The introduction to the Tao Te Ching was very informative background information before getting started reading the first 40 “philosophies”. I was able to better understand Taoism with it being compared to other schools of philosophy such as the Legalist school and Confucianism. It was fairly easy to pick up on some major themes throughout the text such as humility, selflessness, and balance. As apart of class preparation for today we were also supposed to look into the Yin Yang symbol. After an exploration of Yin and Yang, text 28 seemed to be a direct reference to Yin and Yang. The Yin part of the symbol is associated with the female, black, and the spirit aspect of things while the Yang is associated with the male, white, and the “form” of things, which makes sense that text 28 says, “know the male, maintain the female” and “know the white, sustain the black”. Since the symbol is all about balance, it comes as no surprise that the text says ,“return to simplicity” because simplicity breed balance.
Another text that spoke deeply to me was text 33. I really liked how this what was all about having a relationship with yourself. I feel like this text is trying to tell people that, “Knowing others is intelligent. Knowing yourself is enlightened” because if you know yourself then you can better interact with others which helps them. In the last lines a part of me also thinks that the text is telling people to enjoy selfless lives because if you do then your “life will endure” even after death. This then constitutes a selfless act, which is what Taoism seems to be centered around.
https://www.ancient.eu/Yin_and_Yang/
3 replies on “Tao Te Ching and Yin Yang 1/27”
Karlye, I thought your blog here about Yin-Yang was insightful. I found many of the same concepts interesting. I think text 28 demonstrates the balance of the yin-yang and does so not only in the explicit text but also in the pattern of the poem itself. Text 33 is also contains very explicit statements. These explicit statements helped me understand Taoism and its principles/philosophies more than the poems with the “riddles” as we touched on in class. Do you think this is one of the reasons you might have identified more with these poems?
Cassidy, thank you for the comment and your thoughts! To answer your question, I do think that there is a specific type of allure to these two texts that made me identify with them more. I think that your observation about the actual shape and pattern of text 28 itself demonstrates the balance of the yin-yang. This however did make me think about different translations of the text and if maybe different translations would yield different shapes that weren’t as “balanced”. Just food for thought.
Delighted to see this blog post generating discussion!