Taoism, Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu

[inavalan]

Jan 13, 2021 10:06:36 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Thanks Reefs.

Very informative. Looking forward to read anything more about this when you have the time and disposition.

I was thinking that I should try to look at some of these examples of Chinese character teachings, and their dictionary entries, from an intuitive state (light trance), to see what I get.

It seems possible that the meaning inferred from these texts may be different depending on the student, and that for different students somewhat different interpretations might be more appropriate; even for the same student, as student evolves, the appropriate interpretation / translation might change. So, maybe there isn't an unique true meaning, a unique accurate interpretation / translation for a given text.

[Deleted]

[Reefs]

Jan 13, 2021 14:35:46 GMT -5 inavalan said:

Thanks Reefs.

Very informative. Looking forward to read anything more about this when you have the time and disposition.

I may have to check with some reference books on classical Chinese grammar first, just to be on the save side. Everything I told you here is from memory. But I've found this interesting passage in a book:

Classical Chinese is taught in American colleges, if at all, with the greatest reluctance. Students are required to first take two or three years of modern Chinese, and only then exposed to classical texts. These are elucidated almost exclusively by bad translations into the modern language --- as though classical Chinese were nothing but modern Chinese with a lot of words left out.

Not only does this method not teach classical Chinese, it rarely works even to impart the modern tongue. Because of the difficulty of memorizing the characters, and the added trouble of all the words being monosyllables that sound like nothing in particular (though all too much like each other), learning Chinese is at best tortuous. One must review and re-review the same material, till it seeps at last, drop by hard-won drop, into long term memory. Now, if the material one is passing ever and again before one's eyes consists of banalities that, once mastered, will only enable one to annoy people in restaurants --- well, most men of imagination simply quit. Even if one does persist for years, and chokes down all the ugly simplified characters and the diet of trivial chatter, one is still quite unable to read a Tang poem or a line from Confucius.

How much better it would be to begin with the classical language! Because of the great simplicity of Chinese grammar, one could plunge into real literature on day one. There is no long apprenticeship (as there is for Indo-European languages) during which one must memorize noun and verb paradigms. One can learn the grammar with the vocabulary as one goes along. But instead students are made to suffer through years of conning how to buy bus tickets, ask directions and tell time (to list the principal marvels imparted.) Only then may they be exposed to a real literature which they could have read at once. This is a piece of malignant stupidity which one would be hard put to parallel.

Yet there is more. Not only is the student deprived of the immediate and easy rewards of his work, the hard work itself is made far harder. Memorize one must, there's no way around it. But one can get the same result by memorizing poetry and aphorisms rather than random vocabulary lists. Which is easier, which is likelier to live in memory and enrich the learner's life? Likewise the writing system is acquired with far less trouble via the traditional characters. Admittedly these have more lines, but they carry with them the traditional visual etymologies. More often than not these give accurate glimpses into the concepts the characters express. In the cases where they fail to do this, they are at least a rich source of folklore. Even if these two great intellectual treasures were lacking, the traditional etymologies make the meanings of the characters, and often the sounds as well, instantly memorable. Even if one's ultimate goal is knowledge of the modern language, this can be more easily attained via the ancient tongue than by starting with modern conversation, for the simple lexical reasons noted above...

One would also do well to acquire the Legge set of The Chinese Classics, which one can acquire from a second-hand online bookseller for about two hundred dollars. These texts are the indispensable foundation of a knowledge of good literary Chinese, and, just as important, they have been carefully proofread. The Chinese texts one can find on the internet, and even in the the programs I have recommended, suffer from a certain number of exchanged characters. Beware of modern editions, which are almost all in simplified characters! The student will have enough to do learning the traditional ones...

A word may here be added about the proliferation of translations of Chinese poetry, among which one should add the translations (now more than 250) of the Dao De Jing into English. Since a scientific understanding of Classical Chinese grammar has never been general, virtually all of these are either fraudulent reworkings of earlier translations, or unfounded interpretations of the texts themselves. Even the really good translations, (e.g., Waley, Karlgren, Hawkes) are not without shortcomings in understanding the grammar (for which they can't be blamed --- the information was not available before Pulleyblank's book). And these responsible scholars were, none of them, lyrically gifted...

The Chinese themselves did not make a scientific study of their classical grammar, such as the Greeks or the Indians did. The traditional Chinese approach to the language is purely lexical. One learns the special idiomatic uses of the words by studying examples. Because of the great simplicity of Chinese, this approach is effective for handling most, though by no means all, points of syntax.

Traditional instruction in the Chinese classics is pretty much the same as what you'd find if you studied the Talmud at a yeshiva. The teacher reads and paraphrases into modern idiom as he goes. Sooner or later the student, who already knows Hebrew, picks up the closely cognate language of the Talmud, Aramaic. He develops "a feel" for the grammar. The merit of this approach is that it favors intuitive understanding. The shortcoming is that a really complete control of the grammar's fine points will remain elusive.

The scientific study of Chinese begins only with the grammars written by Christian missionaries in the 17th century. Though our knowledge of the modern language has made great strides, and is now close to being complete, the grammar of classical Chinese has been neglected. This is due both to the Chinese' own indifference to it, and the purely mercantile motives of nearly all modern western language teaching.

Edwin G. Pulleyblank's Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar is the standard, and indeed the only serious work on this subject. I have relied upon it heavily for my own work, but even this fine book has a number of defects which it will be instructive to point out.

Yakov Rabinovich, A Concise Grammar of Classical Chinese, Introduction

(you can find it online: www.invisiblebooks.com/CGCC.htm )

All of this is, unfortunately, very true.

[inavalan]

Jan 20, 2021 0:27:09 GMT -5 Reefs said:

Jan 13, 2021 14:35:46 GMT -5 inavalan said:

Thanks Reefs.

Very informative. Looking forward to read anything more about this when you have the time and disposition.

I may have to check with some reference books on classical Chinese grammar first, just to be on the save side. Everything I told you here is from memory. But I've found this interesting passage in a book:

...

(you can find it online: www.invisiblebooks.com/CGCC.htm )

All of this is, unfortunately, very true.

Thank you very much! Very interesting. It seems that both Legge and Pulleyblank books are available online too.

Rabinovich doesn't mince his words ...   Useful quote.

In Japanese the verb is always the last, excepting particles. Without any basis, I assumed that to be the case in Chinese too, but a quick look into Rabinovich's book indicates that not to be the case.

It's tempting to get deeper into this ...

[inavalan]

道德經：老子      Dao De Jing: Laozi

三十八章: 論德    38 chapter: theory of virtue


上德                 superior-virtue [man is]
    不德，              not [focused on] virtue,
        是以有德；         so has virtue;

下德                 lower-virtue [man is]
    不失德，           [focused] not to fail virtue,
        是以無德。         so [has] no virtue.


上德                 superior-virtue [man]
    無為而              lets things take their own course and
        無以為；           [has] no thoughts/worries;

下德                 lower-virtue [man]
    無為而              lets things take their own course and
        有以為。           has thoughts/worries.

---

The beauty of the structure is fascinating. Small writing differences yield significant meaning differences.

Above is my translation attempt.

---

Legge, Susuki, Goddard comparative translations:

---

Lin Yutang (1948):

    The man of superior character is not (conscious of his) character, hence he has character.
    The man of inferior character (is intent on) not losing character, hence he is devoid of character.

    The man of superior character never acts, Nor ever (does so) with an ulterior motive.
    The man of inferior character acts, And (does so) with an ulterior motive.     

---

D.C. Lau (1963):

    A man of the highest virtue does not keep to virtue and that is why he has virtue.
    A man of the lowest virtue never strays from virtue and that is why he is without virtue.

    The former never acts yet leaves nothing undone.
    The latter acts but there are things left undone.

---

Another Chinese native's translation:

    The man of high virtue is not aware of his own virtue and therefore has (real) virtue;
    The man of low virtue tries hard not to lose his own virtue and therefore has no (real) virtue.

    The man of high virtue does nothing to show off his virtue;
    The man of low virtue does nothing yet tries to show off his virtue.

---