Tao Te Wednesday

2/15/2012

Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child's?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?
Giving birth and nourishing,
having without posessing,
acting with no expectations,
leading and not trying to control:
this is the supreme virtue.

Verse 10

Laura Novak

2/15/2012 01:36:04 am

I'm trying, I'm trying! On ALL fronts!! Doesn't always work, though.

Conscious, thank you for joining us on the last TTW. Perhaps you'll offer up a new interpretation for today's post. Not sure what your version is. Mistah Charley? You in the house?

Peace to everyone today. Hold on to the center, as they say!

mistah charley, ph.d.

2/15/2012 03:16:41 am

John Heider's version of this passage is:

Can you mediate emotional issues without taking sides or picking favourites?
Can you breathe freely and remained relaxed even in the presence of passionate fears and desires?
Are your own conflicts clarified? Is your own house clean?
Can you be gentle with all factions and lead the group without dominating?
Can you remain open and receptive, no matter what issues arise?
Can you know what is emerging, yet keep your peace while others discover for themselves?
Learn to lead in a nourishing manner.
Learn to lead without being positive.
Learn to be helpful without taking the credit.
Learn to lead without coercion.
You can do this if you remain unbiased, clear, and down-to-earth.

mistah charley, ph.d. link

2/15/2012 05:29:04 am

Ursula K. Le Guin's own thoughtful rendering of the Taoist scripture just arrived at my door thanks to my friends at Barnes and Noble and the USPS. She says, about this chapter, "Most of the scholars think this chapter is about meditation, its techniques and fulfillments. The language is profoundly mystical, the images are charged, rich in implications. The last verse turns up in nearly the same words in other chapters; there are several such 'refrains' throughout the book, identical or similar lines repeated once or twice or three times."

mistah charley, ph.d.

2/15/2012 05:39:59 am

James Legge (1891) renders this passage as

When the intelligent and animal souls are held together in one embrace, they can be kept from separating. When one gives undivided attention to the (vital) breath, and brings it to the utmost degree of pliancy, he can become as a (tender) babe. When he has cleansed away the most mysterious sights (of his imagination), he can become without a flaw.

In loving the people and ruling the state, cannot he proceed without any (purpose of) action? In the opening and shutting of his gates of heaven, cannot he do so as a female bird? While his intelligence reaches in every direction, cannot he (appear to) be without knowledge?

(The Tao) produces (all things) and nourishes them; it produces them and does not claim them as its own; it does all, and yet does not boast of it; it presides over all, and yet does not control them. This is what is called 'The mysterious Quality' (of the Tao).

grannyj

2/15/2012 07:54:37 am

Me too Laura. I am trying. I especially like the line in MC's version about knowing what is coming, but allowing others to discover it for themselves. It resonates with the teacher/mother in me and is not always easy to do. And I am working really hard on relaxing in the face of passionate fears and desires. One step at a time.

Laura Novak

2/15/2012 08:12:17 am

I know, GrannyJ, and I know that you know!

Thank you again MC for these other interpretations. Interesting that the second one employs the Tao, rather than the reader, as the source of the meaning. Mysterious indeed.

Laura Novak

2/15/2012 08:14:47 am

I was reading elsewhere recently that the Tao, or The Way, is all about being in concert with the circumstances of our lives. And that's much of what is being said here: bending, accepting, letting events take their own course. Being in the present, feeling gratitude...these are things I strive for, but they are often elusive. Not the gratitude as much as the letting go of the past and future and stepping back from my own mind and only "seeing the light."

Conscious at last!

2/15/2012 09:53:50 am

Wonderful discussion! I managed to dig up a few different translations, including the one that you are working from Laura - Stephen Mitchell- right?

This issue about leadership was significant for Lao Tzu, I believe, because he was trying to offer advice to rulers at the time. Supposedly, he worked at the Palace of the Imperial capital --- in various capacities.

But is his advice for imperial rulers relevant to how individuals attempt to "rule" themselves? Does this distinction get lost in the various translations?

For me, the Tao is about how the universe works, without judgement or valuation. We can resist "the way" or we can learn to flow with it.

Conscious at last!

2/15/2012 12:07:38 pm

Here is Verse # 10 translated by Wing-Tsit Chan:

Can you keep the spirit and embrace the One without departing from them?
Can you concentrate your vital force(ch'i) and achieve the highest degree of weakness like an infant?
Can you clean and purify your profound insight so it will be spotless?
Can you love the people and govern the state without knowledge (cunning)?
Can you play the role of the female in the opening and closing of the gates of Heaven?
Can you understand all and penetrate all without taking any action?
To produce things and to rear them,
To produce, but not to take possession of them,
To act, but not to rely on one's own ability
To lead them, but not to master them --
This is called profound and secret virtue.

Ottoline

2/17/2012 03:52:15 am

O/T: Another circumstantial datapoint suggesting that the conjectured $7M advance Sarah Palin got for her first book was not a market-value transaction but instead just a payout from Rupert to Sarah:

The Los Angeles Times today is writing about the $4M book advance for Amanda Knox and gives us these other book-advance numbers:

"In the publishing world, $4 million is a lot of money. It's twice what Dick Cheney is thought to have gotten for his memoir, "In My Time." Cheney spent decades as one of the most powerful men in the Republican party and was vice president for eight years.

As for the men who've called the Oval Office their own? President Bill Clinton was paid a whopping $15 million for his memoir "My Life" -- which clocked in at a whopping 992 pages. President George W. Bush's book "Decision Points" was smaller, and sold for a $7-million deal. Bush was a two-term president, and his book covered the Sept. 11 attacks. Can Knox's memoir really be worth more than half as much?"

Laura Novak

2/18/2012 03:05:36 am

Apologies to all: my Internet was FUBAR all day yesterday. We're having such problems with it. So, Conscious, it's always so great to see you here and to bond over things other than you-know-who!

I really appreciate this other interpretation.

Ottoline: advances paid in the publishing world are one reason why the Big Six are going down. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but soon. It's a business model that can't work. And it's obscene. Simply obscene.

Ottoline

2/18/2012 10:04:23 am

Advances: it's not the advance, however large, that is the problem. It's when advances don't get earned out by sales that there's a problem. And if an advance is simply a cash transfer (say from a Murdoch to a Palin, for services rendered -- services apart from the book prep, perhaps on behalf of some pal of Murdoch [like McCain, or a fundy honcho]), it need not bother the balance sheet. Or, if some other companies make it their business to buy up books in a way that boosts sales (as JFK's dad did, so "Profiles in Courage" would be on the NYT best-seller list), then again the advance could well be "earned out" by such shenanigans.

Of course, when making a cash transfer in the form of a book advance, it is more credible to go with a number that looks somewhere near market value. That was really my point in posting that advance $ data.

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