“Rivers do not drink their own water; trees do not eat their own fruit; the sun does not shine on itself and flowers do not spread their fragrance for themselves. Living for others is a rule of nature. We are all born to help each other. No matter how difficult it is…life is good when you are happy; but much better when others are happy because of you.”
“My teachings are easy to understand and easy to put into practice. Yet your intellect will never grasp them, and if you try to practice them, you'll fail. If you want to know me, Look inside your heart.” ― Lao Tzu,
That’s exactly how I feel about it. And then sometimes also something you hear and it applies directly to something going on in the moment. It’s nice also to listen to and read different translations of it.
Exactly this. Also what @Gabriel H says. I specifically have experienced that i will put on repeat and pause/play periodically or let drift into background for several days or a couple weeks -- Almost like a periodical revisiting that, at this point, i can feel when it is time again surprisingly consistently. Usually this coincides with more 'big deal' kind of changes in my life, especially when personal growth has compounded, perhaps a recent sense of 'overcoming' of some grand challenge or something i have struggle with for years or whole life, i finally have breakthrough about. Such times i consider that, perhaps, i have crafted new "tools" or obtained new "resources" to carry with me forward in life, and thus i am compelled to revisit this text, and i will certainly connect concepts/ideas which i had missed prior, or perhaps simply realize how something applies in a way anew in life, blah blah... lots of things. this text holds up 'better' than any other i have read. It also directly coincides with another, vast, set of texts, which i occasionally revisit. Those texts are more focused upon Economy and 'Politics' and Societies as a whole, however the very same concepts, namely "dialectics" and "dialectical thinking" are core tenants of those texts, all the same as the Dao De Jing. If anyone curious, those texts i refer to are select parts of the works from authors such as Engels and Marx from the 1800s. There are vast swathes of their work and some others in related topics, which are by no means 'political' in nature. (tends to be the political parts that scare people away from their contributions to human history and thought). 💖may the best be upon you all~💖
I have no way of knowing if you get this reply. But I agree with you. The Tao, and this recording in Particular , have pulled me from an internal hell of my own creation. Be well, and do nothing. Much Love...Coop
Inspiration is like an overdue shower. Each time is appreciated and sort of uniquely welcomed . More things missed -? -when too long absent, off the beaten path . 🌛
I'm so relieved that I found my way back here today. I've listened to this video many times and it always calms my soul. Recently I hadn't realized how consumed with the self I had become and I was miserable. I've been in a dark place for a while now and this is the first time I feel okay again. Like many others, I struggle with depression and anxiety and this video has a way of making life make sense to me again. Thank you for making this video. Sending positive vibes to everyone 💞
I like the fact that the author is a long time practitioner of zen, who corroborated with scholars in writing this, so he has first hand experience with it's meaning, not just intellectual.
I've been allowing spirit to guide me now for the past few months and it always brings me to where i need to be in my spiritual walk. Listening to this reading on tbe Tao is more confirmation in remembering who I AM! A lot resonated and it feels good knowining that i need to just BE. Thank you!
This is truly truly beautiful. Like bathing in words and vision. I cannot grasp with with my mind, but I can feel it in the cells of my being, shifting my soul into new spaces. Thank you so much for sharing this.
I was very relaxed until I started reading the comments, It should be added in the Tao to not read You Tube comments about the Tao. You've been forewarned.
This is such a wonderful translation and reading. I cried throughout the introduction with such joy. Thank you so much for sharing this translation and reading. It is brilliant.
@@joshl.8950 none whatsoever. Taoism is more like Magick and Tao te ching is more like philosophy. If you become a Taoist priest, the first you will learn is a banishment ritual to get rid of evil spirits. You don't see that in Tao te ching. Tao te ching is one of the most overrated book ever.
I love the way you presented this! I saw Lao Tzu on the morning train. He STOOD IN THE CENTER OF THE AISLE and didn't have to hold onto anything and YET he never wavered. He didn't look a day over 900. The whole car of passengers was mesmerized! BUT I KNEW. Signed, CUZ.
Bought this version by S. Mitchell over 20 yrs ago and for me its the best translation. Glad to have to find this on youtube and read very well as well, thanks.
There is nothing that can be said about tao.Contradiction intended=tao To lose yourself=tao To be the context=tao To be an expression and know it=tao To express words=tao To be a joke and find it hilarious=tao To be sleep=tao To be alive and dead while alive=tao To contradict a contradiction=tao To get it by knowing you cannot get it=tao To be a wave on the ocean's floor=tao To be shallow and deep=tao To be creation=tao To be everywhere while being exactly where you are=tao To be change=tao Beauty not tied an object=tao To have no choice=tao To not be tao and know why=tao To be exactly who you are=tao To be and not be thinking about it=tao To be with it by being it=tao To leave self and be else=tao To be the meaning between the lines=tao To explain by not explaining=tao In between too much and not enough=tao To blend into a crowd so well that you stand out=tao To do exactly what you should do by doing nothing=tao To be flow=ta To get out of your way=tao To feel the past turn to future=tao To have no reason to judge yourself=tao To be one with yourself=tao To be a relationship=tao
Tao directly translate can be road. Its like how the object work and running. Just like the road, the orbit that car, star running on it. That's the tao. So lose yourself is not the tao. Why you lose yourself at before, why you will go, why you be here. Why is Tao. Everything is not the Tao. But Tao is why everything is everything.
That's the thought. They believe behind everything, have something to supply that. That's the tao. It's more like Newton's law. It's the key point, even the author live thousands of years ago. But he get the idea from the surface of world, and abstract of that.
Total silence...This is a memory from long ago...I was in a crib as a baby...and I remember floating up into a starry night and a voice said ''do not forget this'' being so new I often wondered how a baby would understand words, but the experience is remembered, but that openness is lost behind some kind of wall that seems tightly closed.
Listening to this reading cleanses my spirit. Everyday becomes fresher than the day before. We are all Starlight and Stories told without language. The DAO suspends us in a webs of Starlight. Birth and Death's endless cycle.
I have lived 40 years of my life filled with Taoist life philosophy. I am grateful to Tao about all this wisdom which I have had to learn. Bai Yun Gùan in Beijing is my spiritual home.
I think it IS Stephen Mitchell himself reading. I've listened to Mitchell in other circumstances and I hear identical voices. I too think his translation is the most beautiful and poetic. It also feels the most "right".
Following the Tao is easy, yet very hard at the same time, showing the paradox of the words again. If you just let yourself flow in the river, you don´t have to do anything, but if you question it - like wondering why things are the way they are, and why you just can´t find happiness or success - then you struggle, because you try to swim against the current. The Way is not "fair" and not personal, it´s very hard to accept though, because your experience is always personal.
Fairness is an illusion. Everything has a natural resolution; this you can trust. Life is born from nature and to nature it will return. One variant in particular that has always drawn me to Daoism is that the school of thought doesn’t necessarily create a distinction between humans and nature. My point being, we don’t flow with the river; we are the river. We are one of the many manifestations of the Dao, and when we die our essence, and or, Qi(chi) remains as another manifestation of the Dao. Understanding the manifestations of the world is good for the mind. Understanding the obscurity of the Dao is good for the heart. I enjoyed your first sentence because it is very true. “ My teachings are easy to understand and even easier to put into practice. Yet your intellect will never grasp them, and if you try to practice them you’ll fail. My teachings are older then the world. How can your grasp there meaning? If you want to know me, look inside your heart.” -Lao Tzu I believe this captures your thoughts perfectly.
Wow! This is most beautiful and gentle way to teaching. Truly, when we empty our heart, the flow of DAO energy/power/sense will fill our heart. That is the truly PEACEFUL way of living!! Thank you for sharing..... My first time learning about Dao....through You Tube. Awesome!
+thejjjwils I've learned that part of learning how to learn is to learn that learning is simply experience without ignorance. One cannot learn language without experiencing language firsthand. Knowing "nothing" is fallacious, it is impossible to truly know nothing. Stating that one knows nothing is declaring that one lacks knowledge, therefore any addition of previously unknown knowledge to a lack of knowledge can be considered knowledge that is learned. Generally speaking however, one who speaks is attempting either to learn more about the subject of what is being spoken about, or to teach another with or without the intention of eliciting a particular reaction. The latter of those two motives is based on ego. Despite the fact that the ego itself is an illusion, the concept of ego is a necessary tool for making learning possible and enjoyable in a world where different people know different things dependent on their individual experiences. Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything. Between these two my life turns -Nisargadatta Maharaj In comparison to individuals who have gone through more ignorance-free experiences than I have, I am not wise. Believing that one's self is wise is clinging to a state of permanent knowing, which is naturally a delusion that is a detriment not only to oneself because it builds false confidence, but since nobody is perfect others see claims of wisdom to be arrogance. Not entirely sure why I wrote all of this but I enjoyed writing it, so I suppose that's reason enough.
I am spending time listening to it slowly, verse by verse, until I have some understanding of it. I believe this is key, to really study it. This is such a beautiful translation and the narrator's voice is so soothing and peaceful. I wasn't interested in it when I read another translation so thank you for posting this!
The dao is the eqaul sign of the world... To elevate into it and use it's power is to know how it works by knowing nothing and accepting whatever comes and applying dao to it
Hi brother and sisters.... Love from India 💖🇮🇳 The spirituality is true essence of peaceful life. I feel it like it came in by blood through ancestors that doesn't mean that my father also can feel it... I mean the descending blood through generation in inactive form activated only in some new born as I feel. Because, the degree of understanding and feeling spirituality in my life is not in my own brother. My words to universe: The source of true essence of love is inside us. It is the same love that flows through all of us. It's infinite. My Spiritual inspirations: Kabirdas, OSHO, Me.
very, very cool. this was my first time listening to the tao de ching. Thank you for uploading. the birds and the water were a nice touch, as well as the imagery. nicely done.
The Chinese and Indian civilizations are the only unbroken ones over a period of 5000 years. I wonder if that may be why the knowledge of the Tao or the yogis' nirvana, has come to awareness in China and India. The Greeks, Egyptians, and Sumerians had knowledge and some experience of the soul or spiritu sanctu et al, but each of those civilizations collapsed at some point. The destruction of the library at Alexandria may have cut humanity off from these other roots of mystical experience. For all its wisdom, it did not lead to scientific knowledge and technological development as occurred in the West. But the West is also played out and the world is in jeopardy of environmental, climatic, or nuclear radioactive collapse. So it may be timely to seek outside the lexiconic circle that traps the human inside the circle, cut off from outside of the circle, nature, earth, universe, Tao...
excellent comment. I have often wondered where we might be had the libraries at Alexandria not been burned ? A major event here on planet earth for mankind. Very few people would even consider such a thing, so good on ya !
Hi brother.... Love from India 🇮🇳 The spirituality is true essence of peaceful life. I feel it like it came in by blood through ancestors that doesn't mean that my father also can feel it... I mean the descending blood through generation in inactive form activated only in some new born as I feel. Because, the degree of understanding and feeling spirituality in my life is not in my own brother. My words to universe: The source of true essence of love is inside us. It is the same love that flows through all of us. It's infinite. My Spiritual inspirations: Kabirdas, OSHO, Me.
The Sumerians recovered and shared the lost Hermetic Tradition during the silver age of Taurus, then Ancient Egypt in the bronze age of Aries brought this Tradition into the Mystery Schools which ultimately leaked to Ancient Greece, which in turn forged the occult alchemical legacy that spread through medieval Europe in the age of Pisces. All in all, the Tradition remained underground until our modern times. Soon let's hope that the coming age of Aquarius (2060) will unveil this Tradition for the benefit of the whole world.
Thank you so much for this. I have been exploring Eastern philosophy for a year now so many concepts are new to me still. I cried when I heard the Tao described as the mother. Being brought up with western religion everything is taught as being patriarchal and has fixed rules. I never could connect with this. Understanding the Tao as the mother I can understand all is born from nurturing non conditional and everlasting love.
The Tao has no sex. The sex comes from the limitation of the English language. Actually even in Christianity, God is a spirit. A spirit is sexless or both sex.
True but it is referred to interchangeably and that was her point. No one ever refers to the ALL as female in Christianity, Baptist, Catholic, etc. so I can see where she's coming from.❤
These charming words are from Stephen Mitchell's 1988 book. They are popular because they are pleasing to the ear of the average student, saying simple things that people enjoy hearing and sharing on the internet, regardless of whether or not they authentically convey what some old dude once taught. Where the Chinese text is most difficult, Mitchell is least cautious, taking inscrutability as an invitation to "improve" upon the original. He takes such frequent and extreme liberties that this should be considered as based upon the Daodejing, rather than as a genuine translation. If something in this video resonates with you, you may benefit from seeking out more serious translations, of which there are many that pay far greater respect to the enigmatic depth and subtlety of the Laozi, albeit at the expense of mass market appeal.
@Strange Dog I have enjoyed this and other versions of the Dao de jing, in books, on line but in particular listening to it as an audiobook, letting the chapters roll past allows me a broader grasp of such an inscrutable subject. Do you have 5 translations that you recommend for their accuracy, this would be greatly appreciated by many. For my sake an accurately translated audiobook would warrant thanks.
There are so many translations, each with strengths and weaknesses. "Accuracy" can refer to the degree of rigid literality with which English words and idioms are substituted for ancient Chinese ones, but it can just as readily refer to the depth of mystical penetration of the message. Highly academic versions can suffer from a lack of personal insight into, or respect for, the Master's instruction. To accurately translate a text, you have to understand it, but who understands Laozi fully? To understand his words, Laozi says, you have to know their Mother (i.e. the Dao itself). However, versions motivated by personal belief can be self-indulgent and distorted. Passionate people are easily tempted, naively or arrogantly, to jam their own words into the Teacher's mouth, even where better scholarship would reveal that they can't credibly fit. When I want to quote the Daodejing, I usually have to scan the same passage in several versions to find the one that best expresses a concept the way I mean it, and there is no one version that I land on overwhelmingly more than the others. In audiobook, for an academically accurate translation I have that by Robert G. Henricks, based on the Mawangdui source which greatly predates the received traditional Chinese version. For a looser and more personal version, I enjoy the one by Ursula K. Le Guin, which is included on CD with the hard copy of her book. In between, there is one by Feng and English, read by Jacob Needleman. In print, (although I would not be surprised if the first two are also available in audio), for a text version with academic credibility by a practising alchemical Daoist, you could do worse than that by Thomas Cleary. Probably my favourites are the well accepted scholarly standard version by Arthur Waley, and the more recent version by Robert G. Henricks, which deals with even older source-texts unearthed in 1993 at Guodian.
Actually, change that last one to The Book of Lao Tzu, by Yi Wu, which gives the general reader access to the full Chinese text, so they can check for themselves what is and isn't honest in other translations.
Dog... But all the translations, books and what not can not give the full insight, because they all are someones personal insight! Main idea here is to grasp what benefits you and that's it... :) And if you want your personal trouth - meditate and find it yourself! lots of love!
I recently heard the term "Taoist Utopia" ... there are small communities popping up that are using the foundation of Lao Tzu's teachings. So wonderful.
I hear what u say re Mitchell's interpretation being less complete and complex than many others, truer to the original Chinese, but it serves as a brilliant gateway to the Tao and its deep truths and beckons the reader to enter further into study.
I heard they almost got into a wrestling match because he told Jesus, "no, your doing it wrong Jesus, Your leading the way when you should of stayed behind" Jesus turned around real fast in his best wresting stance and looked but he could not see, Jesus still reached out for him but could not grasp. End of story
Thanx for this nice video, the introduction was amazing, it could be a nice idea to have some kind of final explanation or interpretation of some passages of the book . This is my number one book , because the book itself is not about itself, meaning that the words and names can be changed without changing the essence of the book, also each chapter in the book is self sufficient, meaning that the order of chapters doesn't affect the understanding of it, and not to forget that each chapter is worth a lot, meaning that each chapter could "give birth" to many new books, And I think this is the purpose of the book, to be short or the shortest path possible, I think the way the book was written was made in such a way that anyone can easily understand at that time, now the Chinese speakers find it difficult, it is old and not easy to understand unless the level of Chinese is above average, but the English translation like this one is super easy to understand, now this is said, it sure would take years to practice before some one can become a teacher or a "Taoist graduate " .
I find that starting my day with a light meditation followed by popping in this audio jump starts my day. I usually alternate this with the Dhammadapa or Bhgavad Gita ...
Doriesep6622 yes ur right but when we praise God what it means is try to be humble and don't oppressed ppl.being arrogant is not good. learn to read between the lines otherwise u will deviate from the straight path.
Thank you Nervous Nerd for your authentic presentation. Living nervously is part of it. After all, they finished their lecture. So that was a success for you nervous nerd. Good way. Good greetings and bye
@HUNNI I found this on your playlist n I'll save it. I read a comment you made on Meagan's page and just wanted to appreciate you! I call for you, (from a place of love to) stumble across this at some point !
🕊 thank you, ~ ⛩ For your approval.🤗 I am 'new' to this view.🤔 Glad~ to hear THIS is a reliable⛩, authentic💎 translation.💦 ~ ° 🕊 I, also love the intro.🤔 Perfect, for myself.💎 SHALOM.🕊 * {any OTHER🔅?, ~ suggestions🤔 ~ would be ~ greatly appreciated.😇🔆} "i" would like~ to learn🤔 MORE, and inter-act♻️ ~ with other like minded~ persons.🕊
Thank you. Its an interesting, organic -even elemental way of lookin at life and events. At one point, was contended to read the verses and inevitably came to recognize the elemental correspondences. Its a good guide, although the Ways in Life are at their core, limitless...
