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5/5 translation, 4/5 manuscript, per my current thinking. Jane English’s photography and Gia Fu Feng’s calligraphy are also gorgeous.
A life changing, moving read. I’m coming in biased having encountered Hinduism and Buddhism first, and in that context I find that the Tao assuages some of their key frictions. Hindu dharma, Buddhist dharma and the Tao are respectively a thesis, antithesis and synthesis within a dialectic, as I currently see it. Given that the vast majority of Buddhist literature is oriented around its roots as a theology of renunciation, it offers very little bandwidth to articulating its own Middle Path as a theology for everyday people. This is where I see the Tao as fitting in. The Tao is Buddhism’s Middle Path, properly given its due accord.
Likewise in this position I see the Tao as bridging Buddhism’s model of decentralized non-self with Hinduism’s model of a centered self, of dhyana yoga with karma yoga, of the renounced observation of Buddhism with the engaged pure action of the Gita. When you stop trying, nature’s way comes to animate you—for one that might be a way of committed internal inquiry, for another it might be a way of engagement with the world. When you strip the self of all its forced catalytic efforts, it’s left in a state of natural effortless motion whereby it travels the treads of the Tao that its wheels fit innately into. For some that leads the self toward dissolution, for others affirmation. For the same reason a bird flies and a fish swims.
I might be taking liberties though because there are some verses that seem to espouse the more Hindu ideas that affirm the self. But then again that’s what you’d expect to see from a more philosophically accessible version of Buddhism, from a Middle Path. And as a professor once told me, there are few things more Buddhist than embracing the malleability of Buddhist doctrine itself.
I also have to consider the aspects of this manuscript’s content that didn’t speak so personally to me. The Tao Te Ching codes itself as a book of praxis when it acknowledges leaders as a separate population. However it paradoxically appears to treat their ethos the same as anyone else’s. It expects leaders, who categorically have the power to influence many lives, to follow the same prescriptions as their subjects, whose actions are not as consequential. It’s noble to say all are equal in the Tao but you lose claim to effective praxis when saying that a prince should be held to the same ethical standards as a pauper. Each one has different ethical realities available to them.
I’m aware that there’s some degree of nuance here that might take me more time to appreciate as well. This book acknowledges the existence of war as something leaders must engage in, instead of forbidding it. So there’s a high likelihood I’m misunderstanding its take on praxis, which might be dispelled with further study.
For now my score reflects certain verses’ profound impacts on my biases. Feel free to accuse me of cherry-picking.
A life changing, moving read. I’m coming in biased having encountered Hinduism and Buddhism first, and in that context I find that the Tao assuages some of their key frictions. Hindu dharma, Buddhist dharma and the Tao are respectively a thesis, antithesis and synthesis within a dialectic, as I currently see it. Given that the vast majority of Buddhist literature is oriented around its roots as a theology of renunciation, it offers very little bandwidth to articulating its own Middle Path as a theology for everyday people. This is where I see the Tao as fitting in. The Tao is Buddhism’s Middle Path, properly given its due accord.
Likewise in this position I see the Tao as bridging Buddhism’s model of decentralized non-self with Hinduism’s model of a centered self, of dhyana yoga with karma yoga, of the renounced observation of Buddhism with the engaged pure action of the Gita. When you stop trying, nature’s way comes to animate you—for one that might be a way of committed internal inquiry, for another it might be a way of engagement with the world. When you strip the self of all its forced catalytic efforts, it’s left in a state of natural effortless motion whereby it travels the treads of the Tao that its wheels fit innately into. For some that leads the self toward dissolution, for others affirmation. For the same reason a bird flies and a fish swims.
I might be taking liberties though because there are some verses that seem to espouse the more Hindu ideas that affirm the self. But then again that’s what you’d expect to see from a more philosophically accessible version of Buddhism, from a Middle Path. And as a professor once told me, there are few things more Buddhist than embracing the malleability of Buddhist doctrine itself.
I also have to consider the aspects of this manuscript’s content that didn’t speak so personally to me. The Tao Te Ching codes itself as a book of praxis when it acknowledges leaders as a separate population. However it paradoxically appears to treat their ethos the same as anyone else’s. It expects leaders, who categorically have the power to influence many lives, to follow the same prescriptions as their subjects, whose actions are not as consequential. It’s noble to say all are equal in the Tao but you lose claim to effective praxis when saying that a prince should be held to the same ethical standards as a pauper. Each one has different ethical realities available to them.
I’m aware that there’s some degree of nuance here that might take me more time to appreciate as well. This book acknowledges the existence of war as something leaders must engage in, instead of forbidding it. So there’s a high likelihood I’m misunderstanding its take on praxis, which might be dispelled with further study.
For now my score reflects certain verses’ profound impacts on my biases. Feel free to accuse me of cherry-picking.
