Chapter 1

As a way to keep this blog active, I've decided to look at the chapters of the Tao te Ching. The translation we're using in my philosophy class is the one by Stephen Mitchell, which overall seems to be pretty good. I may delve into some of my other translations at times. We'll see. And I do not claim to be an expert on the Tao te Ching, by any means. I'm just a seeker, exploring the ideas I find.

Chapter 1

The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.

The unnamable is the eternally real.
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.

This sets up the distinction between what a thing is and our limited ways of labeling with words. There's even the suggestion that naming a thing changes it in some fashion, so that in one book I read (author and title elude me at the moment), there's the distinction between the 'Named Tao' and the 'Unnamed Tao,' which, ironically, is yet another name!


Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

In a quick scan through versions, these two seem to vary quite a lot. Gibbs' is similar: "Thus, if always without desire, one can observe indescribable marvels; If always desirous, one sees merest traces." Red Pine's is a bit different: "thus in innocence we see the beginning - in passion we see the end" Pine's is the least judgmental of these three. My understanding is that desire clouds our vision and thoughts. We see temporary sense-objects as somehow fixed and real, and miss the underlying essence of events. I may be missing a lot here!

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

And this section mitigates the negativity of the prior two verses, as both the illusion and the reality come from the same Ultimate Source. Let's see... Cleary says "Mystery" instead of Darkness... Gibbs, similarly, uses "Mysterious." Red Pine says "Dark Beyond Dark." All of these are getting at the idea of something hidden, something hard to see.


Translations on the web:
Mitchell
Cleary
Tam Gibbs
Red Pine

I'm using Mitchell because of the philosophy class; Cleary because I've read some of his other translations, though so far I'm not liking his TTC translation; Tam Gibbs because he was one of Cheng Manch'ing's senior students; Red Pine because I rather like his style.

Hopefully I'll get at least one of these up a week. We shall see.