Going to do a comparitive study

[Wu Wei]

After finishing
Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life, Living the Wisdom of the Tao
By: Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

I have decided to look into, contemplate and compare various translation of the Tao Te Ching. Not as extensively are Dr. Wayne W. Dyer since I am doing this mostly for me to better understand, not writing a book about it.

Dr Dyer's book is very good and I do recommend it if you are interested in Taoism and the Tao, but, IMO, some of his views are influenced by Buddhism and at times he becomes overly pacifistic. Example 31

Thirty-one (Translated by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English )

Good weapons are instruments of fear; all creatures hate them.
Therefore followers of Tao never use them.
The wise man prefers the left.
The man of war prefers the right.

Weapons are instruments of fear; they are not a wise man's tools.
He uses them only when he has no choice.
Peace and quiet are dear to his heart,
And victory no cause for rejoicing.
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing;
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.

On happy occasions precedence is given to the left,
On sad occasions to the right.
In the army the general stands on the left,
The commander-in-chief on the right.
This means that war is conducted like a funeral.
When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why a victory must be observed like a funeral.

Dr. Dwyer interpreted that as one should never take up weapons for any reason what-so-ever. That struck me as odd that Lao Tzu (if he did actually exist) would have said that during the warring states period of China since that could get you killed. What I read in 2 translations so far says "don't take up weapons unless you have not choice.

Also his pronunciations of Chinese words is not that good, but this is likely something that bugs me more than most and it is really not all that important an issue

But just the same, it is a very good book and I do recommend it, it does give some interesting interpretations that can help expand ones understanding of the Tao Te Ching IMHO

As for my versions I will use

I have 2 or 3 translations at home, but I do not remember the translators at the moment, I will post them later. I am going to pick up

1) The Complete Works of Lao Tzu: Tao Teh Ching & Hau Hu Ching Paperback – Hua Ching Ni

2) Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Author), David Hinton (Author)

And I will also use an online source
The Complete Tao Te Ching
Translated by Gia-Fu Feng (馮家福 Feng Jia-fu, 1919–1985) and Jane English (1942–)
Vintage Books, 1989

This will not be quick, since I plan on working with 1 per day so at best we are talking 81 days. As I find things of interest, if others are interested, I shall post them here.

I have decided to go deeper in to Understanding Taoism and this is where I will start

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

I await without awaiting the emergence of your wisdom!

 

[Jumi]

The translation is sound, in my opinion. The scholars interpretations, I leave them to him.

Multiple translations here: Tao Te Ching (Daode jing) English versions - Terebess Asia Online (TAO)

With Chinese text and translation: Dao De Jing