What would be the easiest way to get this into an EPUB?
Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
61–70 of 104 posts
Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#62Had to share the creation of Ea from the Earthsea cycle… very Tao…
“Only in silence the word, Only in dark the light, Only in dying life: Bright the hawk’s flight On the empty sky.
“The Creation of Éa,” Ursula K. Le Guin
Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#63I have the physical book, translated by Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English.
Every night, I read one new passage — then every morning, I read that same passage again.
Presuming you miss a few readings, you can then complete the entire Tao in less than three months (or: four times per year, cyclically).
This gives you time to digest each passage, be it in dreams or daytime. Nobody will ever fully understand these texts.
>#23 — "he who does not trust enough will not be trusted"
For my next read-through, I will paste Ursula's words alongside Ms. English's.
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If you have not read The Dispossessed, this is a great intro to LaGuin's perspectiveS.
Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
> However, it's not in the public domain. Her work deserves all the attention it can get, but I'd rather not see it pirated wholesale. I don't disagree. Does github have a way to report copyright violations? I just bought the real book from Powell's. Several buying options: https://www.ursulakleguin.com/lao-tzu-the-tao-te-ching
> Does github have a way to report copyright violations? What would reporting this GitHub repo do? Is the late Ursula K. Le Guin going to get a check in the afterlife? Her historical stance on copyright was based on consent. What happens when the author passes away?
I was wondering whether GitHub has a process for dealing with reports of obvious copyright violations. They don’t need thr copyright owner to weigh in.
Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#65we have a tendency to look thousands of years in the past for wisdom. weird.
Isn’t that because wisdom is mostly informed and validated through experience?
Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#66What a crazy coincidence seeing this on HN; I just started reading this today!
Ideas have people
Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
To clarify, that sentence is not from a Spanish translation of the Tao Te Ching; it is a fragment of Antonio Machado's poem 'Caminante no hay camino':
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.
Al andar se hace el camino,
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar.Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#68Earlier 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…
This is straight-up Baudrillard simulacra/simulation.
The moment you say "Dao" (or "Agile", or "methodology"), you've already moved from the thing-in-itself to a sign living inside a sign system. That sign can be useful, but it can't be identical to what it points at.
> “The Agile that can be PM’d is not Agile.”
That’s exactly the stages of simulacra in miniature:
- Faithful copy: "Agile" names a set of lived practices that correspond to reality.
- Masks/denatures: cargo-cult rituals distort it (standups-as-status-reporting).
- Masks absence: the org performs Agile theater to hide that genuine agility is gone.
- Pure simulacrum: "Agile" becomes a self-referential brand/signifier (certs, metrics, tooling) that relates primarily to other signs ("Agile maturity model", "story points velocity"), not to any actual working output.
Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#69Earlier 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…
Beautifully, this reads like it came right out of Le Guin's rendition of the Tao Te Ching: Most translators of popular texts look closely at other translations to "triangulate" on meaning and authorial intent. Older translations may use archaic writing but have historical understanding, well-researched translations may be more precise about tricky words or concepts. More "writerly" translations tend to rebuild the wo…
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Re: Tao Te Ching – Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
#70I 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…
This seems overly pessimistic. We regularly engage with other cultures and their texts and understand them, and, yes, it takes time and knowledge of context to do so. Someone needs to explain quite a bit about Roman society under Augustus for you to understand what is going on in detail in Ovid's Amores, and the Epic of Gilgamesh is pretty bizarre unless you know quite a bit about ancient Mesopotamia. The Tao te Ching suffers from being written in a style that was very much for people in the know in a certain milieu, limited texts, and a huge amount of cultural baggage on top. The most interesting recent scholarly translation I know of is by Victor Mair, of a different, recently discovered text, and his contention is that the book is a 'mirror for princes' and not a mystical text at all.
> they are still fighting over what 'Hwaet' means
I don't think anyone is particularly fighting over what it means, just how to translate it when there isn't a parallel in modern English. My personal favorite is a translation that opens with 'Bro!'.