Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - its is intangible.
These three are indefinable;
Therefore they are joined in one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
An unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
The form of the formless,
The image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.
Stand before it and there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the ancient Tao,
Move with the present.
Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.
The Ma wang tui text is markedly different, so I give it in full here:
We look at it but do not see it;
We name this 'the minute'.
We listen to it but do not hear it;
We name this 'the rarified'.
We touch it but do not hold it;
We name this 'the level and smooth'.
These three cannot be examined to the limit.
Thus they merge together as one.
'One' - there is nothing more encompassing above it
And nothing smaller below it.
Boundless, formless! It cannot be named
And returns to the state of no-thing.
This is called the formless form,
The substanceless image.
This is called the subtle and indistinct.
Follow it and you won't see its back;
Greet it and you won't see its head.
Hold onto the Way of the present
To manage the things of the present
And to know the ancient beginning.
This is called the beginning of the thread of the Way.
Importantly, as Henricks points out, 'the One' (i-che), which is missing in all later texts, is singled out for attention in line 9 and this line and the next in this version thus seem to say that this intangibility - this inconceivability and ineffability - is BOTH the all-encompassing nature of all-and-everything and its terminus post quem... which is to say in the ever-present 'now'.
Also, the standard Lao-tze text has 'Hold onto the way of the past' in line 18 (*). Here, what is being said is that - in this present instant - both the management of what is going on around one and knowledge of the ancient beginning are laid bare...
The idea that the roots of the past contain the seeds of the present is found also in the I Ching, in the Discussion on the Trigrams, and is - of course - an extremely sound idea. However, the idea expressed here is VERY closely related to the Buddhist notion of karma... If you want to know what you have done and believed, look at the quality of your life now - where you live, what opportunities are open to you, the quality of your life and your present set of beliefs. By the same token, if you wish to modify any of these, now is the only moment to change your way of acting and believing.
I've mentioned Whitehead's 'experientially initiated potentialities for experience' before: what you see is what *you* believe to be real because that is how you have come to believe reality to be.
The gorblimey example of this is those who have come through the Nazi deathcamps filled with a burning hatred and a desire fore revenge, those who simply want that period forgotten and be over and done with and get back to their 'ordinary' lives, and those for whom the experiences there have opened them up to varying degrees of compassion, love and understanding... Same 'reality'; different vision...
I'm also interested in the lack of conditional in the first clause of the Ma wang tui version. All other versions seem to say, as does Feng, 'Look - it cannot be seen'. The Ma wang tui, however, seems to say 'of course you see it - you just don't know what you're looking at'.
Also the lines about its having neither back nor front... The I Ching ends with the hexagrams After Completion and Before Completion, and I have always taken this (borne out, I think by the lines of both) to mean that, ordinarily, our attention-span is rather limited and tends to lose interest before things have properly dissolved and be too distracted to notice how they actually begin. The fact is, they begin and end in no-where - the Buddhist will tell you they also have their apparent being there too, but let's ignore that for the moment... Things arise out of and dissolve back into no-thing. If one doesn't actually follow them there, one never comes to really know this.
Wang's commentary (which I always select from, by the way - there's much of his interpretation I don't agree with)(I also find Linn's translation humourless in the extreme) says: It is shapeless, leaving no image, and soundless, leaving no reverberation. Thus it can permeate absolutely everything and reach absolutely everywhere. We cannot get to know it and even less know how to give it a name derived from how it looks, sounds or feels... One might wish to claim that it does not exist, but everything achieves existence because of it; and one may wish to affirm that it does exist, but we do not see a form.This is why the text refers to it as 'the shape of that which has no shape, the image of that which has no existence'...That which is free from form and nameless is the progenitor of the myriad things... remote antiquity may be far from us, but the Tao of then still exists now...
Cheng's commentary emphasises the unity of the three qualities of yi, hsi and wei. He explains:
Yi is 'to level, to eliminate' as if one were looking at a mountain but seeing a plain (*). Hsi means 'small'. Wei means 'obscure, wonderful'... What does 'the three qualities cannot be understood no matter how much you ask about them' mean?As chapter 41 says 'A great sound comes from a small noise. A great form has no shape Tao is hidden and nameless...' and thus unfathomable. 'Yet, when intermingled they form a unity', therefore the Sage makes this unity his touchstone or structure for understanding the world... 'Not bright... not dark' is to say 'yet, when intermingled they form a unity'. Formless and imageless, whetehr one wants to confront or follow it, it always remains unclear. In chapter 21 it says, 'Evanescent and elusive it is, yet there is a form contained within it. Yes, elusive and evanescent, yet there is a substance to it'.
(*) Cf., the image in the I Ching, hexagram 15, Ch'ien, Modesty.
He also reads the remaining phrases as referring to the union of these three qualities, equality and levelness, smallness and obscurity.
Friday, October 28, 2005
tao teh ching 13
Accept disgrace willingly.
Accept misfortune as the human condition.
What do you mean by 'Accept disgrace willingly'?
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with looss and gain.
This is called 'accepting disgrace willingly'.
What do you mean by 'Accept misfortune as the human condition'?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?
Surrendur yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things.
Both the Ma wang tui text and Lau read this singularly differently. I give Henricks's Ma wang tui in full:
'Regard favour and disgrace with alarm.'
'Respect great distress as you do your own person.'
What do I mean when I say 'Regard favour and disgrace with alarm'?
Favour is inferior.
If you get it - be alarmed!
If you lose it - be alarmed!
This is what I mean when I say 'Regard favour and disgrace with alarm'.
What do I mean when I say 'Respect great distress as you do your own person'?
The reason I have great distress
Is that I have a body.
If I had no body, what distress would I have?
Therefore, to one who values acting for himself over acting on behalf of the world,
You can entrust the world.
And to one who in being parsimonious regards his person as as equal to the world,
You can turn over the world.
Wang Pi is interesting here. Citing his commentary in part... "Favour and disgrace are equivalent and honour and calamity mean the same thing... Great calamity is associated with 'honour' and 'favour'. To place great emphasis on life is certainly to enter the land of death. This is why the text refers to self-importance as a 'great calamity'. When one confuses one's person - one's individual existence - with honour and favour this means one has exchanged it for them... It stems from being bound by one's own person, (and) when one reverst to the natural (what calamity could befall one?)... Only someone who refrains from harming his own person because of favour, disgrace, honour or calamity, and who would never exchange it for these things, may have l under heaven handed over and entrusted to him."
Cheng reads the second line as 'Treat great calamities as if they were happening to yourself,' and it's explanation a few lines later as 'I am able to feel great calamities because I have a sel./ If I have no self, what calamity is there?
His commentary on the verse is interesting too: 'Everything depends on whether one can regard onself as one would one's abdomen. Is not the effect of favour conferred from those above like the effect of the five colours, the five tones and the five flavours? If one takes oneself too seriously, in the end one will suffer from the harm inherent in these, and this is greatly to be avoided. On the other hand, if one can regard oneself as being as empty as one's abdomen - which then becomes filled with ch'i - then one can receive 'the advantage of what is there, and the utility of its vacancy'. In such a case, what calamity could there be? In other words - as in chapter 7 - '(one) considers oneself and outsider and yet finds oneself in the mainstream'.
The Dogen quote below pretty much sums up all of this, does it not? No need for me to chip in my ha'p'orth.
.-_-.
To study the Way means to study the self.
To study the self means to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove all barriers between oneself and others.
Dogen Zenji - Genjo Koan
Accept misfortune as the human condition.
What do you mean by 'Accept disgrace willingly'?
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with looss and gain.
This is called 'accepting disgrace willingly'.
What do you mean by 'Accept misfortune as the human condition'?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?
Surrendur yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things.
Both the Ma wang tui text and Lau read this singularly differently. I give Henricks's Ma wang tui in full:
'Regard favour and disgrace with alarm.'
'Respect great distress as you do your own person.'
What do I mean when I say 'Regard favour and disgrace with alarm'?
Favour is inferior.
If you get it - be alarmed!
If you lose it - be alarmed!
This is what I mean when I say 'Regard favour and disgrace with alarm'.
What do I mean when I say 'Respect great distress as you do your own person'?
The reason I have great distress
Is that I have a body.
If I had no body, what distress would I have?
Therefore, to one who values acting for himself over acting on behalf of the world,
You can entrust the world.
And to one who in being parsimonious regards his person as as equal to the world,
You can turn over the world.
Wang Pi is interesting here. Citing his commentary in part... "Favour and disgrace are equivalent and honour and calamity mean the same thing... Great calamity is associated with 'honour' and 'favour'. To place great emphasis on life is certainly to enter the land of death. This is why the text refers to self-importance as a 'great calamity'. When one confuses one's person - one's individual existence - with honour and favour this means one has exchanged it for them... It stems from being bound by one's own person, (and) when one reverst to the natural (what calamity could befall one?)... Only someone who refrains from harming his own person because of favour, disgrace, honour or calamity, and who would never exchange it for these things, may have l under heaven handed over and entrusted to him."
Cheng reads the second line as 'Treat great calamities as if they were happening to yourself,' and it's explanation a few lines later as 'I am able to feel great calamities because I have a sel./ If I have no self, what calamity is there?
His commentary on the verse is interesting too: 'Everything depends on whether one can regard onself as one would one's abdomen. Is not the effect of favour conferred from those above like the effect of the five colours, the five tones and the five flavours? If one takes oneself too seriously, in the end one will suffer from the harm inherent in these, and this is greatly to be avoided. On the other hand, if one can regard oneself as being as empty as one's abdomen - which then becomes filled with ch'i - then one can receive 'the advantage of what is there, and the utility of its vacancy'. In such a case, what calamity could there be? In other words - as in chapter 7 - '(one) considers oneself and outsider and yet finds oneself in the mainstream'.
The Dogen quote below pretty much sums up all of this, does it not? No need for me to chip in my ha'p'orth.
.-_-.
To study the Way means to study the self.
To study the self means to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things.
To be enlightened by all things is to remove all barriers between oneself and others.
Dogen Zenji - Genjo Koan
tao teh ching 12
The five colours blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavours dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees[1].
He lets go of that and chooses this.
[1] Most other texts (as we saw yesterday with Cheng) translate this more literally as being '... for the belly and not for the eye'.
The Ma wang tui text also adds '... in the government of the sage...', a variant which does not come up in any of the later versions.
Wang's commentary say that '...to use things to provide for the belly is to nourish oneself. To use things to provide for the eye is to enslave oneself...' and states that the sage accepts the former and rejects the latter.
Cheng disagrees vehemently. As a practitioner of Taoist yoga, he says:
The one seems substantial, but is, in fact, hollow; the other seems hollow, but is, in fact, real. This is the same as saying that although, seemingly, the abdomen is supposed to be filled with substance, on the contrary one should fill it with breath (ch'i); although the valley seems to be empty, it is, in fact, filled with vapour (ch'i ). By the same token it might seem that the eyes should be used for looking, but in fact one should use them only to see inwardly... This is what Lao-tze means when he speaks of the 'Tao of the Sage'. Wang Pi's interpretation is that only one's belly is for filling with food, but this is tantamount to suggesting that one pluck out one's eyes. If that were so, why would Lao-tze say, 'that which is there is an advantage, but it is its emptiness that makes it useful'?
I think Feng's translation of the last line as a stroke of absolute genius. The sage 'lets go of that'... all that... and 'chooses this'... What is closer than 'this'?
The Chandogya Upanishad has the famed statement TAT TVAM ASI - 'Thou art That', but 'that' is definitely - both in English and in Sanskrit (and in all other tongues I can think of) - 'something else' and 'some other thing over there'. Only 'this' is 'here'.
This doesn't mean to say that it can't be an object - this computer, this room - but that is not the 'this' that Lao-tze is talking about. The 'this' he means is this thing here that's writing or reading this. This - the lucid and present awareness of the instant as it passes.
One of the practices used by late Ch'an and Zen is what's called the hua t'ou - 'the head of a thought'... A technique for getting into it is to continuously question yourself as to who this is... Who is this that's reciting the Buddha's name?', 'Who is this that's dragging this corpse aroound here?', 'Who is this that's reading this?... saying this?... thinking this?... aware of this?...' The object being to get to a point where your ordinary relative mind relinquishes its hold and you can step into the mind that is beyond the cage of conceptual 'on-offs' (to use a binary term).
'The stillness in stillness is not real stillness; stillness in motion is stillness indeed!'
Feng's translation (echoing the Ma wang tui text) hits exactly that point, thereby rendering the scruples of both Wang and Cheng superfluous. You leave 'that'; you choose 'this'.
As ever, screeds more could be said... This is enough, no?
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavours dull the taste.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Precious things lead one astray.
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees[1].
He lets go of that and chooses this.
[1] Most other texts (as we saw yesterday with Cheng) translate this more literally as being '... for the belly and not for the eye'.
The Ma wang tui text also adds '... in the government of the sage...', a variant which does not come up in any of the later versions.
Wang's commentary say that '...to use things to provide for the belly is to nourish oneself. To use things to provide for the eye is to enslave oneself...' and states that the sage accepts the former and rejects the latter.
Cheng disagrees vehemently. As a practitioner of Taoist yoga, he says:
The one seems substantial, but is, in fact, hollow; the other seems hollow, but is, in fact, real. This is the same as saying that although, seemingly, the abdomen is supposed to be filled with substance, on the contrary one should fill it with breath (ch'i); although the valley seems to be empty, it is, in fact, filled with vapour (ch'i ). By the same token it might seem that the eyes should be used for looking, but in fact one should use them only to see inwardly... This is what Lao-tze means when he speaks of the 'Tao of the Sage'. Wang Pi's interpretation is that only one's belly is for filling with food, but this is tantamount to suggesting that one pluck out one's eyes. If that were so, why would Lao-tze say, 'that which is there is an advantage, but it is its emptiness that makes it useful'?
I think Feng's translation of the last line as a stroke of absolute genius. The sage 'lets go of that'... all that... and 'chooses this'... What is closer than 'this'?
The Chandogya Upanishad has the famed statement TAT TVAM ASI - 'Thou art That', but 'that' is definitely - both in English and in Sanskrit (and in all other tongues I can think of) - 'something else' and 'some other thing over there'. Only 'this' is 'here'.
This doesn't mean to say that it can't be an object - this computer, this room - but that is not the 'this' that Lao-tze is talking about. The 'this' he means is this thing here that's writing or reading this. This - the lucid and present awareness of the instant as it passes.
One of the practices used by late Ch'an and Zen is what's called the hua t'ou - 'the head of a thought'... A technique for getting into it is to continuously question yourself as to who this is... Who is this that's reciting the Buddha's name?', 'Who is this that's dragging this corpse aroound here?', 'Who is this that's reading this?... saying this?... thinking this?... aware of this?...' The object being to get to a point where your ordinary relative mind relinquishes its hold and you can step into the mind that is beyond the cage of conceptual 'on-offs' (to use a binary term).
'The stillness in stillness is not real stillness; stillness in motion is stillness indeed!'
Feng's translation (echoing the Ma wang tui text) hits exactly that point, thereby rendering the scruples of both Wang and Cheng superfluous. You leave 'that'; you choose 'this'.
As ever, screeds more could be said... This is enough, no?
tao teh ching 11
Thirty spokes share the wheels hub;
It is the centre hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there[1].
[1] Lau says:
Thus, what we gain is Something, but it is by virtue of
Nothing that it can be put to use'.
The Ma wang tui has:
'Therefore, we regard having something as beneficial,
But having nothing as useful'.
Cheng's commentary is interesting. After going on about the emptiness as the useful, etc., he says: '... that which is there is a mere advantage. According to the following chapter, the Sage concerns himself with the abdomen and not with the eyes. 'Reinforcing the abdomen' mean ch'i (breath); 'fill the valley' also means ch'i. Hence the abdomen ought to be as empty as the valley, just as the valley is as full (reinforced) as the abdomen. If one can achieve this, once gets both advantage and usefulness. If the eyes aggressivekly look outward, the spirit will suffer harm. If one can allow the spirit to exist unobtrusively and cultivate the breath (ch'i) as if one had no eyes, one can also add 'usefulness' to the 'advantage' of eyes.'
In the Chuang-tze there is the tale of the Emperor going to visit his kitchens and watching a butcher cup up an ox. Let me see if I can find it... Here (for all I much prefer Gia-fu Zengs version) ia version by Burton Watson. Just thought it might be an idea to change sources:
Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touc of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move or his feet, every thrust of his knee - zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing and all was in perfect rhythm as though he were performing the Dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.
"Ah this is marvellous!" said Lord Wen-hui. "Imagine skill reaching such heights!"
Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now - now I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, and much less a main joint.
"A good cook changes his knife once a year - because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month - because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and cut up thousand of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as if it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife as really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there's plenty of room - more than enough for a blade to play around in. That's why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.
"However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I'm doing, work very slowly and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until - flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away."
"Excellent!" said Lord Wen-hui. "I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!"
Confucius (who was a master of the Chinese table lue known as the ch'in - one of my two favourite instruments) had this to say to the grand music-master of Lü on the playing of music (Legge's translation): 'How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, theyshould be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.'
I tried to explain this to a young guitar student once: he thought I was trying to make a fool of him and never came back. Subsequently, he has become an extremely competent and utterly vacuous 'guitar hero'. An 'entertainer'. Pity...
[I hope you'll accept my apparently 'elitist' distinction between an 'artist' and an 'entertainer'?... Tous les Matins du Monde - the battle between the view of art of the Sieur de Saint Colombe (who played and composed only for the ghost of his dead wife) and Marin Marais (who wanted to be a pop star at the court of the kings), a tale which (since I have had much to do with - or, rather, against/despite - the music "industry") is very close to my heart - is about just this.]
It is the centre hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there[1].
[1] Lau says:
Thus, what we gain is Something, but it is by virtue of
Nothing that it can be put to use'.
The Ma wang tui has:
'Therefore, we regard having something as beneficial,
But having nothing as useful'.
Cheng's commentary is interesting. After going on about the emptiness as the useful, etc., he says: '... that which is there is a mere advantage. According to the following chapter, the Sage concerns himself with the abdomen and not with the eyes. 'Reinforcing the abdomen' mean ch'i (breath); 'fill the valley' also means ch'i. Hence the abdomen ought to be as empty as the valley, just as the valley is as full (reinforced) as the abdomen. If one can achieve this, once gets both advantage and usefulness. If the eyes aggressivekly look outward, the spirit will suffer harm. If one can allow the spirit to exist unobtrusively and cultivate the breath (ch'i) as if one had no eyes, one can also add 'usefulness' to the 'advantage' of eyes.'
In the Chuang-tze there is the tale of the Emperor going to visit his kitchens and watching a butcher cup up an ox. Let me see if I can find it... Here (for all I much prefer Gia-fu Zengs version) ia version by Burton Watson. Just thought it might be an idea to change sources:
Cook Ting was cutting up an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every touc of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move or his feet, every thrust of his knee - zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing and all was in perfect rhythm as though he were performing the Dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.
"Ah this is marvellous!" said Lord Wen-hui. "Imagine skill reaching such heights!"
Cook Ting laid down his knife and replied, "What I care about is the Way, which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now - now I go at it by spirit and don't look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, and much less a main joint.
"A good cook changes his knife once a year - because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month - because he hacks. I've had this knife of mine for nineteen years and cut up thousand of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as if it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife as really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there's plenty of room - more than enough for a blade to play around in. That's why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.
"However, whenever I come to a complicated place, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I'm doing, work very slowly and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until - flop! the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away."
"Excellent!" said Lord Wen-hui. "I have heard the words of Cook Ting and learned how to care for life!"
Confucius (who was a master of the Chinese table lue known as the ch'in - one of my two favourite instruments) had this to say to the grand music-master of Lü on the playing of music (Legge's translation): 'How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, theyshould be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.'
I tried to explain this to a young guitar student once: he thought I was trying to make a fool of him and never came back. Subsequently, he has become an extremely competent and utterly vacuous 'guitar hero'. An 'entertainer'. Pity...
[I hope you'll accept my apparently 'elitist' distinction between an 'artist' and an 'entertainer'?... Tous les Matins du Monde - the battle between the view of art of the Sieur de Saint Colombe (who played and composed only for the ghost of his dead wife) and Marin Marais (who wanted to be a pop star at the court of the kings), a tale which (since I have had much to do with - or, rather, against/despite - the music "industry") is very close to my heart - is about just this.]
tao teh ching 10
Carrying body and soul and embracing the one,
Can you avoid separation?
Attending fully and becoming supple,
Can you be as a newborn babe?
Washing and cleansing the primal vison,
Can you be without stain?
Loving all men and ruling the country,
Can you be without cleverness?
Opening and closing the gates of heaven,
Can you play the role of the woman?
Understanding and being open to all things,
Are you able to do nothing?
Giving birth and nourishing,
Bearing yet not possessing,
Working yet not taking credit,
Leading yet not dominating,
This is the Primal Virtue.
I think I'll just give the Lau in full, too. It's phrasing touches on subtly different points:
When carrying on your head your perplexed bodily soul, can you embrace in your arms the One
And not let go?
In concentrating your breath can you become as supple
As a babe?
Can you polish your mysterious mirror
And leave no blemish?
Can you love the people and govern the state
Without resorting to action?
When the gates of heaven open and shut
Are you capable of keeping to the role of the female?
When your discernment penetrates the four quarters
Are you capable of not knowing anything?[1]
It gives them life and rears them.
It gives them life yet claims no possession.
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude.
It is the steward yet exercises no authority.
Such is called the mysterious virtue.
Lau has a few interesting notes here: On the first line he remarks, 'Man has two souls, the p'o which is the soul of the body, and the hun which is the soul of the spirit. After death, the p'o descends into the earth while the hun ascends into the heavens (*). Cf. (Ch. 42) "The myriad creatures carry upon their backs the yin and embrace in their arms the yin"...' The mysterious mirror is , of course, the suble energy of the mind. And '...The gates of heaven are, according to the Keng sang ch'u chapter of the Chuang-tze, the invisible gateway through which the myriad creatures come into being and return to nothing...', the 'fountain' I was referring to yesterday.
(*) Henricks's note in the Ma wang tui says that - at least in the modern conception of the thing - the p'o is the soul that lingers near the grave for a while while the hun is that which continues on in the cycle of incarnations
[1] Henricks points out that the two versions of this line, 'without using knowledge' and 'without taking action' are well-known and even common variants.
Wang Pi is different again: He reads the first line as
Stay where your earthbound soul is protected, and embrace integrity: can you do
this with never a deviation?
His commentary says: Tsai (usually to 'uphold') means something like 'dwell in' (ch'u). 'Where your earthbound soul is protected' ( ying p'o) is where one always dwells (*). 'Integrity' (yi) is a person's 'authenticity' (chên)(**). In other words the text says: 'Can you remain in the dwelling-place where you always live, embrace integrity, and do this with never a deviation? If so, the myriad beings will spontaneously submit themselves to you'.
(*) Linn's note syays: In interpreting ying p'o (where your earthbound soul is protected) as a place providing long-term safety, Wang's commentyary differs markedly from that of Ho-shang Kung's which equates ying p'o with hun p'o (etherial and earthbound spirit) and which almost all later commentators and translators follow, usually taking ts'ai (settle in) to mean 'preserve', 'keep' or 'sustain' - "Can you (or 'if you can') preserve your etherial spirit and earthbound soul/spirit'.
Another possible translation hun and p'o is as 'the spiritual and animal souls'.
(**) Wang's commentary to the first passage of Ch. 32 reads: If one embraces the uncarved block, engages in no conscious effort (wu wei), lets neither his authenticity (chên) be hampered by things nor his spirit ( shen) be harmed by desire, then the people will submit to him spontaneously and he will attain the Tao as a matter of course.' Note that Wang equates yi (integrity), chên (authenticity) and p'u (simplicity).
His commentary of the second passage reads in part that what the text is saying is ' Can you trust entirely to the vital force endowed by nature, attain the harmony characteristic of perfect softness, and, like the infant, be utterly without conscious desire?' If so, the people will achieve their proper span of life and fully realise their natures.
On the third passage he says: Mystery means the ultimate extent and subtlety of all things. In other words the text says, 'can you cleans away the misleading and the specious so as to attain a vision capable of grasping the ultimate and the subtle, not allowing things to get in the way of its brightness or flaw its numinous power?' If you can, you will be one with the mystery from beginning to end.
As regards the fifth, he says: The 'gateway of heaven' is a term for that through which all under heaven passes, and 'open or shut' refers to moments that decided good order or chaos. Whether open or shut, the effect prevails equally throughout all under heaven... The female joins in but does not initiate the singing, responds, but does not act of her own accord...
Professor Cheng's commentary is also quite long and complex. Bearing in mind that he was - amongst other things - a master of t'ai chi ch'uan, and was thus interested in k'ung fu ('hard work', 'application'), it's interesting to look at in detail so I'll give his reading and interpretation in full:
Can one unify the spirit-of-the-blood and the spirit-of-the-breath and keep them from separating?
The spirits of the blood and breath are referred to in The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medicine and the Kuan-yin Tzu. In the latter it says that the nature of blood is to descend, and that of breath ( ch'i) to ascend), but thatr, when one dies, this orfer is reversed. the spirit of the blood rises and the spirit of the breath descends.The ancients all discussed spirit-of-the-blood and spirit-of-the-breath in this fashion. the text asks whether man can unify these two 'spirits', even to the point of avoiding death.
In concentrating the ch'i to attain resiliency, can one be like a baby?
'Concentrating the ch'i' refers to breathing which has been explained earlier (cf. ch. 6). Regarding 'to attain resiliency', Ch'i-po said 'let the circulatory systems of blood and ch'i flow freely'. This is the basis of Lao-tze's emphasisi on the cultivation of ch'i, as in the sayings 'the tendons are resilient and the grip is firm', and 'reverse old age and become like a child'.
In cleansing the Mysterious Vision can one do it flawlessly?
In loving the people and governing the nation, can one cause the people to be without knowledge?
In opening and closing heaven's gate can one do it without the Female?
In spreading enlightenment in all four directions can one do it without conscious action?
'Cleansing the Mysterious Vision' refers to Chapter 1 where it says, 'if always without desire, one can observe indescribable marvels; if always desirous, one sees merest traces'. If it is granted that man can wash his vision, can it be done cleanly and without blemish? In loving the people and governing the nation, can one cause the people to be without either cleverness or desire? 'Female' refers to the trigram k'un, 'earth', and also means 'to close'. The earth trigram looks like this:
_ _
_ _
_ _
The gate of heaven cannot always be open and never close.
'Spreading enlightenmment far in all four directions' means to hear what is commonly heard and see what is commonly seen. Can this be accomplished without conscious action. In view of the six questions raised above, who can harmonise with the Tao? Lao-tze emphasises the feminie as in 'know the masculine, yet cleave to the feminine'.
Produce and provide a good environment;
Produce but do not possess.
Act but do not control.
Raise but do not harvest.
This called Profound Teh.
If things are done according to nature, it will not be necessary to act consciously or to insist that others rely on you. 'Profound Teh' is that of the earth itself. Compare this with ch. 65 'Profound Teh is so deep, so far-reaching, that it causes things to return and eventually reach the Great Confluence'. This is what is meant by Tao.
As mentioned in the first chapter, I VERY strongly contest the idea that merely sitting quietly with your legs neatly pressed and folded will bring you anywhere except to a state of profound mental quiescence (which is no bad place to be!)(but)...
There is much that might be said here, but I somehow think that this is enough, no?
Can you avoid separation?
Attending fully and becoming supple,
Can you be as a newborn babe?
Washing and cleansing the primal vison,
Can you be without stain?
Loving all men and ruling the country,
Can you be without cleverness?
Opening and closing the gates of heaven,
Can you play the role of the woman?
Understanding and being open to all things,
Are you able to do nothing?
Giving birth and nourishing,
Bearing yet not possessing,
Working yet not taking credit,
Leading yet not dominating,
This is the Primal Virtue.
I think I'll just give the Lau in full, too. It's phrasing touches on subtly different points:
When carrying on your head your perplexed bodily soul, can you embrace in your arms the One
And not let go?
In concentrating your breath can you become as supple
As a babe?
Can you polish your mysterious mirror
And leave no blemish?
Can you love the people and govern the state
Without resorting to action?
When the gates of heaven open and shut
Are you capable of keeping to the role of the female?
When your discernment penetrates the four quarters
Are you capable of not knowing anything?[1]
It gives them life and rears them.
It gives them life yet claims no possession.
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude.
It is the steward yet exercises no authority.
Such is called the mysterious virtue.
Lau has a few interesting notes here: On the first line he remarks, 'Man has two souls, the p'o which is the soul of the body, and the hun which is the soul of the spirit. After death, the p'o descends into the earth while the hun ascends into the heavens (*). Cf. (Ch. 42) "The myriad creatures carry upon their backs the yin and embrace in their arms the yin"...' The mysterious mirror is , of course, the suble energy of the mind. And '...The gates of heaven are, according to the Keng sang ch'u chapter of the Chuang-tze, the invisible gateway through which the myriad creatures come into being and return to nothing...', the 'fountain' I was referring to yesterday.
(*) Henricks's note in the Ma wang tui says that - at least in the modern conception of the thing - the p'o is the soul that lingers near the grave for a while while the hun is that which continues on in the cycle of incarnations
[1] Henricks points out that the two versions of this line, 'without using knowledge' and 'without taking action' are well-known and even common variants.
Wang Pi is different again: He reads the first line as
Stay where your earthbound soul is protected, and embrace integrity: can you do
this with never a deviation?
His commentary says: Tsai (usually to 'uphold') means something like 'dwell in' (ch'u). 'Where your earthbound soul is protected' ( ying p'o) is where one always dwells (*). 'Integrity' (yi) is a person's 'authenticity' (chên)(**). In other words the text says: 'Can you remain in the dwelling-place where you always live, embrace integrity, and do this with never a deviation? If so, the myriad beings will spontaneously submit themselves to you'.
(*) Linn's note syays: In interpreting ying p'o (where your earthbound soul is protected) as a place providing long-term safety, Wang's commentyary differs markedly from that of Ho-shang Kung's which equates ying p'o with hun p'o (etherial and earthbound spirit) and which almost all later commentators and translators follow, usually taking ts'ai (settle in) to mean 'preserve', 'keep' or 'sustain' - "Can you (or 'if you can') preserve your etherial spirit and earthbound soul/spirit'.
Another possible translation hun and p'o is as 'the spiritual and animal souls'.
(**) Wang's commentary to the first passage of Ch. 32 reads: If one embraces the uncarved block, engages in no conscious effort (wu wei), lets neither his authenticity (chên) be hampered by things nor his spirit ( shen) be harmed by desire, then the people will submit to him spontaneously and he will attain the Tao as a matter of course.' Note that Wang equates yi (integrity), chên (authenticity) and p'u (simplicity).
His commentary of the second passage reads in part that what the text is saying is ' Can you trust entirely to the vital force endowed by nature, attain the harmony characteristic of perfect softness, and, like the infant, be utterly without conscious desire?' If so, the people will achieve their proper span of life and fully realise their natures.
On the third passage he says: Mystery means the ultimate extent and subtlety of all things. In other words the text says, 'can you cleans away the misleading and the specious so as to attain a vision capable of grasping the ultimate and the subtle, not allowing things to get in the way of its brightness or flaw its numinous power?' If you can, you will be one with the mystery from beginning to end.
As regards the fifth, he says: The 'gateway of heaven' is a term for that through which all under heaven passes, and 'open or shut' refers to moments that decided good order or chaos. Whether open or shut, the effect prevails equally throughout all under heaven... The female joins in but does not initiate the singing, responds, but does not act of her own accord...
Professor Cheng's commentary is also quite long and complex. Bearing in mind that he was - amongst other things - a master of t'ai chi ch'uan, and was thus interested in k'ung fu ('hard work', 'application'), it's interesting to look at in detail so I'll give his reading and interpretation in full:
Can one unify the spirit-of-the-blood and the spirit-of-the-breath and keep them from separating?
The spirits of the blood and breath are referred to in The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medicine and the Kuan-yin Tzu. In the latter it says that the nature of blood is to descend, and that of breath ( ch'i) to ascend), but thatr, when one dies, this orfer is reversed. the spirit of the blood rises and the spirit of the breath descends.The ancients all discussed spirit-of-the-blood and spirit-of-the-breath in this fashion. the text asks whether man can unify these two 'spirits', even to the point of avoiding death.
In concentrating the ch'i to attain resiliency, can one be like a baby?
'Concentrating the ch'i' refers to breathing which has been explained earlier (cf. ch. 6). Regarding 'to attain resiliency', Ch'i-po said 'let the circulatory systems of blood and ch'i flow freely'. This is the basis of Lao-tze's emphasisi on the cultivation of ch'i, as in the sayings 'the tendons are resilient and the grip is firm', and 'reverse old age and become like a child'.
In cleansing the Mysterious Vision can one do it flawlessly?
In loving the people and governing the nation, can one cause the people to be without knowledge?
In opening and closing heaven's gate can one do it without the Female?
In spreading enlightenment in all four directions can one do it without conscious action?
'Cleansing the Mysterious Vision' refers to Chapter 1 where it says, 'if always without desire, one can observe indescribable marvels; if always desirous, one sees merest traces'. If it is granted that man can wash his vision, can it be done cleanly and without blemish? In loving the people and governing the nation, can one cause the people to be without either cleverness or desire? 'Female' refers to the trigram k'un, 'earth', and also means 'to close'. The earth trigram looks like this:
_ _
_ _
_ _
The gate of heaven cannot always be open and never close.
'Spreading enlightenmment far in all four directions' means to hear what is commonly heard and see what is commonly seen. Can this be accomplished without conscious action. In view of the six questions raised above, who can harmonise with the Tao? Lao-tze emphasises the feminie as in 'know the masculine, yet cleave to the feminine'.
Produce and provide a good environment;
Produce but do not possess.
Act but do not control.
Raise but do not harvest.
This called Profound Teh.
If things are done according to nature, it will not be necessary to act consciously or to insist that others rely on you. 'Profound Teh' is that of the earth itself. Compare this with ch. 65 'Profound Teh is so deep, so far-reaching, that it causes things to return and eventually reach the Great Confluence'. This is what is meant by Tao.
As mentioned in the first chapter, I VERY strongly contest the idea that merely sitting quietly with your legs neatly pressed and folded will bring you anywhere except to a state of profound mental quiescence (which is no bad place to be!)(but)...
There is much that might be said here, but I somehow think that this is enough, no?
tao teh ching 9
Better stop short than fill it to the brim.
Oversharpen the blade[1], and the edge will soon be blunt.
Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.
Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow[2].
Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven
[1] The Ma wang tui text and Lau have 'hammer it to a point'. (As I was saying when so rudely interrupted) Cheng, rather intriguingly, has 'measure and fit a crossbrace'...
[2] The Ma wang tui text says that of themselves they bring on disater.
Cheng's commentary reads: To grasp after until one's hand is full means one has reached the limit: this is not as good as knowing when to stop. Although one measures a crossbrace to fit, it cannot last long since the piece is small and the material weak. Wang Pi took 'crossbrace' to mean 'sharp'. This is unreasonable. The character for crossbrace belongs to the wood radical and thus cannot have anything to do with metal (*).
If something cannot be safeguarded, let it go. One who is proud will bring trouble upon himself.
Who is capable of imitating the Tao of heaven? Who bring forth flowers in the springtime and fruit in the fall, and, having done so, retire?
(*) Being all which as it ever so may, ALL the other texts I have consider the idea as that of sharpening, and Waley even goes so far as to change the first line to 'Stretch a bow to the very full/ And you will wish you had stopped in time', so as to be in harmony with the idea of swords and sharpening.
Wang's commentary (he reads the first line as 'With it firmly in hand, he goes on to fill it up, but it would be better to quit')(*): 'Firmly in hand' means not to let virtue (teh) go. Not only does he not let his virtue go, he goes further and fills it up. The power of such a one will surely be toppled. Thus 'it would be better to quit', which means that it would be even better if if one had no virtue or sense of achievement at all.
If, forging the end of a sword, one goes further and grinds it sharper until it snaps off, its characteristic property is destroyed. Thus 'it could not last long'.
(*) Which chimes, to a degree, with Cheng's 'To grasp after until one's hand is full means one has reached the limit'.
Concerning the last line he says: The four seasons move on. As soon as one has achieved what it should, it moves on to the next.
Quite frankly, what strikes me here is that this is a call not only for a sense of proportion (which is fairly obvious), but also - and far more importantly - for a sense of humour. An ability to look at things and let 'em go, do things and shrug 'em off... Walking lightly on this small blue planet.
It's not for nothing that I refer to my enterprise here as 'mist'... Not only does this adequately describe what keeps my ears apart, but it also seems to me to be a fair description of the ever-fountaining dragon-dance of space-dancing-space-into-space that is the world of becoming.
.-_-.
Oversharpen the blade[1], and the edge will soon be blunt.
Amass a store of gold and jade, and no one can protect it.
Claim wealth and titles, and disaster will follow[2].
Retire when the work is done.
This is the way of heaven
[1] The Ma wang tui text and Lau have 'hammer it to a point'. (As I was saying when so rudely interrupted) Cheng, rather intriguingly, has 'measure and fit a crossbrace'...
[2] The Ma wang tui text says that of themselves they bring on disater.
Cheng's commentary reads: To grasp after until one's hand is full means one has reached the limit: this is not as good as knowing when to stop. Although one measures a crossbrace to fit, it cannot last long since the piece is small and the material weak. Wang Pi took 'crossbrace' to mean 'sharp'. This is unreasonable. The character for crossbrace belongs to the wood radical and thus cannot have anything to do with metal (*).
If something cannot be safeguarded, let it go. One who is proud will bring trouble upon himself.
Who is capable of imitating the Tao of heaven? Who bring forth flowers in the springtime and fruit in the fall, and, having done so, retire?
(*) Being all which as it ever so may, ALL the other texts I have consider the idea as that of sharpening, and Waley even goes so far as to change the first line to 'Stretch a bow to the very full/ And you will wish you had stopped in time', so as to be in harmony with the idea of swords and sharpening.
Wang's commentary (he reads the first line as 'With it firmly in hand, he goes on to fill it up, but it would be better to quit')(*): 'Firmly in hand' means not to let virtue (teh) go. Not only does he not let his virtue go, he goes further and fills it up. The power of such a one will surely be toppled. Thus 'it would be better to quit', which means that it would be even better if if one had no virtue or sense of achievement at all.
If, forging the end of a sword, one goes further and grinds it sharper until it snaps off, its characteristic property is destroyed. Thus 'it could not last long'.
(*) Which chimes, to a degree, with Cheng's 'To grasp after until one's hand is full means one has reached the limit'.
Concerning the last line he says: The four seasons move on. As soon as one has achieved what it should, it moves on to the next.
Quite frankly, what strikes me here is that this is a call not only for a sense of proportion (which is fairly obvious), but also - and far more importantly - for a sense of humour. An ability to look at things and let 'em go, do things and shrug 'em off... Walking lightly on this small blue planet.
It's not for nothing that I refer to my enterprise here as 'mist'... Not only does this adequately describe what keeps my ears apart, but it also seems to me to be a fair description of the ever-fountaining dragon-dance of space-dancing-space-into-space that is the world of becoming.
.-_-.
tao teh ching 8
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind .
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing[1].
No fight: No blame.
[1] Lau gives the first three lines a slightly different spin:
In a home it is the site that matters;
In quality of mind it is depth that matters;
In an ally it is benevolence that matters
The Ma wang tui text reads the third as
In giving, the good thing is being like Heaven
Both read the last line in full: It is only because it does not compete that it is never at fault.
Wang Pi points out that what people reject is the lowly. Both Wang Pi and the Ma wang tui text read 'like the Tao' as 'close to' or 'resembling' the Way. Wang Pi explains that whereas the Tao has no physical existence, water does, and thus the text refers to them as almost, but not quite the same.
Water, of course, always seeks out the lowest level and fears no plunge, nor even the foulness of the place its's passing through. Left to itself, it settles. Stirred up, it muddies, but then settles again.
It comes out of the seas, forms into clouds and washes down from the highest peaks back into the sea in endless pattern, cleaning, purifying and purging away, as it goes... Nourishing and refreshing, and totally beyond more than the the most rudimentary control of man or beast. It is the very image of permanence within impermanenence; impermanence within permanence, of persistence and change, and - next to heaven and earth - is the mother of all that lives.
I am told by Chinese friends, by the way, that this chapter is the very essence of Chinese civilisation.
Interesting stuff. The very basis of t'ai chi ch'uan.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind .
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing[1].
No fight: No blame.
[1] Lau gives the first three lines a slightly different spin:
In a home it is the site that matters;
In quality of mind it is depth that matters;
In an ally it is benevolence that matters
The Ma wang tui text reads the third as
In giving, the good thing is being like Heaven
Both read the last line in full: It is only because it does not compete that it is never at fault.
Wang Pi points out that what people reject is the lowly. Both Wang Pi and the Ma wang tui text read 'like the Tao' as 'close to' or 'resembling' the Way. Wang Pi explains that whereas the Tao has no physical existence, water does, and thus the text refers to them as almost, but not quite the same.
Water, of course, always seeks out the lowest level and fears no plunge, nor even the foulness of the place its's passing through. Left to itself, it settles. Stirred up, it muddies, but then settles again.
It comes out of the seas, forms into clouds and washes down from the highest peaks back into the sea in endless pattern, cleaning, purifying and purging away, as it goes... Nourishing and refreshing, and totally beyond more than the the most rudimentary control of man or beast. It is the very image of permanence within impermanenence; impermanence within permanence, of persistence and change, and - next to heaven and earth - is the mother of all that lives.
I am told by Chinese friends, by the way, that this chapter is the very essence of Chinese civilisation.
Interesting stuff. The very basis of t'ai chi ch'uan.
tao teh ching 7
Heaven and earth last for ever.
Why do heaven and earth last for ever?
They are unborn,
So ever living[1].
The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead.
He is detached, thus he is one with all.
Through selfless action he attains fulfilment[2].
--
[1] The Ma wang tui text and several others read this as being because they do not live for themselves.
[2] Most texts read this as a rhetorical question alon the lines of 'Is it not because of selfless action that he attains fulfilment?'
Of course, the idea of being unborn and therefore ever-living is is an important one, and a fair description of the nature of mind and of emptiness, but these ideas are more Buddhist than they are Taoist, especialy early Taoist.
Wang Pi says: If one exists for oneself one will contend with others, whereas others come and submit themselves to those who do not exist for themselves... To be utterly free of self-interest means to make no conscious effort for one's own sake. Such persons will always find themselves pushed to the fore and their selves preserved will-nilly...
Cheng says that - basing himself in non-action - the sage considers himself an 'outsider' and left behind., whereas those who act consciously will always only fail.
Why do heaven and earth last for ever?
They are unborn,
So ever living[1].
The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead.
He is detached, thus he is one with all.
Through selfless action he attains fulfilment[2].
--
[1] The Ma wang tui text and several others read this as being because they do not live for themselves.
[2] Most texts read this as a rhetorical question alon the lines of 'Is it not because of selfless action that he attains fulfilment?'
Of course, the idea of being unborn and therefore ever-living is is an important one, and a fair description of the nature of mind and of emptiness, but these ideas are more Buddhist than they are Taoist, especialy early Taoist.
Wang Pi says: If one exists for oneself one will contend with others, whereas others come and submit themselves to those who do not exist for themselves... To be utterly free of self-interest means to make no conscious effort for one's own sake. Such persons will always find themselves pushed to the fore and their selves preserved will-nilly...
Cheng says that - basing himself in non-action - the sage considers himself an 'outsider' and left behind., whereas those who act consciously will always only fail.
tao teh ching 6
The valley spirit never dies;
It is the woman, primal mother.
Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth.
It is like a veil bareley seen.
Use it; it will never fail.
Interestingly, Cheng Man-ch'ing sees this as a text on the controlling
and subtilising of breath. A rather interesting text on one aspect of
this - the so-called 'microcosmic orbit' - is to be found at
http://www.daoistalchemy.com/alchemy.php# (click on the links
concerning the orbit and the meridians. Can't guarantee the rest -
haven't actually looked yet).
Wang Pi says: The Valley Spirit is the nothingness in the centre of
the valley. It has neither form nor appearance and is utterly free of
contrariness or disobedience.. Lying low and unmoving, it maintains
its quiescence and never weakens. Even though all things are completed
by it, we do not see its form, for this is the most perfect thing.
Lying low and maintaining quiescence, it cannot be grasped in order to
give it (the Tao) a name, so the text refers to it as the Mysterious
Female... The gate is the place from which the Mysterious Female
comes. Because it is rooted in that from which it comes, it is the
embodiment of the great ultimat [yü chi t'ung t'i], which is why the
text refers to it as 'the root of Heaven and Earth'. Do you wish to
say that it exists? Its form has never been seen. Do you wish to
contend that it does not exist? The myriad things are produced by it.
Thus the text says, 'On and on, with only apparent existence'. Not a
single fails to come to completion and yet it never tires. Thus the
text says 'its functions are inexhaustible'.
What is interesting about breath is that, the finer the breath, the
finer the thought-patterns. This is possibly easier to spot the other
way round: the rougher the thought-pattern, the rougher and more tense
the breath (look at anger, fear, intense desire where the breath is
often blocked in the upper chest)... The Taoist saying has it that the
wise person breathes to their heels and gets a belly-ful; the ordinary
person breathes into the throat and chokes to death. Interesting
ideas!
When the thoughts are very subtle, we can begin to intuit the fountain
of youth that is the ever-changing display, begin to perceive that the
cloudlike forms are, indeed, just like 'mist', and that they swiftly
transform and pass away, only to be replaced by others in
never-ceasing succession.
And we can begin, also, to see through them, see their transparency
and thus take control of our own nose-ring, no longer needing to be
pulled right and left by these "brilliant ideas".
It is the woman, primal mother.
Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth.
It is like a veil bareley seen.
Use it; it will never fail.
Interestingly, Cheng Man-ch'ing sees this as a text on the controlling
and subtilising of breath. A rather interesting text on one aspect of
this - the so-called 'microcosmic orbit' - is to be found at
http://www.daoistalchemy.com/alchemy.php# (click on the links
concerning the orbit and the meridians. Can't guarantee the rest -
haven't actually looked yet).
Wang Pi says: The Valley Spirit is the nothingness in the centre of
the valley. It has neither form nor appearance and is utterly free of
contrariness or disobedience.. Lying low and unmoving, it maintains
its quiescence and never weakens. Even though all things are completed
by it, we do not see its form, for this is the most perfect thing.
Lying low and maintaining quiescence, it cannot be grasped in order to
give it (the Tao) a name, so the text refers to it as the Mysterious
Female... The gate is the place from which the Mysterious Female
comes. Because it is rooted in that from which it comes, it is the
embodiment of the great ultimat [yü chi t'ung t'i], which is why the
text refers to it as 'the root of Heaven and Earth'. Do you wish to
say that it exists? Its form has never been seen. Do you wish to
contend that it does not exist? The myriad things are produced by it.
Thus the text says, 'On and on, with only apparent existence'. Not a
single fails to come to completion and yet it never tires. Thus the
text says 'its functions are inexhaustible'.
What is interesting about breath is that, the finer the breath, the
finer the thought-patterns. This is possibly easier to spot the other
way round: the rougher the thought-pattern, the rougher and more tense
the breath (look at anger, fear, intense desire where the breath is
often blocked in the upper chest)... The Taoist saying has it that the
wise person breathes to their heels and gets a belly-ful; the ordinary
person breathes into the throat and chokes to death. Interesting
ideas!
When the thoughts are very subtle, we can begin to intuit the fountain
of youth that is the ever-changing display, begin to perceive that the
cloudlike forms are, indeed, just like 'mist', and that they swiftly
transform and pass away, only to be replaced by others in
never-ceasing succession.
And we can begin, also, to see through them, see their transparency
and thus take control of our own nose-ring, no longer needing to be
pulled right and left by these "brilliant ideas".
tao teh ching 5
Heaven and earth are ruthless;
They see the ten thousand things as dummies[1].
The wise are ruthless;
The see the people as dummies.
The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold to the centre[2].
[1] Lau (as borne out by the Ma wang tui text and the commentaries of
both Wang and Cheng) has 'straw dogs' with a note to the effect that
in the Chuang-tze it is explained that straw dogs were used as offerings
and treated with great deference before the sacrifice, but that, after
the sacrifice, they were discarded and forgotton even to the point of
being trampled underfoot. This idea is also explained in detail in the
commentary by Cheng.
[2] Lau's rendering of this verse (again borne out by the Ma wang tui
and commentaries abovementioned) makes more sense to me:
Is not the space between heaven and earth like a bellows?
It is empty without being exhausted:
The more it works the more comes out.
Much speech leads inevitably to silence.
Better to hold fast to the void.
except that the Ma wang tui and Cheng both read the last word as
'centre'. Wang reads it as 'emptiness within', thereby referring to
the inexhaustible emptiness of the bellows, which has neither deliberate intention nor innate tendency which is exactly what gives it its use. (He also makes reference to the sheng or Chinese mouth-organ, but I don't really see much need to gild this particular lilly.)
There are two main points here: (i) that 'humanism' with its emphasis
on and bias toward the human species over all others (and not to be confused with 'humanitarianism', though this latter is also often equally one-eyed)is nonsense -
human beings are no more "the crown of creation" than cauliflowers,
flint or Cape Hunting Dogs... They just are... Nothing else. And (ii)
that intentional action - a modus operandum - a fixed way of seeing
and going about things soon bumps against its own limits.
Wang's comment says: Heaven and Earth allow things to follow their
natural bent and neither engage in conscious effort nor start
anything, leaving the myriad things to manage themselves... The
benevolent (jen) have to establish institutions and influence
behaviour and are prone to the use of kindliness and conscious effort.
But when intiutions are established and behaviour influenced, people
lose their authenticity, and when subject to kindness and conscious
effort, they no longer preserve their integrity. If people do not
preserve their integrity, they no longer have the capacity to uphold
the full weight of of their existence. Heaven and earth do not make
the grass grow for the sake of beasts, yet beasts eat grass. They do
not produce dogs for the sake of humans, yet humans eat dogs (*).
Heaven and Earth make no conscious effort with regard to the myriad
things, yet, because each of the myriad things has what is appropriate
to its use, there is not one thing that is denied support. As long as
you use kindness based on a personal perspective, it indicates a lack
of capacity to leave things to themselves...
"The interior of a bellows... is completely empty and free of innate
tendency (ching) or deliberate action (wei). Thus, though empty, it
can never be used up, and, when it is in action, it is impossible to
exhaust its capacity or strength. The space between Heaven and Earth
just all ows things to follow their natural bent without the least
stricture, and thus - like tha activity of the bellows or mouth-organ
(sheng) - can never be used up...
"The more you apply conscious effort to something, the more you will
fail. If you set up a policy of kindness toward people and establish
words for dealing with matters, there will be no way to provide relief
without kindness, nor anyway to establish order without the use of
words, and this is sure to result in rapid exhaustion... maintain
emptiness within and exhaustion will never arise; take your 'self' out
of it and leave things to themselves and nothing will ever lack order.
If a mouth orga tried intentionally itself to make sounds, it would no
longer have the capacity to provide the player with what he needs."
(*) Cf. the following
Cheng's commentary reads: The Tao of heaven and earth cannot be called
humane. the lives of the myriad things all proceed according to
nature. Their passing is no different than that of straw dogs. In
ancient times, dogs fashioned of straw were used during ritual
sacrifices as substitutes for the real animal. Once they had fulfilled
their function, they were cast aside, thus giving rise to the
observation of the text that there are no feelings of humanism
involved. The Sage's actions are in accord with those of heaven and
earth, not showing any favouritism toward mankind...
(A note to the text here reads) Neither heaven and earth nor the Sage
treat humanism as in any way desirable and it is precisely here that
Lao-tze speaks of humanism as neither beautiful nor good. To say, as
Wang Pi does, that 'Earth does not produce straw for the sake of
feeding animals, yet animals eat it, and does not produce dogs in
order to feed humans, yet humans eat them' can be called a glib
argument. Do all animals eat straw? Is the speciality of man the
eating of dogs?... Is this not vastly oversimplifying the case?...
"... Chuang-tze said 'To maintain the centre of the circle is to
respond inexhaustibly'. This is similar in meaning to what is intended
by this chapter."
This comes back to what we were saying yesterday... the skilled person
has no set end-in-view... That is why he or she can respond
immediately and absolutely sensitively and accurately to whatever
comes up.
An end-in-view tends to trample details.
They see the ten thousand things as dummies[1].
The wise are ruthless;
The see the people as dummies.
The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold to the centre[2].
[1] Lau (as borne out by the Ma wang tui text and the commentaries of
both Wang and Cheng) has 'straw dogs' with a note to the effect that
in the Chuang-tze it is explained that straw dogs were used as offerings
and treated with great deference before the sacrifice, but that, after
the sacrifice, they were discarded and forgotton even to the point of
being trampled underfoot. This idea is also explained in detail in the
commentary by Cheng.
[2] Lau's rendering of this verse (again borne out by the Ma wang tui
and commentaries abovementioned) makes more sense to me:
Is not the space between heaven and earth like a bellows?
It is empty without being exhausted:
The more it works the more comes out.
Much speech leads inevitably to silence.
Better to hold fast to the void.
except that the Ma wang tui and Cheng both read the last word as
'centre'. Wang reads it as 'emptiness within', thereby referring to
the inexhaustible emptiness of the bellows, which has neither deliberate intention nor innate tendency which is exactly what gives it its use. (He also makes reference to the sheng or Chinese mouth-organ, but I don't really see much need to gild this particular lilly.)
There are two main points here: (i) that 'humanism' with its emphasis
on and bias toward the human species over all others (and not to be confused with 'humanitarianism', though this latter is also often equally one-eyed)is nonsense -
human beings are no more "the crown of creation" than cauliflowers,
flint or Cape Hunting Dogs... They just are... Nothing else. And (ii)
that intentional action - a modus operandum - a fixed way of seeing
and going about things soon bumps against its own limits.
Wang's comment says: Heaven and Earth allow things to follow their
natural bent and neither engage in conscious effort nor start
anything, leaving the myriad things to manage themselves... The
benevolent (jen) have to establish institutions and influence
behaviour and are prone to the use of kindliness and conscious effort.
But when intiutions are established and behaviour influenced, people
lose their authenticity, and when subject to kindness and conscious
effort, they no longer preserve their integrity. If people do not
preserve their integrity, they no longer have the capacity to uphold
the full weight of of their existence. Heaven and earth do not make
the grass grow for the sake of beasts, yet beasts eat grass. They do
not produce dogs for the sake of humans, yet humans eat dogs (*).
Heaven and Earth make no conscious effort with regard to the myriad
things, yet, because each of the myriad things has what is appropriate
to its use, there is not one thing that is denied support. As long as
you use kindness based on a personal perspective, it indicates a lack
of capacity to leave things to themselves...
"The interior of a bellows... is completely empty and free of innate
tendency (ching) or deliberate action (wei). Thus, though empty, it
can never be used up, and, when it is in action, it is impossible to
exhaust its capacity or strength. The space between Heaven and Earth
just all ows things to follow their natural bent without the least
stricture, and thus - like tha activity of the bellows or mouth-organ
(sheng) - can never be used up...
"The more you apply conscious effort to something, the more you will
fail. If you set up a policy of kindness toward people and establish
words for dealing with matters, there will be no way to provide relief
without kindness, nor anyway to establish order without the use of
words, and this is sure to result in rapid exhaustion... maintain
emptiness within and exhaustion will never arise; take your 'self' out
of it and leave things to themselves and nothing will ever lack order.
If a mouth orga tried intentionally itself to make sounds, it would no
longer have the capacity to provide the player with what he needs."
(*) Cf. the following
Cheng's commentary reads: The Tao of heaven and earth cannot be called
humane. the lives of the myriad things all proceed according to
nature. Their passing is no different than that of straw dogs. In
ancient times, dogs fashioned of straw were used during ritual
sacrifices as substitutes for the real animal. Once they had fulfilled
their function, they were cast aside, thus giving rise to the
observation of the text that there are no feelings of humanism
involved. The Sage's actions are in accord with those of heaven and
earth, not showing any favouritism toward mankind...
(A note to the text here reads) Neither heaven and earth nor the Sage
treat humanism as in any way desirable and it is precisely here that
Lao-tze speaks of humanism as neither beautiful nor good. To say, as
Wang Pi does, that 'Earth does not produce straw for the sake of
feeding animals, yet animals eat it, and does not produce dogs in
order to feed humans, yet humans eat them' can be called a glib
argument. Do all animals eat straw? Is the speciality of man the
eating of dogs?... Is this not vastly oversimplifying the case?...
"... Chuang-tze said 'To maintain the centre of the circle is to
respond inexhaustibly'. This is similar in meaning to what is intended
by this chapter."
This comes back to what we were saying yesterday... the skilled person
has no set end-in-view... That is why he or she can respond
immediately and absolutely sensitively and accurately to whatever
comes up.
An end-in-view tends to trample details.
tao teh ching 4
The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used but never filled.
Oh unfathomable source of the ten thousand things!
Blunt the sharpness,
Untangle the knot,
Soften the glare,
Merge with dust[1].
Oh, hidden deep but ever present! [2]
I do not know from whence it comes.
It is the forefather of the emperors[3].
[1] Lau has 'Let your wheels move only along old ruts'. The Ma wang tui text has '(It) settles the dust', and, in fact, trats this entire passage as something the Tao itself does rather than as something one might need to contrive based on it. Most other translators seem to agree. This said, Fengs interpretation is well worth the consideration 'politically'.
[2] Lau has 'Darkly visible, it only seems as if it were there.
[3] The ma wang tui text (echoed by most others has '... the Lord' with Henricks's note that: "Lord" (ti) was the name of the supreme deity of the Shjang people (traditionally 1766-1122 BCE) , and was also used as the name of the supreme god of the Chou (1122-221 BCE), though they more commonly used the name 'Heaven' (t'ien).
After a section where he points out that anyone trying to govern without a full understanding of the active and passive principles (yin-yang) - any 'one trick pony' government - cannot possibly serve to support them, Wang goes on to say:
Although Earth consists of physical forms with their earthbound souls, if it did not take its model from Heaven, it would not be able to keep its quietude intact. Although Heaven consists of embryonic essences with their images, if it did not take its model from the Dao, it would not be able to preserve its purity. Used as an empty vessel, the Dao's utility is inexhaustible, but if one tries to fill it and turn it into something full... itsimply overflows... (W)hat makes it inexhaustible already fills it completely.
No matter how vast a physical form, nothing hampers the Dao's power to embody. No matter how great an undertaking, nothing could utilise its entire capacity. If the myriad things thought to abandon it and seek a different master, where could such a master be found? Indeed, is not true that 'it is such an abyss, oh, that it appears to be the progenitor of the myriad things'? It blunts the sharp but suffers no damage, cuts away the tangled but is not worn out, merges with the brilliant but does not soil its power to embody, and becomes one with the very dust but does not compromise its authenticity. Indeed, is it not true that 'its depth is so deep, oh, that it merely seems to exist'?
Since Earth must keep its physical form, its virtue (teh)(*) cannot exceed what it upholds, and, since Heaven must remain content with its images, its virtue cannot exceed what it covers. Thus neither Heaven nor Earth can equal it. Indeed, is it not true that 'it appears to have been born before the Lord(ti)', meaning t'ien ti, 'the Lord of Heaven'?
(*) Perhaps Waley's version ('power') - virtue in the ancient sense of the word - capacity - would be a happier translation here.
Cheng says: In application, the Tao blends in and is therefore empty yet can never be filled. Chapter 45 says, 'The greatest fullness seems empty, yet its applications are never exhausted'. Thus the 'body' of the Tao is 'so deep, ah! that it seems to be the ancestor of all things', blunting edges and solving quandaries as if all were returning to the oneness of non-action. Glare is mitigated and the world united as deeply as if a great spirit were there. Whose child is it? 'It seems to have existed before the Ancestor', referring to chapter 25, 'there is a chaotic thing, born before heaven and earth... I do not know its name. I reluctantly style it 'Tao', and, if forced to, would reluctantly decribe it as 'great'.
The idea is simple (aha! - that word!)... The Tao acts without conscious doing, therefore it is never over-extended, never exhausted.
Anything you want to add to its workings is useless... you cannot beat a heart or grow a seed... they do this of themselves. As the Zenrin Kushu (a book of some of the standard responses to the famous Zen koans) says:
'Spring comes and - of themselves - the grasses grow,
Some short, some long.'
Ch'uang-tze asks of the mind that would meddle, 'Which will you do? Stretch the legs of all ducks, or cut off those of the cranes?' The Whole Earth Catalogue guys said concerning the planet: 'You can't get it together. It is together.'
And it acts out of the utterly impalpable.... Things seem to come into being, persist for a brief instant and then dissolve back into the emptiness, only to be replaced by other things, similar or different, instant by instant, day by day, aeon by aeon... None of it is more than a mere blink in time, a simple flash in the vastness of space, and even time/space itself is just a joke.
The source of all sources, manifest simultaneously as the vast and endless display...
In the practice of t'ai chi ch'uan, as the enactment of non-doing, all movement stems from, manifests within and then returns back into this 'emptiness' in its various guises.
Oh unfathomable source of the ten thousand things!
Blunt the sharpness,
Untangle the knot,
Soften the glare,
Merge with dust[1].
Oh, hidden deep but ever present! [2]
I do not know from whence it comes.
It is the forefather of the emperors[3].
[1] Lau has 'Let your wheels move only along old ruts'. The Ma wang tui text has '(It) settles the dust', and, in fact, trats this entire passage as something the Tao itself does rather than as something one might need to contrive based on it. Most other translators seem to agree. This said, Fengs interpretation is well worth the consideration 'politically'.
[2] Lau has 'Darkly visible, it only seems as if it were there.
[3] The ma wang tui text (echoed by most others has '... the Lord' with Henricks's note that: "Lord" (ti) was the name of the supreme deity of the Shjang people (traditionally 1766-1122 BCE) , and was also used as the name of the supreme god of the Chou (1122-221 BCE), though they more commonly used the name 'Heaven' (t'ien).
After a section where he points out that anyone trying to govern without a full understanding of the active and passive principles (yin-yang) - any 'one trick pony' government - cannot possibly serve to support them, Wang goes on to say:
Although Earth consists of physical forms with their earthbound souls, if it did not take its model from Heaven, it would not be able to keep its quietude intact. Although Heaven consists of embryonic essences with their images, if it did not take its model from the Dao, it would not be able to preserve its purity. Used as an empty vessel, the Dao's utility is inexhaustible, but if one tries to fill it and turn it into something full... itsimply overflows... (W)hat makes it inexhaustible already fills it completely.
No matter how vast a physical form, nothing hampers the Dao's power to embody. No matter how great an undertaking, nothing could utilise its entire capacity. If the myriad things thought to abandon it and seek a different master, where could such a master be found? Indeed, is not true that 'it is such an abyss, oh, that it appears to be the progenitor of the myriad things'? It blunts the sharp but suffers no damage, cuts away the tangled but is not worn out, merges with the brilliant but does not soil its power to embody, and becomes one with the very dust but does not compromise its authenticity. Indeed, is it not true that 'its depth is so deep, oh, that it merely seems to exist'?
Since Earth must keep its physical form, its virtue (teh)(*) cannot exceed what it upholds, and, since Heaven must remain content with its images, its virtue cannot exceed what it covers. Thus neither Heaven nor Earth can equal it. Indeed, is it not true that 'it appears to have been born before the Lord(ti)', meaning t'ien ti, 'the Lord of Heaven'?
(*) Perhaps Waley's version ('power') - virtue in the ancient sense of the word - capacity - would be a happier translation here.
Cheng says: In application, the Tao blends in and is therefore empty yet can never be filled. Chapter 45 says, 'The greatest fullness seems empty, yet its applications are never exhausted'. Thus the 'body' of the Tao is 'so deep, ah! that it seems to be the ancestor of all things', blunting edges and solving quandaries as if all were returning to the oneness of non-action. Glare is mitigated and the world united as deeply as if a great spirit were there. Whose child is it? 'It seems to have existed before the Ancestor', referring to chapter 25, 'there is a chaotic thing, born before heaven and earth... I do not know its name. I reluctantly style it 'Tao', and, if forced to, would reluctantly decribe it as 'great'.
The idea is simple (aha! - that word!)... The Tao acts without conscious doing, therefore it is never over-extended, never exhausted.
Anything you want to add to its workings is useless... you cannot beat a heart or grow a seed... they do this of themselves. As the Zenrin Kushu (a book of some of the standard responses to the famous Zen koans) says:
'Spring comes and - of themselves - the grasses grow,
Some short, some long.'
Ch'uang-tze asks of the mind that would meddle, 'Which will you do? Stretch the legs of all ducks, or cut off those of the cranes?' The Whole Earth Catalogue guys said concerning the planet: 'You can't get it together. It is together.'
And it acts out of the utterly impalpable.... Things seem to come into being, persist for a brief instant and then dissolve back into the emptiness, only to be replaced by other things, similar or different, instant by instant, day by day, aeon by aeon... None of it is more than a mere blink in time, a simple flash in the vastness of space, and even time/space itself is just a joke.
The source of all sources, manifest simultaneously as the vast and endless display...
In the practice of t'ai chi ch'uan, as the enactment of non-doing, all movement stems from, manifests within and then returns back into this 'emptiness' in its various guises.
wu wei & wei wu wei (a note)
Wei wu-wei is how a master of any skill acts... It seems almost as though he himself is not there at all and the desired effect appears of itself, be he an American football player, a mediaeval shrine carver or a master musician, writer or poet.
Also the pen name of a VERY wicked Irish gentleman yclept Terence Gray, whose influence on British theatre and ballet is by no means unmarked. Websites concerning him may be found here:
http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/weiwuwei.html
Definitions of 'doing without acting' can be found here:
http://www.jadedragon.com/archives/june98/tao.html
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/loy3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei
Also the pen name of a VERY wicked Irish gentleman yclept Terence Gray, whose influence on British theatre and ballet is by no means unmarked. Websites concerning him may be found here:
http://www.weiwuwei.8k.com/
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/weiwuwei.html
Definitions of 'doing without acting' can be found here:
http://www.jadedragon.com/archives/june98/tao.html
http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/loy3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei
tao teh ching 3
Not exalting the gifted prevents quarreling.
Not collecting treasures prevents stealing.
Not seeing desirable things prevents confusion of the heart.
The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies,
by weakening ambitions and strenthening bones.[1]
If people lack knowledge and desire,
then intellectuals will not try to interfere[2].
If nothing is done, then all will be well.
[1] Chen Man-ch'ing reads:
"That is why the Sage governs himself by
relaxing the mind,
reinforcing the abdomen,
gentling the will
strengthening the bones.
Pointing out the subtle yogas of breath and the organs, his commentary goes on to ask how - if the way of the Sage really were simply to fill his own or anybody else's belly with food - would Lao-tze's Tao Teh Ching be of any value to anyone?
[2] Most of the other texts I have see this rather as keeping the "clever" from shooting their mouths off, which I think is FAR closer to the fact.
Since 'filling the belly' is a key Taoist practice, I think it might be both interesting and instructive to transcribe Cheng Man-ch'ing's whole commentary on this section [Man-jan Cheng - LAO-TZU: "My words are very easy to understand", Tam C. Gibbs transl. North Atlantic Books 1981] along with the translator's note on the Yellow Emperor's Classic.
Prof. Cheng says: 'Govern' means to regulate by certain principles. 'Relaxing the mind' (lit. emptying the heart) is the doctrine of non-action. 'Reinforcing the abdomen' means, in the words of the Yellow Emperor: "The Sage swallows the breath (ch'i) of heaven to reach spiritual enlightenment". In ch. 20 it says, "prize the food of the Mother". 'Mother' is the mother of all living things, the life-giving 'breath' (ch'i) of heaven-and-earth. This is the Tao of Lao-tzu. The will resides in the spleen('gentling the will'). The bones ('strengthening the bones') are related to the urogenital system. The spleen is the root of post-natal life, and the urogenital system determines pre-natal life. Furthermore, the urogenital system governs one's strength. If one's will is too strong, it will harm not only one's primal energy but will also damage the very root and trunk of one's life span. How can one strenthen the bones? By cultivating the generative essence (ching) and filling the bones with marrow as was taught by Ch'i-po, the teacher of the yellow Emperor. Ch'i-po said, "strengthening of the bone and marrow is the very root of life itself". I one were to say that the Sage's way of governing himself were no more than filling his belly with food, how could Lao-tzu's Tao Teh Ching be worthy of its title?
The translator's note adds: According to The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medicine, the will resides in the spleen. The urogenital system (including the kidneys) is related to the bones. The spleen helps the stomach digest food.
The urogenital system, referred to as hsien t'ien (cf. below) in traditional Chinese medical terminology, relates directly to the strength of one's parents. Up until the time of birth, life is totally dependent on the strength of one's parents, and so it is called hsien t'ien or 'pre-heaven', which also translates as 'pre-natal'. According to Chinese medicine, all the strengths one has (eyesight, hearing, energy, taste, etc.) depend on the strength of the urogenital system.
The will is inversely related to the strength of the spleen. If the will is too strong, it draws energy from the spleen, and awhen the spleen's energy is out of balance, it will borrow energy from the urogenital system, thus diminishing one's basic energy. This is based upon the Five Elements system used in traditional Chinese medicine whereby 'earth (the spleen) 'overcomes' water (the urogenital system).
Ching is not just sperm or semen, it is the basic energy out of which semen is made. According to Ch'ing-po in The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medicine, the marrow of the bones is effected by this substance.
My own note, too, is that ch'i = breath is not the same as chi = subtle vital energy.
This chapter is quite fascinating. On the surface of things it looks as though Lao-tzu is offering political advice, but in fact - I believe - if this advice is meant to be political at all, it first demands that it be applied to oneself. As Prof. Cheng points out in his commentary on the last lines: Chapter 65 reads "... not to enlighten (the) people, but instead to (gradually) make them stupid". Chapter 20 says, "What a fool's mind I have! How muddled I am"
He does, indeed, seek to gradually transform people, starting 'here', as it were (Let peace begin with me)... These descriptions - especially in ch. 20 - are not gratuitous: Several times I have heard very great lamas say exactly the same thing - 'You think that I am a buddha and totally enlightened, and that is very good for you to think like this and to have trust and confidence in that fact, but - I assure you - of the five paths or stages leading to enlightenment, I am still far from the ending of the first - the path of prepapration'... Socrates knew this too, as does any so-called "expert" in anything... 'Mastery' is a dream for most of us, and is most certainly a dream if we imagine we have it before we've even set out upon the path!
Not collecting treasures prevents stealing.
Not seeing desirable things prevents confusion of the heart.
The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies,
by weakening ambitions and strenthening bones.[1]
If people lack knowledge and desire,
then intellectuals will not try to interfere[2].
If nothing is done, then all will be well.
[1] Chen Man-ch'ing reads:
"That is why the Sage governs himself by
relaxing the mind,
reinforcing the abdomen,
gentling the will
strengthening the bones.
Pointing out the subtle yogas of breath and the organs, his commentary goes on to ask how - if the way of the Sage really were simply to fill his own or anybody else's belly with food - would Lao-tze's Tao Teh Ching be of any value to anyone?
[2] Most of the other texts I have see this rather as keeping the "clever" from shooting their mouths off, which I think is FAR closer to the fact.
Since 'filling the belly' is a key Taoist practice, I think it might be both interesting and instructive to transcribe Cheng Man-ch'ing's whole commentary on this section [Man-jan Cheng - LAO-TZU: "My words are very easy to understand", Tam C. Gibbs transl. North Atlantic Books 1981] along with the translator's note on the Yellow Emperor's Classic.
Prof. Cheng says: 'Govern' means to regulate by certain principles. 'Relaxing the mind' (lit. emptying the heart) is the doctrine of non-action. 'Reinforcing the abdomen' means, in the words of the Yellow Emperor: "The Sage swallows the breath (ch'i) of heaven to reach spiritual enlightenment". In ch. 20 it says, "prize the food of the Mother". 'Mother' is the mother of all living things, the life-giving 'breath' (ch'i) of heaven-and-earth. This is the Tao of Lao-tzu. The will resides in the spleen('gentling the will'). The bones ('strengthening the bones') are related to the urogenital system. The spleen is the root of post-natal life, and the urogenital system determines pre-natal life. Furthermore, the urogenital system governs one's strength. If one's will is too strong, it will harm not only one's primal energy but will also damage the very root and trunk of one's life span. How can one strenthen the bones? By cultivating the generative essence (ching) and filling the bones with marrow as was taught by Ch'i-po, the teacher of the yellow Emperor. Ch'i-po said, "strengthening of the bone and marrow is the very root of life itself". I one were to say that the Sage's way of governing himself were no more than filling his belly with food, how could Lao-tzu's Tao Teh Ching be worthy of its title?
The translator's note adds: According to The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medicine, the will resides in the spleen. The urogenital system (including the kidneys) is related to the bones. The spleen helps the stomach digest food.
The urogenital system, referred to as hsien t'ien (cf. below) in traditional Chinese medical terminology, relates directly to the strength of one's parents. Up until the time of birth, life is totally dependent on the strength of one's parents, and so it is called hsien t'ien or 'pre-heaven', which also translates as 'pre-natal'. According to Chinese medicine, all the strengths one has (eyesight, hearing, energy, taste, etc.) depend on the strength of the urogenital system.
The will is inversely related to the strength of the spleen. If the will is too strong, it draws energy from the spleen, and awhen the spleen's energy is out of balance, it will borrow energy from the urogenital system, thus diminishing one's basic energy. This is based upon the Five Elements system used in traditional Chinese medicine whereby 'earth (the spleen) 'overcomes' water (the urogenital system).
Ching is not just sperm or semen, it is the basic energy out of which semen is made. According to Ch'ing-po in The Yellow Emperor's Classic on Internal Medicine, the marrow of the bones is effected by this substance.
My own note, too, is that ch'i = breath is not the same as chi = subtle vital energy.
This chapter is quite fascinating. On the surface of things it looks as though Lao-tzu is offering political advice, but in fact - I believe - if this advice is meant to be political at all, it first demands that it be applied to oneself. As Prof. Cheng points out in his commentary on the last lines: Chapter 65 reads "... not to enlighten (the) people, but instead to (gradually) make them stupid". Chapter 20 says, "What a fool's mind I have! How muddled I am"
He does, indeed, seek to gradually transform people, starting 'here', as it were (Let peace begin with me)... These descriptions - especially in ch. 20 - are not gratuitous: Several times I have heard very great lamas say exactly the same thing - 'You think that I am a buddha and totally enlightened, and that is very good for you to think like this and to have trust and confidence in that fact, but - I assure you - of the five paths or stages leading to enlightenment, I am still far from the ending of the first - the path of prepapration'... Socrates knew this too, as does any so-called "expert" in anything... 'Mastery' is a dream for most of us, and is most certainly a dream if we imagine we have it before we've even set out upon the path!
tao teh ching 2
Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other;
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmoize each other;
Front and back follow each other.
Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking [1].
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not possessing,
Working, yet not taking credit.[2]
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.
[1] All the other translations have the idea of teaching without talking... sans too many splanations.
[2] I like Lau here. He has:
"The myriad creatures rise from it yet it claims no authority;
It gives them life yet claims no possession;
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude;
It accomplishes its tasks yet lays claim to no merit."
The commentaries all seem fairly straightforward: Things appear. If you're in accord with them, they work out for you; if not, not. What is, is, and is also invariably relative to its opposite. As Alice O. Howell points out, the darkest place in a room is under the lampbase.
However, for all its apparent simplicity, what it seems to me you're being asked to consider is not the idea of relativity and being within the flow, but the actual lived-through fact.
It's all very well, for example, knowing that the medicines named in your prescription will heal you, but unless you buy them and actually take them, this knowledge is of absolutely no use to you, and - in fact - is even wrong. Counting other people's treasure is not of much use to oneself. 'Family treasure does not come in through the front door,' as the Zenrin Kushu says.
What's also important to remember here, and certainly what Grandfather Lao is trying to teach us, is that - in the Taoist world-view (as best expressed by the 'twin-fish' t'ai chi diagram) - opposites literally ARE polar...
You cannot have one without the other. That is the nature of duality.
... And that therefore things are never actually out of balance, no matter how they seem.
When either pole reaches full ascendance, the seed of the other within it is of exactly the same power and so on throughout the cycle of birth, growth, death and dissolution.
All can know good as good only because there is evil.
Therefore having and not having arise together.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short contrast each other;
High and low rest upon each other;
Voice and sound harmoize each other;
Front and back follow each other.
Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no-talking [1].
The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,
Creating, yet not possessing,
Working, yet not taking credit.[2]
Work is done, then forgotten.
Therefore it lasts forever.
[1] All the other translations have the idea of teaching without talking... sans too many splanations.
[2] I like Lau here. He has:
"The myriad creatures rise from it yet it claims no authority;
It gives them life yet claims no possession;
It benefits them yet exacts no gratitude;
It accomplishes its tasks yet lays claim to no merit."
The commentaries all seem fairly straightforward: Things appear. If you're in accord with them, they work out for you; if not, not. What is, is, and is also invariably relative to its opposite. As Alice O. Howell points out, the darkest place in a room is under the lampbase.
However, for all its apparent simplicity, what it seems to me you're being asked to consider is not the idea of relativity and being within the flow, but the actual lived-through fact.
It's all very well, for example, knowing that the medicines named in your prescription will heal you, but unless you buy them and actually take them, this knowledge is of absolutely no use to you, and - in fact - is even wrong. Counting other people's treasure is not of much use to oneself. 'Family treasure does not come in through the front door,' as the Zenrin Kushu says.
What's also important to remember here, and certainly what Grandfather Lao is trying to teach us, is that - in the Taoist world-view (as best expressed by the 'twin-fish' t'ai chi diagram) - opposites literally ARE polar...
You cannot have one without the other. That is the nature of duality.
... And that therefore things are never actually out of balance, no matter how they seem.
When either pole reaches full ascendance, the seed of the other within it is of exactly the same power and so on throughout the cycle of birth, growth, death and dissolution.
tao teh ching 1
So, the version I'm going to be using as a basis is the one by Gia-fu Feng, but cross-referenced from time to time to others...
The first chapter says:
The Tao that can be told[1] is not the eternal[2] Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.[3]
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness [4].
Dakness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery
[1] Legge has 'trodden', but D. C. Lau has 'spoken of' and John C. H. Wu has 'talked about'
[2] Lau has 'constant'
[3] Lau has - brilliantly, I think -
'Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations'
[4] Both Lau and Wu have 'mystery'. Lau says:
'These two are the same
But diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery -
The gateway of the manifold secrets.'
Richard Wilhelm's version of this chapter is interesting. He gives:
The DAO that can be expressed
is not the eternal DAO.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.
'Non-existence' I call the beginning of Heaven and Earth.
'Existence' I call the mother of individual beings.
Therefore does the direction toward non-existence
lead to the sight of the miraculous essence,
The direction towards existence
to the sight of spatial limitations.
Both are one in origin
and differ only in name.
In its unity it's called the secret.
The secret's still deeper secret
is the gateway through which all miracles emerge.
I have two commentaries on the text, one by Wang Pi (226-249CE), and one by the taichi master and polymath Cheng Man-ch'ing (1901-1975)... Wang's is regarded as the commentary, though many seem to 'hae their doots'. I will try and base my own observations around both of these plus what I myself have managed to glean from the school of hard knocks.
The apparent focus of the Tao Teh Ching (as opposed to that of the Ch'uang-tzu which concentrates exclusively on self-development) is the learning of good government in accord with the Tao... This is somewhat misleading on one level, because - for good government to exist at all, the first thing needed is good governors... The Tao Teh Ching is NOT a political breviary, as are, for example the Confucius and Mencius, but is rather a text on what the Tao is, and how one might accord oneself with it, thereby engaging in good governance as a byproduct. This is important.
Thus the text opens - at least in the form that has come down to us as the Tao Teh Ching; there is another, the Teh Tao Ching or Ma wang tui text, where the first (chs. 1-37) and second sections (chs 38-79) are reversed - with a description of what the Tao is not...
First and foremost, it is not conceivable - you can have no ideas about what it really is at all - and it is beyond all expression. As Wang Pi points out, "the Tao that can be rendered in language and the name that can be given it point to a thing/matter or reproduce a form", neither of which is consistent with it...
We are talking here about the secret of secrets, the source of all mystery, the sorurce of the source of both being and not being as it were.
The Taoists consider than anything that exists has its source on non-being and that even non-being is mere a name for something of which we can have only the vaguest idea... an idea being inherently intellectual, after all.
The Tao as mother, source and root transcends all ideas and concepts...
This 'emptiness' is not a blank 'nothing', but rather an eternally fountaining plenum creating its myriad displays in every tiniest fraction of the pico and femto second...
The display that is both very much 'there' and yet, ultimately, not at all what it seems...
Study of emptiness stems from stilling the 'monkey mind' with its endless grasping and awakening peerless insight.
This mastered to a degree, one may permit oneself to follow the flow and observe the manifestations. As Wang Pi says, "only desire that is rooted in emptiness can be in any way beneficial". In other words we have to "give rise to a mind that is unsupported anywhere" as the Diamond Sutra says - to be open-hearted, open-minded and open-fisted in order to see the "manifestations" clearly, otherwise all we see is our own version of them, which is not at all the same thing.
BOTH of these arise out of the mystery. This is similar to the idea that samsara and nirvana both manifest as the 'recognised' or 'unrecognised' manifestation of primordial buddhahood - that ultimately they are identical for all that their results are as far apart as heaven and earth. Wang Pi points out that "... at the start, mystery is referred to as 'origin', and, at the end it is called 'mother. Mystery is the dark, where, in silence, absolutely nothing exists. It is where origin and mother come from and cannot be treated as something to be named. Thus the text cannot say, 'Together they have the same origin: Mystery', but instead says, 'Together we refer to them as Mystery'... The reason it refers to them is this way is that it could not just stop and restrict their meaning to a single word. Had it done so, this word - this name - would certainly have been far from the mark..."
"Mystery upon mystery" - even the known is not really known, what to say of the unknown? "The gateway of all subtleties"...
This is where the text is asking us to start: In the very heart of the unknowable and inexpressible. The rest follows on from there.
Sorry - declamatory mode. Forgive.
The first chapter says:
The Tao that can be told[1] is not the eternal[2] Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.[3]
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness [4].
Dakness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery
[1] Legge has 'trodden', but D. C. Lau has 'spoken of' and John C. H. Wu has 'talked about'
[2] Lau has 'constant'
[3] Lau has - brilliantly, I think -
'Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations'
[4] Both Lau and Wu have 'mystery'. Lau says:
'These two are the same
But diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery -
The gateway of the manifold secrets.'
Richard Wilhelm's version of this chapter is interesting. He gives:
The DAO that can be expressed
is not the eternal DAO.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal name.
'Non-existence' I call the beginning of Heaven and Earth.
'Existence' I call the mother of individual beings.
Therefore does the direction toward non-existence
lead to the sight of the miraculous essence,
The direction towards existence
to the sight of spatial limitations.
Both are one in origin
and differ only in name.
In its unity it's called the secret.
The secret's still deeper secret
is the gateway through which all miracles emerge.
I have two commentaries on the text, one by Wang Pi (226-249CE), and one by the taichi master and polymath Cheng Man-ch'ing (1901-1975)... Wang's is regarded as the commentary, though many seem to 'hae their doots'. I will try and base my own observations around both of these plus what I myself have managed to glean from the school of hard knocks.
The apparent focus of the Tao Teh Ching (as opposed to that of the Ch'uang-tzu which concentrates exclusively on self-development) is the learning of good government in accord with the Tao... This is somewhat misleading on one level, because - for good government to exist at all, the first thing needed is good governors... The Tao Teh Ching is NOT a political breviary, as are, for example the Confucius and Mencius, but is rather a text on what the Tao is, and how one might accord oneself with it, thereby engaging in good governance as a byproduct. This is important.
Thus the text opens - at least in the form that has come down to us as the Tao Teh Ching; there is another, the Teh Tao Ching or Ma wang tui text, where the first (chs. 1-37) and second sections (chs 38-79) are reversed - with a description of what the Tao is not...
First and foremost, it is not conceivable - you can have no ideas about what it really is at all - and it is beyond all expression. As Wang Pi points out, "the Tao that can be rendered in language and the name that can be given it point to a thing/matter or reproduce a form", neither of which is consistent with it...
We are talking here about the secret of secrets, the source of all mystery, the sorurce of the source of both being and not being as it were.
The Taoists consider than anything that exists has its source on non-being and that even non-being is mere a name for something of which we can have only the vaguest idea... an idea being inherently intellectual, after all.
The Tao as mother, source and root transcends all ideas and concepts...
This 'emptiness' is not a blank 'nothing', but rather an eternally fountaining plenum creating its myriad displays in every tiniest fraction of the pico and femto second...
The display that is both very much 'there' and yet, ultimately, not at all what it seems...
Study of emptiness stems from stilling the 'monkey mind' with its endless grasping and awakening peerless insight.
This mastered to a degree, one may permit oneself to follow the flow and observe the manifestations. As Wang Pi says, "only desire that is rooted in emptiness can be in any way beneficial". In other words we have to "give rise to a mind that is unsupported anywhere" as the Diamond Sutra says - to be open-hearted, open-minded and open-fisted in order to see the "manifestations" clearly, otherwise all we see is our own version of them, which is not at all the same thing.
BOTH of these arise out of the mystery. This is similar to the idea that samsara and nirvana both manifest as the 'recognised' or 'unrecognised' manifestation of primordial buddhahood - that ultimately they are identical for all that their results are as far apart as heaven and earth. Wang Pi points out that "... at the start, mystery is referred to as 'origin', and, at the end it is called 'mother. Mystery is the dark, where, in silence, absolutely nothing exists. It is where origin and mother come from and cannot be treated as something to be named. Thus the text cannot say, 'Together they have the same origin: Mystery', but instead says, 'Together we refer to them as Mystery'... The reason it refers to them is this way is that it could not just stop and restrict their meaning to a single word. Had it done so, this word - this name - would certainly have been far from the mark..."
"Mystery upon mystery" - even the known is not really known, what to say of the unknown? "The gateway of all subtleties"...
This is where the text is asking us to start: In the very heart of the unknowable and inexpressible. The rest follows on from there.
Sorry - declamatory mode. Forgive.
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