{"id":5261,"date":"2019-10-27T20:00:26","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T20:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/?p=5261"},"modified":"2019-10-28T16:56:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T16:56:14","slug":"lets-talk-some-more-about-the-tao","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/27\/lets-talk-some-more-about-the-tao\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s talk (some more) about the Tao"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
China Wind (Pixabay)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Tao Te Ching<\/h2>

1.<\/strong>\u00a0The things which from of old have got the One (the Tao)\u00a0are\u2013<\/p>

Heaven which by it is bright and pure;
Earth rendered thereby firm and sure;
Spirits with powers by it supplied;
Valleys kept full throughout their void
All creatures which through it do live
Princes and kings who from it get
The model which to all they give. All these are the results of the\u00a0One (Tao).<\/p>

2.<\/strong>\u00a0If heaven were not thus pure, it soon would\u00a0rend;
If earth were not thus sure, \u2018twould break and bend;
Without these powers, the spirits soon would fail;
If not so filled, the drought would parch each vale;
Without that life, creatures would pass away;
Princes and kings, without that moral sway,
However grand and high, would all decay.<\/p><\/blockquote>

3.<\/strong>\u00a0Thus it is that dignity finds its (firm) root in its\u00a0(previous) meanness, and what is lofty finds its stability in the lowness\u00a0(from which it rises). Hence princes and kings call themselves \u2018Orphans,\u2019\u00a0\u2018Men of small virtue,\u2019 and as \u2018Carriages without a nave.\u2019 Is not this\u00a0an acknowledgment that in their considering themselves mean they see the\u00a0foundation of their dignity? So it is that in the enumeration of the different\u00a0parts of a carriage we do not come on what makes it answer the ends of\u00a0a carriage. They do not wish to show themselves elegant-looking as jade,\u00a0but (prefer) to be coarse-looking as an (ordinary) stone. <\/p> Chapter 39<\/strong> <\/cite><\/blockquote>

There is, I think, something about the Tao that is quite appealing. But, the Tao Te Ching is more a book about wisdom (and ethics?) than about the things we have been thinking about.<\/p>

Let me ask you a question. Can a system of ethics (and\/or wisdom) be disconnected from its epistemological\/ontological\/cosmological underpinnings?<\/p>

I would say yes\u2013if you give up its claims to authority<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>

In other words, when the Tao Te Ching contains a proposition that you personally dislike, you are free to discount it, to ignore it, to skip it.<\/p>

1.\u00a0Not to value and employ men of superior ability is the\u00a0way to keep the people from rivalry among themselves; not to prize articles\u00a0which are difficult to procure is the way to keep them from becoming thieves;\u00a0not to show them what is likely to excite their desires is the way to keep\u00a0their minds from disorder.<\/p>

2.\u00a0Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government,\u00a0empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens\u00a0their bones.<\/p>

3.\u00a0He constantly (tries to) keep them without knowledge\u00a0and without desire, and where there are those who have knowledge, to keep\u00a0them from presuming to act (on it). When there is this abstinence from\u00a0action, good order is universal. <\/p> Chapter 3<\/strong> <\/cite><\/blockquote>

Hmmm\u2026<\/p>

But, let\u2019s be honest, there\u2019s still something strangely intriguing imbedded in there\u2013some inherent wisdom that\u2019s worth further investigation.<\/p>

I started my research by looking at a timeline of Chinese history<\/a>.<\/p>

Then, I went to Britannica.com<\/a>, and found that the Tao Te Ching first appeared in the 6th century, B.C. That would have been during the Zhou<\/em> dynasty (1045-256 B.C.<\/a>), which conquered the prior Shang <\/em>dynasty (1556-1046 B.C.<\/a>). Although much of ancient Chinese history seems to lapse into legend, it appears that the Shang dynasty was preceded by the Xia <\/a><\/em>dynasty<\/a> (2100-1600 B.C.<\/a>). I wondered, What were the beliefs of ancient Chinese people before the Tao Te Ching<\/em>?<\/p>

After much research, I found this<\/a>:<\/p>

\u201cLaozi doesn\u2019t invent the conception of \u2018Tao.\u2019 More than two thousand years before Laozi\u2019s Tao Teh Ching, \u2018Tao\u2019 appeared in I Ching (Yi Jing), the Book of Changes.\u201d<\/p> Xuan Weng, in \u201cBRIDGING CULTURES IN A THIRD SPACE: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF TEACHING CHINESE IN AMERICAN CHINESE SCHOOLS,\u201d Graduate School of the University of Maryland \u2013 College Park, 2010<\/cite><\/blockquote>

Further study finds this by Richard Wilhelm<\/a>: \u201cThe Book of Changes \u2014\u00a0I Ching<\/em>\u00a0in Chinese \u2014 is unquestionably one of the most important books in the world\u2019s literature.\u201d<\/p>

I don\u2019t profess to be as knowledgeable as Richard Wilhelm, but let\u2019s look into this a little bit more together.<\/p>

One site<\/a> says: \u201cWhen you consult the I Ching, you build up a hexagram line by line according to the results of coin tosses or one of the other methods, such as sorting yarrow sticks or pulling marbles from a bag. All the translations will tell you how this works \u2013 it\u2019s absurdly simple. And so you are pointed to a particular collection of texts \u2013 and, if one or more of your six lines is in the process of changing from solid to broken or vice versa, then there are also line texts to read, and the second hexagram that\u2019s formed after the lines have changed. A hexagram isn\u2019t just a convenient chapter heading \u2013 it\u2019s also a very simple, elegant picture of how the energy is flowing through the situation.\u201d<\/p>

Another site<\/a> says: \u201cA more modern method uses a series of coin tosses using three identical coins (copper pennies will work) with an identifiable heads and tails. In each case, the process is done six times, with each outcome producing one line of the hexagram.\u201d<\/p>

Hmmm\u2026<\/p>

Interestingly, though, we also find this<\/a>: \u201cCentered on yin and yang (and represented through the straight and broken lines in hexagrams), the\u00a0Yijing<\/em>\u00a0is one of the main sources of Chinese cosmology.\u201d<\/p>

And this<\/a>: \u201cThe texts that explain the meanings of the hexagrams describe the particular Cosmic Principles of Harmony associated with them. They set the standard by which we need to examine our ideas and beliefs regarding the hexagram subject.\u00a0\u201c<\/p>

So, it is not the 64 hexagrams<\/em> of the I Ching themselves but the texts<\/em>, and the various translations<\/em> of the texts associated with them that interpret them that we should be focusing on?<\/p>

\"\"
The 64 hexagrams of the I Ching<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

\u201cThe first hexagram is made up of six unbroken lines. These unbroken lines stand for the primal power, which is light-giving, active, strong, and of the spirit. The hexagram is consistently strong in character, and since it is without weakness, its essence is power or energy. Its image is heaven. Its energy is represented as unrestricted by any fixed conditions in space and is therefore conceived of as motion.\u201d<\/p> Richard Wilhelm Translation of text of I Ching, 1950 <\/cite><\/blockquote>

Hmmm\u2026<\/p>

I looked further, and found the 1899 translation by someone named James Legge<\/a>, which referred to the 3rd volume of the Sacred Books of the East <\/em>(\u201cShu King,\u201d\u201dShih King,\u201d and \u201cHsaio King\u201d) and some comments that he had made in the preface there. So, finding that book online<\/a>, I looked it up.<\/p>

This is what I found: \u201cThe version of the Sh\u00fb that appears in this volume is substantially the same as that in the third volume of my\u00a0large edition of the Chinese Classics, and which was published in 1865. I wrote out the whole afresh, however, having before me not only my own version, but the earlier translations of\u00a0P. Gaubil<\/a>\u00a0in French and\u00a0Dr. Medhurst<\/a>\u00a0in English. Frequent reference was made likewise to a larger apparatus of native commentaries than I had formerly used. Going to the text anew, after more than twelve years devoted mainly to the continuous study of the Chinese classics, I yet hardly discovered any errors which it was necessary to correct. A few verbal alterations were made to make the meaning clearer. Only in one case will a reader, familiar with the former version, be struck with any alteration in this. The Chinese character \u5e1d (T\u00ee), applied repeatedly to the ancient Y\u00e2o and Shun in the commencing books of the classic, and once in the 27th Book of the fifth Part, was there translated by \u2019emperor,\u2019 while it is left untranslated in the present volume, and its name transferred to the English text.<\/p>

Before adopting this change, I had considered whether I ought to translate\u00a0T\u00ee\u00a0in all other instances of its occurrence in the Sh\u00fb (and invariably in the Shih), and its intensified form\u00a0Shang T\u00ee\u00a0(\u4e0a\u5e1d), by our term \u2018God.\u2019 Gaubil rendered\u00a0T\u00ee\u00a0for the most part by \u2018le Seigneur,\u2019 and Shang\u00a0T\u00ee\u00a0by \u2018le Souverain Ma\u00eetre,\u2019 adding sometimes to these names T\u00ee and Shang T\u00ee in brackets. Medhurst translated T\u00ee by \u2018the Supreme,\u2019 and \u2018the Supreme Ruler,\u2019 and Shang T\u00ee by \u2018the Supreme Ruler.\u2019 More than twenty-five years ago I came to the conclusion that T\u00ee was the term corresponding in Chinese to our \u2018God,\u2019 and that Shang T\u00ee was the same, with the addition of Shang, equal to \u2018Supreme.\u2019 In this view I have never wavered, and I have rendered both the names by \u2018God\u2019 in all the volumes of the Chinese Classics thus far translated and published.\u201d<\/p>

What<\/em>?<\/p>

He continued: \u201d What made me pause before doing so in the present volume, was the consideration that the object of \u2018the Sacred Texts of the Religions of the East,\u2019 as I understand it, is to give translations of those texts without any colouring in the first place from the views of the\u00a0translators. Could it be that my own view of T\u00ee, as meaning God, had grown up in the heat of our controversies in China as to the proper characters to be used for the words God and Spirit, in translating the Sacred Scriptures? A reader, confronted everywhere by the word God, might be led to think more highly of the primitive religion of China than he ought to think. Should I leave the names T\u00ee and Shang T\u00ee untranslated? Or should I give for them, instead of God, the terms Ruler and Supreme Ruler? I could not see my way to adopt either of these courses.<\/p>

\u201cThe term Heaven (\u5929, pronounced Thien) is used everywhere in the Chinese Classics for the Supreme Power, ruling and governing all the affairs of men with an omnipotent and omniscient righteousness and goodness; and this vague term is constantly interchanged in the same paragraph, not to say the same sentence, with the personal names T\u00ee and Shang T\u00ee. Thien and T\u00ee in their written forms are perfectly distinct. Both of them were among the earliest characters, and enter, though not largely, as the phonetical element into other characters of later formation. According to the oldest Chinese dictionary, the\u00a0Shwo W\u0103n<\/a>\u00a0(A.D.\u00a0100), Thien is formed, \u2018by association of ideas,\u2019 from y\u00ee (\u4e00), \u2018one,\u2019 and t\u00e2 (\u5927) \u2018great,\u2019 meaning\u2014what is one and undivided, and great.\u00a0T\u00e2i Thung<\/a>, of our thirteenth century, in his remarkable dictionary, the\u00a0Li\u00fb Sh\u00fb K\u00fb<\/a>, explains the top line of it as indicating \u2018what is above,\u2019 so that the significance of the character is \u2018what is above and great.\u2019 In both these dictionaries T\u00ee (\u5e1d) is derived from \u4e04 or \u4ea0 (shang), \u2018above,\u2019 or \u2018what is above:\u2019 and they say that the whole character is of phonetical formation, in which I am not able to follow them;\u00a0but T\u00e2i Thung gives the following account of its meaning:\u2014\u2019T\u00ee is the honourable designation of lordship and rule,\u2019 adding, \u2018Therefore Heaven is called Shang T\u00ee; the five Elementary Powers are called the five T\u00ee; and the Son of Heaven\u2014that is, the Sovereign\u2014is called T\u00ee. Here then is the name Heaven, by which the idea of Supreme Power in the absolute is vaguely expressed; and when the Chinese would speak of it by a personal name, they use the terms T\u00ee and Shang T\u00ee;\u2014saying, I believe, what our early fathers did, when they began to use the word God. T\u00ee is the name which has been employed in China for this concept for fully 5000 years. Our word God fits naturally into every passage where the character occurs in the old Chinese Classics, save those to which I referred above on p. xxiii. It never became with the people a proper name like the Zeus of the Greeks. I can no more translate T\u00ee or Shang T\u00ee by any other word but God than I can translate\u00a0z<\/em>\u0103n (\u4eba) by anything else but man.\u201d<\/p>

Going back again to his notes on the I Ching, I found: \u201cThose who object to that term say that Shang Ti might be rendered by * Supreme Ruler\u2019 or \u2018Supreme Emperor,\u2019 or by \u2018Ruler (or Emperor) on high;\u2019 but when I examined the question, more than thirty years ago, with all possible interest and all the resources at my command, I came to the conclusions that Ti, on its first employment by the Chinese fathers, was intended to express the same concept which our fathers expressed by God, and that such has been its highest and proper application ever since. There would be little if any difference in the meaning conveyed to readers by \u2018Supreme Ruler\u2019 and God ;\u2019 but when I render Ti by God and Shang Ti by the Supreme God, or, for the sake of brevity, simply by God, I am translating, and not giving a private interpretation of my own. I do it not in the interests of controversy, but as the simple expression of what to me is truth ; and I am glad to know that a great majority of the Protestant missionaries in China use Tt and Shang TI as the nearest analogue for God.\u201d<\/p>

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>

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Tao Te Ching 1.\u00a0The things which from of old have got the One (the Tao)\u00a0are\u2013 Heaven which by it is bright and pure;Earth rendered thereby firm and sure;Spirits with powers by it supplied;Valleys kept full throughout their voidAll creatures which through it do livePrinces and kings who from it getThe model which to all they … Continue reading “Let’s talk (some more) about the Tao”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,31],"tags":[37,35,36,38],"class_list":["post-5261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-worldview","tag-china","tag-chinese","tag-religion","tag-shang-ti"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5261"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5549,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5261\/revisions\/5549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingaccuratelyeducation.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}