It produces them and makes no claim to the possession of them;One of the differences between a religion, like Christianity, and philosophical Taoism that I have tried to highlight in the Tao Bible series is that, unlike the Christian God, Tao makes no claims. There are no "chosen people" nor favored nations. Tao is the source of all things, period.
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~
Creating without claiming,
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~
Produces but does not possess
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~
Create something
without holding on to it.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
It is this principle of not possessing that most of us have a hard time emulating. Just take this blog as an example. We now have five writers and we have a tag (label) for each writer. In most cases, except for my series that were started quite a while ago, you learn the specific author at the top of each post.
Why? Because we are possessive of the words we use! We want you to know which writer is posting which musings. Just as important, I bet most of you desire this information as well. In our society, it is important to know WHO the author is of any written work.
To view the Index page for this series to see what you may have missed or would like to read again, go here.
Especially when we may have fundamental disagreements.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting because I'm listening to some lectures on how the Biblcal canon was determined. Talk about fundamental disagreements, orthodoxy and heresy. Weird stuff!