Tao Te Jing in Plain English

By AuthorHouse

The
Tao Te Ching is one of the more popularly translated
texts of all historical Chinese writings. Despite the many efforts that have
gone into studying and translating Lao Tzus works, it is still remains very
difficult to understand, even to native readers. Therefore, only those who
fully comprehend the text can translate it properly. This version opts to give
as accurate of a translation in as plain of English as possible. Since our goal
is to bring a comprehendible Tao Te Ching to our readers,
we decided against conforming to any sort of poetic forms. Although we used the
same original text as some of the other translators, there are some notable
differences in our interpretations, such as in Chapters One and Twenty. In
order to better allow our readers to understand the text, this translation also
compares Lao Tzus ideas with other great thinkers, such as Einstein and
Napoleon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9781414065953

Book preview

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Bibliography

About the Author

Dedication

001_laotzu1.jpg

Dedicated to:

Zhang, Te Xi

Zhu, Guo Jun

Preface

According to legend, Lao Tzu was born knowing how to speak. He grew up to become the royal historian of the Emperor’s court during the Zhou (Chou) dynasty. However, when he sensed that the Zhou dynasty was falling apart, he decided to retire from the court and live the rest of his life as a hermit. On his way out of the Zhou territory westward, the HANGU castle gatekeeper recognized him as the famous Lao Tzu, and asked him to leave some of his teachings behind. Hence, Lao Tzu wrote some 5000 words and gave it to the gatekeeper.

As you flipped open this book, you may be asking yourself why we write another translation. Several authors begin their book with the same question and given their reasons as to why they translate it again. So we feel it necessary to give our reasons as well.

First of all, any book written about Tao will not be able to truly describe it even in Chinese, let alone a translated language. As Lao Tzu pointed out, if Tao can be described, then it is not general Tao. Therefore, any written materials that describe Tao can only describe some attributes of Tao, and is open to the reader’s interpretation. Consequently, as time goes, there will be more such books to come. Somehow, these efforts are analogous to the efforts made to restore the broken arms of the statue Venus. No one has succeeded so far. Yet, the efforts continue.

Secondly, the printing technique had not been invented when Lao Tzu was alive. So publications at that time were made by hand copying manuscripts. Copying errors made in those days were as common as typos are today. Copies may not be exactly the same as the original. The copies based on secondary copies may differ further from the original manuscript. Adding to the complexity is the fact that there was no standard way of writing characters before Qin dynasty, about 200 BC. One character can be written in different ways. In the copying process, a character in the original manuscript may be taken as another one. Moreover, any character in the manuscript, if it is the same as the ones in the emperor’s name, it could be changed. This is because no citizen is allowed to say the emperor’s name. This is why there are many different versions of Lao Tzu’s teachings. Some scholars believe Lao Tzu may not be the sole author of his writings. Different translators may use different Chinese versions.

Thirdly, in the Lao Tzu’s time, paper had not been invented either. Writing on strips of bamboo was a fairly laborious task. This caused the classic Chinese literature to be extremely terse.

Fourthly, punctuation was not used until the 19th century. As a result, there are several versions of the Tao Te Jing with different punctuations. A sequence of Chinese characters, when punctuated differently can have quite different, even opposite, meanings. Take the following joke for an example. Once upon a time, there was a host who was tired of his guest who had lived there for some time. He wanted to let the guest go but hesitate to speak directly. So he wrote a series characters on a piece of paper and intended to mean, It is raining, so Heaven wanted the guest to stay. But even Heaven want to, I didn’t. If these characters were punctuated in this way, it means just that. Making clever use the fact that Heaven and Day share the same character and breaking the characters into four sentences, the guest read the note: It is a rainy day. It is the day for the guest to stay. Do you want me to stay? Yes! As we see, the same group of characters, punctuated differently can give opposite meaning.

Finally, there are many other facts, such as new archeological discoveries, new