Tag: Dao De Jing

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#4 cún 存 Qí 其 Shuî Yíng 沖

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

cún (存)

We left off pondering the exact nature of what appears to be a call to The Way of the loose-haired chieftain. (I apologize for the week off. I hit a big milestone in completing the screenplay treatment for a film version of Lâozî’s journey!! More on this later, as you might expect, but for now we return to how I pieced all this together.)

Happily, in the next paragraph of Chapter 4, Lâozî tells us more about this phenomenon of how you can be pouring water from a hollow drum and yet now, bearded, doing water-bucket-style work but not really overflowing one’s vessel:

In all four directions,

the myriad scorpion medicine-dancing Ten Thousand

Things cut off from you—all external matter like cows etc.—

has this

ancestral shrine:

So first we learn that everyone everywhere has honored what The Way calls one to do.

And then we get more information more about what this “ancestral shrine” involves:

pushing down to a sitting position on the ground…

what it holds a basket of (qí 其):

a person speaking like an axe on metal—sharpening;

removing—a blade cutting the horn from an ox…

what it holds a basket of:

unravelling—separating thin silk with a blade into disorderliness;

harmonizing as a mouth organ…

what it holds a basket of:

brilliance—that shining fire over the head of a kneeling person;

Remember our discussion about “what it holds a basket of?” We were trying to figure out where this character points—in other words, what is the IT referred to? I concluded that this phrase doesn’t necessarily refer back to the word right in front of it. It most often points the reader back to the most recent “subject.” That would be this ancestral shrine (i.e., the call to The Way, to be pouring water from a hollow drum and yet now, bearded, you’re doing water-bucket-style work but not really overflowing one’s vessel).

Indeed the very careful and respectful translator, Yi Wu, translates this section to say The Way… blunts its own sharpness, unties its own tangles, tempers its own brightness.

BUT then again, in many places, many translators say “what it holds a basket of” DOES refer to the word right in front of it. In that case, you’d interpret this passage to mean that when it comes to The Way: pushing down to a sitting position has a sharpening similar to that of a person speaking like as a metal axe; removing like a blade cutting the horn from an ox has an unravelling like separating silk thin with a blade into disorderliness; and harmonizing as a mouth organ has a brilliance like that of shining fire over the head of a kneeling person.

As usual, it works both ways, in that manner typical of great poets and Lâozî in particular, adding up to all the paradox and ambiguity one might want in a mystical text!

Whichever “it” you consider…

spoken of altogether with one another—like all earthly, mortal, commonplace plates…

what it holds a basket of:

leaving dusty footprints in the dirt—like a deer streaked with soil.

We’ve seen this kind of naming in which things are “spoken of altogether” before. In the very first chapter, Lâozî described how Being and Not-Being are a matched pair that’s spoken of altogether when stepping out of their cave… at which point they then acquire differently-masked names. Now, presumably what’s being spoken of altogether is The Way… of pouring water from a hollow drum and yet now, bearded, you’re doing water-bucket-style work but not really overflowing one’s vessel. And this phenomenon leaves barely discernible tracks.

AND/OR: speaking of things altogether may, itself, have the characteristic of leaving barely discernible tracks.

Furthermore, it’s even harder to see whatever-this-is because it’s:

Concealed like sugar cane sweetness tucked in the ends of folded cloth and frozen like ice…

—Oh! A breath, like wind through tree branches!—

But also:

bearing a side-by-side personal resemblance, seems like:

“this particular territory—this enclave, defended by a weapon on a pole, plus its surroundings…”

surviving—on the plane of a baby that has health issues, like maybe a large head, but is sprouting. (cún, 存)

If you look back up to the top of this post, you see this particular territory—this enclave, defended by a weapon on a pole, plus its surroundings... was used in the first line of this Chapter 4, in what I’m considering to be The Call to Adventure. And now here we learn that the “territory” of this calling (to be pouring water from a hollow drum and yet now, bearded, doing water-bucket-style work but not really overflowing one’s vessel) looks very much like when an ill newborn survives and grows.

~

Let’s look at the character cún (存). It’s a compound character made from these two bronze inscription glyphs:

The sub-component on the left (cái, 才) is a pictogram of the sprouting of seeds. On its own, the modern meanings are ability, gifts, talent, or a person’s status/background. In Mín Nan (remember the Mín people?), it’s used as a classifier for describing a volume of wood or area of paper or other sheet materials. It’s considered the phonetic element of this word, signaling to the reader to give it that “c” sound. My first translation kind of ignored this character, but I’ve added it is to be consistent with my goal to represent all images found in the glyphs. Doing so with this character is especially satisfying to me as in my other interest—physics—surface area is one of the master keys to understanding most phenomena. And since we see references to marking out 2-and3-D spaces elsewhere in the text, it helps tie together potential connections to be consistent and include it here.

The sub-component on the right (zî, 子) is considered the semantic part that gives the character its meaning. The pictogram is an image of a baby. Etymological dictionaries specifically say it’s “a baby with a large head and spread arms; the legs are wrapped in a blanket.” Its modern meaning is child, offspring, son, and descendant. But also it can mean master or teacher, and indeed was used as a suffix in Lâozî’s own name as well as Confucius’ name (Kôngzî). It’s also used as the alternate for seed and can mean egg, young, tender, or small.

The overall compound character translates as exist; cherish, harbor; store, retain; stock, reserve. Dào translators use different words in different chapters, ranging from exist, be present, and is there, to preserve, survive, and places where it’s hard to even figure out what they’re actually calling this word because it’s combined with the other words around it into a new phrase.

I can’t help but believe it’s a mistake to ignore the character’s original image so thoroughly. Because I believe that Lâozî’s given us a detailed picture of The Call: its revered nature, what it does, and what it looks like. We don’t want to discard any information in that message even if it would simplify things to do so! The description we end up with is mysterious and provocative as usual.

Consider there’s that bearding… and it leads directly to a result that resembles a newborn baby living through health issues. Maybe it’s because of that last line that so many other images in the chapter bring pregnancy, childbirth, and gestation issues to my mind (e.g., pouring water from the center like from a hollow drum water, pushing down to sitting position, and even removing something that’s unraveling).

But also the more typical interpretation of this chapter’s meaning is compelling. Consider Yi Wu’s translation:

“The Way appears empty;
in use, it may not overflow.
Fathomless, it seems to be the ancestor of all things.
It blunts its own sharpness,
unties its own tangles,
tempers its own brightness,
unites itself with dust.
Deep but clear, it seems to exist and not to exist.”

And that of Gia-fu Feng and Jane English:

“The Tao is an empty vessel; it is used, but never filled.
Oh, unfathomable source of ten thousand things!
Blunt the sharpness,
Untangle the knot,
Soften the glare,
Merge with dust.
Oh, hidden deep but ever present!“

It’s one of my favorite passages. That may be partly because it’s the first one I ever considered closely. When I met my husband and discovered his copy of Feng and English’s translation, I found a piece of rice paper tucked inside onto which he’d copied these very lines.

Why those lines, I wondered? How does this shape his way of going about life? In fact, the more I’ve gotten to know him, the more I see how those lines describe him and his intentions so perfectly.

What do they feel like to you? Do they sound desirable? Boring? Attainable? Easy? Impossible? And… how would one go about living this way?

Now, too, the more I’ve gotten to know the Dào, I appreciate the Feng-English version’s poetry and simplicity, and yet when I read it, I miss seeing the glyphs’ images. I miss those references to concrete, daily life. I like to think that maybe those images not only serve as metaphors to get across the big abstract message that these other translators capture so beautifully, but ALSO describe some details of Lâozî’s world. What a masterful feat the sage accomplished if that’s so. AND it’s done with rhyme, alliteration, and meter! I hope you’re seeing more and more why I’m so fascinated with not just the text by its brilliant writer.

There’s one final line in this chapter, and we’ll look at it in the next post. Thanks for being here today. Please send me your comments and questions using the contact form. See you next time.

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#4 Ér Bù 不 Shuî Yíng 沖

pouring water from the center, like from the hollow drum at the base of the flagpole

Yíng

The Way of the loose-haired chieftain—walking a while, stopping a while, listening, and speaking of it all:

pouring water from the center, like from the hollow drum at the base of the flagpole,

and yet now, bearded… (ér, 而)

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

has this…

this particular territory—this enclave, defended by a weapon on a pole, plus its surroundings:

the husk of the initial protective bud casing—the sepal—but not really the true inner flower of (bù, 不)

full to overflowing its vessel. (yíng (沖)

As you remember, I’m exploring the idea that the Dào part of the Dào Dé Jīng follows Joseph Campbell’s story template. If so, then Chapter 4 would give us the hero’s “call to adventure.” And I do think it opens straight away with that call. It’s a call to The Way of the loose-haired chieftain—walking a while, stopping a while, listening, and speaking of it all. And it specifically calls for this:

Pouring water from the center of one’s “hollow drum” and yet, now bearded, do truly useful work like a water bucket… not really overflowing one’s vessel.

That is indeed quite a calling.

~

Yíng (沖)’s bronze inscription looks like this:

You recognize the sub-component on the right side of that image from this post where we learned it’s a picture of a drum with a flagpole. This kind of structure was traditionally placed in the middle of a field to call people to gather with drumming, provide a center point for that gathering, as well as detect wind and serve to foster group-identity and morale. The left sub-component shuî is the pictogram for a river or running water:

(And yes, that’s the same shuî from “Feng shui!”)

Modern definitions of the complete character yíng (沖) are to pour water on; to rinse; to flush; to wash; to infuse; to make drinks. More classic definitions included to soar; to rise; to shoot up. Dào translators have gone a different way. They translate it as like an empty bowl, appears empty, is an empty vessel, is like a well, is unimpeded harmony. I combine the images with the traditional definitions and translate it as:

pouring water from the center, like from the hollow drum at the base of the flagpole

This is the only place in the first 37 chapters of the Dào Dé Jīng that this word appears.

~

But the next part of “the call” is familiar to us from earlier in the Dào since we discussed this character here. Doing of truly useful work—like a water bucket—by means of carrying capacity is one of several different ways Lâozî describes work or getting things done. In this kind of work, something or someone uses their receptivity or negative space’s carrying capacity (as opposed to laboring forcefully, actively shaping something, etc.).

So, on The Way, the loose-haired chieftain is pouring water from their hollow drum and yet, “bearded” something else is also happening now. They’re doing this water-bucket-style-work WHILE not really overflowing their vessel.

No wonder the next line interjects:

The deep water—Oh! A breath, like wind through the tree branches!

Because that’s a tall order as well as a pleasantly puzzling paradox to consider.

Have you ever poured water from your hollow drum? In a literal sense, it reminds me more of having your water break during pregnancy than it does urinating… probably because I definitely looked like a drum when I was pregnant!

In a symbolic sense, water might mean lots of things. Carl Jung thought water was one of the few universal symbols—he believed it symbolized the unconscious. Considering the words that follow this phrase, Lâozî indeed could be alluding to how we work with the unconscious in our life. On the other hand, since Lâozî’s taking great care to describe the particular type of work that’s best described with the image of a bucket, the water may be a stand-in for whatever we may be working with at any given time.

No matter which of those meanings we adapt, what does it mean to have the water pour out of us but now, bearded, to do that useful, carrying-capacity kind of work while not really overflowing?

~

Here, I find myself wanting to go back and investigate that bearded character. As you remember, we looked at ér (而) in a previous post. Its most common translations are something like “and yet, now.” Its original glyph was a drawing of a beard:

A beard is a good image for trying to illustrate the concept that some original situation is yet existing (i.e., the unshaven face is yet there under the beard), and at the same time, now there’s a new situation. You can see how it also gets translated as but or but now because a change in the situation is apparently an important part of the word’s meaning. BUT (ha!) you can also see how neither’s exactly the same as saying “yet.” Yet is also a translation of this character, and it more closely matches the glyph. So do whereas and while.

Let’s think more specifically about the glyph image itself. What do we know about a beard? It’s is a sign of manhood. And it’s something that changes the look of a face even while the face is still under there—for that reason, it’s always been a popular disguise.

The other character Lâozî uses to impart a meaning akin to “but” is also in this first sentence of Chapter 4: bù (不). We talked about it here when we were looking at all the “negative particles” in the Dào Dé Jīng. It’s in fact the most common negative particle in the Dào.

From what I can find, ér isn’t talked about as a common negative particle in Classical Chinese (despite that fact, I do find versions of some historical documents from the 4th century translating ér as “and yet” ). Rather, when I re-examine information about this character, I see its “literary” translation is you or your. I’m not sure how I missed this before. Maybe because I didn’t know at first that the literary meaning usually corresponds to the older historical meaning for a word.

Interesting! A beard as a symbol for you… and also as a symbol for and yet now. I think I’ll modify my translation to include this information! Ér (而) will now appear as:

“and yet now, bearded, you”

Okay, I have to disappear for a bit and see what happens when I make that change everywhere! While I do that, I hope you’ll sit with the call, just let IT flow from you, and yet now, bearded, do the water-bucket kind of work while not really overflowing—maybe just experience this concept without words. And I also hope you’ll let me know what you found. See you next time with the rest of Chapter 4 (and maybe more on the implications of this big change I just made?!)

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#2 #3

Chapter 3 summary

Together with the Chapter 2 summary, Chapter 3 sets the stage for us. Lâozî’s described the world where the story we are about to hear takes place:

It’s a world where extreme efforting of one trait cuts off and defines its opposite in something… before its even fully developed and born. Or to look at it in terms of the opposites: it’s a place where NOT doing certain extreme things means you’re “breeding civilians” WITHOUT certain corresponding bad behaviors.

Given this world, an ideal sage would have certain habits:

~ in dwelling, the sage would be Not-Being efforting;

~ in practicing on a public road, they’d be not really speaking;

~ birthing, yet now bearded… not really flesh-and-blood, meat-holding Being;

~ efforting, yet now bearded… not really expecting that will be holding one’s heart-core like a mother;

~ completing real work, and yet now bearded, you’re… not-abiding (like the sticks tied together as a fire starter are gone, pfft!);

~ and in “governing like regulating a River Happy or speaking of turning one’s self,” the sage would be emptying their heart, filling their belly, fragile in aspiration, and strengthening their bony will.

Also in this world, the traditional ever-present, timeless, constant version (as symbolized by the head cloth that men donned upon becoming official adults) of “breeding civilians” involves Not-Being sure, Not-Being missing something.

And amid all this there is, that is to say, this particular grown man with a traditional head cloth and formal public name who we see is not really withdrawing—despite the fact that a sage is “not-abiding pfft!”—but also the traditional version of breeding civilians causes him to be “not really daring efforting…

efforting… Not-Being efforting…”

After following this example, Not-Being… not really “governing like regulating a river named Happy or speaking of turning one’s self.”

~

That’s the state of affairs. It does seem to be an old world, set in its ways despite some alternate ideas and some currently ambiguous and somehow unsatisfying consequences. What’s going to put change in motion? It all starts in Chapter 4, as we’ll see in the next post.

Thank you for being here and for using the contact form to send me your ideas and questions. If you haven’t done so yet, I officially invite you to use the contact page to do so! See you next time.

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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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#3 Hū 乎 Mín 民 Xī 兮 Yê 也 Yì Yî Zhê 者

—both armpits sweat this too!

Yì (亦)

When we left off last time, I provocatively left you with an excerpt from Chapter 3 in which Lâozî proclaims:

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!—

I didn’t even begin to address the meaning of that line because I figured you may have been as distracted as I was by the “exclamatory particle” at the end! Before you decide whether or not I was being dramatic, I wanted to tell you how I came up with these words and, while I’m at it, get into all of Lâozî’s different “interjections.”

So let’s start with the phrase that began this discussion. The thirteenth line of Chapter 3 ends with the character yê (也). Here’s the way this character was drawn in the Spring and Autumn Bronze Inscription script that Lâozî probably used:

This pictogram has been seen as female genitalia, an ancient funnel, a wash basin. Actually some linguists think it was an early version of another character, 匜, that means vessel and sounds kind of similar (yí). Its original Shang Oracle Bone Script character looked like this:

Um. I did not make this up or draw this and neither did the 6th grade boy down the street. Like most of the images I use here, it’s courtesy of the Richard Sears website that so graciously has put gazillions of bronze inscription, oracle, and seal characters’ images into the public domain from original sources. And I’m really starting to think some of these old characters are rather earthy indeed.

Back to our yê character. It’s what’s known as an “emphatic final particle.” Humans have always had these little words we use at the end of a sentence for emphasis, man! Those words just vary over location and time. Each new generation seems to like to use their own emphatic final particle, dude! Lâozî just happened to choose vagina, b$#@&! Sorry. I’m just pointing out that in modern times some of our emphatic final particles also are gender-specific and even crude. You can think of many more examples, I’m sure. Lâozî uses this one— yê—in four other locations throughout these 37 chapters of the Dào. I see no reason not to paint a picture of this character’s image just as accurately as I’ve been trying to do with the others. This character’s modern translations are also, too, as well; neither, either; indeed. Most Dào translators just leave it out, but why? It spices up and humanizes the text, for sure. My translation is:

—yes, that too, vagina!

~

Lâozî uses other emphatic particles as well. As we also saw above and even back in Chapter 1, Lâozî sometimes interjects in the middle of a sentence or list. For example, zhê (者) occurs—get this!—43 times in the first 37 chapters! Dào translators often ignore this as well, but I think it’s important to know what Lâozî thought was worthing emphasizing. Zhê is used to pause after a term and indicate that you’re about to define it. It can be translated as this. It’s hard to track down its etymology, but I’ve read that its pictogram was the original character either for boiling (煮) or for sugarcane (蔗). I originally included the sugarcane in my translation but later removed it simply because when I look at these two characters, the latter doesn’t look so much like the zhê character. Those four marks below both characters ( 灬)  show fire, like that under a cook pot, so I just made a judgement call that boiling is the common part of these definitions and translate it as:

—now this is cooking!

~

Lâozî also uses the exclamation xī or xí 30 times in the Dào. The modern character 兮 looks very much like the old Western Zhou Bronze Inscription:

Some etymologists say the bottom part of this character is a picture of a tree with a fork in it, 丂 (kâo):

The additional two upper marks are then thought to be fine branches, perhaps to conjure up the sound produced by wind blowing through the tree. In some places 兮 and the words descended from it are said to have meant breath, exhale, sigh, yell, call out, air, wind, or the howling sound of wind. But now they’re usually translated as particles like oh, in, at, on. This character’s usually just left out by Dào translators, though some (like Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) translate it as “Oh.” My version is:

Oh! A breath, like wind through tree branches!

Actually, yet another of Lâozî’s interjections is one of the words descended from that same wind-in-the-trees character. “Hū” even sounds like the very sound it describes and is drawn with a couple extra branches: 乎. Translators mostly seem to agree that Lâozî uses this as a “speculative” or “interrogative particle.” It basically turns a sentence into a question, you know? On many of the nine occasions it’s used in the first 37 chapters, translators turn it into can you, is it possible, how true is that, or what can __ do?” Of course, sometimes, they just leave it out. I incorporate the onomatopoeia as well as the questioning sense in my translation everywhere it appears:

~

—pah, can you?!

~

In the last third of the Dào, a completely different kind of exclamation’s introduced and used 7 times. Yì (亦) looked like this back in Lâozî’s time:

Yes, that’s a picture of a person with water falling from their armpits! It’s the original form of the modern character for armpit, but as time went on, this character itself came to mean also, too, likewise; only; already; and although. As far as I can tell, Dào translators completely ignore this word when it appears or at least they fold it into the sentence in such a way that I can’t pick it out. But I can’t ignore such an image, so I translate it as:

—both armpits sweat this too!

It adds a little excitement everywhere it appears, and I think Lâozî intended that! Why else draw someone sweating?

I think that’s it for interjections—phew! Next time we can get back to where we were in Chapter 3, learning about how the traditional version of breeding civilians is breeding this particular man: sure as the sun.

Thanks for being here, and please contact me using this form if you have any comments or questions. See you next time!

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#3 Cháng Mín 民 Qí 其 Wú 無 Yî Yôu zhì 治

civilians—like the Mín people enslaved by blinding with a dagger—

Mín

An eye pierced by a dagger. That’s the pictogram for today’s word, 民, which is modernly translated as people, citizens, folk, popular, and civilian.

Wow. This is why the images within the characters matter to me. The above picture of an eye and dagger is what Lâozî most likely would have drawn while writing down the 37 chapters we now call The Dào. Eye-piercing was an historic method for enslaving people. I’ve read that this practice was associated with enslaving the Mín people, hence this word and their name. Words from the Mín dialect make their way into the Dào in several places that I’ll note as we go along. We saw our first one in the last post, and—possibly not coincidentally?— that word (shî) occurs directly before today’s word (Mín) the first four times we see either one used.

As you recall, Chapter 3 opens with a list of three attitudes to avoid. If you avoid these, then you have a populace that doesn’t do three corresponding bad things. –>Not really elevating the elite rich means people don’t really compete (like with two hands clawing over a plow). –>Not really treasuring hard-earned transformation of riches means people don’t really “effort” thievery. –>And not really seeing something as definitely wanting or missing means peoples’ hearts aren’t really in a confused anxiety where their tongues are like twisted threads with one remnant string hanging out.

But, to be specific, each of those three prohibitions is spelled out according to this formula:

Not really doing [fill in the blank]

is breeding (like a gentleman holding a fountain pen)

civilians (like the Mín people enslaved by blinding with a dagger)

who don’t really do [fill in the blank].

I found this to be a nice time to re-read our last post and really reflect on that image of a government official holding in his hand a “fountain pen” that resembles “a flagpole sticking out of a drum.” Remember too: this image possibly shows that tool superimposed over a mouth. And of course there was the charming information that its meaning—to make someone do something—means to f*@# in the Mín dialect. So is it just me or does it sound like “breeding civilians” is another way of saying f*@#-ing the lowly masses who were enslaved by blinding their eyes with a dagger.

Does my heart suddenly seem rather dark to you?! Okay before I get all carried away seeing something horrible where it doesn’t exist, let’s find out what happens in the rest of the chapter and how these two words (shî mín) are used there. After all, this chapter is actually the only place that this shî character’s used at all.

~

What immediately follows is another instance of Lâozî telling us the suns sees indeed that this means something about the grounded sage. In this case, that description of what breeds civilians to be a certain way means the grounded sage has a particular style for governing (zhì, 治).

If you look at this modern character for zhì, you see it has two sub-components. The left side evolved from the pictogram from water:

The right-hand sub-character (台), when it’s by itself, is pronounced yí in Mandarin and was the original form of the word for happy or pleased. It depicts a mouth (the square) below another character. Most often that arrangement of a mouth means speaking about though sometimes it actually does seem to carry the meaning of a mouth, a cave, or a similar type opening.

In this case the mouth is drawn below a character that’s sometimes thought to be a plow or a symbol for turned or revolving. More often, and more specifically, it’s thought to be a variation of yî (以) which we investigated in a previous post. There 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. Nowadays, when this character’s combined with the mouth character to make yí, it seems to refer to some aspect of talking about oneself. The result’s translated as I or me or sometimes as what. It no longer carries the original meaning of happy/pleased, harmony, or joy unless it’s combined with a character showing a heart to the left of it: 怡.

When that same happy character was combined with the pictogram of water to form 治, the resulting meaning was often an ancient river name (pronounced either yí and chí). In modern usage, though, it’s pronounced zhî and translated as to govern, regulate, or administer. Historically it was used to describe a seat of local government. Dáo translators generally prefer the terms govern, governing, and government, but sometimes you’ll also see them translate it as rules or leads. Here’s how I translate it to include all the imagery:

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

I know it gets kind of wild when I translate this way, but I do so love the results. I love how it associates harnessing the River Happy with regulating or turning yourself around…. and with governing.

UPDATE: I look into this character a little more in a later post here.

~

So, to continue on, Lâozî says that in light of that list of what kinds of attitudes do or don’t breed what kinds of civilians, a sage’s governing looks like this:

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

has this

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

~ emptying—like lifted land…

what it holds a basket of…

heart-core…

~ really filling—like a building with strings of solid cowry-like riches…

what it holds a basket of…

inside—the gut, the meat belly;

~ being as fragile as a matching pair of decorative bows or little wings…

what it holds a basket of…

having heart-core determination and aspiration

~ strengthening like an insect—turning yourself as a venomous snake-like bow…

what it holds a basket of…

that bony will that comes from a skeleton framework.

What “it” is referred to in the phrase “what it holds a basket of?” This character, qí (其) puzzles me. We first looked at this little connecting word back in one of our earliest posts. But when translating Chapter 3, I decided to go back and review all 61 times it occurs in the first 37 chapters of the Dào Dé Jīng and compare how it’s handled by different translators (especially Chinese translators). I ultimately decided it’s safe to say that this phrase doesn’t necessarily refer back to the word right in front of it. Rather it points the reader back to the most recent “subject.”

In other words, Lâozî probably isn’t saying that “emptying has heart-core.” More likely this phrase says that the sage’s governing empties the sage’s heart-core, fills the sage’s inside/gut, is fragile in the sage’s heart-core determination, and strengthens the sage’s bony will. However only Chia-Hsu Chen translates it this way.

Most translators say the sage’s govern empties the people’s hearts, fills their bellies, weakens their ambition, and strengthens their will. They think “it” refers back to Lâozî’s previous “paragraph.” Other translators leave out the whole question of whose basket is in question! They say the sage’s governing empties the heart, fills the belly, weakens ambition, strengthens will.

What bothers me is that these approaches aren’t consistent in how they decide what the connecting word qí is pointing to. And when you read the different options I pose here, this subtlety really makes a difference, doesn’t it? Maybe this is another example of Lâozî the poet being intentionally ambiguous. Maybe “it” could be any of those things. “It” could be the sage, the governing itself, the people, or it could even be the word right in front of “it.” Maybe it COULD mean “emptying has heart.” (I like that last version a lot. I translated it that way myself until I more thoroughly analyzed qí.)

So why do I belabor this?

Because it makes a difference on a very important point: does the sage’s way of governing have anything to do with making the civilians be a certain way? It’s easy to assume so. After all we usually do think of governing as controlling others. And in the first part of this chapter, we just saw some gentleman a fountain pen was making them do stuff. But it seems to me that the point of this next section here is that the sage doesn’t do that. Maybe the sage is just over here minding the sage’s own heart, gut, ambition, and will. The very particular way that Lâozî drew the “governing” character could support that—governing could be about turning yourself, harnessing your own Happy river.

Let’s see where else Lâozî goes with these topics in this chapter. It’s pretty interesting.

~

As you remember, in the very first sentence of Chapter 1, Lâozî set up a conflict between the definitive “kê” version of things and the cháng version—the ever-present traditional, timeless, constant version of things as symbolized by the head cloth that men donned upon becoming official adults. Now we learn more about the cháng (常) version. We’re going to learn about what happens with that traditional version of breeding civilians:

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—what we know as the timeless, whole head-cloth ‘ji’ version of

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

civilians—like the Mín people enslaved by blinding with a dagger:

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

firing arrows from the mouth—sure;

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

wanting what’s been eroded from this ravine

We know two things about the traditional version of breeding civilians:

  • Not-Being… sure
  • Not-Being… wanting what’s missing

Does this mean the traditional version of breeding civilians breeds civilians that aren’t sure and aren’t wanting or missing anything? OR that in the traditional version of breeding civilians, someone who is a Not-Being is sure and is wanting something that’s missing? It’s our old familiar debate about the nature of the shamanic dancer Not-Being character, wú, and the meat-holding character we call Being, yôu. Are they people or are they negative and affirmative parties? Does it depend on context? Let’s keep reading with an open mind.

When we do so, we see in the very next sentence Lâozî tells us a third thing about the traditional version of breeding, and this is for sure about this particular man with a hairpin and public courtesy name (fú). We met this character in Chapter 2. There we learned he was absent and therefore not really leaving. Here we learn that he’s a person who, in the traditional version of breeding, is sure:

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!

~

All right, all right. Before I continue, I want to address the elephant in the room—and no, I don’t mean the actual elephant we once again see inside the image for “efforting!” I mean that last exclamation and its reference to female genitalia. Is this gratuitous sensationalism on my part? You tell me. I will give you the facts… in our next post. Because this one’s getting soooo long, and I want to tell you about all of Lâozî’s colorful interjections at one time.

Until next time, be sure to use the contact form to send me your questions and comments. Thank you for being here!

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#3 shî 使 zhōng 中

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

shî

Remember the many different pairs of “opposite” concepts in Chapter 2? We learned about how some pairs were formed, what that meant in terms of how some pairs mutually interacted, what that meant in terms of how some pairs played out in the sage’s life, and what THAT meant in terms of one particular man. Well… in Chapter 3, Lâozî continues the “opposites” theme to more completely give us a view of the world as it was.

~

First we learn that not-really-doing-certain things breeds (shî, 使) civilians to be not-really-doing-other things. This new list of opposites gives us these cause-and-effect relationships:

Not really doing this…
… breeds civilians who are not really…
Elevating important rich peopleCompeting
Treasuring hard-earning’s transformation of richesEfforting thievery
Seeing what’s definitely wanting or missingHaving a heart-core of confused anxiety

Let’s just pause here and soak in the actual message before I get to exploring the translation. It all feels very true and free, doesn’t it? I’m enjoying thinking of examples I’ve witnessed of each case. And of the opposite. And also where I can relax into these not-real-ystates right now. Ahhh..

Presumably, if you, me, any leader, or a government DOES do those things in the left column, it causes themselves or others around them or under their leadership TO do the other things in the right column? Actually it’s not exactly phrased in a straight forward way. Maybe it’s written like it is because that “affirmative” causality actually doesn’t hold true? Or maybe it would have been impolitic to phrase it in that affirmative way—maybe it would alienate people currently in power when Lâozî was writing? We can’t say for sure. But refraining from the things in the left column does feel good.

~

If you read my complete translation of Chapter 3, you’ll see lots of interesting imagery built in to each of the words shown above in italics. I think a pivotal character in this section is the verb shî (使). See the left half of this character? It’s a drawing of a standing person in profile. And the right-hand sub-component comes from the following Western Zhou Bronze Inscription:

The bottom half of that drawing shows a hand…

… and it’s said to be holding what is believed to be a fountain pen. Some theorize that the hand and fountain pen are superimposed over a mouth, which you remember looks like this in the old bronze inscription scripts:

Others believe the fountain pen itself resembles the flagpole-and-drum structure that used to be placed in the center of a field to gather people. In the Western Zhou era it was drawn like this:

By the Spring and Autumn era, it had been simplified to very closely resemble its modern character:

We’ll see this character, zhōng (中), later in the Dào. Sometimes it’s a sub-component and sometimes its own word which I translate as in the center—like that drum with a flagpole placed in the middle of a field to gather the people, detect the wind.

But let’s get back to our main character. The above combination of the hand and pen is translated as history, historian, scribe. In the old days, it referred to a government official or gentleman. When combined with the the picture of a person, it makes our full compound character shî. That word’s modern translations are to order to do, to make (happen), to dispatch, and to employ, though in Cantonese it translates to have to or need to. In Quanzhou Min Nan (a Southern Mín dialect typical of Fujian province in southeast China before the 19th century), it’s used as a vulgarity comparable to English’s most famous four-letter f-word. Fujian is part of the territory of the Eastern Zhou dynasty where Lâozî was presumed to have lived. The Mín people are considered to be an ethnic-sub-category of the Hans, and interestingly enough, in our next post we’ll see them alluded to again.

In fact, most Dào translations don’t even specifically translate shî but rather just incorporate it in different ways with the word that follows it. A couple translators do call it out as the verb causes, but you know I like to get as complete of a visual image as possible in my mind’s eye for every character Lâozî might have drawn, so I translate shî as:

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

See how politely I included the Mín version?! Ahhhh…. just cracking myself up over here.

Please join me next time for more on the Mín people and on the other ways Lâozî used today’s word. Until then, thank you for being here, and please write me with any comments you have. I love hearing from you.

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#2 Fū 夫 qù 去 shì 恃 Wéi 為

In which Lâozî tells us a bit about the status quo: how public opinion shapes things unborn, a sage’s life, and this particular man… Chapter 2 summary

After setting up a conflict, introducing the main characters, and leaving us with a mystery in Chapter 1, Lâozî gets down to business. Chapter 2 opens with a description of how things are in the established world (Heaven-below).

  • Here in Lâozî’s world we have public opinion being very sure of certain things. And this kind of “firing arrows from the mouth” has defining effects on what’s not yet even born:
    • First, the public is very opinionated about a particular kind of admired beauty.
      • Lâozî tells us that this has an “efforting” of beauty. It lops off or defines the opposite—a disdained ugliness—already… finishing it in the womb. This is the first of 51 times we see this efforting character (wéi).
    • Then public opinion is firing those certainty-arrows regarding a particular kind of traditional virtue.
      • Lâozî tells us this has an efforting of virtue. It lops off or defines the opposite—a husk but not really the true inner flower of virtue—already… finishing it in the womb.
  • There are consequences of this public opinion/efforting. It means other, opposite-sounding pairs are mutually occurring/doing things together:
    • Being and Not-Being are mutually birthing a bud sprouting from the ground;
    • solid and changeable: mutually completing that final nail in a weapon on a pole;
    • lengthy and short: mutually shaping within a hair’s breadth;
    • high level buildings in the suburbs and a lower level: mutually leaning toward one another, head askew, as if an arrow’s between them;
    • one tone from a moth and many sounds from hitting chimes: mutually harmonizing as a harmonica;
    • forward in the front lines of battle—where a foot gets cut off as punishment—and behind—what remains afterward when stepping slowly, only the left leg leading the way, leaving only the tiniest silk thread footprints as descendants: mutually accompanying one another, walking single file near soil mountains, stopping awhile along the road.
  • What a fascinating series of images, especially when read in sequence like that—it seems to paint its own story in some gauzy fashion. Then Lâozî tells us that the sun sees this list/story means some things about the grounded sage. (Throughout the 37 chapters of the Dào, whenever Lâozî says the sun’s seeing something, it sets up an objective big-picture “view from 30,000 feet.” Likewise, when Lâozî tells us about a grounded sage, it seems to be about an idealized wise person. In fact, these two phrases occur together eight of the eleven times that the sage is mentioned.) Specifically, we learn that the above list/story means six remarkable things about the sage:
    • RE dwelling, the sage’s personal role would be:
      • Not-Being efforting (as we discussed here). The pictograms for the word that means “dwelling” show someone staying at home at the tea table, chaste and unmarried, following something slowly from behind with tiger fur.
    • RE practicing/moving on a public road, the sage’s teaching would be:
      • just a husk of but not really speaking.
    • RE the Ten Thousand Things… getting up and going to work here:
      • “and yet now, bearded,” just a husk of but not really falling into some hollow-words style of governing that’s like a hand from above wielding that chisel used to mark slaves and criminals.
    • RE birthing:
      • “and yet now, bearded,” just a husk of but not really flesh-and-blood, meat-holding Being (as we discussed here);
    • RE efforting:
      • “and yet now, bearded,” just a husk of but not really expecting that will be holding one’s heart-core like one’s mother (shì).
    • RE real work completing that final nail in the weapon on a pole:
      • “and yet now, bearded,” not abiding (in fact, absent as sticks that were tied together to start a fire—pfft!).
  • And here Lâozî jumps in to interject extra detail. Lâozî repeats the last point to tell us something more about, that is to say, this particular grown man with a hairpin and public courtesy name (fū) who’s absent as sticks that were tied together to start a fire, not abiding:
    • the sun sees this particular non-abiding man is not really leaving, not really withdrawing like someone with a mouth or cave between their legs (qù 去). Here’s what that bronze inscription character looked like:

What a description of a life! That last big list began and ended with “efforting.” We learned that a sage’s personal role in dwelling is a Not-Being efforting. And by the end we learned that a sage might “effort” but isn’t really expecting anything personally of-the-heart to come from it (shì).This is important to remember since “efforting” comes up over and over again throughout the rest of the book.

The character shì (恃) combines the image of a heart with that of a temple or monastery. In Classical Chinese it meant mother, and now usually translates as rely on, presume upon, trust to. Dào translators call it take credit for, presumption, expect/expectations, lay claim to, claiming victory, claim as one’s own, claim possession, possessing, depend on, and return to. It’s like something has a hold on you, for better or worse. My translation, which I use in all three places where this character appears in the Dào, is:

expecting that will be holding one’s heart-core like one’s mother

~

I’m intrigued by what we’ve learned in Chapter 2 regarding: public opinion’s effect on what’s gestating, how that causes different pairs of “opposites” to mutually manifest, what Lâozî thinks that means for a sage’s life, and what happens in one particular man’s life who lives like that.

Actually, by “intrigued,” I mean that I have a lot of questions! Why does the sage “effort” at all? And why not expect a heart-level dependability from it? What can the sage—or we—trust will hold one’s heart’s claim? What’s the opposite of efforting? These are the answers I’m keeping my eyes open for as we move forward.

~

Does the final part of the chapter, describing the particular grown man’s experience, speak to these questions? Then the answer might be: do real work finishing things, but do it like a fire-starter… which means you won’t dwell there, and therefore you won’t ever really withdraw.

But, let’s face it, the old Lâozî-era image for that “withdrawing” character (qù 去) is very odd. Did you think I was just going to glide over that picture?! When I see a drawing of a man over a mouth-like opening and the dictionary definition withdraw, I think of a man just finishing or maybe interrupting sex. I can’t figure out if this is obvious or just reveals that I have the sophistication of a junior-high boy. But then some etymologists have described the image as “a man with a hole in his crotch.” Now that, to me, sounds like a woman passing/identifying as a man. And it makes me wonder. It makes me look back at everything we’ve read so far with a completely different question: was Lâozî a woman? When it occurred to me, I decided to keep this question in my mind as I went forward with the translation, and at the same time not be attached to it. We will delve into this more—much more. Meanwhile, other linguists have thought it could be a representation of a man’s anus and therefore mean “getting rid of” like “waste” (AKA pooping). Or others believe it might be related to a different Chinese character that shows a mouth next to a person (rather than below) and means “open one’s mouth,” possibly referring to the custom of saying goodbye when you leave some place. I also looked at other definitions of this word to see if we could get more clues. One is to play a part or character, to act. Another is last or past. A recently coined meaning for the word is what the hell, damn, fuck. Honestly, I couldn’t agree more! It’s baffling. And it kind of changes everything.

Maybe as we leave Chapter 2 we’re about to find out more about what it looks like to be as absent as the twigs that started a fire… not dwelling. And therefore not really withdrawing/leaving/passing/play-acting/past.

Once again, I ask: why the obscurity? Is it just too hard to clearly describe because it has to do with that ease-y extraordinary way of being that can best be described as the absence of so many of our typical hard-and-fast things and behaviors—an absence of the grind and the surface matters? Or is all this code for something else? Maybe both?! I vote for both.

Thanks for joining me here again. Next up: Chapter 3, where we learn a little more about this world of Lâozî’s before stuff starts to change pretty quickly in Chapter 4! Meanwhile, thanks for your questions, ideas, and comments. Please keep them coming. You can use the contact form to reach me anytime. See you next week!

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#2 Shèng 聖 Shēng 生 Wú 無 Yôu

birthing—a bud sprouting from the ground

shēng

Birthing (生, shēng) sounds familiar to you because in the first half of Chapter 2 this word linked Being and Not-Being in a list of “opposites.” Lâozî told us that Being and Not-Being are mutually birthing.

~

In Western Zhou Bronze inscription script, familiar to and possibly most similar to the script used in Lâozî’s time, shēng looks like this:

This image is a compound of a sprouting new plant:

And the ground:

I especially like the added bulge. To me, it really augments the meaning of this character because the modern translations of shēng are to live, subsist, exist; grow, develop, bud; bear, give birth, bring up, rear; and be born, come into existence. It also can be a noun: offspring, descendant; disciple, student; Confucian scholar; or life, existence, being, living. And it can be an adjective/adverb like fresh, not stale; unripe; raw, uncooked; uncultured, uncivilized; strange, unfamiliar; vivid, strong; innate, and natural. In Buddhism, it can mean to go into society or be reincarnated.

Here are some of the different ways translators of the Dào, in particular, interpret shēng: arise, creating, give birth, rears, produces, and lives. And that’s just in this chapter. Elsewhere you find those same translations as well as be born, and foster. Most translators use more than one definition, many use more than one even within this chapter. You can see why—the possible meanings vary so significantly in nuance. Is the thing in question being birthed or giving birth or raising something up? Those are all very different, and it’s tempting to want to clarify.

Because this word is so often interpreted as birthing, I originally had a baby in my definition, but as I wrote this post, I realized that’s an addition on my part. The image only shows the plant, the ground, and that added bulge (which does put me in mind of a baby, but it could also be a meristem from which new leaves are going to grow). My translation is hereby corrected to:

birthing—a bud sprouting from the ground

I like it because it has that poetic multi-usefulness. It could refer to doing the birthing, being birthed, growing, or even being raised.

~

In the first part of Chapter 2, we learned that Being (yôu) and Not-Being (wú) are mutually birthing—a bud sprouting from the ground. Based on the lesson in the previous few lines of that chapter, this first seemed to me to mean that if you work hard to “effort” Being, then you’ll cut off and define Not-Being while it’s still developing on its own.

And vice versa? Possibly. Though it’s not definitely clarified for us, that word “mutually” could be seen to imply that. Maybe it even means that you can’t have Being without Not-Being and vice versa. That’s a very common interpretation of this lesson and goes with the pictogram for “mutually” (xiāng, 相) which shows a seen tree and the eye seeing it.

Maybe Being and Not-Being are two aspects of one phenomenon—maybe Not-Being is the life force that makes sprouts sprout, and Being is the actual physical sprout? Or maybe one is the ground and the other the sprout? Maybe their union creates life. I like that one.

One thing is for sure, we are definitely wandering once more in the uncertainty of the Being-Not-Being mystery. Again I wonder…

What exactly are these Not-Being and Being characters, anyway?!

  • As we’ve seen, they are often used as negative- and positive-particles.
  • But also as adjectives.
  • And in some places—like the previous paragraph—they’re standing on their own.

There are other negative particles in the Chinese languages—ways to negate a concept, i.e., to say “not__.” And other ways to say something positively IS happening. These two characters were decidedly not the common way to do either in Lâozî’s time.

Using these very human-tinged characters in so many different ways gives the characters their own sense of being actual characters. And always with a twist. Every time Lâozî uses them, it’s sort of a pun… a double entendre.

  • Are they actually separate people?
  • Are they two sides of every person, situation, and thing?

Thus far, it remains shockingly, beautifully unclear.

Further down in the chapter, we started to learn about the ideal grounded sage and were told that when it comes to “staying,” the sage’s personal role was Not-Being efforting. What does that mean?

  • Of course this could just mean the sage “remains not forceful.” That’s the most common interpretation, and a lovely and useful one at that.
  • But given the lesson in the lines immediately preceding these, I assume it also is telling us that when it comes to “staying,” the Not-Being aspect of the sage is efforting—trying hard.
    • And that when the sage’s Not-Being aspect tries to force something—to “effort”—the sage shifts from the shamanic, dancing Not-Being mode into a more concrete, outer-oriented Being. The sage has both aspects.
  • Or maybe the sage is that dancer—that Not-Being—and when it comes to “staying,” well… that is the sage making an effort.

Now even later in the same chapter, we’re told that when it comes to “birthing—a bud sprouting from the ground,” the sage is just the husk of but not really the true inner flower of Being, i.e., bù-Being. This other negative particle, bù, is a pictogram of a flower’s sepal or guard petals and in every way a completely different character than Not-Being’s image of a mysterious dancer. So this new information isn’t saying that when it comes to birthing, the sage is definitely in some sort of Not-Being role. It just says that when it comes to birthing, the sage isn’t really Being, even if it may look like it initially.

~

It sounds confusing, doesn’t it! It helps me to diagram it like a flow chart. To summarize what we’ve learned in Chapter 2 about birthing/sprouting and our favorite characters: Being, Not-Being, and the sage.

  • Being and Not-Being are the type of duo with a mutual relationship wherein defining one means you define the other by default. In their case, they are in fact mutually birthing/sprouting.
  • When it comes to staying, the sage‘s personal role is Not-Being efforting.
  • When it comes to birthing/sprouting, the sage is just the husk of but not really Being.

Every which way I re-arrange and re-phrase that to myself, it does seem the sage’s more identified with the Not-Being aspect.

It’s a lovely message in keeping with what most people make of the Dào: the wise person has a certain hard-to-describe, beautiful, mysterious, intuitive, flexible, unattached way commonly associated with mystics from the Buddha and Jesus to Rabia, Rumi, and Hafiz.

It’s interesting to consider what it might mean in our own lives to de-emphasize Being and feel our way into more Not-Being. It’s a hard thing to describe, but it feels spacious and restful and energizing. Experimenting with this sensation in the odd moment here and there—that’s my wish for you. And please, write to me with any feedback, questions, ideas that come from those moments. I love hearing people’s experiences with this concept.

~

Meanwhile… if this is one of the points of the text, why does Lâozî say it so obscurely? Is Lâozî making it intentionally hard so that by the time the reader finally figures it out, it’s fully integrated? Or maybe so it can mean many different things and therefore be useful to many different people in many different circumstances? Is it because this is the way to make words go together to fit a rhyme, alliteration, and meter scheme? I do think all of these are reasons the text has captivated people for millenia.

Or is it because the concept of Not-Being as the sage’s true creative essence was so hard to accept that it needed some disguising? We’ve seen that Lâozî does, after all, draw characters that are masked, hidden in caves, bearded, a husk and not the real thing, or a hard-to-see mystery within a hard-to-see mystery. Next time we’ll summarize Chapter 2 the way we did Chapter 1, and maybe more ideas—or questions—about this story will come into focus.

Thank you for joining me once again! As always, please use the Contact form to write to me until then—I really look forward to hearing from you.