Chapter 10
载营魄抱一，能毌離乎
專氣至柔 能 嬰兒乎
脩除玄監 能毌有疵乎
愛民栝國 能毌以知乎
天門啟闔 能為雌乎
明白四達 能毌以知乎
生之畜之
生而弗有
畜而弗宰也
是胃玄德
Unite body and soul – can you, without being dispersed?
Master the breath and be supple – can you, jus
Read more…Chapter Nine
持而盈之不盈其己；
揣而锐之不可长保；
金玉满堂莫之能守；
富贵而骄，自遗其咎。
功遂身退，天之道。
Hold to an excess of non-excessiveness, this is not about self.
Hide the sharpness that cannot last long.
When gold and jade fill the hall, nobody can guard them..
Fame and fortune m
Read more…Q: What do the wisdom traditions say about equality?
A: Individual karma being unique in each case, it is self-evident that no two people come into the world identically equal in any respect. Therefore, to expect that competition between them shall b
Read more…I asked the I Ching to tell me the way to end war and achieve peace. The answer came as hexagram 25. There were no moving lines, so this was a quite definite and timeless response from the oracle.
Hexagram 25 is Wu Wang which means Innocence. It con
Q: People suffer from any different kinds of issues. Although they are different and each, perhaps, needs a different remedy or therapy, all seem to involve attachment. How should we understand this?
A: There is a Chinese story about a man who goes s
Read more…Q: How can one attain illumination?
A: How can one expect to receive more teachings when one has not yet put into practice those that one already has? The angels are queuing up to provide more wisdom, but just as a waiter does not serve the dessert u
Read more…Here is my work on translating and commenting on Chapter Five of the Tao Te Ching.You can see the earlier chapters here.
Chapter Five is partly controversial for its inclusion of the image of "straw dogs" which came to public attention through the 19
Read more…I am gradually doing translations of the Tao Te Ching. The first three chapters have already appeared in this page. I am very much enjoying this work when I get time for it. The Chinese language is written in characters that are essentially pictures.
Read more…There are many ways to live and die. We can pass through in a daze or in endless confusion or we can dedicate this time to something that we deem worthwhile. Nowadays there are many people whose lives have never been grabbed by anything. This may, in
Read more…The I Ching is the book of change. So it is about the patterns of change and what we can learn from studying those patterns. The basic unit of the book is the hexagram. This diagram of six lines mutates in a variety of ways. Six is 1x2x3. In other wo
Read more…The last part of Chapter Two is as follows
Therefore, the sage,
makes not acting his thing
and not speaking his religion,
makes myriad things, but wit
天 下 皆 知 美 之 為 美
斯 惡 已 。
皆 知 善 之 為 善
斯 不 善 已 。
That everybody sees beauty as beautiful
is not beautiful.
That everybody sees goodness as good
is not good.
Old Chinese is very succinct and therefore, to an extent, ambiguous. Several other ways in
Read more…I'm giving a talk on 'going with the flow' tomorrow evening, some of which comes out of my thinking around Taoism and the questions that asks of Pureland Buddhism. That raised some thoughts which I thought I'd share here.
The Tao is the mother of Hea
Read more…The I Ching is one of the oldest books in the world. It is a book of divination that has been used throughout Chinese history. It is important to Taoists and Confucians especially. The book embodies a traditional wisdom and has an uncanny ability to
Read more…Lao Tzu
Lao Tzu is regarded as the founder of Taoism. According to tradition, he was an older contemporary of Confucius, and, perhaps, also of Buddha. Lao Tzu and Confucius are considered the two greatest sages of China and tit is recorded that they m
I wanted to explain more about the I Ching, So I thought the best way was to let the oracle speak for itself.
To use the oracle, one casts a hexagram. There is a complex method using yarrow stalks and a simpler method using coins. I always use the
The first two hexagrams of the I Ching are also a pair of opposites, just like the last two. To change one of these into the other you would have to change every line. However, unlike the final two, there is no natural tendency for them to change int
Read more…