Taoist Canon

[wu wei dragon]

I would love to begin parting together a canon that has translated into English. How possable would this be?

 

Thanks for any advise.

[steve]

I would love to begin parting together a canon that has translated into English. How possable would this be?

 

Thanks for any advise.

Are you speaking of your own translations or a compilation of existing translations?

[Pietro]

I would love to begin parting together a canon that has translated into English. How possable would this be?

 

Thanks for any advise.

 

Hmm, fairly impossible I would say.

 

Taoist canon isn't very easy to find. You find a book here and there. And most of the books are not translated, and in many case hard or impossible to translate.

 

The fact that an academic had a copy of one of the books, was enough to have him raise in high consideration in the Taiwan Taoist community (details in Taoist Master Chuang).

 

I think Pregadio (google) was working on some translations, or maybe coordinating the efforts. But generally are always limited and partial.

 

And also the canon reflects multiple moment in taoist history. Getting the books without the context is fairly useless. If you have this depth of interest you should look at the academic community which in great part is trying to do exactly that.

[Taiji Bum]

I think Thomas Cleary put together a small part of the canon in 4 volumes. But the whole Taoist canon is something like 2000 books and scrolls.

[Taoren]

The cannon is very vast. Matter of fact the current cannon is just a part of the original cannon, which much of the older cannon has been lost or no one is available to translate.

Speaking and reading Chinese is only the beginning, learning form a Taoist is another level to understanding most of the scripture and to learn the inner teachings from a Taoist that is qualified will teach you the secrets or immortal teaching is rare and getting more rare everyday.

The problem lies within the White Cloud, where all Orthodox Taoists come from. They are regimented and taught from the government, which many of their teachings are heresy to say the least. I feel bad for modern Taoists due to they will truly never know or experience true Taoism as it was meant to be experienced and practiced.

Your best bet would be singapore or Thailand to learn the old ways of Taoism. The scriptures in the cannon are only guides, they are pretty much useless if yoiu do not have someone to help you, matter of fact outside of most of the philosophy books within the cannon most are descriptions of ritual and cultivation practices, more or less notes not learning books.

 

There are many scriptures throughout the cannon that Orthadoxed Taoists deem important, but all Taoists, not minding which sect they are from will agree that the three most important are:

1. Tao Te Ching (not a translation - original with a teacher to explain it)

2. Qing Jing Jing

3. Tai Shang Gan Yin Pian

 

You will truly be enlightened if you are ever given the chance to learn the three main scriptures.

Edited September 6, 2008 by Taoren

[chuangzu]

Edited September 9, 2008 by chuangzu

[affenbrot]

[Riyue]

I would love to begin parting together a canon that has translated into English. How possable would this be?

 

Thanks for any advise.

here you can find some:

http://home.comcast.net/~taoistresource/doe_idx.htm

[Mak_Tin_Si]

I do have the full canon but I canont see how you can translate the FU too.....

[maximolevel]

[Mark Saltveit]

The cannon is very vast. Matter of fact the current cannon is just a part of the original cannon, which much of the older cannon has been lost or no one is available to translate.

 

A true Taoist cannon is rarely if ever fired, and then only with sadness and gravity. ;-)