lienshan
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Posts posted by lienshan
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Personally, I don't see any reason to be mentioning the king because that mention is out of context with the rest of the chapter.
The reason why must be, that Laozi wanted us to read the first four as the titles (heaven, earth, Tao, king)
and the last four as physical names (man, ground, sky, Tao). The title king differs from the physical name,
but the titles heaven and earth are in chinese the same as their physical names. Only the context shows,
how to read and understand the character. Laozi's use of king/man indicates the context:
The heaven is a great one.
The earth is a great one.
Tao is a great one.
The king is also a great one.
The empire has four great ones and the king is one of them.
Is the ground the attraction of man?
Is the sky the attraction of the ground?
Is Tao the attraction of the sky?
Tao attracts zi-ran.
I think that the three nextlast lines are rethorical questions. I've inspired by dawei translated 灋 (fa)
as "attraction" because physical objects are ruled by the law of graviation!
zi-ran in the last line isn't a noun and the line is maybe therefore meant to be read straight?
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You do not see your own contradiction?
NO
But dawei's character looks very interesting. I checked how it was used in some other ancient texts,
and what we today name the law of gravitiation could be what the 灋 character referred to, that'll say:
Is the ground the attraction of men?
Is the sky the attraction of the ground?
Is Tao the attraction of the sky?
Is self-fulfilling the attraction of Tao?
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For some reason of which I'm unaware, there are some translators who take this as "the four greats, one of which is the king."
I don't see why they put it this way, as the characters seem to offer a beautiful and far more profound phrase:
You are translating/interpreting a later scholarly editted (made pleasing) version of chapter 25
I prefer to translate/interprete the original chapter 25
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But then, it could be a later addition for the purpose of being politically correct.
Personally, I don't see any reason to be mentioning the king because that mention is out of context with the rest of the chapter.
Laozi deals in the Guodian chapter 25 with four Shen Dao texts: the socalled Ta Yi Sheng Shui cosmology,
that wasn't included in the Zhouyi (I Ching) commentaries (the Ten Wings), and these three which were included:
http://ctext.org/book-of-changes/shuo-gua ( §1 §3 §6 are the Shen Dao texts; the others are confucian texts )
Laozi is critical to the heaven and the earth are established as singles; first the heaven and then the earth.
He pointes at the Zhou King, the Son of Heaven, as also being a great one like the earth is a great one,
because they are both born/established by the heaven, when following the Ta Yi Sheng Shui description.
But this is in conflict with the fact, that there were four with the title King, but three of them were ordinary men.
That'll say Laozi pointes at the Shen Dao paradox, that the Zhou king is both the Son of Heaven and a man.
The hidden pointe is ofcourse, that the Zhou king Xian paid Shen Dao for writing his Zhouyi commentaries.
The fourth last line of the chapter can be read both straight or as a rethorical question:
The man regulates the earth. or Is the earth the regulation of men?
The Guodian chapter 25 has another sequence (heaven-earth-Tao-king) than the later editted versions.
The Shuo Gua §3 says: Heaven 3 Earth 2 so the return means too to count backwards to the great 1
The hidden pointe is ofcourse, that Laozi considered the Zhou king as de facto being a great 0
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Man is not self-fulfilling, because we die if we do not drink.
But the heaven and the earth are, regarded as one unit, self-fulfilling,
because of the evaporation and rain cycle.
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The Guodian chapter 25
There is a description of disorderly completed antecedents.
The heaven and the earth were born peacefully as separate singles.
The establishing not transforming one may be regarded as the mother of the universe.
I do not yet know her name.
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 heaven is a great one.
The earth is a great one.
Tao is a great one.
The king is also a great one.
The empire has four great ones and the king is one of them.
Is the ground the attraction of the men?
Is the sky the attraction of the ground?
Is Tao the attraction of the sky?
Tao attracts itself.
The Zhou king was also great, because he had the title "Son of Heaven".
There were from 334 BC to 325 BC three more kings in the empire (Chu, Qi and Wei).
This dates the text and explains what is meant with the phrase "men" in the first rethorical question.
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One of the Worlds greatest cosmology science links is this one from my country: http://dark.nbi.ku.dk/
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So on one hand you have Taoist cosmology which explains Tao (emptiness) Wuji (0) Taichi (1) Yin/Yang (2) Three treasures (3) [jing,qi,shen], five elements (5) bagua (8) and then the 10,000 things (infinity).
The very first taoist cosmology prior to 312 BC was:
The Great One gave birth to the Water.
The return of the Water assisted the Great One,
because of that completing the heaven.
The heavenly return was a large assistence,
because of that completing the earth.
The return of the heaven and the earth was a mutual assistence,
because of that completing the spirits and the minds.
The return of the spirits and the minds was a mutual assistence,
because of that completing the yin and the yang.
And a contemporary taoist commentary was:
Tao gave birth to a first one.
The first one gave birth to a second one.
The second one gave birth to a third one.
The third one gave birth to everyone.
Everyone carry Yin on the shoulders and embrace Yang.
Bathwater and Qi are considered complementary.
The last line refers to the term "Water" in the first line of the cosmology:
To the ancient Zhou belief was the Milky Way “Tian Ho” the celestial counterpart of "Ho" the Yellow River.
You'll probably remember this post the next time you order a glas of water at McDonalds ... Cheers
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When do you date the TYSS?
SO not sure what is unexpressed in pre-Qin?
Ta Yi Sheng Shui is invented 342-324 BC while Shen Dao was teacher at the Jixia Academy during the reign of king Xuan. Shen Dao was simultaneously engaged to write commentaries to the Book of Changes by the Zhou king Xian (368-321 BC). The Guodian Ta Yi Sheng Shui text is Laozi's commentary to Shen Dao's cosmology. Line three is the proof; it's sarcastic!
What's unexpressed is "The great one is called a dam failure." that'll say the "one" in the Tao Te Ching chapter 25.
All translators but LaFargue seem to be unaware of this grammar rule and do only translate the adjective "great".
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Water does too occur (implicit) in the four last lines of chapter 25
FA : to regulate / a regulation / to rule / a lawThe right part of the character means: to get rid of and the left part means Water
Man regulates Earth
Earth regulates Heaven
Heaven regulates Tao
Tao regulates self-fulfilling
The alternative way of reading is to regard the four sentences as rethorical questions,
which was made by reverting the subject and the predicate of a sentence in classical chinese.
Is Earth the regulation of Man?
Is Heaven the regulation of Earth?
Is Tao the regulation of Heaven?
Is self-fulfilling the regulation of Tao?
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Tao follows what is natural.
Isn't Earth natural?
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The Great One gave birth to the water.
The return of the water assisted the Great One,
because of that completing the heaven.The great one is called a dam failure.
The dam failure is called a remoteness.
The remoteness is called a return.
("one" was unexpressed in pre-Qin classical chinese accoding to Pulleyblank)
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Where is the character from?
And that would negate the basic meaning of both texts;
潰 "a dam failure" is the character from Nina Correa's photographs of the Guodian bamboo slips.
折 "to break into two parts" is the Chinese Text Project's interpretation of the Guodian character.
筮 "to divine by yarrowstalks" is the character in both Mawangdui versions.
逝 "to depart / to die" is the character in the Received version.
I read the characters in the texts as is.
My eyes are ofcourse coloured by my own take on all these cosmologies.
They have all in common the problem of explaining the step from the Great One to the duality.
Oneness, Emptiness, Wholeness, Voidness etc. etc. are thus in my opinion bluff-words.
The duality of Tao and Te is enough to my understanding of what can't be explained.
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Well I suppose it depends on your reading; to paraphrase in English
The chinese characters are 不許
Richard Sears lists these possibilities: to promise / to approve / to permit / to praise / to commend / ( said of a young girl ) to be betrothed / to promise to marry / to expect / perhaps / maybe / ( said of a person's age ) about / a little more than / a place / a final particle / so / this / a Chinese family name
but Lao Tan would not promise (to marry the classics of Confucius to the library of Zhou). Thereupon ...
because he didn't knew them and that's why Confucius had to explain them.
That'll say the scene is two fathers arranging a marriage
I read/translate the chapter 5 passage this way:
Old Tan said: He is disorderly not continuosly to indulge in that.
He regards death and life as one string, what's to regard the admissible and the not admissible as one unit.
He could loosen his shackles and manacles if they are admissible?
Toeless said: Heaven punishes him. How are they admissible to loosen?
The subject of the conversation is in my way of reading this Analects text:
The Master said, "A sage it is not mine to see; could I see a man of real talent and virtue, that would satisfy me." The Master said, "A good man it is not mine to see; could I see a man possessed of constancy, that would satisfy me. Having not and yet affecting to have, empty and yet affecting to be full, straitened and yet affecting to be at ease - it is difficult with such characteristics to have constancy."
Laozi's Tao Te Ching point of view is: Sages are not acting 聖人無為
Toeless's last sentence, pointing at the religeous aspect, might challenge Laozi's point of view?
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He refused before he knew the quality?
While Old Tan is mentioned in the inner chapters of Chuang-tzu he is not identified as the author of the Lao-tzu (a book the author of the inner chapters was probably unaware of and never references) and is a relatively minor character.
When I read this inner chapter 5 passage:
Lao Dan said:
"Why not straighten him out by showing him how life and death are linked on a single branch,and how approval and disapproval are linked on a single thread?"
then I spontanously think of the Tao Te Ching chapters 50 and 2
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You have already described the age of the library story in your first post.
What struck me reading them again was this. In the passages Old Tan seems far closer to the philosophy found in the inner chapters of the Chuang-tzu than that found in the Lao-tzu. So much so that rather than seeing these stories as fictional conversations between the author of the Lao-tzu and Confucius it is far more profitable to see them as fictional conversations between the author of the inner chapters of the Chuang-tzu and Confucius.
It's much more interesting to see, how you read "... Old Tan refused. Thereupon..." from the author of the inner chapters point of view? Why was Confucius not allowed to deposit his classics in the Zhou library?
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It should also be realized that the Guodian bundles included many Confucian texts as well.
The teacher in the Guodian (8 km outside the Chu capitol Ying) tomb was burried together with his own private library. He had trained the royal children how to brush characters on bamboo slips. He had read aloud from philosophical bamboo books kept in the royal library in Ying and afterwards brought the written dictates to his home.
That's why we now know, that Laozi's original manuscripts, crafts, notes, etc. were kept in the royal library in Ying. The socalled Guodian Tao Te Ching is first hand copies, brushed by children learning how to brush, of parts of Laozi's writings before the Tao Te Ching was published.
A plausible reason why the manuscript was exactly there could be, that Laozi was a member of the royal family, a Chu prince, and was in charge of the royal library That's why I think that the beginnig of this Zhuangzi chapter 13 story might have a deeper meaning than A.C. Graham suggests:
Kong Zi went west to deposit some books into the library in the state of Zhou.
Zi Lu gave him this suggestion:
"It's fairly well known that the one in charge of receiving books at the library in Zhou was the librarian known as Lao Dan, but he's since retired and returned to his home. If you, Master, want to deposit books there, then you might consider asking him about how to do it."
Kong Zi said: "Good idea."
He went to see Lao Dan, but Lao Dan wasn't able to help.
That Laozi wasn't able to help is the pointe!
It was namely Shen Dao that had "deposited in the library of Zhou" by writing the Shuo Gua §1 in the Zhou Book of Changes, and Laozi had been against. The Zhuangzi chapter 3 story about Qin Shi mourning Lao Dan's death indicates, that Laozi withdraw from the Huang Lao School after the incident. And the last line of Zhuangzi's chapter 5 Toeless story tells the reason why!
But some of Laozi's writings must have circulated among other taoists before the Tao Te Ching was published. For example was Zhuangzi's chapter 7 "Yang Zi Ju asked Lao Dan" story impossible to write, if he hadn't read Laozi's chapters 17-18, which in the original Gudian version is one single text.
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One uses more ink when writng zero than one so zero must by logic be greater than one.
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The Great One gives birth to water is nothing but pure Huang Lao opportuneness!
The Zhou Kings worshipped Tian which easily could be defined as the Great One.
The Milky Way was their celestrial river complement to the earthly Yellow River. -
Shen Dao wrote §1 and number 1 was ofcourse the Great One.
That's why Heaven got the next odd number 3 and Earth the first even number 2.
He did too write §3 were the numbers are explained as counted backwards.
The numerology is counted backwards in the original Guodian version of chapter 25:
Heaven (3) is Great, Earth (2) is Great, Tao (1) is Great, and the King is also Great.
The later not that ancient versions have changed the order into:
Therefore the Dao is great. Heaven is great. Earth is great. The Ten Thousand Things are great.
The Great One gives birth to Water is in the Guodian chapter 25 described by one single character:
潰 which means a dam failure
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The ancients saw the world in a different way.
How they described it and perceived it is most important for us now, so we have real understanding.
They were simple and had little to distract them, unlike us today.
Watch out ... the most ancient sport in China is making things look more ancient than they really are:
From ancient times the composition of the sages!
The gloomy assistence is in the Spirits and the Minds then gives birth to the consultation of the yarrowstalks.
Heaven 3 Earth 2 then rely on the numbers.
Observe movements Yin Yang then establish fortune telling.
The manipulation of design is in the Hardness Softness then gives birth to the hexagrams.
The arrangement of harmony is in Tao Te then the logic is in the rigtheousness.
The lack of logic without disposition does arrive in an instruction.
My translation of Shuo Gua §1 (I Ching 8th wing) is kept in a very litteral mode in order to show,
that the chinese text is written in the 1100 BC language but contains 335 BC terms and phrases.
Scholars consider the text as the oldest layer of I Ching but:
The generous Zhou Emperor Xian (368-321 BC) wanted a scholarly commentary to the I Ching.
Shen Dao from the Huang Lao (taoist) School and a confucian from the Ru School were engaged.
Shen Dao wrote §1 and number 1 was ofcourse the Great One.
That's why Heaven got the next odd number 3 and Earth the first even number 2.
He did too write §3 were the numbers are explained as counted backwards.
I know I Ching as my own pocket and his numbering has no connection with anything in I Ching.
His agenda was to contruct a compromize between the Zhou TianDi belief and the Huang Lao taoism.
And he could afterwards refer to I Ching as the proof that the Huang Lao thoughts were very very ancient.
Tao bears 1, 1 bears 2, 2 bears 3, 3 bears everything have thus this numerologic meaning:
Tao bears the Great One
the Great One bears the Earth
the Earth bears the Heaven
the Heaven bears everything
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Welcome Hkalmi
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Sounds like the goings-on in the world of horse-racing....
It's actually a Confucius quote showing that such pleas haven't worked for more than 2500 years.
What works in the world of horse-racing is to say: who wins the next race?
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Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.
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"a spirit is oneness and everything but has spoken" was the contemporary definition of 神
I think, that Laozi knew this definition when he wrote this chapter 42 line:
Everything carries Yin on the shoulder and embraces Yang.
as a humorous commentary to:
The return of the spirits and the light was a mutual assistence,
because of that completing the yin and the yang.
laozi's duality: both, at the same time
in Daoist Textual Studies
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Man is not self-fulfilling, because we die if we do not drink.
That's a fact.
But it's not a fact that the earth and the heaven, regarded as one unit, are self-fulfilling?
So you are attacking my arguement from a wrong angle!