And he does not let fall the sacrificial spoon and chalice.
Nine at the beginning means:
Shock comes-oh, oh!
Then follow laughing words-ha, ha!
Good fortune