Used by the self, it is not filled by the world Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire. Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft, Not praising the worthy prevents contention, To fill their bellies, weaken their ambition, Will be to empty people’s hearts and minds, If things much desired are kept under cover,ĭisturbance will cease in the minds of the people. The people will cease to turn robbers or bandits. If goods that are hard to obtain are not favored, The people will cease to contend for promotion. If those who are excellent find no preferment, The sage experiences without abstraction, So alive and dead are abstracted from nature,ĭifficult and easy abstracted from progress,Īfter and before abstracted from sequence. Since the world points up beauty as such, When people see some things as beautiful, Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world. Their construction differs but their effect is the same.īeyond the gate of experience flows the Way, These two experiences are indistinguishable To experience with abstraction is to know the world. To experience without abstraction is to sense the world ![]() The world represents all that exists and may exist. The Way manifests all that happens and may happen The world that can be constructed is not real. The Way that can be experienced is not true Nameless indeed is the source of creationīut things have a mother and she has a name. The Taoism Information Page – An excellent university site with more on the origins and history of Taoism as well as links to dozens of different translations and related materials.įree from desire, you realize the mystery.Ĭaught in desire, you see only the manifestations.ġ. The Tao Te Ching is mainly a philosophy about the nature of life and personal behavior its themes are harmony, balance, simplicity and leading by example. There are numerous translations, many of them on the internet. The major sacred text of Taoism is the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (supposedly) in the third century B.C. In addition, there are some striking similarities between a certain translation of the Tao Te Ching and Yoda’s dialogs and discussion about The Force with Luke Sywalker in The Empire Strikes Back, which leads me to believe that George Lucas’s Force was really supposed to be Taoism’s Mystic Way. The Tao Te Ching bears some similarity with many of Christ’s teachings in the gospels. It’s more of a philosophy that a religion as we in the West perceive them as such it’s very compatible with Christian One of the three great Chinese religions. The "outward effect of a man and the inward effect of the self." TE: Virtue, character, influence, moral force. ![]() TAO: A road, a path, the way by which people travel, the way of nature and finally the Way of ultimate reality. I forget I already have some of the answers. Recently, I was having a discussion with a friend about religion and agnosticism, and what I believe about spirituality, and I was reminded again of the Tao Te Ching. I think of him whenever I’m in the garden planting flowers, or playing with my dog, because he loved both of those things. I remember when my grandpa Groenwoldt died I read it over and over again, and found that it helped me believe that his spirit is still around us, part of the force of life. I tend to forget about what I learned from reading the Tao, but periodically I return to read it and remember, and to try to apply it to my own life. Possibly because it’s less of a religion and more of a philosophy, and it’s compatible with other religions, like Christianity, and, um, my imaginary pal Hanuman the monkey god. ![]() I took a couple of courses on religions as part of my philosophy studies in college, and for the most part, only the Tao seemed to make sense. I pulled these translations off the Internet back in 1997 and set them next to one another so I could look at the differences and similarities, in hope of gaining insight into what the original text might have meant.
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