, the "Classic of the Way and Virtue" (or, the "Power of the Way," etc.), is divided into two books. This was often thought to be an arbitrary division; but recently a manuscript was discovered in which the order of the two books was actually reversed. An interpretation has now been offered that the two books are intended to be about the Tao [
] and Te [
]. Book I does begin with statements about the Tao, and Book II with statements about Te. Since the Tao might be thought to be more important than Te, the format that reverses the books may then simply reflect that judgment.
Verse 1 [see Chinese text and literal translation at right]: "The Way that can be spoken of/ Is not the constant way." The Tao Te Ching begins with a pun: "Way" and "spoken of" ("said") are the same character (Dào). So the first line says: "The Tao that can be tao-ed is not the constant Tao." "The name that can be named..." Here the pun can be maintained in English, where "name" can be both noun and verb. The quality of a translation of the Tao Te Ching can usually be determined from the rendering of these lines. Those determined to unpack the meaning of Taoism in the translation, according to their own interpretation of Taoist doctrine, will often render these terse sentences into a paragraph, sometimes with irrecognizable renderings of the key words. The affection of a translator for Taoism cannot excuse a method that only obscures the nature of the text itself.
Let's look at some translations, old and recent, of just the first six characters.
- Most venerable of all is that of James Legge in 1891: "The Tâo that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tâo" [Dover, 1962, p.47].
- Then we have D.T. Suzuki and Paul Carus in 1913 & 1927: "The Reason that can be reasoned is not the eternal Reason" [Open Court, 1974, p.74].
- Next let's see Archie Bahm (whom I knew at the University of New Mexico) in 1958: "Nature can never be completely described, for such a description of Nature would have to duplicate Nature" [Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1958, p.11].
- D.C. Lau in 1963: "The way that can be spoken of / Is not the constant way" [Penguin, 1963, p.5].
- Hua-Ching Ni in 1979, with what appears to be more an "elucidation" than a translation: "Tao, the subtle reality of the universe cannot be described" [Seven Star Communciations, 1979, 2003, p.7].
- Tam C. Gibbs in 1981: "The tao that can be said is not the everlasting Tao" [North Atlantic Books, 1981, p.20].
- More recently, we get Victor Mair in 1990, who switches Book I and Book II, displacing the 1st Chapter to the 45th: "The ways that can be walked are not the eternal Way" [Bantam, 1990, p.59].
- Michael LaFargue in 1992, who insists on completely rearranging the chapters, displacing the 1st to the 43rd, under the larger heading of "Knowledge, Learning, and Teaching," with ten other chapters: "The Tao that can be told is not the invariant Tao" [State University of New York Press, 1992, p.84].
- The science fiction novelist Ursula Le Guin in 1997: "The way you can go / isn't the real way" [Shambala, 1998, p.3].
- Moss Roberts from 2001: "The Way as 'way' bespeaks no common lasting Way" [University of California Press, 2001, p.27].
- Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall, who have a slightly different Chinese text, in 2003: "Way-making (dao) that can be put into words is not really way-making" [Ballantine, 2003, p.77]
- And finally let's try Charles Muller in 2005: "The Tao that can be followed is not the eternal Tao" [Barnes and Noble Classics, 2005, p.3].
The worst temptation here was an interpretive, rather than literal, rendering of
, "not kind," "not benevolent." Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall in their "philosophical translation" apparently don't like the implications of this, so they translate it as, "The heavens and the earth are not partial to institutionalized morality" [p.84]. This might indeed be a Taoist sentiment, but it is perhaps an over-interpretive reach as a translation of a line with only four characters. In a footnote, their justification of it is that rén represents "a suspect Confucian value that emerges only when genuine moral feeling has been overwritten by conventionalized rules of living" [p.206]. This is not quite right. The substance of the Confucian virtue is not suspect; it is that the virtue is subverted by Confucian speech about it. It is that the implication here? It doesn't look like it to me. The more sensible reading is the obvious one, that nature is not always benevolent, as indeed it is not. On the other hand, whatever the interpretation ought to be, the purpose of a translation is to render the plain meaning of the original, not to obscure it with an editorial. The worse feature of the Ames and Hall "translation" is that it is impossible to tell even remotely what the original wording would have been. The reader is simply not allowed to interpret the text for himself. The implication further in the section of the Taoist sage treating the people as "straw dogs," easily conformable with the "not kind" translation, is not spelled out and is subject to varying interpretations.
) and No Mind (
), which allow the Tao to operate, have a much greater affinity with yin (passive, receptive) than with yang (active, aggressive). The Tao Te Ching therefore illustrates Not Doing with extensive yin imagery. Here the "valley," the "female," and perhaps the "gateway" are all yin images.
, may not have existed: the author or authors of the Tao Te Ching would not put themselves forward to claim authorship. That would not be putting one's "person last." It would be a much more Taoist move to deny authorship and attribute the book to the "Old Master," which is what "Lao Tzu" means. Whether one author or many, critical references to Confucian doctrine in the book (especially Chapter 38) imply that it was written during the Warring States Period.
"Highest good is like water." The supreme yin image of the Tao: Water. Nothing is so essential to life, and so yielding and receptive; but water is also tremendously powerful and irresistible, as the Chinese know well from devastating floods of the Huang He and Yangtze rivers. "Settles where none would like to be." Water goes to the lowest position, which is not a status that people commonly fight over. Thus Not Doing avoids conflict, "does not contend."
Best illustrated by a Zen story about the Japanese monk Hakuin, who was accused of getting a neighborhood girl pregnant. She didn't want to name the real father and so accused Hakuin instead. He neither admitted nor denied being the father, only saying, "Is that so?" calmly accepting the care of the baby when it was born, even though by then he had lost his reputation. A year later the girl named the real father to her parents. Hakuin expressed no more surprise or concern over the apologies as he had over the accusations, and calmly returned the child when asked, again only saying, "Is that so?" This was the "role of the disgraced" in the most literal sense. [Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Anchor Books, pp. 7-8]
"The uncarved block." Since nothing has been done to an uncarved block, it is symbolic of the Tao.
] and weak [ruò] will overcome the hard and strong." The "role of the female" is made more specific: "Submissive" (jou in Wade-Giles and róu in Pinyin) is a significant, evocative term. The dictionary definition of róu (Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary, Harvard, 1972) is "soft, pliant; yielding, gentle; to overcome by kindness." "Submissive" in Taoism, however, is not always what it might seem. We have all seen the Japanese pronunciation of róu in the word judo (
), the "Submissive Way." But Judo really doesn't look very "submissive": throwing people to the mat isn't exactly "to overcome by kindness." As a form of Not Doing, however, the idea in Judo is not to originate an attack and not to use one's own strength: the strength of an attacker is turned against him. This idea was often articulated in the old "Kung Fu" television series of the 70's, with David Carradine.
The text has "name," not "act." A similar statement, however, with "act," is below at 48:108. "The myriad creatures will be transformed of their own accord....The nameless uncarved block/Is but freedom from desire." Notice the similarity with the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita. The gunas were all forms of desire, and liberation was therefore freedom from desire. But freedom from desire in the Gita is the means to avoid rebirth, while freedom from desire in the Tao Te Ching is the means of liberating the Tao, which provides all the things that we might otherwise have desired anyway. A very great difference between world-denying India and world-affirming China.
]," doesn't talk about virtue, and so actually practices it. "A man of the lowest virtue," makes a big show and a big noise about virtue, and so is most likely a hypocrite who doesn't actually practice it. Compare to Jesus's complaints about those who only give alms publicly (Matthew 6:2) or stand on the street corners praying (Matthew 6:5). "A man of the highest benevolence [
] acts..." The beginning of an implicit critique of Confucianism. Rén is the highest virtue for Confucius. Taoism doesn't have too much of a problem with that. "A man of the highest rectitude [righteousness, 
] acts, but from ulterior motive." Righteousness (yì) is the next highest Confucian virtue, but Taoism suspects those who invoke it of pursuing some self-interest. "A man most conversant in the rites [propriety, etiquette, good manners, 
] acts, but when no one responds rolls up his sleeves and resorts to persuasion by force." Good manners (li3) is the next Confucian virtue, but Taoism expects nothing but intolerance and violence from people who talk about this. This is similar to attitudes in the 60's, when people felt that "good manners" were superficial nonsense and the preferred "counter-culture" behavior was rude and crude. This was not too good; but now, when certain kinds of rude behavior or speech can be prosecuted as federal civil rights offenses ("hostile environment" interpretations of anti-discrimination law), the Confucian opposite feared by Taoism seems to have been reached. "Hence when the way [] was lost there was virtue []; when virtue was lost there was benevolence []; when benevolence was lost there was rectitude [righteousness, ]; when rectitude was lost there were the rites [manners, ]./The rites are the wearing thin of loyalty [conscientiousness, 
] and good faith [
]/And the beginning of disorder [
, Japanese ran]." A nice hierarchical listing and evaluation of moral terminology according to Taoism.
Verse 133 [see Chinese text and literal translation at right]: "I am not meddlesome and the people prosper of themselves." This line can also be translated [third line at right], "I do not serve, and the people themselves become wealthy." This suggests the "Tao of capitalism," since the principle of the free market is to leave people alone (laissez-faire), by which the "Invisible Hand" of Adam Smith (the Tao) will be able to create wealth for everyone. Such a result would not necessarily be what Taoism had in mind: "I am free from desire and the people of themselves become simple [like the uncarved block]" [fourth line at right]; but a free market economy, by created unprecedented wealth, does just the opposite. Taoism wanted a simple, rural life, without "cleverness" or "novelties," but leaving people alone to become wealthy means that they will--which produces a vast consumer market of "cleverness" and "novelties" far from simplicity.
] overcomes the hard [
]." The character here for "hard" we find in 
, the term for the vajra, the thunderbolt of Indra, the symbol of power in Vajrayana Buddhism, and the name of the Japanese battleship Kongô. Even Taoist war, of course, is indirect and undermining, not hard and frontal.
], would simply disappear in the Taoist ideal.