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Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

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Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#51

Post by retrocog »

justonceokay wrote: post #40
o_____________o wrote: post #3

I picked up Tao Te Ching as an American teenager and was moved by how it cuts against the American faith in visible dominance and self-assertion, proposing a form of strength that is low, quiet, and unseen. It's much more than that of course, but that aspect had immediate impact on my thinking.

Reading the Tao te Ching makes it clear why the best engineers are the soft-spoken individuals who refrain from talking until the end of the meeting.

That’s because good engineering is mostly listening to the system.

If you talk too early, you end up arguing abstractions. If you listen long enough, the constraints introduce themselves.

By the end of the meeting, the quiet person isn’t trying to win the room — they’re just reporting what reality already said.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#52

Post by kjellsbells »

riffraff wrote: post #32
lubujackson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done a similar "rendition" to a book of poetry, I agree it is not the same as translating directly. It does open up a question about the fuzziness of "what is even translation?" Especially when we talk about translating historic writing. Yes, not knowing the source language is a huge barrier. But so is not knowing specific cultural touchstones or references in the text. In-depth translations usually transliter…

For those with a passing interest in this topic and quite some patience, "le ton beau de Marót" by Douglas Hofstadter is a whole book of musings about translation, particularly of poetry. It's a fun book full of interesting linguistic trivia. The patience would be needed to get through the 50 or so translations of the same poem, all different and "wrong" in some way.

also recommended: After Babel by George Steiner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/After_Babel

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#53

Post by mbivert »

prewett wrote: post #42
raincole wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, even if you know Chinese, it's very hard to translate Tao Te Ching into English. Hell, it's hard to translate it into Chinese. Even the first paragraph is controversial. For example this rendition says: > The name you can say > isn’t the real name. However, in a 5th century interpretation[0], it's more akin to: > The fame and wealth the mortals praise are not a natural state. (My extremely simplified paraph…

I didn't encounter the Dao de Jing until later in life, but the opening bit has always seemed straightforward to me. I first saw it as "the way that can be described is not the Way", but also "the way that can be traveled is not the eternal Way". That is, the eternal (spiritual) Way cannot be concretized, just as a name is not the real thing. Or, given that this is HN, "the software development methodology that can b…

> but the opening bit has always seemed straightforward to me

the a/symmetry of the opening bits in Chinese, visually echoes a taiji:

> 道可道，

> 非恆道；

> 名可名，

> 非恆名。

given the diversity of translations available for those bits, I think it's fair to say that there's room for debate regarding their exact meaning − dare I say

amusingly, by being certain one understand what it means, somehow one really does not. Lao-Tseu may have been way, way wiser than average.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#54

Post by [deleted] »

TZubiri wrote: post #41

I have 0 confidence that I could understand the Tao even if I read the best most classical translations available. Take the bible, which is translated from languages that are closer to mine, and which refers to a culture which is closer to mine, with family and scholars whose interpretation I can understand directly. Still I don't have much confidence that I understand the bulk of it, it takes years of reading and li…

[deleted]

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#57

Post by dmwood »

tasuki wrote: post #56

Hey, the last commit there is mine, fixing the line endings! FWIW, I also made a website with comparison of the different translations/renditions of the Tao Te Ching, including the one by Ursula K. Le Guin[0]. [0]: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jc,rh,uklg

Thank you for your website.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#58

Post by anondual »

prewett wrote: post #42
raincole wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, even if you know Chinese, it's very hard to translate Tao Te Ching into English. Hell, it's hard to translate it into Chinese. Even the first paragraph is controversial. For example this rendition says: > The name you can say > isn’t the real name. However, in a 5th century interpretation[0], it's more akin to: > The fame and wealth the mortals praise are not a natural state. (My extremely simplified paraph…

I didn't encounter the Dao de Jing until later in life, but the opening bit has always seemed straightforward to me. I first saw it as "the way that can be described is not the Way", but also "the way that can be traveled is not the eternal Way". That is, the eternal (spiritual) Way cannot be concretized, just as a name is not the real thing. Or, given that this is HN, "the software development methodology that can b…

You should have posted your comment at the top.

> Daoism also appears to have taken a literalist turn (ironically).

It's incredibly ironic. To those who wonder where the irony is, imagine writing a book of poems on "freesbeing", which you describe as an ineffable experience that one gets when they play the freesbee. In your book, most passages allude to subtleties that escape any reader who isn't a freesbee enthousiast. And so, only those who pick up a freesbee and start throwing it unlock the meaning in your book. Then thousands of years later, intellectuals try to explain "freesbeing" without knowing what even is the freesbee.

Daoism is a practical guide to a mystical way of life. Similar to the teachings of Buddhist mystics, Advaitist mystics, Christian mystics, Sufi mystics, and so forth. Most such teachings are very practical and somewhat point in the same (inner) direction. A shared core tenet is that experiences are infinitely more valid (i.e. true) than the content of thoughts (i.e. concepts, philosophy, beliefs, labels, words, etc) used to describe them. Said more commonly, the mind -- the craddle of thoughts, the mother of all concepts, explanations, and philosophies -- is a liar. This is peppered everywhere in the Tao Te Ching, starting from the very first line. Yet, most interpretations of it are conceptual, trying to make it into some kind of a philosophy.

Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

#59

Post by anthk »

prewett wrote: post #42
raincole wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, even if you know Chinese, it's very hard to translate Tao Te Ching into English. Hell, it's hard to translate it into Chinese. Even the first paragraph is controversial. For example this rendition says: > The name you can say > isn’t the real name. However, in a 5th century interpretation[0], it's more akin to: > The fame and wealth the mortals praise are not a natural state. (My extremely simplified paraph…

I didn't encounter the Dao de Jing until later in life, but the opening bit has always seemed straightforward to me. I first saw it as "the way that can be described is not the Way", but also "the way that can be traveled is not the eternal Way". That is, the eternal (spiritual) Way cannot be concretized, just as a name is not the real thing. Or, given that this is HN, "the software development methodology that can b…

In Spanish we say "caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar" (roamer, there's no path, the path it's built upon walking".
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