Sunday, March 13, 2011

Line by Line - Verse 25, Line 6

It may be regarded as the Mother of all things.
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~

Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~

It can be regarded as the mother of the world
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~

Everything else came from it.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
As a mother gives birth to a child, so too does The Way give birth to being. There was something -- somewhere in "time" -- which caused nonbeing to transform into being.

Some people call this something god. Some people call this something Tao. Some people don't call this something anything. Whether we choose to call it something or not really isn't all that important, is it?

To view the Index page for this series to see what you may have missed or would like to read again, go here.

3 comments:

  1. "There was something -- somewhere in "time" -- which caused nonbeing to transform into being."

    My teacher calls it "movement." (You know, from stillness.)

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  2. True...unless existence always has been in motion. ;-)

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  3. Being comes from non-being; movement comes from stillness. Basic Taoist cosmology of the wuji to taiji.

    In fact "existence IS motion."

    This is related to the Taoist concept of "return" to non-being, to stillness. (I point this out for Brandon's.)

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