Category: Fú 夫

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#6 cún 存 Cháng Dào Dì dì 帝 Fú 夫 lâo 老 mián 綿 ruò 若 Tiān Xuán xī 希

someone compliantly combing their loose hair seems to be saying: ‘this is as if…’

ruò (若)

Within that valley mouth between two mountains,

a lightning god…

the husk of the initial protective bud casing—the sepal—but not really the true inner flower of

being mortal—going from a standing person to a pile of bones;

the sun—walking across the sundial a while, stopping a while—sees indeed

what it’s called when speaking from the gut—words, like slaves or criminals branded by a chisel emerging from a mouth,

the hard-to-see dark structure—like a figure-eight skein of string-dyed-black:

a mother’s lap—a cow with an arrow… a vagina.

“Hard-to-see dark structure—like a figure-eight skein of string-dyed-black,

a mother’s lap—a cow with an arrow… a vagina,

has this

double-winged gateway… “[from Chapter 1]

the sun—walking across the sundial a while, stopping a while—sees indeed

what it’s called when speaking from the gut—words, like slaves or criminals branded by a chisel emerging from a mouth:

Heaven (that sky level above the human head)-Earth (this soil vagina)…

root of the family tree—penis…

barely perceptible—like the fine, white silk threads making up that ever-present, timeless, whole head-cloth ‘ji’ our grown men wrap around the ‘little bird’ top knots on their heads once they’ve received their adult, public courtesy-names.

Barely perceptible—like the fine, white silk threads making up that ever-present, timeless, whole head-cloth ‘ji’ our grown men wrap around the ‘little bird’ top knots on their heads once they’ve received their adult, public courtesy-names…

someone compliantly combing their loose hair seems to be saying: ‘this is as if…’ (ruò, 若)

surviving—on the plane of a baby with health issues, maybe a large head, but still sprouting… (cún,存)

doing truly useful work like a water bucket—by means of carrying-capacity

has this…

the husk of the initial protective bud casing, but not really the true inner flower, of

exerting with force—working hard with the strength of an arm, a bladed tool, or a plough on the soil.

That’s all of Chapter 6 in its entirety. It’s a pivotal chapter because here we meet a new character, ruò, 若. Its bronze inscription character is a pictogram of a person combing their hair:

Its modern translations are to be obedient or compliant, to trim vegetables, to choose, you/yours, he/his, like, as if, and supposing. Dào translators usually interpret it as is like, seems, or as. Or they just ignore it altogether or use “is” in its place. In two key places in Chapter 37, the final chapter of the Dào part of the Dào Dé Jīng, they almost universally translate it as “if.” As is my custom, I incorporate the modern meanings, the pictogram, and the traditional translations into one consistent translation every where it occurs:

someone compliantly combing their loose hair seems to be saying: ‘this is as if…’

Since there are other, more specific, ways to say each of the traditional meanings (if, like), I think this character has some particular use for Lâozî.

~

It’s interesting that ruò so prominently features hair since that’s a recurring motif… beginning with The Way itself. In the character for Dào, the head very obviously has a head of big loose hair.

And in Chapter 1, right away we’re struck by how that seems to very obviously differ from the conventional hairstyle of a grown man with a top knot (fú, 夫) and especially from a grown man whose top knot’s covered by a traditional head cloth. This head cloth image occurs not only in that word for the timeless, never-changing traditional version of things (cháng, 常) but also in the characters showing God in Heaven or emperor (dì, 帝, as we saw in Chapter 4), barely perceptible (mián, 綿, as we see in this chapter), and sparse (xī, 希).

Hair style appears in many other characters including, not least of all, lâo, 老: an old man with long hair and a cane. This word is the first part of Lâo Zî’s honorific name.

~

It’s fascinating to me that this character ruò first appears in this particular place in our story. In Joseph Campbell’s classic Hero’s Journey story arc, this is the place where the hero would get outside help, usually from a supernatural, larger-than-life, or unexpected source.

In the last chapter, there was the doubtful sentiment of “pah, can you?!” The call to the daunting adventure of living according to The Way of the Loose-Haired Chieftain seemed rather undoable. But now we have someone compliantly combing their loose hair who seems to be saying: ‘this is as if’ surviving—on the plane of a baby with health issues, maybe a large head, but still sprouting.

Chapter 4 introduced the possibility of surviving. But here, our magic someone not only rather drolly says that’s what’s happening but elaborates what this means: the doing of truly useful work (like a water bucket) has this: non-exertion.

OHHHHH. Doing useful work like a water bucket without overflowing (while pouring water our from the center hollow drum!) was the calling for The Way at the beginning of Chapter 4.

So what does Chapter 6 tell us?

  • Here’s the situation: The lightning god within that valley mouth between two mountains isn’t really turning into a pile of bones. Phew.
  • The sun sees indeed what it’s truly called, that hard-to-see dark structure—like a figure-eight skein of string dyed black:a mother’s lap/vagina…
  • and the “hard-to-see dark structure, a mother’s lap/vagina’s double-winged gateway” (remember that phrase dramatically ending Chapter 1?) is truly called… Heaven-Earth… root-of-the-family-tree or penis…
  • barely perceptible. Mián, 綿, or “barely perceptible” is drawn by showing the fine, white silk threads making up that ever-present, timeless, whole head-cloth ‘ji’ that grown men wrap around the ‘little bird’ top knots on their heads once they’ve received their adult, public courtesy-names. The modern translation of this word is soft, downy, or sometimes cotton. Dào translators variously call it continuously, always present, like a veil, lingering like gossamer, or invisible.

As usual, the lack of punctuation and various potential syntaxes make those first five lines interpretable in many ways. Also as usual, I interpret it based on how the drawings and double-meanings make something occur to me. What with all the pregnancy and baby images, I’m starting to think that Heaven (tiān, that sky level above the human head)-Earth (dì, this soil vagina) refers to a spirit from above when it is down here, manifest, in the womb. In other words a fetus.

In the Western Zhou bronze inscription age just preceding Lâozî’s era, tiān was drawn as a person with a large head:

In the even older Shang oracle bone script, it was drawn with a line above a person’s head, supposedly indicating a higher level:

It is thought that the oldest meaning was sky. It’s also been used to mean heavens, celestial, heaven as a place for deities or departed souls, heaven as a deity, overhead, top, climate, a 24-hour day, daytime, season, nature, natural, innate.

So is my interpretation far-reaching? Maybe. But when I re-read everywhere this phrase occurs, it totally can fit this secondary-level interpretation at the same time that it fits into a meta- or symbolic story about “Heaven on Earth” or “Heaven and Earth.” In this use of it, I see someone literally trying to figure out what’s going on inside a laboring uterus and barely being able to discern the fetus. Maybe they can tell it’s a boy? Or maybe they know that after the fact. Or maybe the vagina’s product is called the family root, attributed to the work of a penis. Okay back to what we see for sure…

  • Even though it’s barely perceptible, our magically helpful someone, compliantly combing their loose hair, seems to be saying: ‘this is as if’ it’s surviving —on the plane of a baby with health issues, maybe a large head, but still sprouting. Now you can see how, based on my imagination and the previous and following chapters, I like to think of our someone as a midwife helping with premature labor.
  • And given this situation, she says that surviving means doing truly useful work like a water bucket, by means of carrying capacity, has this “not really exerting with force.” I see that as “the most useful work now is just to carry that baby. Don’t labor. Especially don’t push.”

There you go… I’ve fully bared my most wild, favorite theory. And you can understand my admiration for Lâozî, given that this story is buried within characters that ALSO can be translated as a cosmic, existential, life handbook. Here’s how Yi Wu translates this chapter:

The spirit of the valley never dies;
It is called the mysterious female.
The gate of the mysterious female is called the root of Heaven and Earth.
Continuously it seems to exist.
There is no labour in its use.

And here’s how Feng and English translated it:

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 barely seen.
Use it; it will never fail.

Thomas Cleary translates it as:

The valley spirit not dying is called the mysterious female.
The opening of the mysterious female is called the root of heaven and earth.
Continuous, on the brink of existence, to put in into practice, don’t try to force it.

Is this non-forcing possible? Sometimes—whether because you’re in actual labor or you’ve found yourself in the habit of over-efforting in life and not relying on the “female” type of creativity—it doesn’t seem like it. Can our magical someone help in ways more tangible than just saying “don’t labor; don’t force it?”

We’ll find out next time. And now, until then, please use the contact form to send me your responses to my theory! I hope you’ll go back and re-read all the chapters we’ve looked at thus far and see how my ideas do or don’t make sense to you. Thanks for being here.

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#3 Fú 夫 Wéi 為 Wú 無 zhì 治

governing—regulating by harnessing the river named Happy or speaking of turning yourself—

zhì

Last time we were looking at what the traditional version of breeding does to our old friend, fū, this particular grown man:

breeding—like a gentleman holding a fountain pen making something happen—

that is to say, this particular grown man with a hairpin and public courtesy name…

“firing arrows from the mouth—sure” as the sun, daily…

—now this is cooking!—

the husk of the initial protective bud casing—the sepal—but not really the true inner flower of

daring—lightly hitting ears on both sides of the head—

efforting—like lifting up an elephant…

—yes, that too, vagina!

efforting—like lifting up an elephant…

nothing—no one dancing with long tails flowing from their wrists—nope, never, no way, nowhere, nohow Not-Being

efforting—like lifting up an elephant;

We left off with that evocative “efforting… Not-Being efforting.” Here’s what comes next:

after following this sacrificial blade-and-cauldron-like ritual example, standard, or regulation…

nothing—no one dancing with long tails flowing from their wrists—nope, never, no way, nowhere, nohow Not-Being…

the husk of the initial protective bud casing—the sepal but not really the true inner flower of

“governing—regulating by harnessing the river named Happy or speaking of turning yourself.”

What we learn here is that in following that example of the grown man who doesn’t really dare efforting… efforting Not-Being efforting, then Not Being… not really governing.

Lâozî used this same “governing” character zhì (治) earlier in the chapter when telling us about how the sage governs. There we learned that because breeding civilians a certain way had a certain effect, “the sage has this governing” which Lâozî described in some detail for us.

~

Remember, the zhì (治) character shows water or a river in its left sub-component. The right sub-component is a pictogram incorporating a mouth below a very mysterious element, 厶. I mentioned before that this element variously been identified as a plow turning, a fetus finishing in the womb, or an abstract symbol for being selfish, but I decided to look into it a little more today. Its bronze inscription glyph looked like this:

It’s such a classic and evocative symbol in all of the oldest cultures. What does it “mean?”

The oldest etymology of Chinese characters was compiled in the Shuowen Jiezi during the Han dynasty. From what I can tell, a lot of etymology still references this work, though more recent discoveries about the oldest oracle bone scripts seem to have really cast doubt on its conclusions. The Shuowen Jiezi’s description of this mysterious triangle said that “in olden times, when Cangjie invented the system of writing, a self-encircling element was designated as the character for ‘private.'” They compared it to the symbol for ‘public’ which was 公, and it is possible to see the connection when looking at the modern characters.

But this is a good example of how the Shuowen Jiezi’s descriptions were flawed since its author(s) didn’t have access to the oldest scripts. It turns out that the bronze inscription for the “public” character looked like this:

And the even older oracle bone script like this:

You can see there’s no triangle. But by the time of Shuowen Jiezi, the 厶 character had evolved to look like this:

Now you can see how the Shuowen Jiezi authors thought it was related to the character yî (以) which we investigated in a previous post. I translated it as already… finishing it in the womb based on its typical translations and the original pictogram which is said to be either a snake or a fetus as it came from this bronze inscription:

And this original oracle bone script:

But neither of those resemble the triangle that was the original symbol for the 厶 we see in our character zhì (治). We still don’t know what the triangle symbol originally meant, though I think we are safe in saying it’s not necessarily the opposite of “public.”

We might learn more about the triangle by looking at how it was combined with the pictogram of grain to make the character sī (私), which some people believe meant a person’s private grain field. It now means self, private, personal. In Classical Chinese it meant I, me. In later times it morphed into not only self but even selfish as well as illegal, secret, stealthy. Most recently it’s the word that means to Private Message or Direct Message someone on the internet!

I’m going into this detail not only because I find it interesting but so you and I can remember how tricky it is to go with the modern or even sort-of-old meanings for the old glyphs of Lâozî’s time. If you’ve been following along, you’ll note that my previous posts and definitions of terms were more influenced by newer meanings that they are now. The more time I spend with the glyphs, the more I don’t trust the modern definitions or even the Shuowen Jiezi. So I will now be going back and changing any translations where I used the “selfish” or “private” connotations for these characters discussed here.

MEANWHILE what does the triangle mean?!

Let’s look at the whole right sub-component of zhì (治). Here the triangle character (厶) sits atop a mouth. Here’s what those original glyphs might have looked like together:

This was the original character for the word happy but then evolved into talking about oneself or I/me. (When that happened, the character for happy became 怡. You can see that they just put a picture of a person in front of the original character. This is such an interesting and typical kind of evolution in the language.)

Combined with its left hand component which was the picture of a river, a glyph version of zhì (治) would have looked like this:

I think it’s still difficult to say what the triangle alone meant, but putting the pieces altogether, here’s my translation of zhì:

governing—regulating by harnessing the river named Happy or speaking of turning yourself—

*I love this image as a representation of governing. It revolves around one’s self in the best way: Harness the River Happy! Turn yourself somehow and speak of that! No wonder Lâozî used this character to describe a sage’s governing. My favorite leaders have in fact acted in just this way. How can I implement this in my life? How can you?*

~

Back to the end of Chapter 3 where we saw Not-Being… not really truly governing like the sage.

If Not-Being were the negative particle “not,” then we’d have a double negative here: not not-really governing. That would mean that after following the example described in the previous post, there is this kind of governing happening. That feels so dang convoluted. But maybe Lâozî does indeed use all the “nots” to emphasize that all this is such a receptive and non-grinding way of going about things.

On the other hand… what if Not-Being is actually a person with non-person status—a non-being? Then the text would mean: after following this example, the Not-Being isn’t really governing.

What’s the correct interpretation? Well there’s no way to know of course. Each translator and each tradition has its own idea. It’s tempting to simplify things so I can land on an answer, but I try to withhold making conclusions until I’ve read the whole Dào. And… we have quite a long way to go! I know it’s frustrating, but for me that’s balanced by the thought experiments, take-aways, curious puzzles, and tiny hints we find in each character, line, section, and chapter. I hope you’re finding some satisfaction too, as well as some of that disorientation that must be part of Lâozî’s plan.

Next time, I’ll prepare a summary of Chapter 3 that hopefully will clarify things without getting rigid. Until then, please use the contact form to let me know your feedback. I love the comments I get, and if you haven’t sent one yet, now is a good time to start. Thank you for that and for being here.

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#3 Fú 夫 Wéi 為 Wú 無

Efforting… Not-Being efforting

wéi wú wéi

Before I got side-tracked by interjections—oh my!— we were finishing up Chapter 3. We had been looking at: 1. what it means to “breed civilians” in certain ways, 2. how the sage governs, 3. the implications of the traditional version of breeding civilians for Not-Being, and, 4. lastly, we were just at the part where we were learning what that traditional version of breeding does to our old friend, fū, this particular grown man:

breeding—like a gentleman holding a fountain pen making something happen—

that is to say, this particular grown man with a hairpin and public courtesy name…

“firing arrows from the mouth—sure” as the sun, daily…

—now this is cooking!—

the husk of the initial protective bud casing—the sepal—but not really the true inner flower of

daring—lightly hitting ears on both sides of the head—

efforting—like lifting up an elephant…

—yes, that too, vagina!

efforting—like lifting up an elephant…

nothing—no one dancing with long tails flowing from their wrists—nope, never, no way, nowhere, nohow Not-Being

efforting—like lifting up an elephant;

after following this sacrificial blade-and-cauldron-like ritual example, standard, or regulation…

nothing—no one dancing with long tails flowing from their wrists—nope, never, no way, nowhere, nohow Not-Being…

the husk of the initial protective bud casing—the sepal but not really the true inner flower of

“governing—regulating by harnessing the river named Happy or speaking of turning yourself.”

Let’s parse this out.

  • We see that the traditional version of breeding civilians is breeding this particular man one way: very sure.
  • And this very sure grown man is not really daring “efforting.” He isn’t really being brave enough to get himself to do that grinding approach to things. Is this foreshadowing that our hero isn’t rising to the occasion?

Lâozî has talked to us about this efforting (wéi) approach before. We first examined this character here, at the beginning of Chapter 2. We saw that an “efforting” of any particular kind of quality resulted in “lopping off and defining” a rather opposite quality in something before that thing was even born.

And later in Chapter 2 we looked at it again here because Lâozî used the phrase “Not-Being efforting.” It could simply mean “not efforting.” I also did wonder if “Not-Being efforting” resulted in a lopping off and defining of Being before it was even fully developed and born. Now, considering the weird things we keep seeing about Not-Being and Being, I wonder if this phrase was talking about a person who has an outsider status. Maybe it’s describing someone who was considered a “non-being” and was doing some efforting! Well, bear with me and let’s see what happens here in Chapter 3 when Lâozî brings that Not-Being character back into a discussion of efforting.

  • “Efforting… Not-Being efforting.” That is one whole line. Just those three words, all by themselves. Wow—okay I’m taking a breath! What’s this mean?
    • Maybe it’s a short list of two opposites, like we saw in the list in Chapter 2. It could be saying: “ok, so we have efforting and we have not-being efforting… now let’s talk about them both.”
    • Or maybe this line’s talking about when “hard work isn’t hard work.” Maybe it’s talking about when getting stuff done is somehow magically easy. “Doing not-doing.” That’s the usual interpretation, and it is a beautiful one that I love. But. If this is the correct interpretation, then our shamanic dancing character wú (Not-Being) is simply the negative particle “not.” That’s how most translators in fact translate this word—except in some cases when they don’t!
      • Sometimes the word’s just sitting by itself, and so they let it have a life of its own. That throws me and makes me wonder if wú is truly just a particle in other cases like this one. Furthermore, why use bù (“just the husk and not really”) as a negative particle sometimes and wú (the dancing Not-Being) other times? You remember I did delve into that question here. In short, p–type particles like bù originally seemed to modify actions beyond the control of living people, and the m–types like wú seemed to attach to actions over which people thought they had control. In the part of Chapter 3 I translated at the top of this post, would you say “daring” is something over which we have NO control, and “efforting” is something over which we DO have control? That’s hard for me to believe. That’s why I’m going to consider what it would mean if Not-Being were more than just “not.” What if Not-Being has full status as a character of its own..
    • Maybe the proper interpretation of this line is: “efforting… to be a Not-Being who is efforting:”
    • Or maybe: “an efforting that is… a Not-Being who is efforting:”

In any of these interpretations, the next line is super important because it’s going to modify this one and tell us something important about it. We’ll explore that next time.

Meanwhile… I hope you’ll play a little mind experiment and explore what it would feel like to you to be:

really muscularly trying… nothing—no one dancing with long tails flowing from their wrists—nope never, no way, nowhere, nohow Not-Being really muscularly trying

Please use the contact form to let me know your feedback. I love the comments I get, and if you haven’t sent one yet, now is a good time to start. Thank you for that and for being here.

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#2 Dào Fú 夫 Fú 弗 Fū 夫

that is to say, this exact grown man with a hairpin and public courtesy name…

fū

Chapter 2 introduces another character that shows up in pivotal times throughout the Dào: (夫). The Western Zhou Bronze Inscription starts with an image of a man…

… and adds a hairpin (一):

I don’t know for sure if this image has to be male or if that’s just how it gets translated now. Women also wore hairpins, but maybe this image shows the pin men wore after their Guan Li naming ceremony when they officially became an adult man. Modern translations of this character when it’s pronounced fú are just that: male adult, man; husband; person; manual worker.

But there’s another pronunciation of this same character: fū. That’s how it’s usually been transcribed in the received versions of the Dào Dé Jīng. Its modern translations are as a generic personal pronoun—he, she, it, they—or a particular “demonstrative” pronoun like this, that, these, those. Translators of the Dào also interpret it variously as you, for, just, because, this very, the, ones, people, that is, and only. A lot of times it’s somehow combined with words like therefore, and, so or other introductory or transitional words or just dropped altogether and considered to be a meaningless particle. Perhaps, the translators think it’s been added for rhyme meter, and alliteration.

The thing is, its unique status as a particular character is lost when we do that. So, as you know, just in case it meant something to Lâozî, I give each character a unique translation that includes its pictogram image and can be used in every instance it occurs. For 夫, I have come up with:

that is to say, this particular grown man with a hairpin and public courtesy name…

Notice how it includes both of the key themes we saw in our summary of Chapter 1: hairstyles and naming types!

~

This particular grown man character is introduced to us in Chapter 2, just where we left off upon learning that when it comes to real work completing, the grounded sage, as one bearded, is absent as sticks that were tied together in a bundle to start a fire—’fff!’—not abiding or dwelling where birthed. Immediately after that line, Lâozî specifies:

That is to say, this particular grown man with a hairpin and public courtesy name…

essentially and only—like the heart of the ‘short-tailed bird’—

“absent as sticks that were tied together in a bundle to start a fire—’fff!’—not

abiding—dwelling where birthed…”

the sun—walking across the sundial a while, stopping a while—sees indeed

this means:

the husk of the initial protective bud casing—the sepal—but not really the true inner flower of

withdrawing like a person with a mouth or cave between their legs—leaving.

This is the particular format in which we most often see the 夫 character used: after a list describing various aspects of someone’s situation. After a list, Lâozî highlights one of the list’s conditions by repeating it and referring to this particular man to whom this applies. And then Lâozî reaches a conclusion about that particular man.

In this case, Lâozî says that the particular grown man who’s completely “not there” when it comes to abiding is “not really leaving.”

In other words, this guy who never stayed isn’t really going away. Makes sense. You could say this particular person already has left—like a bundle of twigs lit to start a fire, “Pfft!” It gets things going at the beginning, and then is gone. This character, rather poetically, is also pronounced fú but with a rising tone. Its pictogram shows two sticks tied together, which you can still see in the modern character: 弗. (An alternate explanation is that they are two bent arrows tied together to be straightened. Either way, its usage is dialectical and not commonly used now. It’s most often translated as “not,” but our friend bù is much more commonly used as that kind of negative particle.)

~

Have you ever felt like that bundle of twigs? You start the whole thing, and that’s your contribution. Maybe intentionally, that was your plan, or maybe the feeling of being “used up” came as a surprise to you. Maybe no one notices you’re not really there anymore. I can imagine this feeling bad—like “burnt out” or even taken for granted. But also I can see it being fine—like you’re a pivotal, essential “fire starter” and not part of the ongoing cooking or heating or whatever.

What’s the difference between these two versions? And more importantly: what do you do now? How we frame what happened—our mindset—is going to matter.

~

All this talk of leaving puts me in mind of the fact that, legendarily, the Dào Dé Jīng was imparted to a border guard as Lâozî departed from the country. Perhaps Lâozî is self-revealing something here. Perhaps Lâozî’s not really leaving—maybe because Lâozî wasn’t even still there to begin with.

As we go, let’s be on the lookout for more clues about Lâozî’s story and experience of it as well as maybe some insights on how we can frame our own experiences in not-really-leaving somewhere because we left long ago. Thank you for being here with me—please use the Contact form to send me your responses. See you next time!