Steve Bokenkamp's Taoism FAQ

The following is a the text of a posting to the (defunct) Taoism-L mailing list.

10 Oct 1993 Taoism-L FAQs -- Some Answers: John Wiegley writes: >I do have one question for the Taoists here. From what I've >understood, isn't a discussion list about Taoism a >contradiction? To which Peter responds: >This is a very frequently asked question... >Other frequently asked questions are: and appends a very nice list of FAQs about Taoism: >What's the best translation of Lao Tse? >What's the best translation of Chuang Tse? >What are the major schools of Taoist thought? >How do they differ from one another? >How does Taoism differ from Zen? >What does the first line of ttc chapter 1 mean? >What does enlightenment mean? >What does ineffable mean? >What does meaning mean? >Do you have to speak Chinese to understand Taoism? >Do you have to be a sage to understand Taoism? >and not to forget our latest and greatest: >Why is everybody so unkind? :-) Long, long ago, in a net far, far away, a Buddhist scholar, Richard Hayes (a man possessed of more good humor than good sense), tried to answer the FAQs of Buddhism. I want to attempt the same with respect to Peter's helpful list: "What's the best translation of Lao-tzu?" That's simple, the _Tao-te Ching_. Among the works that Lao-tzu translated, his translation of the _Bhagavad Gita_, with the Chinese title "Tao-te ching," remains far and away the best. If you don't believe me, a humble scholar, just read Victor H. Mair's translation into English of Lao-tzu's translation into Chinese of the _Bhagavad Gita_. "What's the best translation of Chuang-tzu?" So far as I know, and I may be wrong, Chuang-tzu never translated anything. He was too busy dreaming of butterflies and trying to deconstruct his own death. "What are the major schools of Taoist thought?" The French and the Japanese. "How do they differ from one another?" The French school tends to more mystical explanations of the Tao. They are interested in visualizations (such as imagining that you are at coffee-shop on the Cote d'Azur when you are in fact teaching a seminar on a rainy Paris day) and in esoteric explanations of the gross sounds your body makes when you meditate past suppertime. The Japanese tend to more practical explanations. They are wonderful bibliographers, indexers, and masters of textual filiation. To Japanese scholars goes the task of demonstrating conclusively that all Taoism is in fact a sleazy Chinese imitation of Buddhism. (And *not* just of the _Bhagavad Gita_.) "How does Taoism differ from Zen?" Not at all. (See the previous FAQ.) "What does the first line of TTC chapter 1 mean?" "O Sanjaya, assembled together on the sacred plain of Kurukshetra and being desirous to fight, what did my people and the Pandavas do?" (I didn't say that Lao-tzu was a GOOD translator, just a popular one.) "What does enlightenment mean?" The answer, of course, differs according to school. For the French it means something like "acute awareness of hunger." For the Japanese, it is difficult to explain just what it might mean, but it is certain that enlightenment occurs in contemplation of a well-constructed diagram of textual filiation. "What does ineffable mean?" You've lost me. Does this have anything to do with Taoism? (Yes, that's about what it means...) "What does meaning mean?" Here we must examine the ground of the question. Questioning the meaning of meaning was a game that Lao-tzu invented to cover up the fact that he was not a very good translator. By the rules of this game, meaning meant what Lao-tzu wanted it to mean and he's dead now. "Do you have to speak Chinese to understand Taoism?" No, but you must speak either French or Japanese. If you speak both French and Japanese, on the other hand, you will implode. This is what happened to Hun-tun. "Do you have to be a sage to understand Taoism?" Do you have to be a sage to understand French? Japanese? As Mark Twain remarked with regard to one or another of them, "kids do it!" It would be better, of course, just to begin studying Sanskrit and give up this Taoist fantasy of yours. Go to the source, that's my advice. "Why is everyone so unkind?" Well, we were all observing perfect Taoist silence...until YOU came along! "Isn't a discussion list about Taoism a contradiction?" Only if you have to play by Lao-tzu's rules... Can we start a FAQ-file now? That way we won't have to answer any of these questions ever again. --Steve Bokenkamp (BOKENKAM@UCS.INDIANA.EDU)