Got it. I will stand clear from relating the discussion to other points of reference than the text you are interested in. — Valentinus

No, no, no, no, no. You've misunderstood me completely. I'm happy to have you bring in stuff from other sources. I'm just not as familiar with the Chuang Tzu as I am with the Tao Te Ching. Feel free to bring in more if it seems relevant.

I thought there was something sinister about your worldview — Tom Storm

I am the brightest ray of sunshine on the forum.

Thank you for this topic, TC. — Caldwell

You're welcome, but I'm mostly doing this for myself. This is fun.

I don't see this contradicting what I said previously, — Caldwell

I think you're right.

It is great when someone sets an example as to how feedback can be given with respect even if we are in disagreement. Thank you, and in indeed, we disagree! — Gus Lamarch

I appreciate your comment. I try to be a good citizen of the forum. Often I fail, but I keep trying.

There is no reciprocality in the true sense. If you look at statements 1 and 2, they're both jobs for the good man. In both statements, arrows point only to one direction. — Caldwell

Just for your information, here is the entire verse that contains the lines @Tom Storm was quoting. Verse 27 of Stephen Mitchell. I'm not sure if it makes any difference to what you wrote, but I think it at least puts it in a different light. I thought you might be interested.

A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.

Thus the Master is available to all people
and doesn't reject anyone.
He is ready to use all situations
and doesn't waste anything.
This is called embodying the light.

What is a good man but a bad man's teacher?
What is a bad man but a good man's job?
If you don't understand this, you will get lost,
however intelligent you are.
It is the great secret.

It is always the responsibility of the good ones to take care of the good and bad things happening in the world. — Caldwell

Although there is also a reciprocality. The bad man provides the good man with something too.

That observation about utility and perspective reminds me of one my favorite passages from Zhuangzi: — Valentinus

As I wrote in response to a post from @Amity, I've read Thomas Merton's translation of the Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi, but I haven't spent much time or effort on it. I think Merton's translation is just an excerpt. Not certain. It's something I need to spend more time with if I expect all of you to think of me as a great Taoist scholar.

What I have read in the Zhuangzi isn't as compelling to me as the Tao Te Ching. The TTC is poetry and the Zhuangzi is mostly stories. The stories are interesting, but the poetry bores right into me. You, Amity, and Jack Cummins should get together and start a thread. I'll participate enthusiastically.

Cuando reina el Principio (al ser perfecta la paz), los caballos de guerra trabajan en el campo
Cuando se olvida el Principio (al estar en guerra la orden del día), se crían caballos de batalla hasta en los arrabales de las ciudades — javi2541997

This is how Google translates your Spanish version:

When the principle reigns (to be perfect), the warriors work in the camp. When Olivida the Principio (to be in the war of the Order of the Day), he creates warriors fighting in the cities of the cities.

I think we'll trust your translations. As I said, there are dozens of them out there. No reason yours shouldn't be welcome.

That is not your fault T Clark, I am not targeting you, you indeed do what a loving father does and your children are the better for it, but a social trend that I am discerning. — Tobias

I think I understand what @synthesis was trying to say. As I wrote, I don't see it as a problem, even if we discount any problems caused by the pandemic.

The rule/principle that's "problematic" in the above verse is that fast horses should be used for racing, to serve as conveyance for messengers, in the military, etc.; dung is the last thing on people's minds when they see/hear of fast horses. — TheMadFool

When the Principle reigns the horses of war are raised in the fields — javi2541997

The line I quoted is from the same verse, 46, just a different translation. There's more to the verse than Javi2541997's quote. Here's the whole thing. Ellen Marie Chen translation. I don't know what version Javi was using:

When the world practices Tao,
Fast horses are used for their dung.
When the world does not practice Tao,
War horses give birth at the borders.
Among offenses (tsui), none is greater than having what is desirable.
Among calamities (huo), none is greater than not knowing contentment.
Among blames (chiu), none is greater than the desire for gain.
Therefore the contentment that comes from knowing contentment
Is a long lasting contentment.

To boil down, paraphrase, and butcher - When the ruler of a nation fails to follow the Tao, there will be war.

It is a problem if one is not lucky enough to have families. It is an indication that opportunities to begin a life of your own are dwindling, — Tobias

I don't disagree with this, but the phenomenon @synthesis is describing is not relevant to many people living at home right now. They're home, not because they have any problem being independent, but because their lives have fallen apart because of the pandemic. As I've said, that's what families are for.

Here is where people will gove a litany of why people need to be born to experience life: virtue(wtf?), pleasure, art, music, aesthetics, cause god wants it, cause people just "need" to exist so they can pursue goals and find meaning through struggle, to fill role of X thing, to produce more stuff, technology,laughter, etcetc. — schopenhauer1

As usual, you are shanghaiing someone else's thread to propound your.... unpopular theories.

Antinatalism. One less kid born is one less dependent. Peace. — schopenhauer1

In another post, we were discussing the aphorism "To a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I guess we could retread that as "To an anti-natalist, every problem looks like reproduction."

Unless one can achieve financial independence and intellectual autonomy, individuals will always be controlled (from without) resulting in the loss of essential freedoms (a great American tragedy). — synthesis

It's an odd time to be asking this question. My son, who is very independent, is living at home now because he lost his job and career to the pandemic. He's gone back to school. A lot of other people are in the same situation now. The fact that they have families who can help out is a great thing. That's what families are for.

Does anybody see anything on the horizon that might indicate a reversal this incredibly disturbing trend? — synthesis

I don't see it as disturbing at all.

Deleted by author.

I think the line is ironic. We think of the caging to cage the bird, but the cage is a cage unto itself. If there's no bird in it, it's empty. — Dawnstorm

Or, maybe, without a bird, it's not a cage at all, it's just a box made of wire.

My favourite version of the first which I was told was Maslow (but such quotes seem to transmigrate) is this: "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you treat everything as a nail.' Which sharpens it for me. — Tom Storm

I don't doubt that Maslow's quote came first, but I like the one I quoted better. First - when it comes to aphorisms, shorter is usually better. Also - The idea of a live hammer searching out nails to smash always makes me smile. I think, most important, the version I quoted is ironic and sinister, which I think is appropriate to it's meaning. I think the quote @New2K2 used is ironic and sinister in a similar way, although others seem to see it differently.

The limits of a person's world view. — Tom Storm

There's a psychological term, "functional fixedness," which gets at that. E.g., how many times have I used a knife as a screwdriver, usually because I'm just too lazy to go down in the basement? Some people might not think of that because they couldn't see around what knives are supposed to be used for.

My reading of a cage went in search of a bird is - a cage is pointless without a bird in it. So it describes all the empty people 'cages' in search of their truth 'birds'. When they find it they will trap it and render it a prisoner in their mind - where the meaning no longer soars. — Tom Storm

That's pretty close to my reading, although, as I said, it feels a bit more sinister than that to me.

Are these also from a collection of Aphorisms?
I liked the first one. — New2K2

Not from any collection I know of. I don't know where I heard the first one. It's pretty common. See Tom Storm's response to my post -

The second, which I love, is used as an epigraph in "Night Soldiers," a wonderful book by Alan Furst. If you are interested in historical novels about the years surrounding World War II, there are none better than Furst's. Some people say Trotsky actually said it. Some say Furst modified a different Trotsky quote.

The change in our understanding and restraining from leaping into action uncovers the way things actually work and come about. — Valentinus

The Tao is obviously central to the experience that Lao Tzu is trying to lead us to. For me, wu wei, action without action, is also central. I've thought quite a bit about how they are connected. I think you've expressed it very well, in a way I hadn't thought of before.

When we get to the second half of the TTC, Lao Tzu writes about Te, which is usually translated as "virtue" and sometimes as "power" although everyone seems to agree that neither one of those is quite right. It's a concept I've struggled with. I have come to think of Te as the expression of Tao in each of our lives. I think that's what you are talking about. I'm not sure.

I've read what you wrote three times and I'll have to read it some more. Thank you.

"A cage went in search of a bird.". — New2K2

Two similar ironic aphorisms come to mind:

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.

The second is apparently a fake quote attributed to Leon Trotsky by author Alan Furst.

Absolutely, the government can do what it likes, always could. My issue is with the lame-ass attempt at justifying the action. The rhetoric used does not jive with the response mandated, therefore I call foul. I would have more support for the actions if they were simply mandated, rather than poorly explained and rationalized with faulty logic. — Book273

Does that mean it would be ethical or moral to put restrictions on individuals behavior, on your behavior, if you agreed with the reasoning behind it? That's not what I thought you were saying.

Verse 3 – Stephen Mitchell

If you overesteem great men,
people become powerless.
If you overvalue possessions,
people begin to steal.

The Master leads
by emptying people's minds
and filling their cores,
by weakening their ambition
and toughening their resolve.
He helps people lose everything they know,
everything they desire,
and creates confusion
in those who think that they know.

Practice not-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

I’m not sure how much I have to say on this verse. Others, please see if you can fill in the blanks.

I do have this overall comment – There is a general theme, maybe more of an undertone, in the TTC. Emptying, releasing, shrinking, weakening, losing, surrendering, waiting, withholding, giving things up, allowing, seeing, not doing.

You make the call, you live, or die, with the results. IF you chose to drive drunk and you kill yourself, or someone else, that's on you. You don't get to whine that no one saved you from yourself and that none of it is your fault because of someone else's lack of action. You do it, you own it. — Book273

I believe the government has the legitimate authority to place reasonable restrictions on people's lives in order to protect public health. Seems like you disagree with that. I also believe that government has the legitimate authority to act following legally established procedures whether or not everyone agrees. Perhaps you disagree with that too. My conclusion is that reasonable restrictions during this pandemic are ethical. There is no need for us to wait for your agreement to proceed.

The English translation of the word “Tao” could very well be “the way of nature”. — Present awareness

According to Wikipedia:

Tao or Dao from Chinese: 道; is a Chinese word signifying the "way", "path", "route", road

Direct experience, is the way that we perceive nature, — Present awareness

It's not the way most of us perceive nature most of the time. That's why we need the Tao Te Ching.

This verse, I think, refers again to the central paradox, and to the role of affect. This is how we qualitatively differentiate experience - by valence, positive and negative. But in relation to the Tao this distinction isn’t digital - it’s relational. — Possibility

You're talking about affect and valence. What do those mean in this context? Value? Preference? Is it like one of those surveys - on a scale of 1 to 10, how do you rate this? Is that what you mean by "relational?"

reality is not just black and white, it’s shades of grey... Any description of a shade of grey is necessarily relational. — Possibility

Except I don't think Lao Tzu is talking about judgments and distinctions as shades of gray. I think he's saying they are illusions. "Illusion" is probably not the right word. That's more of a Buddhist thing, but it's something like that.

The difference between this type of differentiation and conceptual distinction is dimensional, in my view. Good and bad, beautiful and ugly, difficult and easy, long and short - they’re are all transcendental or aesthetic ideas. Naming a particular thing consolidates the relational structure of a concept, effectively isolating it from other concepts. Valence, on the other hand, points out that nothing is ever really isolated, that there is no being except in relation to non-being, no after without a before. — Possibility

I'm a bit lost here.

This reminds me of Deacon’s absentials. When we’re not choosing, we’re still choosing. It’s about being conscious of what we allow and enable by our inaction (ignorance, isolation and exclusion) as well as by our action (awareness, connection and collaboration). — Possibility

Can you clarify a bit. Maybe make more of a correspondence of your ideas and Lao Tzu's. Define some terms.

Ah, now that makes sense to me. It rings with my idea of 'gaps between the snaps' when it comes to discovering family history. — Amity

My family have been going back through old family pictures over the last few months. My brothers, my cousin, and I are the only ones who remember my parents when they were younger and my grandparents. We're all in our 60s or 70s. My children, especially my daughter, have been expressing a desire to see what's up before we are gone. There are hundreds of pictures, most of which are of no interest. We don't know who the people are or where they are. But we are building up a picture of our family.

thank you for explaining this. food for contemplation — TaySan

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm having a really good time.

We are both reading the Chuang Tzu or Zhuangzi but at a different pace. — Amity

I've read Thomas Merton's translation of the Chuang Tzu. It doesn't work for me as well as the TTC. It's less figurative and less poetic. The stories don't work for me as well as more direct verses in the TTC. Ironically, the fact that the TTC is more intellectual makes it easier for me to work with, since I'm a pretty intellectual person. Still - I need to spend more time with the Chuang Tzu.

Maybe you and @Jack Cummins can start a thread about the Chuang Tzu sometime.

'...the teaching of the Tao Te Ching is moral in the deepest sense'. — Amity

There are a lot of commentaries, some recent and some written 2,000 years ago. Reading them is like reading different translations - everybody has their own way of seeing things. I used to think, who are these people who think their opinion about the TTC is worth thinking about. Then, as I started working on this thread I realized - Hey! Now I'm writing a commentary.

Yeah, they seem somewhat at odds with the more personal passages, but I appreciate your thoughts, both. — Isaac

I think that rulers and bureaucrats were among the main audience Lao Tzu was writing for. So I think discussing politics makes sense. Which doesn't change the fact that I don't get much out of those verses.

This also reminded me of Kant as you later mentioned. — Benkei

I just went online and looked. A lot of people have thought the same thing.

legal positivist idea of a Grundnorm. — Benkei

Not familiar. I'll take a look

More generally, most western philosophy I've read seems to have a similar idea - things existing beyond words. Sometimes something important. But it always seems to be a little chunk off in the corner of the big picture somewhere rather than the biggest picture of all.

The natural question is, if Taoism not an intellectual exercise why does it feel like one? — TheMadFool

• People like you and me make everything an intellectual exercise.
• Similarly, western philosophy is not capable of handling anything not intellectual.
• It is my understanding that Taoism as practiced rigorously includes a big meditative effort. I believe Tai Chi is related to Taoism.
• The Tao Te Ching is self-consciously paradoxical. Applying the intellect to something that can not be known intellectually.
• Lao Tzu thought it was funny.
• I think part of it is technique. Using the intellect to understand the Tao is frustrating. After hitting your head against the wall enough times, you give up. Tah dah - you're enlightened.

The lesson of Taoism then is that instead of getting our knickers in a twist trying to construct better and better generalizations to accommodate exceptions what we should be doing is assume a flexible stance, a necessity if one is to recognize that each situation is unique in and of itself and deserves to be treated as such and not in accordance to some rule/principle that's intended to cover all cases...because that's "impossible"??? — TheMadFool

Sure, but there's a lot more going on than just that.

It is my belief that Lao Tzu was pointing out how, where and why words fail. — Present awareness

I think he was saying that, sure, but I think he was saying a lot more too. The Tao is not hard to speak about. It is unspeakable. The Tao comes before words. Or maybe that's the same thing you were saying

Seems like you didn't read my post or just decided to ignore what I said.

I think it's quintessentially Chinese in many respects. My Anglo physiology doesn't really suit it. — Wayfarer

As I said - when I first encountered Taoism, I immediately felt at home. I still do. I don't ask for more, no matter what my physiology is. Much of western philosophy feels very alien to me. I'm more comfortable with religions, probably because I was an acolyte at Mt. Olivet Methodist Church when I was a kid. But religions just don't work for me.

Well, isn't that the situation we're all in with the pandemic? We know that if we associate with others, there's a risk we'll get the virus or, if we unknowingly have it already, pass it on to others. But, well, so long as we all know this, surely no one has the right to stop us associating if we want to? — Bartricks

You doodle around for a few paragraphs then you finally get down to this. It's not that you take a chance on dying, it's that you take a chance on passing the disease on to others. There's a long history of government putting restrictions on people's behavior for a public health purpose. You can't dump your sewage into the river that passes through your property. Your children can't go to school unless they get their vaccinations. You can't smoke in public places. It's my understanding that New York City made ordinances against spitting to stop the spread of tuberculosis. You can't let toxic substances from you industrial processes into the air.

Maybe you think these are not justified or are unethical. If so, it's too late. This fight is over. It has been determined that the government has the authority to take these actions.

Whether or not lockdowns are needed in this situation is another question which I'm not addressing here. That's an issue of how the results of science are applied to political decisions. That is very interesting to me, but it's not the subject at hand.

One thing I will say - a lockdown is a very intrusive and disruptive action. It has severe consequences. Fighting the need to have those restrictions is legitimate. Masks, on the other hand, are an inconvenience. To equate the two or to somehow claim being required to wear a mask is a violation of your rights is a joke. Just put on the damn mask.

Well, I did major in Comparative Religion, and although we didn’t spend a lot of time on Taoism, in particular, there are analogs for the ‘unmanifest’ or ‘the nameless’ in other cultures as I’ve tried to point out.

In the Semitic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - the ‘supreme principle’ is idealised as a deity, God, or Allah. In Taoism, the ‘supreme principle’ is idealised as ‘the Way’. — Wayfarer

In some of the Abrahamic faiths, didn't they have prohibitions against speaking the name of God? The idea that the name of God is unspeakable seems similar to how Taoism handles it. Is that you are saying?

This is not to say that ‘the Tao’ is like, or is, a creator deity or God. It’s a different conception, but it’s still concerned with the ‘origin’ or ‘the source’ of ‘all things’. So it occupies a similar role in Chinese culture that God might in earlier Christian culture, but without saying that ‘the Tao’ is, therefore, a God, because plainly it’s not. — Wayfarer

In later verses, there is a cosmology of sorts. It seems to be a myth about how the world was created but also how the world is constantly recreated. The Tao is constantly creating the 10,000 things and they are constantly returning to the Tao to be sustained, because they're really the same thing. Except they're not. It took me a long time to see that, but I think it's really important.

I think the reason you find it confusing is because it is indeed a very hard notion to grasp. It has to be allowed that the sages - such as Lao Tzu - are accepted to have insights that we, the hoi polloi, do not. — Wayfarer

I agree that the ideas are hard to grasp. More importantly, they are difficult to experience. Maybe sages have insights we don't have, but I think Lao Tzu's intention is to lead us to those insights. More than that, I think he is trying to lead us to an experience. Maybe he didn't see the hoi polloi as his audience, but that doesn't mean we can't follow his lead.

As such it has a depth of meaning which is not at all obvious. You have to allow for the cultural context. — Wayfarer

Definitely, but I don't think that excludes us from following the path. I feel much more at home here than I do in the religion I was raised in, protestant Christianity, or in western philosophy.

The big question is, is something lost in the translation? — TheMadFool

Sure. That's why it's good to read more than one translation. Also, I think differences in translations mirror differences in meaning in the TTC itself. I'm not sure about that. For me, the whole exercise is impressionistic.

Most importantly - this is not an intellectual exercise and I don't think Lao Tzu intended it to be. I think he was trying to transmit an experience to us. The Tao is not a thing, it is an experience. If you can experience that, it can really clarify what he's trying to say. The Tao is a pathway. That is how TTC is often translated - The Book of the Way.

Relative truth is getting as close as possible to the truth intellectually, whereas Absolute Truth is THE Truth (which we cannot access). — synthesis

Is that the same as objective truth and subject truth? Those are familiar concepts that seem relevant, but I'm not sure.

My newbie take on this comports with yours. There seem to be a lot of these sorts of intriguing constructions. Do not do the thing you think, it is the reverse of what you think. I can't quite formulate this. — Tom Storm

Did the stanza I quoted about shrinking and expanding seem relevant to this issue to you? I wasn't sure if that would make sense.

As for not being able to formulate what this means - Lao Tzu's words seem to contradict each other between verses or even within the same verse. The same words mean different things in different places. If you read more than one translation, you often get very different readings. If you get different people together, they have different readings. In the reading group I was in, we had a member who was a linguist. Even with his help, we were always struggling.