Eternal Tao Te Ching

Hoff Benjamin Hoff

Description

The bestselling author of The Tao of Pooh offers a uniquely authentic translation of the enduring Tao Te Ching, based on the meanings of the ancient Chinese characters in use when the Taoist classic was written. From Benjamin Hoff, author of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet, which have sold millions of copies worldwide, comes The Eternal Tao Te Ching, a new translation of the Chinese philosophical classic, the Tao Te Ching. The Eternal Tao Te Ching is the first translation to employ the meanings of the pre-writing brush characters in use 2,400 years ago, when the classic was written, rather than relying on the often-different meanings of the more modern brush characters, as other translations have done. Hoff points out in his chapter notes the many incidents of meddling and muddling that have been made over the centuries by scholars and copyists, and he corrects the mistakes and removes such tampering from the text. Hoff also makes the provocative claim-and demonstrates by revealing clues in the text-that the Tao Te Ching's author was a young nobleman hiding his identity, rather than the long-alleged author, the "Old Master" of legend, Lao-tzu. And Hoff's chapter notes shed new light on the author's surprisingly modern viewpoint. With a selection of lyrical color landscape photographs by the author, this is a unique, and uniquely accessible, presentation of the Tao Te Ching.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Taoism

Informations

• Publié par: ABRAMS BOOKS
• Date de parution: 07 décembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647003616
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

This book is dedicated to Dr. Yi Wu, whose research and writings on the Tao Te Ching and Chinese philosophy were invaluable to me in the preparation of this volume; also to my two principal Taoist teachers, David Cheng and Dr. Yuet Sun Chan; and to my first and foremost teacher, Ti Hs an Tao -Valley Spirit, Mysterious Female, Mother of the Ten Thousand Things.
B.H.
There existed something hazy and whirling, completed before heaven-and-earth s beginning. In silence and emptiness , it stood alone and unchanging. In cycles it moved, but did not wear down. It could be considered as being The Mother of All Under Heaven. I do not know its name. To designate it, I call it The Way .
FROM CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE OF THE TAO TE CHING
CONTENTS
Introduction: The Ageless Wisdom of a Long-Obscured Masterpiece
Cryptic Writing, Hidden Dragon
Ancient Pictures, Ghostly Voices
The Chapters: All Under Heaven
Chapter Notes: Walking the Maze
The Photographs: The Valley Spirit

INTRODUCTION: THE AGELESS WISDOM OF A LONG-OBSCURED MASTERPIECE
All great spiritual teachings, it would seem, are founded by complex minds driven by the desire for simplicity-minds that observe and reflect on deep, complicated matters, reduce them to their vital components, and then communicate these in ways that are easily understood by others. But after the founders are gone, the followers, those of simpler minds, complicate things.
The author of the Tao Te Ching streamlined the folk religion of China down to its foundation (eliminating its gods and goddesses) and rebuilt it as a man-in-nature philosophy, incorporating his advanced spiritual, philosophical, social, and political ideas. He wrote it down in the simplest terms, apparently without signing his name to his work-a fitting signature to a philosophy of non-egotism.
And then his readers complicated what he d created. They altered his writing according to their own ideas, egos, and misunderstandings. They used his expressions to justify beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors quite different from those he d advocated. They interpreted his philosophy according to those of later writers. They obscured his meanings with convoluted, twisting-and- turning commentaries and arguments . . .
And yet, visible here and there through all of that like sunlight in fog-concealed in that passage but revealed in this one-the long-hidden meanings and simplicity have remained. They are what I set out to retrieve.
Ever since its creation, the Tao Te Ching has stood alone among the world s writings. There was nothing like it before it appeared; there is nothing like it even now. Unlike a good deal of Chinese writing, old and new, it makes no reference to specific individuals or events, whether of the then-past or the then-present. It is not historical, not classical; its world is the world of now . Despite having been written around 2,400 years ago, it has not grown dated. One can get an idea of how extraordinarily modern it must have seemed to the Chinese of the far-distant past by reading the by-now-antiquated writings of the Confucianists. It is modern still, because it is timeless. The problems and conflicts it mentions are those that exist today. The solutions it presents are solutions that can be applied today. It is as creative and unique in its view of the world as its author is creative and unique in his use of language.
In the two following introductory sections, the chapter translations, and my notes on the chapters, I hope that I have managed to make understandable passages that have for years puzzled readers, myself included. As for my modifications to the standard Wang Pi text and my occasional selections from other historic editions of the Tao Te Ching , I ve done my best to understand the author s statements and intent, avoid distorting or detracting from them, and make clarity my goal.
I once was employed by a master restorer of valuable but damaged antique objects. In writing this book, this literary and philosophical restoration project, I followed the principles he worked by: Thoroughly research the history of the object; remove all misguided, historically incorrect alterations and repairs; patch and fill where necessary; match the new work to the old so seamlessly that no one will detect a difference in treatment; honor the maker, his tools and materials, and his design; honor the tradition that has formed around the object over the years-but only if it honors the reality, not if it violates it; the object is everything, misconceptions about it are nothing . Good principles, I believe.
I like to think of this project as a partnership between myself and someone of another time, another place, and another language-someone with whom, despite those intimidating differences and distances, I seem to resonate. I have no illusion about which partner accomplished a great work. Sometime between 475 BCE and 300 BCE, apparently, he created something the likes of which had never before existed. In so doing, he gave to the world-seemingly that of the Warring States period of the Chou Dynasty-what it desperately needed. Today s Warring Nations world desperately needs it, too, as does the besieged, endangered world of nature, including the species known as Homo sapiens. After all, as the Tao Te Ching shows, the world of nature and the world of humanity are the same world.
For being an unprecedented, unequalled advocate for that world that I ve loved since early childhood, and for enriching my life with his Tao Te Ching , I am grateful to the author far beyond my ability to express.

CRYPTIC WRITING, HIDDEN DRAGON
The Chinese spiritual teaching known as Taoism ( daoism ) has two ages-old traditional forms: tao-chiao , the colorful and complex native religion, and tao-chia , the philosophical (no deified human beings) form that preceded the religion. This book is concerned with the philosophical form.
Philosophical Taoism was brought into existence by a written work that eventually became known as the Tao Te Ching ( dao dehr jeeng ), the Way Virtue Classic. According to legend, this first and foremost Taoist classic was composed around 500 BCE by a former record keeper in the royal library at Loyang. But, as I explain later, the legendary claims don t match reality.
The verses of the Tao Te Ching look, and are, different from other Chinese writings, old and new. At first glance, they seem very simple-some look like children s rhymes, and many make use of rhyme intervals, rather like advertising jingles. Until the Communists took control of China and did their best to destroy Taoism-and Taoists-the verses of the Tao Te Ching were chanted in schools as a way to teach and learn the philosophical classic. But their simple, childlike appearance is deceptive.
Behind the simplicity of the statements in the Tao Te Ching lies a profound depth of thought. If philosophical Taoism were a religion, the Tao Te Ching would be its holy book. But the Way Virtue Classic covers more territory than any holy book I ve encountered: It is mystical; it is practical; it is philosophical; it is spiritual; it is individual-oriented; it is society-oriented; it is political; it is ecological; it is simple; it is sophisticated; it is entertaining; it is deep. Some might call its Taoism a system -but one unlike the stiff, heavy-handed system of Confucianism. A Taoist might more accurately call it fluid systems determined by circumstances .
Although there are a great many English-language translations of the Tao Te Ching in existence, in reality they are by necessity interpretations, as is this one.
One reason for this is that the Chinese language is so strikingly different from the English language that for the most part a direct translation would itself need a translation-that is, an interpretation of the translation-in order to be intelligible. Another reason is that the author does not consistently use Chinese characters in what would today be considered the classical manner. In some places, he plays fast and loose with them, as though making up a language of his own. Chinese writing could be called a sort of shorthand. But the author often uses characters as a cryptic, minimalist shorthand, and sometimes uses them in the most basic pictographic ways. All of which makes the verse collection a puzzle as well as a work of literature. Deciphering the Way Virtue Classic is rather like finding one s way through a complex maze: With many of the characters, the translator/interpreter has a variety of meanings to choose from, each of which can result in progress or lead to an impasse. And there are other difficulties:
Over the centuries, Chinese scholars copying the Tao Te Ching some-times inserted their own thoughts or other material into the text. Lazy, sloppy, or inadequately educated copyists introduced many errors-some very obvious, others less so. And, as explained in Ancient Pictures, Ghostly Voices, the post- Tao Te Ching advent of the writing brush brought about frequent, sometimes extreme alterations to the meanings of the characters in use when the work was written. Consequently, for accuracy and fairness to the author, a translator/interpreter needs to research and use the original meanings, not merely translate from the more modern brush characters or translate the ancient characters into writing-brush characters and use their meanings.
As far as I can determine from the wording choices in all of the English-language editions in my extensive collection of Tao Te Ching s, I am the first English-language translator/interpreter-difficult though it is for me to understand why-to go by the meanings of the ancient characters. The original- meanings approach of this book may make it unique among all editions. I say this because I haven t heard or seen evidence of any edition in any country incorporating any of the meanings I ve come across. If other interpreters had made any of those game-changing discoveries, I believe I w