Tao Te Ching

(the text online...free):

http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phal … te-v3.html

Whoever posted that file must have typed it out b/c there are some typos and the gender of the Master seems to switch back and forth from male to female. I don't remember if it did that in the book version of Mitchell's translation. I have gone through the copy I saved and corrected every typo I could find and made the Master's gender male. It reads better for me that way. I also jacked the font up a tiny bit.
So, if anyone's interested in getting my "upgraded" version and this is not illegal, just send me a message and we'll work it out.

See you around

That's interesting! what does the common version say?

Thank you, MengTzu.

I was thinking about this and the other thread, which I have not yet gone to to see your reply to my reply to your reply etc.

The fact we're "dealing" with translations and interpretations of the Tao Teh Ching is an example, or a manifestation even, of the issue I seem to have. (I try to be conscientious about articulating how what I post is my feeling or thought, btw)

The core or seed of Taoism, I believe, is the Tao Teh Ching. Translations of it are the closest I can hope for as I do not understand Chinese. (Also, that assumes exact versions of it are available today.)

The translator plays a huge role in conveying the spirit and/or the letter of the original. I've seen some atrocious translations which seemed as if they had been done by a computer, concerned only with translating each word of each passage without concern for the overall point of each passage.

Apparently, Stephen Mitchell filled out his translation with conceptual "filler" to flesh out the ideas.... I'm grateful for it, as it's the most poetic translation of the TTC I've ever seen and I think the idea of people turning to relgion when they lose their personal sense of wonder (which I myself interpret as meaning "feeling the presence of the Divine") is a sublime truth which Lao Tzu (any relation? haha) would nod his head to.

Now, we can debate whether:
1) the original passage really warranted Mitchell's translation or whether Mitchell violated his duty as translator

and/or

2) whether the concept that when people lose their sense of wonder they turn to religion is "Taoist".

Personally, I think trying to create any orthodoxy is absolutely antithetical to Taoism.
As for texts besides the TTC, which we're discussing in that other thread, which I'm really looking forward to going to next, it seems there would eventually need to be a "Canon", like in Christianity, to admit them as sources and believe debate is even possible on any texts, including the TTC, unless perhaps one creates a heirarchy with the TTC at the pinnacle and all other works subordinate, for example.
then you get into "apocryphal" texts, and open a door that shouldn't exist, to questions of who made the decisions of what is "true Taoism" and what is not...

My point is, if you seriously want to challenge a translation of the TTC, then it seems you'd have to be very discriminatory to all non-TTC texts too.

Therefore, my questions for you are:

1) Does the personal perception I convey in "My point", make sense to you as a concept?

and

2) Do you feel it applies to you or not?

and if not

2a) How can you critique a translation of the TTC and just let all other works into the "Taoisl Library", which did not even exist, it seems, before the TTC was written?

Correction: should be "donde esta Romeo," not "donde es Romeo."