{"id":200,"date":"2012-12-07T07:15:50","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T16:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/?p=200"},"modified":"2014-02-21T10:35:49","modified_gmt":"2014-02-21T19:35:49","slug":"authoritative-answers-to-questions-about-taoism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/authoritative-answers-to-questions-about-taoism\/","title":{"rendered":"Authoritative Answers to Questions About Taoism"},"content":{"rendered":"

(This FAQ was sent to the long-defunct Taoism-L mailing list, on October 10, 1993 by Steve Bokenkamp<\/a>, who is now a professor of Chinese AND a professor of religious studies at Arizona State University, and a contributor at Taoish.org. It’s reposted here with his permission.)<\/p>\n

Taoism-L FAQs — Some Answers:<\/strong><\/p>\n

>What’s the best translation of Lao Tzu?
\n>What’s the best translation of Chuang Tzu?
\n>What are the major schools of Taoist thought?
\n>How do they differ from one another?
\n>How does Taoism differ from Zen?
\n>What does the first line of ttc chapter 1 mean?
\n>What does enlightenment mean?
\n>What does ineffable mean?
\n>What does meaning mean?
\n>Do you have to speak Chinese to understand Taoism?
\n>Do you have to be a sage to understand Taoism?
\n>Why is everybody so unkind?
\n>Isn’t a discussion list about Taoism a contradiction?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

“What’s the best translation of Lao-tzu?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s simple, the Tao-te Ching<\/em>. Among the works that Lao-tzu
\ntranslated, his translation of the Bhagavad Gita<\/em>, with the
\nChinese title “Tao-te ching,” remains far and away the best. If
\nyou don’t believe me, a humble scholar, just read Victor H.
\nMair’s translation into English of Lao-tzu’s translation into
\nChinese of the Bhagavad Gita<\/em>.<\/p>\n

“What’s the best translation of Chuang-tzu?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

So far as I know, and I may be wrong, Chuang-tzu never translated
\nanything. He was too busy dreaming of butterflies and trying to
\ndeconstruct his own death.<\/p>\n

“What are the major schools of Taoist thought?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The French and the Japanese.<\/p>\n

“How do they differ from one another?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The French school tends to more mystical explanations of the Tao.
\nThey are interested in visualizations (such as imagining that you
\nare at coffee-shop on the Cote d’Azur when you are in fact
\nteaching a seminar on a rainy Paris day) and in esoteric
\nexplanations of the gross sounds your body makes when you
\nmeditate past suppertime. The Japanese tend to more practical
\nexplanations. They are wonderful bibliographers, indexers, and
\nmasters of textual filiation. To Japanese scholars goes the task
\nof demonstrating conclusively that all Taoism is in fact a sleazy
\nChinese imitation of Buddhism. (And *not* just of the Bhagavad
\nGita<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

“How does Taoism differ from Zen?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not at all. (See the previous FAQ.)<\/p>\n

“What does the first line of TTC chapter 1 mean?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

“O Sanjaya, assembled together on the sacred plain of Kurukshetra
\nand being desirous to fight, what did my people and the Pandavas
\ndo?” (I didn’t say that Lao-tzu was a GOOD translator, just a
\npopular one.)<\/p>\n

“What does enlightenment mean?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

The answer, of course, differs according to school. For the
\nFrench it means something like “acute awareness of hunger.”
\nFor the Japanese, it is difficult to explain just what it might
\nmean, but it is certain that enlightenment occurs in
\ncontemplation of a well-constructed diagram of textual filiation.<\/p>\n

“What does ineffable mean?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

You’ve lost me. Does this have anything to do with Taoism?
\n(Yes, that’s about what it means…)<\/p>\n

“What does meaning mean?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here we must examine the ground of the question. Questioning the
\nmeaning of meaning was a game that Lao-tzu invented to cover up
\nthe fact that he was not a very good translator. By the rules of
\nthis game, meaning meant what Lao-tzu wanted it to mean and he’s
\ndead now.<\/p>\n

“Do you have to speak Chinese to understand Taoism?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, but you must speak either French or Japanese. If you speak
\nboth French and Japanese, on the other hand, you will implode.
\nThis is what happened to Hun-tun.<\/p>\n

“Do you have to be a sage to understand Taoism?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you have to be a sage to understand French? Japanese? As
\nMark Twain remarked with regard to one or another of them, “kids
\ndo it!” It would be better, of course, just to begin studying
\nSanskrit and give up this Taoist fantasy of yours. Go to the
\nsource, that’s my advice.<\/p>\n

“Why is everyone so unkind?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, we were all observing perfect Taoist silence…until YOU
\ncame along!<\/p>\n

“Isn’t a discussion list about Taoism a contradiction?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Only if you have to play by Lao-tzu’s rules…<\/p>\n

Can we start a FAQ-file now? That way we won’t have to answer
\nany of these questions ever again.<\/p>\n

–Steve Bokenkamp (BOKENKAM@UCS.INDIANA.EDU)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This FAQ was sent to the long-defunct Taoism-L mailing list, on October 10, 1993 by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,122],"tags":[110,56,111,198,51,65,52,109],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1028,"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/1028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realchange.org\/taoish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}