Ahhh i have forgotten the joy of referal logs, but it seems that this site is still more popular than everybody elses, (espiecially greg’s) and threrefor I get hit up by the search engines. So here for your pleasure are some of the searches that landed people here.
how to stop pornagraphy e-mail
sould you eat dairy when your sick
From this small sample we can see the fine quality of writing and readers that come together in this small corner of cyberspace.
Part three
不尚贤使民不争。
Holding the most able men above others, brings the people only strife
不贵难得之货使民不为盗
Valuing rare goods above common ones, instigates the people to become thieves
不见可欲使民心不乱。
Seeing what one wants, causes confusion in the people’s hearts
是以圣人之治
It is for a wise man to harness the people by
虚其心
Emptying their hearts
实其腹
Filling their bellies
弱其志
Weakening their will
强其骨
Strengthening their bones
常使民无知无欲
Truly enable the people to posses no knowledge, no desires
使夫智者不敢为也
And cause men with wisdom to dare not act
为无为则无不治
Act without acting, in doing so disorder vanishes
Notes: This was relativily straight foward, I changed some negative statments into postive ones because it sounded better in english
Part 4
道冲而用之或不盈
Pour out practice, use it up, or never be filled
渊兮似万物之宗
From an abyss appears everything we encounter
解其纷
Their tangles are straitened
和其光
Their discord is harmonized
同其尘
Their dust is settled
湛兮似或存
In the depths it seems to have survived
吾不知谁之子
I do not know who reared it
象帝之先
It seems as if it was prior to god
Notes: The first line in this one is a bitch to parse. I like what I came up with but I don’t know if I carried over the feeling of flowing and water that is in this section. The it refers to practice or “dao”
I’ve decided to translate the 道德经 , (that’s the Tao Te Ching for all you wade-giles fans out there. I’ve read a couple other translations and I wasn’t really satisfied, especially when I saw the original and it didn’t really match up. So I figured I’d give it a go myself, because it will help my Chinese and I have a lot of time on my hands.
I will try to stick to the original structure of the道德经, I won’t try to add anything or make drastic changes to the sentence structure, but I am not really going for historical accuracy. Basically I’m interpreting it from my own philosophy, which is basically a Humean empirical skepticism. Coming from this philosophy is a dislike of mysticism, (because it is bullshit), and the emphasis on mysticism and mysteries was what turned me off about other translations.
Like I said before, I’m not very interested in historical accuracy (though the more I translate, the more I care what the original words actually meant), and I am not a scholar of classical Chinese, hell I can’t even speak modern Chinese that well. So this attempt shouldn’t be seen as trying to produce a definitive document.
Starting with the Title, I translated道德经 as “The Practice of Virtue”, or more colloquially, “How to be a Good Person.” I intentionally avoided translating “Dao” as “way,” because it had been done so many times, and “practice” conveys more of a sense of action. I also chose it because it links Daoism up with Zen, where they are always talking about “right practice. But a way of doing something and a practice of doing something are really just the same thing.
It seems like there are a couple versions in Chinese out there. I’ve tried to stick to the one on this site (which is a ridiculously awesome site for classical Chinese texts). That site has English translations as well but I’ve stayed pretty far away from them. Here it is in simplified characters.
The 1st section:
道可道非常道
Practicing a practice is not living the practice
名可名非常名
Naming a name is not speaking the name
无名天地之始
The beginnings of existence cannot be named
有名万物之母
Yet we are able to name the origins of everything we encounter
故常无欲以观其妙
To be perceptive, always ignore your desires
常有欲以观其徼
To have good fortune, always embrace your desires
此两者同出而异名
These two thoughts jointly emerge, yet use different words
同谓之玄。玄之又玄
Spoken together, they are quite mysterious, a mystery on top of mysteries
众妙之门。
The door to a multitude of perceptions
Notes: This first section just lays out what he is going to tell us; What Dao is, how we speak, and how to lead a good life. The last couple lines are rather tongue in cheek, Laozi is being mischievous. I’m trying to make this applicable to my godless modern life, and took some liberties with some words. For example changed heaven to existence, (which I’m not really happy with but I can’t think of anything else).
The first four lines are hard to translate because of the 可 and the 常. Even in modern Chinese I don’t know what to make of 可. Its basic meaning is “can,” but it is used in many other ways. I took it here to mean an action is taking place. The 常 is strange because it has two rather contradictory meanings, “everyday” or “usual,” and “infinite”. Most translations take the “infinite” reading, I go the other route. I’m still not sure if I got 妙 and 徼 right.
The whole 道德经 is surprisingly Wittgenstein. There is a lot of talk about how we speak and how we can communicate. “Naming a name is not speaking” means that just defining something (“naming a name”) is not the same as speaking. In the same way just practicing The Dao, in order to be daoist, is not necessarily living your life in a daoist manner.
The 2nd section
天下皆知美之为美斯恶已
Because all can recognize beauty, ugliness already exists
皆知善之为善，斯不善已。
Because one can recognize kindness, evil already exists
有无相生
Existence and nothingness are created together
难易相成
Difficulty and ease complete each other
长短相形
Long and short are a pair of forms
高下相倾
Height leans on what is below it
音声相和
Pitch and rhythm unite in harmony
前后相随
Front and back follow one another
是以圣人处无为之事，
A wise man’s place is to take no side in matters
行不言之教
and move to teach with no words
万物作焉而不辞
Everything he encounters is made fresh and never rejected
生而不有
What he produces he does not own
为而不恃
What he supports he does not rely on
功成而弗居
What we has accomplishes he does not settle into
夫唯弗居是以不去
Only he who dwells in nothing, will be never cast aside
Notes: This one is all about how humans are the ones who put form on the world, and that these forms are not necessarily the correct ones. The first part was pretty straight forward. After “a wise man’s place…” it was a little more difficult but I am quite pleased with how it turned out, especially the last two lines. Other translations of these lines I’ve read are particularly unsatisfying.
毛孩儿 a great chinese photojournalist
Ms. July 1959, I’m in love with somebody’s grandma.
