Category: Tiān

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#7 Ér Dì jiû 久 Tiān Wú 無

enduring through time—like someone receiving moxibustion treatments with mugwort used for cramps, turning a breech baby, or other health issues—

jiû (久)

Heaven (that sky level above the human head)…

lengthy as hair that has to be tied with a brooch;

Earth (this soil vagina)…

enduring for years—like someone receiving moxibustion treatments with mugwort used for cramps, turning a breech baby, or other health issues;

Thus begins Chapter 6.

Lâozî’s referred to Heaven-Earth several times by now:

  • In Chapter 1, we learned that Not-Being personal naming is Heaven-Earth’s beginning—like conception in a woman.
  • In Chapter 5, we learned that Heaven-Earth is not really personable, and it has an interstice that is like a bellows.
  • Last time, in Chapter 6, Lâozî said the double-winged gateway of the hard-to-see structure of a mother’s lap (vagina) is called Heaven-Earth root of the family tree (penis)… and is barely perceptible. Also: surviving.

Here, though, Lâozî’s pulled Heaven and Earth apart and is telling us something about each one, on its own. Heaven is long. Earth is enduring. Dào Dé Jīng translators variously say heaven is eternal or long-lasting and earth abides or is everlasting; or they lump them together and say they are enduring, or infinite and eternal.

In our last discussion of Heaven-Earth, I went into the images a little more, the history of each word, their association with all these pregnancy pictures… and confessed that I think Lâozî’s using a sort of double code where Heaven represents not only an abstract idea of a place/state but also a literal celestial spirit. Like: a person’s soul. And Earth represents not just this earthly plane but also an actual womb like the one pictured in the original glyph. That would mean that in the first line of Chapter 6, Lâozî’s just told us that a fetus is alive and also the womb is intact. Next we learn how that affects the combo of the two, when considered as a “place” or unit:

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

‘place’— somewhere intentionally created, like a door chopped with an axe…

this means

capable—powerful as that legendary bear with deer legs—of

“lengthy as hair that has to be tied with a brooch…”

abiding for a long time—the erect penis of a male ancestor—

“enduring for years—like someone receiving moxibustion treatments with mugwort used for cramps, turning a breech baby, or other health issues—”

—now this is cooking!

Yes, now we’re cooking! The celestial spirit in the earthen womb can be long-lasting for a long time and endure like someone receiving moxibustion treatments with mugwort used for cramps, turning a breech baby, or other health issues. Moxibustion really was, and still is, used in Chinese medicine for the exact OB/GYN uses described here. The pictogram of that process evolved to the modern character 久 (jiǔ) meaning a long time, presumably because it promotes health and longevity. This is the first place this character occurs in the Dào Dé Jīng. And what does it mean for our story? The next lines say:

This means

what it holds a basket of…

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

of course—one’s self personally, right on one’s nose…

birthing—a bud sprouting from the ground;

anciently, for ten generations, this therefore lightly hits and leaves a mark of reason…

“capable—powerful as that legendary bear with deer legs—of

lengthy as hair that has to be tied with a brooch…”

birthing—a bud sprouting from the ground.

So: not really oneself birthing, therefore capable of long-lasting birthing.

Okay, even if you don’t agree, you must admit that you can see how I might imagine that our midwife someone from the last chapter has just prevented premature labor and thereby allowed our hero to be birthing later?!

And how in the world do other translators make sense of this line, you ask? Referring to Heaven and Earth, they say:

  • Yi Wu: Is because they do not live for themselves. So, they can live long.
  • Feng and English: They are unborn, so ever living.
  • John C H Wu: Is it not because they do not live for themselves 
    That they can live so long?
  • Chao-Hsiu ChHen: because they have no ego; therefore they can live for ever.

It’s not that I disagree with these interpretations. It’s just that I wish we didn’t have to lose that other level of the earthy, intimate, domestic, human parts of life that Lâozî use to convey those lofty ideas.

And there’s more. As a result of all of the above, the sage’s life is a certain way:

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

this means…

the grounded sage—listening and speaking, standing connected to earth as well as the heavens,

that person:

being behind—what remains afterward when stepping slowly, only one’s left leg leading the way, leaving the tiniest of silk thread footprints—one’s descendants…

what it holds a basket of…

one’s pregnant self, 

The sage’s pregnant self is behind… or it’s what’s left behind. It’s the sage’s descendants, you could say.

and yet now, bearded, you: (ér, 而)

one’s pregnant self…

being long before—like one’s dead ancestor;

So, at the same time, that “bearded” pregnant self is ahead… it’s the sage’s ancestor, you could say.

It’s a paradox that most translators describe as: the sage puts himself behind and therefore is ahead. The description of the sage continues:

‘outside’ or foreign—like the relatives of your mother, sister, and daughter who divine by the moon…

what it holds a basket of…

one’s pregnant self,

and yet now, bearded, you:

one’s pregnant self…

surviving—on the plane of a baby with health issues, maybe a large head, but still sprouting;

Once more, phew: surviving despite being foreign or an outsider (with suspiciously witchy female relatives, at that!). And here’s what happens as a result:

breaking the little wings off…

this means…

what it holds a basket of…

Nothing—no one dancing with long tails flowing from their wrists—nope never, no way, nowhere, nohow Not-Being (wú, 無)

personal concerns—like about one’s private grain field—

of a disastrous nature—like that disease-causing environment around Tusk Town—

This reads like a double or triple negative! I see it as: this stops the sage’s Not-Being from potentially disastrous personal concern. (Also it makes me wonder about Tusk Town! Some think it was the old name of Langya. What calamity happened there—was it swampy and malarial? Was there some kind of unwholesome behavior thereabouts? In Classical Chinese medicine the term referred to pathogenetic factors… were there a large number of children born with issues? I can find reference to sulfur springs in the area, so maybe it was just the smell?) Anyway, as a result of this…

therefore—anciently, for ten generations, this lightly hits and leaves this mark of reason…

capable—powerful as that legendary bear with deer legs—of

completing—that final nail in the weapon on a pole—

what it holds a basket of…

personal concerns—like about one’s private grain field

Now the sage can complete his personal concern.

Without my habit of seeing the character Not-Being as a persona, it gets even more complicated: “stopping not being unhealthily personally-concerned means the sage can complete his personal-concern?”

Here’s how others translate this passage:

  • Yi Wu says: Is it not because he has no self that his self is realized?
  • Feng and English: Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment.
  • John C H Wu: Is it not because he is selfless that his self is realized?
  • Chao-Hsiu ChHen: Only through unselfishness can he achieve fulfillment.

Much easier to read! And I’m not saying they’re wrong, of course. But I like seeing where Not-Being shows up, especially after all that pregnancy and moxibustion. And I like seeing where the “bearded, you” appears.

To me, in the sub-text story, the day has been saved—that labor from the last chapter has been averted by moxibustion performed by our midwife-someone. And that means that our pregnant sage adopts a beard and sallies forth into this new double life.

Ok, well we CAN agree that the sage gives up a certain kind of personal concern in order to complete another kind of personal concern. That seems to be true no matter whether you agree with my imagination or not! And now here we go… into Act 2 and a whole new world with this new kind of selfless self in action.

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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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#1 Ér Dào Fēi 非 Jiâo Míng Miào Tiān Wú 無 Yôu

By way of introduction… Chapter 1 summary

Here’s how I see it. Please consider it a light fanciful daydream if it offends your sense of the Dào Dé Jīng!

Setting the stage: conflict!

Yinxi the border guard recognizes Lâozî as he’s departing the country, allegedly fed up with politics in Zhou. He asks the renowned wiseman to leave behind some helpful words, presumably about his philosophy and the way to go about things. Lâozî says… well you might want to click here to read Chapter 1 and then pop right back. But basically Lâozî says…

The Way that I can describe to you as definitively The Way breaks the little wings off our traditional version of The Way.

Wow. What a great first sentence. It’s very overt and rather patronizingly graphic in setting up all sorts of conflict and questions… especially with those actual Western Zhou Bronze Inscription characters that Lâozî used! (Yes, I’m making lots of assumptions here, as do all translators. Mine are described here.)

What follows sets up some idiosyncratic themes for the whole book.

Hair

Somehow hairstyle figures prominently in this first sentence and the entire text! Here’s my full version of the first sentence:

The Way of the loose-haired chieftain—walking a while, stopping a while, listening, and speaking of it all—about which you can purse your lips like a piece of cane and puff: “Yup, that’s it, definitely The Way of the loose-haired chieftain—walking a while, stopping a while, listening, and speaking of it all—” is breaking the little wings off the ever-present square fabric which our grown men wrap around the ‘little bird’ top knots on their heads after receiving their public courtesy-names—or what we know as the timeless, whole-cloth ‘jin’ version of The Way of the loose-haired chieftain—walking a while, stopping a while, listening, and speaking of it all.

So we have a roaming prophet-like chieftain with loose hair. And then we have a sort of opposite: the current tradition in which men wrap their hair in a top knot on their head and cover it with a cloth as part of their puberty ritual. We’ll encounter some other hair and headdress images later in the book, but that theme’s established right here in the initial line.

What’s in a name

Different types of names also figure prominently throughout this whole first chapter. I count four different namings.

1.Above we learned about how when boys turned to men in ancient China, they received a new formal name.

2. The next sentence talks about the childhood name the boys gave up, a name you can still use with intimates after you’re a grownup:

Its personal, childhood name—what it says to identify itself urself by moonlight—about which you can purse your lips like a piece of cane and puff: “Yup, that’s it, definitely personal, childhood naming—what you say to identify yourself by moonlight” is breaking the little wings off our traditional its personal, childhood name—what it says to identify itself urself by moonlight.

[Yes, I shortened the ever-present square fabric which our grown men wrap around the ‘little bird’ top knots on their heads after receiving their public courtesy-names—or what we know as the timeless, whole-cloth ‘jin’ version of (chàng) into “our traditional.” Yes, it’s both a big assumption on my part AND a useful space saver! That character’s described in detail here.]

So here’s yet another harsh difference between tradition and what Lâozi could say. This time it’s over personal naming in particular. Now we feel like names might be key in the conflict that’s been staged for us.

Lâozi goes on to differentiate two kinds of personal names: Being, its personal name, and Not-Being, its personal name. In this simple step, Lâozi introduces two of our most central and most baffling characters and puts them squarely into this naming conflict… but more on them later. Let’s see what other kinds of naming are discussed in the first chapter.

3. There’s also how things are spoken of altogether with one another—like all earthly, mortal, commonplace plates. Lâozi uses THAT title when talking about Being and Not-Being when they’re a yoked pair, just before they’re stepping out “of a cave” and into their two different, masked personal namings.

4. To really describe them altogether like that, Lâozi adds in yet another kind of naming: what it’s called when speaking from the gut—words, like slaves or criminals branded by a chisel emerging from a mouth.

Later in the book, we’ll see some significant permutations of these naming types, and we’ll really notice them too, since the basics are pointedly noted in the first chapter.

Being, Not-Being, their altogetherness, their differently masked names once they step out of the cave and get bearded, plus the crux of the mystery:

Most importantly, in this introductory chapter we meet and learn a little something about two of the book’s fundamental characters. The facts we get, in order of appearance:

  • Not-Being is shown by a pictogram of a mysterious, shaman-like dancer and is often taken to mean “null” or “nothingness.” Lâozi tell us its personal naming is the conception of Heaven-Earth (merged to be something like… the whole universe or “heaven and earth”).
  • Being is shown by a pictogram of a hand holding a piece of meat. Lâozi says its personal naming is the rearing, raising, or “suckling” of all the gazillion of material things in that universe, literally 10,000 Things—all matter external or cut off from you.
  • In the traditional version, Not-Being is “wanting.” It’s missing something that’s been eroded, and that is a mysterious feminine essence called miào.
  • In the traditional tradition, Being is “wanting.” It’s missing something that’s been eroded, and that is delineated surface—like a patrolled frontier border lightly hit with a sword tip from left to right (jiâo).
  • Whoa, though! Really they’re a matched pair and can be spoken of in this state where they’re altogether—as common as daily dishes—stepping out of their cave…
  • But. Once they step out, lots of “buts” apply. The first, main, and most unusual and specific “but” is a character that’s a pictogram of a beard (èr). The instant they step out, Lâozi starts describing them with a qualifier: and yet now, bearded…. Every time this èr character’s used, I can’t help but harken back to its intro here as a description of Not-Being and Being as they step out of the cave.
  • So they’re altogether stepping out of a cave and yet now, bearded…. they have differently masked personal names (presumably this refers back to the “Being” and “Not-Being” personal names described before).
  • What they’re called from the gut when they’re altogether has this hard-to-see darkness—the figure-eight structure of a skein of string-dyed-black (xuán). Based on how the text’s written, I think the entire set-up described beforehand—what I summarized in the above bullet points—constitutes that xuán. But I guess it could be something as yet unspecified, something that we discover later.
  • And here’s the kicker… that hidden structure has its own hard-to-see dark figure-eight structure of string-dyed-black.
  • And THIS, my friends, is the mysterious feminine essence’s double-winged gateway. Ending the first chapter here leaves us with miào feeling somehow central to the whole story.

What’s this have to do with our original conflict between The Way and our tradition?

I guess that’s the question Lâozî’s setting up for the suspenseful tale about to unfold to Yinxi, me, and you.

What stands out to you?

I’m going to give you some time to ponder this introduction and my question and send me your answers before I prejudice you with mine—because they’re doozies! And with that cliff-hanger… I thank you for being here with me and for sending me your comments. It means the world to me.

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#1 Dì Mén Tiān Xià

Heaven (that sky level above the human head)

tiān

You’ve seen the word Tiān many times—as part of the word Tiananmen, The Gate of Heavenly Peace, in Beijing. Actually, we’ll see all three components of that word in the Dào Dé Jīng, starting with today’s word: tiān. It’s the heaven part, and its modern character looks like this:

天

In the pictogram of the Warring States Chu Slip script—which is the era after Lâozî—as well as every script thereafter, this character’s shown by a picture of a person with a line over their head:

In the oldest known Chinese writing—the Oracle Bone script of the Shang dynasty, it also looked like that:

During the Zhou dynasty, this figure for sky was the word that became used to talk about the highest god which previously was called Shàngdì, meaning something like God of Shang. That’s why some people occasionally translate tiān as Lord, presumably depending on context. Why the change in the Shang dynasty? One thing I’ve learned is that often with each new emperor, words that sounded like the last emperor’s name were more or less banished! It really complicates etymology. Sometimes I try to make some big cosmic reason for a character turning into or being replaced by another character, and it turns out that no one was allowed to say the old name, for example “Shang,” lest the powers-that-be-think they’re not loyal. Obviously I am over-simplifying, Anyway, in Zhou times, this high god and/or the place it lived were called Sky, so that flavor often is captured by translating this word as heaven. “Heaven worship” is one name for this religion which was the state religion before the 20th century. Its philosophies are quite beautiful sounding:

“…it sees the world and the gods of its phenomena as an organic whole, or cosmos, which continuously emerges from a simple principle. This is expressed by the concept that “all things have one and the same principle” (wànwù yīlǐ 萬物一理).This principle is commonly referred to as Tiān 天, a concept generally translated as “Heaven”, referring to the northern culmen and starry vault of the skies and its natural laws which regulate earthly phenomena and generate beings as their progenitors.“

Yes, I just quoted Wikipedia! Sorry/not sorry because when you want to know just a little about something, it is just the way to get a taste.

I want you to see how, in Taoism, this word Tiān is a fundamental concept with all kinds of the cosmological implications we just tasted. But the question is, was Lâozî a Taoist?! If you think Lâozî founded Taoism, then that’s like asking if Christ was Christian (we can be sure Jesus wasn’t attached to later dogma in the Christian church since it didn’t exist yet, though people can and do argue as to which of those dogmas are exactly as he meant it to be). Whether or not you think you think Lâozî founded Taoism partially depends on if you think Lâozî lived in the 300’s or in the 500’s. Why does this matter to me right now? Because I’m trying to figure out if Lâozî used tiān as heaven or sky. Probably both, like current English speakers do with the word “heavens.” Its use as capital-H Heaven was clearly established during Lâozî’s time, and that’s probably why almost every translator calls this character heaven. This creates such a quandary for my picture-oriented translation method! Dang it. I’m going to change my translation AGAIN. And it’s going to be longer. Again:

Heaven (that sky level above the human head)

“Remember,” I keep telling myself, “we’re going for the complete picture, not the most succinct one.” And you know what? I think the complete picture ends up being super evocative and even lyrical.

~

Before we leave today’s word, I want you to know a little about all the ways Lâozî combined it with other characters in the Dào Dé Jīng to create distinct meanings.

  • tiān xià: During Lâozî’s lifetime, xià (下) was drawn as one line below another: It now means lower part, under, inferior, and below. I capture all that with my interpretation of it as down below (lower level). As we’ll see beginning in Chapter 2, this word is commonly combined with tiān to make Sky-Below or Heaven-Below. You can see why most translators interpret it as world, and, in different places, everyone, all in the world, etc. I of course let the lengthy combo of my own translations stand on its own, but I do hyphenate them since they’re so commonly combined into one entity: Heaven (that sky level above the human head)–down below (lower level). When you look at it like that, does it mean heaven when it occurs down below? Or does it mean some scope that encompasses both levels? We don’t have to decide. As usual, we can let the poet’s multi-layered meanings wash over us.
  • tiān mén: As you probably intuited at the beginning of this post, mén (門) translates as gate. The old glyph has barely changed: I love it when that’s the case. It is quite simply a drawing of a double-winged gateway, and that’s how I translate it. Combined with tiān, we get: Heaven (that sky level above the human head)–double-winged gateway. Usually other translators call it heaven’s gate, gates of heaven, or heavenly gate.
  • tiān dì: Right here in the first chapter we see one of the most common uses of tiān: it’s combination with dì (地). Lâozî most likely would have drawn dì like this: The left side of that character, by itself, looked like this: That’s a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel and means earth, soil, clay, dust. The right-hand side of dì is considered the phonetic side, though as is often the case, that seems like a stretch to me… this sub-component’s pronounced yê. How does that tell us how to pronounce dì? As usual, I suspect the so-called phonetic component also contributes to the meaning. There’s a lot going on in that right-side, and I’m still trying to figure out all the little sketches in there, but apparently in Lâozî’s era, it was drawn more simply, just with this:There’s been a difference of opinion on whether this was a pictogram of female genitalia, a washbasin or funnel, or a mouth with air coming down out of it. It’s translated as too, also, and as well or as neither/either in the case of negatively phrased sentences. In other words, it’s a sound you make to add emphasis. Where it occurs by itself in this book, I’ve naturally translated it as —yes, that too, vagina! Of course, you know by now that I’m not intentionally being provocative just on this character since I throw in the whole kitchen sink on every, character, yê?! And too, you may be seeing a trend where over time characters’ seem to have undergone some puritanical “cleanups,” at least in the English translations. We see that with English words too. Some still reference their very earthy origins and we don’t even notice it when we say them. For example. when things are messed up and you say there’s a “snafu,” you may not know that was a military acronym for “situation normal: all fucked up.” So for now we’ll assume all these missing references to women with breasts, nursing women, etc. are probably normal and not an effort to sanitize or gender-wash the Dào. Nonetheless it may feel profane to some that I’m reintroducing these old words and images into a sacred document. Please know, I truly don’t think of it that way as I consider none of this profane and furthermore consider it an honor to Lâozî to try getting close to the original writing as best we can. And of course, most importantly, nothing I or anyone can do is able to diminish the Dào or the Dào Dé Jīng. And with that big disclaimer… my translation of dì is Earth (this soil vagina). Altogether with tiān, we have: Heaven (that sky level above the human head)—Earth (this soil vagina). Or you can silently say in your mind Heaven-Earth or heaven and earth, as most translators do.

~

The sky just above your own head—the fresh air, the perfect oxygen level, the way it renews you not just to breathe it in but to look up at it. No matter your religion, it is heavenly. That, I think, is my favorite part of today’s word, of where I live, and of most days. I hope you have some time today to lift your eyes and breathe in this heaven that we have access to everyday. Thank you for using part of it to join me here.