Tao Te Ching - Line By Line

I think I know what a lot of you are thinking, "Okay, he's been through the Tao Te Ching verse by verse twice now. What more could he draw from this one short volume?" Since you did ask, this post will serve as an introduction to the third series (probably NOT the last one either) that exclusively will focus on this ancient and important Taoist text.

In the previous two series, we've gone verse-by-verse. In this one, we're going to break it down into even smaller increments. For the most part, each day's post will feature only one line from the Tao Te Ching in sequential order. At other times, we may see two lines that form a sort of couplet. I'm sure there will also be a few times in which three or four lines are presented together. However, four lines will serve as my arbitrary cutoff.

Why, you ask.

The simple answer is that I don't want each day's post to become too long. The chief reason that posts of more than four lines might easily become too long is due to the template I've chosen for this series. As we investigate the Tao Te Ching line by line, we're going to do it through the eyes of three translations -- James Legge, Giu-fu Feng & Jane English, and Derek Lin -- plus Ron Hogan's rendition. Each day's post will begin with the appropriate line or lines from the 3 translations and 1 rendition.

I want to make it clear at the outset that my choice in featuring the chosen translations and rendition certainly is neither thorough nor scientific. It's an arbitrary choice on my part*. I chose Legge because his translation from 1891 was, I believe, the first complete English translation made. Giu-fu Feng and Jane English were selected solely because it's the translation I personally utilize the most. Derek Lin was chosen because he is very knowledgeable about Chinese history and language. Finally, Ron Hogan's rendition (a modern interpretation of other people's translations) is included to provide a more modern, westernized spin.

While these four will be highlighted in each post, this is not to suggest that other translations or renditions will not be utilized as well. There will be times when I choose to feature one or more in the body of the comments, particularly if the wording helps to shed light on an alternate or clearer meaning. I've read somewhere that there are over 250 English translations or renditions of this classic text and I'm sure that each one speaks to different people in different ways.

My intent for this series -- one that will, most likely, span one year or more -- is multifaceted. First and foremost, I think that, no matter how many times the Tao Te Ching is read, there always are new insights to glean. This text speaks to people on so many different levels that I could focus this blog on this one document for the next 25 years and yet barely scratch the surface!

Secondly, because the book was written in classical Chinese -- which is vastly different from modern Chinese -- there truly can be no definitive translation or interpretation. As is written on the Tao Te Ching page at Wikipedia,

The Tao Te Ching is written in classical Chinese, which can be difficult to understand completely, even for well-educated native speakers of modern Chinese. In fact, in learning classical Chinese, native speakers can be at a disadvantage relative to non-native speakers, as native speakers often have difficulty with Chinese characters whose older meaning differs from the modern language. Classical Chinese relies heavily on allusion to a corpus of standard literary works to convey semantic meaning, nuance, and subtext. This corpus was memorized by highly-educated people in Laozi's time, and the allusions were reinforced through common use in writing, but few people today have this type of deep acquaintance with ancient Chinese literature. Thus, many levels of subtext are potentially lost on modern translators. Furthermore, many of the words that the Tao Te Ching uses are deliberately vague and ambiguous.

Since there are no punctuation marks in classical Chinese, it can be difficult to conclusively determine where one sentence ends and the next begins. Moving a full-stop a few words forward or back or inserting a comma can profoundly alter the meaning of many passages, and such divisions and meanings must be determined by the translator. Some editors and translators argue that the received text is so corrupted (from originally being written on one-line bamboo strips linked with silk threads) that it is impossible to understand some chapters without moving sequences of characters from one place to another.

An opinion I've shared with you before is that I see the act of translation as more of an art form than anything else. Because words and ideas written in one language are often difficult to convey comprehensively in another -- this particularly is true between eastern and western language -- each translator corrupts, in some small measure, the original meaning and intent of ancient works. Each of us meets life head-on with our own set of opinions, perspectives, biases and prejudices. Some of these are bound to infect any text a translator seeks to translate.

So, by examining the Tao Te Ching from 4 different viewpoints simultaneously (actually 5, when we include mine), it is my hope that each reader will discover one or more that speaks to them.

A third part of this series will be to examine the differences in stress, meaning and wording amongst the four versions offered. On many occasions, all four may read fairly much the same with only a few insignificant words of difference. At other times, however, we may find enough divergence to change the way each of us interprets the lines featured.

I feel the need, at this point, to underscore some important information that I've shared at the beginning of previous series. I neither speak, read nor understand Chinese. I am certainly no student of Chinese history and culture. I come to philosophical Taoism with a western-trained eye. So please, don't confuse me with others who are scholars in this area. I'm nothing more than a simple man who has a keen interest in philosophy, in general, and philosophical Taoism, in particular.

So, with all that blather out of the way, starting tomorrow and thereafter you can expect a "Line by Line" post each day (with maybe a few exceptions, here and there) at 11:11 a.m.

*Note: As I've written about on this blog before, I have an ailing right shoulder. Coupled with my fibromyalgia, there are many days when a lot of typing means a lot of pain. Consequently, one consideration as to which translations or renditions to feature in this series came down to those documents that could be readily found online. Cutting and pasting a portion of the day's text will, hopefully, save a wee bit of wear-and-tear on my bum arm.