Why I'm not a Taoist

[Still_Waters]

QUOTE 138 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by ayar415

Every chapter is on the internet. Not that it will do you any good since western translations are unreliable.

Below are my commentary notes on Chapter 42. They brought back memories registering my frustration at trying to bridge the cultural divide.

You are obviously more proficient than I at finding English translations of the Tao on the Internet. I tried again ... unsuccessfully ... to find a translation of the Tao by Brian Browne Walker but could only find selected passages from the book.

However, in keeping with your comment ("Not that it will do you any good since western translations are unreliable"), perhaps you can suggest something that you consider reliable for people like me who can't read Chinese.

I can understand your "frustration at trying to bridge the cultural divide". As mentioned before, I read the Zen Classics from the Tang period in English, but that was facilitated by extensive cultural commentaries and insights. Your point is well taken. Language does present various issues in translation. One can only do one's best with what one has.

[winter light]

Hello SW, here are 5 Tao translations side-by-side:
https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:...c,rh/section:1

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

QUOTE 138 EXCERPT:
However, in keeping with your comment ("Not that it will do you any good since western translations are unreliable"), perhaps you can suggest something that you consider reliable for people like me who can't read Chinese.

It's just not possible, my friend. You would have to go "injun", the way the Kevin Costner character did in the movie "Dances With Wolves".

The Mandarins of China, in the olden days, studied the classics, calligraphy, poetry, and statecraft in the tradition of the scholar. So, I took up calligraphy, using a pencil initially, and moving on to the ink and brush, to write - on rice paper - the pictograms in the Tao Te Ching as I pondered on the verses. It's tough enough for a Chinese monk in training at self-mastery. For a white man raised in the arrogance of America's war culture, it was pure agony. Think foot-binding for Chrissy Teigen.

Isn't Christian philosophy good enough? After all, it's just about not being a mule in our relationship with one another to end suffering.

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Wait a minute ---we have an ayar415 AND an Ayer TTC as members?

I wasn't sure if the quote without a =name would work. So, I fudged it. Sorry.

[ayar415]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

QUOTE 125 EXCERPT: It's still not clear to me how you came to your conclusion within the realm of the 5 senses.

What, to you, is the realm of the 5 senses? Is it as far as you can see with your naked eyes or through a telescope? What about the images transmitted to you from a rover on Mars? Do you consider that as within your realm also? What about the Sun and the Milky Way. Are they within your spatial realm just as the chair across your room is?

What, to you, is beyond the realm of the 5 senses?

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by ayar415

I wasn't sure if the quote without a =name would work. So, I fudged it. Sorry.

That's funny. Yeah it works without a name

looks like this..Four score and seven years ago our forefathers...

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by winter light

Hello SW, here are 5 Tao translations side-by-side:
https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:...c,rh/section:1

Thank you so much for this link. It is EXCELLENT.

In the future, whenever I provide a quote from my book (the Brian Browne Walker translation), I will include this link as it will allow others to read the entire chapter from several different translations. That should satisfy Ayar415, as he has raised a very valid point.

I've already started to go through these translations and love this.

[Still_Waters]

QUOTE 145 EXCERPT:

Originally Posted by ayar415

What, to you, is beyond the realm of the 5 senses?

I will start to answer that with a simple rather mundane example.

Over 50 years ago, I emerged completely symptom-free from a 3-day "irreversible" coma with a vivid recollection of all that had transpired during that state. I remembered seeing my body from afar (fairly standard in NDEs) and a vast panorama beyond the five senses. I could "see" my brother and sister down the hallway and could describe precisely what they were wearing even though they never entered the room where my body was. I verified those details later and they corresponded exactly to what I had "seen" from afar.

That was my very first verifiable visual experience of this nature and served as a catalyst to my spiritual quest in trying to understand all that had transpired in that state. Since this was a long time ago, there was not much available info at that time about NDEs. In any case, I had not read or heard about them before since that subject was not discussed in my Roman Catholic upbringing.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

QUOTE 145 EXCERPT:



I will start to answer that with a simple rather mundane example.

I've got a Sixth Sense the mind through which I percieve the other Five Senses.

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by sky123

I've got a Sixth Sense the mind through which I percieve the other Five Senses.

That, of course, comes next ... but I thought that I would start the discussion about "beyond the realm of the 5 senses" with something more basic and very concrete.