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Comments on Dao De Jing - Part 2

Lessons
Another spelling is Tao Te Ching.
People tend to listen to the opinions of those near to them and for a variety of reasons. They tend to further one's own interests and emotions can come in "handy" to see to it, or to strengthen what seems worthwhile.
One should not get too closed in so doing, but perhaps see to it that there is room for luck or greater luck to enter one's life. And this suggests a quite deep need to determine the present value and possible long-range values of many things. Such thinking is aided by overviews that make room for (1) something new of value or possible value; (2) agreeable old opinions of good men and women; (3) and they could assist own investigations and thinking.
We deal in particularly beneficial Dao (way, ways, means) teachings. Plumb the so-called luck which has found you, so as to avoid many smiling disasters; wasted time and efforts; and opinions of others that are not well-founded. Then, try to try out the best and live on top of it. There should be lots to plumb on this page too.

Safeguards
Choice Selections
Well Versed
Proficiency
Plots

Supporting "well medleys" are presupposed throughout:

Safeguards

Public and personally effected safeguards may both come in handy.

The platform of this version

The very deft translation by Dr. Arthur Waley is the base, or platform of this survey;
It's much suppleanted by the largely Waley-founded version by China's author Lin Yutang.
Finally I compared with the version by Dr. W.-T. Chan, Professor at Princeton. His rendition is very good, too. Many of his passages run practically identical with Yutang's.

These renditions are recommended in a book by the Staff of Oriental Studies at Columbia University in the USA. Hardly any of them can be found on Internet nowadays. [Cf. Wara]
But there is more to it than that, far more and much important to the interested reader.

The best translations vary much and quite often, and we have to deal with it.

Choice Selections

The art of making choice selections may be slowly learnt and mastered.

By sound and fit principles some rise above faith in general

FIRMNESS is needed to rise above silly faith or surface adaptations in general. This version rests on a rather new all-round approach for handling obscure texts. Since many good and skilled Lao translators seem to neglect, be ignorant of or overlook some of the principles inside it, they will be briefly touched on below. By that, a common reader could be more enlightened in some respects than by a lot surface-dance of swell-looking but isolated phrases. It's good to know good principles and be rooted in the generally suitable ones of them.
Here's the best and most handy one, perhaps. It may look like a joke, but I should still insist on it:
"Add some "could be's" or "maybe's" to all and sundry assertion and seldom trust any one utterance, especially not a desultory one. We have to rise above faith in any one rendition and translation of Tao Te Ching, or we could get hurt."
That's how it is. Further below is the assembled rationale collected and made use of while aiming at the most mature, solid and candid outlooks and approach that can be mastered in "Laotse matters". It also boils down to this slogan that can hardly be dispensed with:

"Have fun, but don't run loose: Don't trust any Lao-statement literally at first. It often helps."

Further below there are still more reasons why. And all this is written just to help you handle Laotse fairly well. You need some yardsticks. Find a measure of outlooks and methodological novelties and other assets that I used to bring about this recent version - find more of these things below.

The value of your "could be" is to build up more distrust that in the end serves you.

Good and sound general counsel can appear cynical at first look

MAYBE we don't want to trust over 99% in any translation of this Chinese classic. Maybe we don't have to either. The same cold-blooded reservation against believing in stiff, much unreserved sayings with no solid proofs behind them, doesn't hinder some tall fun, however. Look at a passage and sift: Well-nigh anybody can make a selection of phrases, sort a bit, and by this gladden himself or herself by "that coherent, stylish rendition I've come up with".
This text version gives special help for such endeavours. Feel free to concoct a lot. And since this version is allied with three of the very best and probably safest ones at present, you may feel as if you stand on solid feet in so doing. That may suit you. Linking up elegantly and well to prominent and tactful specialists is good help. Almost everybody should learn to do it in a "right way".
All texts were scanned, aligned and adjusted before the most tedious part of the comparative work was mastered: What was felt to be the best shots were sifted and geared and next gyrated - "rolled into one text" in a particular way.
The end result has this "drawback" so far: It helps you to be tentative.
So if you are looking for just one of those catchy, isolated or hasardious-tendentious phrases that look so good and can be found in a lot translations and renditions, please look up there.
In this version, however, you will often meet with two or three or four alternatives - but they may explain each other and bring meaning to each other in a nice-looking way that seemed too remote and far away earlier. Now the means to accomplish such feats have been won and mastered so well that Taoists acclaim this text as one of top quality - which is not so bad, perhaps. But unless one takes the trouble to look into what elements one has to deal with and tackle to reach a mature, full-flown version or understanding, he may be fooled somehow anyway. That's just how it is, and it's not fair to state otherwise.
Find my aiding comments in this line of approach at the back here. The suggestions and critical notes you find, happen to be my helpers for a very general study. And as we've been into: it can be up to remarkably all right to remain a bit uncertain as to what Tao Te Ching suggests. Grand folly at times dictates otherwise.

A cynical counsel at first look may astound and next breed fit and proper understanding, which is better than being undermined.

Handling Tao lore spells: In actual need of fit professionalism

EXACTLY why and how there is a special need for better dao perspectives to operate by, needs a whole lot of explanations. They should be good.
I took pains to make the format delicate within the scheme set up for making this version. The tone is not intended to be very polite, not impolite either. Yet a truly effective rendition had better be geared up to (1) truth as we most often make sense of it; and (2) next to the ancient, possible outlooks too. These two main alleys may be combined in rich, new and unforeseen ways later too.
To many a Taoist, here is a sound-smelling rendition that has won much admiration already. It may seem carefully balanced and coherent in its own right as well, but don't be tricked! One has to be careful also - and further down you should find stil more good-looking explanations why it is best to be careful and non-trustful in general. Handling matters in such a nice and fit general way is much of what general science is about as well. Please look into the reasons spent below if you want to handle Laotse better than the one of too rigid and possibly cramped outlooks. It should pay to go for snug professionalism without getting smug. Fairness is what it takes, and even that can often be made more cosy, sound and tidy. These things matter to me. They may not matter to you at the moment.

There are many ways to be outsmarted, but to go about in tidy ways, minding one's most important business, is not often one of them - or what?

Using Lao's translated phrases as baits

EVEN if Tao Te Ching is one of the most translated books in the universe, I would refrain from making bait out of it. Often the catchy phrase can work like bait. The reason can be surprisingly simple: A lot justified, alternative options were weeded away for the glory of the moment, or modal verbs were completely forgotten - which may be silly.
If you are just in dire need of a catchy phrase or immature-looking slogan to impress by, you are faced with two alternatives. I won't tell which is generally best - it may depend and vary.
The best could at one time be to look somewhere else, and another time to take the time and trouble to rake out one single choice from this text of significant multiple choices ever so often. The text allows for that approach. You can do it with grace and style, and trust you're in the best hands for it - at least four hands are involved for most parts. The reason for many hands is that this is a supreme concoction - that sort of version. Knowing this you can next feel free to condense smartly of your own choice also, if that is your main interest.
Perhaps we should presuppose solid skill and fairness here, however, and be utterly careful in using texts like Laotse's in matters of the heart. I would strongly suggest that.
Speaking of versions, there are many good reasons why it may be terribly hard to make up one's mind about what version to like: There are even dozens of alternative renditions around. They're all more or less different. There would have been no room for them otherwise. The original text allows that sort of fare. It's good to know it in advance, to counteract that selected phrases may get you, and not the other way round. There should be no reason to doubt that in some translations, obscure utterances of ancient China can look mad and flippant, in part by being too assertive, much too categorical and high-flown.

Matter-of-fact ways of using texts can be much more appropriate than high-flown ways, because the former may pave the way for handling skills - and concrete skills tend to rise higher than mere words. In some cases it may be different, though.

Great and gentle helpers often suggest and don't mean to be suggestive for it

AS YOU can see already, I strive not to be suggestive. I have endeavoured to express just how I tackled the many and severe inherent problems of the work. If you can study that standing first, it could be great help. At any rate you can surely do far worse than that if you want to get to grips with the ancient text. Yes, I find it could be the wisest thing you ever did in reading Laotse or Tao Te Ching, if you read it well.
As for alternatives to this recent version, its particular applomb, arrondated approach and built-in methodological aces, I haven't found anyone else that fits in or suits me as years go by. I looked into much material - including up to a dozen "best" versions and shunned the mediocre renditions as harshly as I well-nigh could.
It should matter to understand why. I was aiming at the neatest way of getting to grips with Tao Te Ching as possible. The outcome of such a task has to look carefully balanced and coherent in its own right just to live long. And one has to be carefully geared also.

To be a little geared or nearly geared may not give the help and alignment that is needed to combat and off-set negative influences.

Well Versed

Being well versed and not ridiculous often helps

Dr. Arne Naess found out a lot first

IN SOME Taoist circles this version has won prestige for solid quality. I was much displeased with a whole lot of jumbled top versions that spoke quite differently ever so often. In grave annoyance I devised a technical program and forged this special rendition. It took some time.
Differing translators select different content inside one and the same verse. And that annoyed me. I found out - in part helped by a professor emeritus of Oslo - why there are major drawbacks in sticking to just one version. When it comes to Laotse and his rendered outlooks, the understanding gleaned on top of only one version is hardly enough. That is the gist of what the tactful philosopher Dr. Arne Naess explains in the matter. [See Lof]
He eventually bordered on advising a medley look, so to speak - insisting that to understand Laotse somewhat more than arbitrarily, one has to make out what more than one or two versions suggest. The reason can be that "three heads think better than one" - but that can only fit if they're basically able and skilled and well versed, though. I went to the most perfect translators I could find and lived with their renditions as one of my foci of interest over years. I could do nothing better.

Arbitrarily chosen and jumbled concoctions hardly assist one enough.

This version was part of spearhead education

A VERY carefully geared and tailored medley version on top of many eminent and combined efforts can rise higher than most versions that went into it.
This approach should work particularly well if the materials that go into that medley are first-class in the first place, and the gauging, sifting and new synthesis (collecting of elements) is as handy and accurate as may be.
Besides there are matters of style. At certain places this "3 in 1" concoction version may seem a little off-hand. I took pains to do that, for the ancient textual basis lets me. And we shouldn't get too stuck in strongly assertive phrases if what they purport and claim seems out of place. That's mainly why.
So here is a backing-up, one more Internet text that should give a quite balanced understanding on top and in line with at least three sinologues, three favourable men. The try of each of them was taken into a new, gyrated sort of combined whole. And by that method and the favourable response this version has been met with, a reader could feel rather sure he gets:

A carefully schemed and tailored concoction made up of not bad parts with the value of at least three major translations "geared into one new whole".
One of the most welcome versions in Taoist ranks - this text has been chosen and sifted as one of top quality already, and is included among the major English versions on the site of the Wandering Taoists.
A version that no expert in ancient Chinese and Tao Te Ching have launched no major objection to - to the contrary.

It often helped to be accurate, concise and somewhat middling where renderings differ much, and they often do. One reason: obscure phrases from antiquity. Another: personal preferences of translators. I hope to have avoided much of the latter, by the method made use of consistently and all the way.

To get backed up as one of top quality helps many a man, and consise wordings help as well.

Steps towards toning down much that looks nice and impressive

THE good thing may need repetiton: We often get a far better, less arbitrary outlook by "gyrating" some renditions into a somewhat cogent-looking or well unified blend. Insights had by this method may at times surprise us. So far as I know, none has ventured to tackle Tao Te Ching by these methods earlier, and the gains have been many.
Now, there are also other novelties. One of them is the well modified, maybe a little tentative gearing-down (or toning-down) of suggestive phrases that may not hold water. The fact is we find a lot of smart-looking or stubborn assertions that hardly are welcome the world over.

Very often the inborn poet in the translator picks one choice of seven. It means he may miss the bus in not a few cases.

The man on the outlook for just one, condensed phrase as the outlet of a largely many-sided, cryptic and obscure original, may be on the wrong track, no matter how he felt about it.
What is more, that one may also have attained a profiled translation that somehow reflects his personal views too much. It ties in with the selection activity mentioned in the paragraph above. We should not overlook that salient pinpointing. This is much because "Lao" is obscure, and the obscure pictogram does in principle allow for many alternatives. The one-choice-phrase that looks glittering, has indeed many inherent weaknesses where this is the case. It often happens.

The natural poet inside us tends to feel into what is poignant or potent and acts according to that. It often happens.

Proficiency

Getting proficient rises above being well versed

Away from getting tamed through mind-bogging

AN APPARENT weakness in many other tries has to be spelt out: The ancient pictograms allow for a "is maybe" or "could be" in between the stand-up pictures, not only the far more blunt "is". Various assertions that translators get to on top of the old roots (the pictograms), should be ascertained in more than traditional ways, because:

The ancient Chinese way of handling writing clearly allows for it. In this lies the value of Dr. Waley's much admirable work. [See Tat]
A recent finding of two silk manuscripts of the ancient work takes the solid back-up of the text to some centuries BC.

COMMENTS TO THE SECOND POINT: Very old texts are hardly less obscure than others. Still they may bring about much, significant and novel understanding. much like the gospel according to Thomas in other circles and other findings of handy scrolls. The comparison is useful. That's all I want to say except for:
It pays to be well guarded. In both settings a lot of interest seems too unsettled still. "Wait and see" is a good motto, at least for the educator in both lines of work, if he happens to line up with the most authoritative findings to teach long-lasting gist.
Now you know more of what skills it takes to line up with or link to some straight tradition and many able experts. Such meta-concerns of handling this and that often reach taller than mere translator's ability. [Cf. Trap]
Since the deep Tao movement, main traditional parts of it, and serviceable, major translations aligned to it still has looming validity and still continues fairly unchanged for lots of reasons, this version purports nothing more than to represent or serve mainstream Taoism as accurately as possible within my limits.
The mainstream traditions of handed-over Christianity or handed-over Taoism may not so easily be overthrown and discarded by new texts and findings - for they seldom hold no ultimate sayings for us, no matter how much they insist or seem to insist.
Tao pictograms may need to be deciphered, and just that has to be done on top of well formulated skills in expert hands - being lined up with some fairly well gauged tradition anyhow. Later there is a good chance that newly formulated verses and new, significant notions may enter the mainstream by this crossing effort, but still most of us have to deal with the matters that are at hand and perhaps inside the Taoism we know of. That's how these things most often seems to work. Others may feel differently. We should allow for that, in part as a help to reflect well. [See Tak] One more point:

And even though most translators have allied themselves with the on-going, ancient tradition and its assertions, the most able translators and sinologues may differ much. Looming problems that triggers off, are to be reckoned with and met.

These points suggest much, and eventually paved the way for the methodology I came up with to make serious errors more or less defunct. It makes a lot of sense to me. I don't want to to more than to suggest these items here. A nicely tailored program makes a program out of the bulk of them. That program may take off on top of your own shorthand notes.
But as you may ascertain, a new methodology for handling Laotse through extracts has cropped up: You find first fruits of a fairly complete, combined combined effort. It makes rather lofty use of many recent strategies of handling (read: approaches) because that is what the obscure Tao Te Ching inherently demands somehow, one way or the other.
Recent alternatives to this round-up way of dealing with Tao Te Ching fairly often suffer from severe drawbacks, and some of these drawbacks are invisible to the beginner, and hardly explained full well on other major Tao Te Ching sites either.

The one who can reckon well and calculate many combined influences, could happen to stand taller than a wise translator.

Insignificant fidelity is seldom terribly wise

THERE are many sorts of fidelity. One is to obscurity per se (in itself, as it is). Another sort can be to nice-looking ad perhaps catchy phrases. A third aims at richer understanding, and so on. There is room for a lot in these waters, but also "a time for everything". It stands out for lots of reasons that the common man and woman had better be duly informed of the topics here - before they comes to believe in one version and becomes sidetracked "one-versionists" that resists revisions mentally or otherwise.
In the hands of nice-looking. poetically narrowed-down versions the built-up understanding may suffer much and widely from such as favouritism in bias; suggestive selections and choices that rules out lots of interesting or relevant options more or less invisibly and arbitrarity, after all; and the fruit of such an endeavour may breed narrow outlooks that save no one and give too superficial understanding of what could be aimed at or meant in the old text.
And as we've been into, just that latter notion is one of the most helpful ones in Dr. Arne Naess' comments on the Tao Te Ching in his major condensation and selection from the history of philosophy. [Lof]

Super-fidelity does well to have a philosophical platform (i.e. a paradigmatic one). Or otherwise rather stubbornly reiterated versions may be glittering and impressive to look at, even with the basic selectivity at fault. In such cases and many others, staunch comparisons happen to be of value before one even tries to make use of those statements.

Here is one more version aligned with Taoism as a mainstream tradition

ALL this said, perhaps you manage to distrust this version and all others - what next? In the long run not even a medley of three more or four or five more translations may satisfy you - and that may be going too far also, away fromt he solid: "The obscure text must have obscure meanings - not many alternatives - perhaps".
Knowing this, it gives no pain to be informed that the obscure texts that have been handed over and recently found, have multiple meanings, can be understood in many ways over and over, and are not so easy to handle for most part.

Reading Laotse, the most we may attain to is some gauged adn balanced reckoning.

Plots

Some Games and plots may be skilled and thus harder to deal with and hard to handle for it.

At times it's fit to tell what is your special underwear

THE HEADLINE contains a metaphor that is hinted at further down. Further note that a serious rendition in part mirrors and reflects some footing or choice of plots to favour. This admitted, my text still may help against unsound, projecting bias and idiosyncratic values, as it does bring the fruits of combined, skilled efforts from at least three relevant, basic standpoints. They are:

That of the strong and independent, top-notch Taoism researcher that combines all his expertise for finding original meanings after careful studies. Dr. Waley's translation reflect that sensible way and contains ample, good notes.
Lin Yutang, able in his own right, and Chinese author in English.
Wing-tsit Chan, versed in Chinese philosophy at university level, skilled in coding things according to significant traditional outlooks. In part his text borders on Lin Yutang's version anyway, but his notes go deeper and further.

Gifts may mar us later, if not reciprocated.

A good text suggests more than it states clearly - maybe. It's often that way with proverbs, good anecdotes, folk tales and Laotse material, not to mention myth. [Cf. Thd: David Finkelstein on myth]

The alternative to handed-over obscurity can be tactful suggestions, not exactly clarity that wasn't there in the first place

VERY carefully gauged, much combined (amalgamated) and significant efforts at understanding the book from three or more footings and standings should help a more general, lofty sight than any one text may do.
This mentioned, the reader might see

Why this cncocted rendition of many recently forged propositions can suit a general grasp, at least initially.
And why there can be many other valid alternatives of rendition than those I found fit for inclusion a few years ago.

And that's about it. Most reasons have been launched above. Just bear in mind I've striven to limit myself to the combined efforts of three able sinologues and that my concoction (a) reflects my period; (b) my style preferences; (c) agreed-on knowledge inside Taoism in general; and (d) preferences that bear down on many insider experiences with such as kriya yoga. I was not too bad at it.
The footing of the rendering poet or translator is important, for it may be found reflected inside kernels of the material. There is reason to think that a well balanced, demasked footing is not as bad as well-nigh any hidden one, and that's why I have mentioned mine.
Further, along with gauging of a lot linked material, the three translators' fairly ascertained or likely rendition views had to be sifted. And next they were "gyrated" so that they could form a bigger existential whole than the parts -
That whole is not really a "new translation", as it is no translation, but rather THE KRIYA YOGI RENDITION on top of the best sources at a certain place and time.

There are good grasps and not so good grasps. and besides those that matter and nowhere matter.

Careful and smart "Lao exaggerations" should be dealt with

AMONG the great challenges of the text to someone like me, were the often exaggerated and unwanted claims. It seemed that most translators had forgotten and neglected that modal verbs could help. Wrong assertions had better be toned down to some likeable and relevant basics - such as a seemly passage. We have to note the much obscure basic text allows for it and that it is really awkward not to think much in this vein.

What is meant can be something like "think maybe, or add somehow, one way or other" and so on. That often helps.

Staunch and proficient reservations have to be included in reading Laotse. If they're not formulated in the translation, add many "maybe's" as cunningly as you can, to avoid getting bugged or bogged.
Some particular skills and a blend of well balanced skills appear to be specially needed for handling Tao Te Ching. The outlook behind our selections and other choices is that we had better be aligned with reality that matters in the first place. This realism attained, we can even hope to thrive on top of carefully gauged and ascertained parts inside it - centred on just how the world seems to work for most part.
Now, what original meanings that could be intended or may go into the vast multi-system content of Lao's masterpiece, is hard to say. Frankly, nobody knows it exactly in all respects. Good, academic guesswork can't be dispensed with for that major reason. Through circumspect combinations along these lines this version was eventually completed. It's a novelty - and also a version of extracted, skilled shots by such as Dr. Waley.

The carefully modified and geared down Tao Te Ching passage may mean an lot and fit in.

Look up in the adjacent primer
THIS Internet text of Lao Zi's Dao De Jing goes along with a primer. It is there to help you.
The primer intends to make clear quite at lot and suggest still more in a much shorter space than usual. The primer is mainly centred in the concocted Tao Te Ching on this page and takes off along with it. The primer consists mainly of extract summaries on the heels of some highly cherished Tao experts - with teachings inside a training program. The eminent sinologues made use of: Dr. Holmes Welch that wrote the elegant Taoism: The Parting of the Way and comments by such as Dr. Arthur Waley inside his still much interesting The Way and It's Power (etc.); Professor Wing-tsit Chan of Princeton made a version that is to be found inside the mainly philosophical work Chinese Philosophy, And the translation of Lin Yutang as found in Wisdom of China was favourably wecomed by the staff of Oriental studies at Columbia University as well in a book of theirs. [Wara]
The most helpful books happen to be self-help aids fairly often. The linked primer is fit for such an enterprise.

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