Daodejing: Tao Te Ching - Tapa blanda

Although now considered a spiritual handbook for a general audience, the Daodejing was originally written for Ancient China's ruling nobles during the waning years of the Spring and Autumn period. This was a socially and politically unstable time that was marked by widespread warfare between the Middle Kingdom’s most powerful states. Laozi describes how personal ambition and material desire had caused many of the ruling nobles to forsake their natural place in the spiritual order of things, thus bringing misery and hardship to themselves and the people they ruled. He believed that if these ruling nobles would stop and look at the larger picture, they would see how their authority fit within the chains of authority that govern “all under Heaven.”According to Laozi, all authority originates with a timeless mystical force called “The Way.” Although the Way cannot be directly perceived, its effects can be observed in nature. While everything in nature spontaneously follows the Way, a ruler who is a “sage man” must move ahead cautiously as he constantly feels his way through the paradoxical flow of yin and yang [darkness and light, passive and active, feminine and masculine] that emanates from the Way.This is a fairly literal translation of the Daodejing. It doesn’t project later philosophical or religious beliefs back onto the 2500 year old text. Instead, it approaches the text from an anthropological perspective and retains all of Laozi’s allusions to the social norms, animistic beliefs, and religious practices of the Ancient Chinese during the Spring and Autumn period.

The "Daodejing" ("Tao Te Ching") was originally compiled over 2500 years ago in what is now northwestern central China. This new translation of Laozi's "Daodejing" attempts to present a fairly literal rendering of the short, ancient Classical Chinese text. The version of the "Daodejing" used here is the standard "received" text included in the young scholar Wang Bi's third century commentary. The entire Classical Chinese text is presented line by line, from right to left, on pages facing the lines of English translation. This translation differs from the dozens of previous translations (and hundreds of adaptations) of the "Daodejing" in that it does not project later cultural or religious beliefs back onto the text. It does not add words in order to explain away those portions of the text that reflect ideas or beliefs that are not compatible with a modern, "enlightened" worldview. Instead, footnotes are provided when necessary to explain how the book's 81 poems reflect the ancient customs and religious practices of Ancient China during what is known as "The Warring States Period." All of the book's poems are concerned with the mystical life force Laozi calls the "Way" or a related, resonating personal force he calls "Virtue." The poems have an intimate, knowing tone to them and touch on many of the concerns of Laozi's day. There are myriad universal deities to be honored and spirits in nature to be considered. There are the friendly spirits of ancestors to be cared for and the unfriendly ghosts of ancestors to be avoided. There are farmers, craftsman, soldiers, and aristocrats to be dealt with, and robbers, madmen, and itinerant philosophers to be on the alert for. There are treaties to be made and battles to be fought. Laozi good-naturedly instructs the reader on how the Way gives rise to Heaven, Earth, mankind, and the "ten thousand things." Through the poems, he attempts to describe the indescribable: the Way's mysterious action-without-action and its effect on those who trust in it enough to let it guide their lives.