wayne

Interesting. Based on the Complementarity of opposites, I have taken the following interpretation for "谷神": This verse is often interpreted as “The spirit of the valley never dies.” We have identified Spirit 谷 and God 神 as two opposite modes of Tao. 谷 (Valley) and 鬼 (Spirit) are used interchangeably. Spirit (鬼) and God (神) is a pair of opposites, as used in Chapter 39 and 60. Therefore, Valley is taken to be the opposite of God. and "玄牝" as "The Profound Source/Resource 玄牝 remains as wholeness, without differentiation. It is the source for heaven and earth or the myriad things." note: Profound (玄) - is associated with a state without distinctive separation of Wu and Yu. The state cannot be clearly and distinctively described. My published translation is: The Spirit and God never die. They are the profound source for the myriad things The door of the profound source is the root for heaven and earth. Ceaseless and perceptible, it functions without exhaustion. This is based on the "Oneness of Tao."

I think your interpretation of “观” is very good because it erase the distinction between the subject and the object. Now it has the combined meaning of "looking" and "showing." [i have used "showing" in my translation.] Do you have a reference for this definition that I can refer to in my future work? 對不起,我寫繁體中文。因為用手寫板,有時不方便。我想第一章現在可以完整多了。

It is interesting and surprising to read my responses more than two years ago! The situation is much more clear now about the relationship between reality and experiences. Our experiences, if not correlated properly, will appear to be mysterious. It is normal and expected that Tao, or any other reality, will appear mysterious in the way that quantum effects will appear mysterious within classical mecahnaics. Anyway if there is new discusiions, I will have more time now. Wayne

The best thing I have learned was the way quantum theory breaking all our dualistic thinking; I used it in my Ph.D. thesis. My real personal education in philosophy, mostly Tao, formally started in 2000 by interpreting the Tao te Ching. It took a solid 5 years! Ever since, Tao, and the early Greek and the Buddhist philosophy, have become part of my life. All I have leanred can be summarized in one same fundamental Principle of Oneness . I have to overcome the fact that people don't like theory. But a theory is a good way to guide our mind to understand the intrinsic "mysteries" of Tao. I was really surprised to see the young age of the group members. It is a good sign that people search for meaning at younger age. I was lucky to have the best formal education but life has to be learned personally.

Hi. I have been away from any forum for many years because I was working on the interpretation and theory of Tao philosophy after my first book, The Dynamic Tao and Its Manifestations (Amazon.com). Now I believe that Tao philosophy can be presented with "a theory." The Basic Theory was published a few years ago and now I feel comfortable to say it is on a sound framework. I have just updated my website with the basic "Principle of Oneness" as [book2] in the site - www.dynamictao.com. The book has been in progress for the past few years and will take a while to finish, but I will add some information whenever there is a need. Wayne

In this paper, we show that the intrinsic structure of Tao philosophy may be expressed in two levels of state or reality: the classical states and the actual states. The classical states refer to our experiences with the world of appearances and the actual states to realities in a transcendental domain. The classical and actual states are related, mathematically or symbolically, to form a Principle of Oneness 太一定律。 This principle is clearly exemplified in the relationship between Wu 無 and Yu 有, and it is a fundamental characteristic of Tao philosophy. Our Basic Theory of Tao Philosophy is built on this principle. Following this principle, we discuss a Process of Actualization 實現程序 as a way to seek harmony in Tao in various domains and states. We show that Tao philosophy shares a common pattern of truth with many other ancient and modern philosophies. Our analysis is based on the Tao Te Ching, but the result is general and may serve as a possible step in developing a systematic framework for a Contemporary Tao Philosophy 當代新道家。 Theory_of_Tao_Philosophy_distribution.pdf

I have found the book by Dalai Lama "The Universe in a Single Atom" very interetsing. He talk about Buddhism and quantum theory and relativity. He is really a great religious leader who is open to scientific thinking. This is an important event. We have one step in the right direction. In 2004, I wrote my book (Dynamic Tao and Its Manifestation) relating Tao philosophy to quantum theory and relativity. It was a personal observation that quantum theory and Tao philosophy have very similar non-dualistic thinking. For the first time, Tao philosophy was linked to quantum cosmology! After Dalai Lama's book, I hope more people will accept the fact that we can understand Tao at a deeper level by revisiting modern sciences. Of course, not all scientific phenomena can be blindly applied to Tao, but we have a good start. Wayne

Cloud, I have used QM heavily in my old day on nuclear theory. There has been a lot of progress and are less mysterious in a few aspects. I am re-visiting QM and am finding more. The basic QM that are familiar to us are already sufficient to put Tao philosophy on a clearer horizon. In the future, I will add info into my website when I get my control back in a few weeks. (It is being moved to a permanent site.) I am glad that there have been more acceptance of discussing Tao with sciences. We are really recovering our cost in science education! [by the way, some college students already like the book, as their textbook.] Wayne

Cloud, Aren't all religions follow a similar pattern of thinking? For example, we all look alike in certain way, so there is superbeing who represents all of us in a mysterious way. This is probably much older than quantum theory. When we have to deal with "truths" at different levels, it may be convenient to invoke quantum theory in the discussion since quantum theory is supposed to have been understood in a consistent way by all people by now. It becomes a common language to deal with other common pattern of thinking. As I have proposed in my book, we may use quantum theory as an example of how we can free our self from the classical dualistic thinking so we can think holistically. If we can think holistically, we can re-construct a "logical" view as proposed by Laotzu in his Tao Te Ching. We can then learn some principles in his books. This doesn't mean that quantum theory prove Tao philosophy correct! All we can say is that Tao philosophy can be logicaly and cosistently interpreted if we have a non-dualistic "mode of thinking" as we have learnt in quantum theory. Actually this non-dualistic mode of thinking is required to understand many other things. One good thing is that our view of our inner world may be consistent with our view of the external world (and vice versa). Just to share some more thought on this. Wayne

Cloud, I have not read Ken book and have no actual knowledge of how mysticism is believed. But here is my current thinking about quantum and mysticism. Quantum theory shows that there is a level of reality that is beyond our daily experiences. That level is not accessible to us directly, but we can perceive it in various forms as our experiences (like experimental measurements). The set of experiences (measuremsnts) are related in certain way (as in the quantum theory). The individual experiences as correlated by the theory also represent realities. I consider the experiences are real, but they must be correlated under another level of reality. I can imagine a set of belief that we are experiencing somthing real in this world that is a result of something else not in this world. At the conceptual level, this is consistent with the way we formulate quantum theory. Is this the base of mysticism? Maybe the difference is in how we vaildate the experiences in a mystic world. This is probably farther than what I should venture into, with my very limited mystic knowledge. Wayne

Hi, Sean, In the Preface of my book, I used quantum conceptual brekthrough as a example to free us from dualistic thinking. We have been very succesful in doing that in sciences. But The Theory of Dynamic Tao described in the book is based solely on the words of Laotzu. There is a great similarity in the way of their "non-dualistic" thinking. This non-dualistic approach is taken by Quantum Theory, Theory of Relativity, Cosmology. Wherever we break ourselves free from dualistic thinking, we make real progress. Holographic phenomena is a result of such a thinking. Many quantum phenomena are results of non-dualistic thinking. So, the phenomena themeslve are only by-products. What we can learn from modern science is to think non-dualistically when we encounter mysteries of life, like Tao. Then Tao Philosophy can be interpreted consistently and become useful. "Excessive" consolidation between Tao and quantum theory may confuse us again. Sometime free speculation is useful, when we have an anchoring base. The purpose of my book was to show a consistent and coherent interpretation, so we can have a Principle of Tao and can really make use of Tao in our daily life. This is discussed in my book as the Theory and The Architecure of Tao. Now I have further simplify it in my newly proposed The Principle of Oneness, which is again based only on Chapter One of the Tao Te Ching, with little speculation. [i am not yet familiar with what are discussed in various threads - should we move this to somewhere else? Is there enough interest to create a separate thread for this?] Wayne

Hi. All, Just to say Hi to all in this nice forum. I have been studying the Tao Te Ching for about 7 years now. Published a translation with a preface that basically states that Tao mystery can be systematically understood. I first believe that Laotzu was a normal philosopher and never intended to confuse people. My recent reports are (1) there is a basic theory in Tao philosophy and (2) the principle of Oneness is the core of Tao philosophy. Both papers are to be reviewed and published in conference proceedings. My website Dynamic Tao has more info. Currently I am spending a lot of time looking at Buddhism and some modern Western philosophers, particulary Whitehead. There seems to be a "universal" philosophy emerging. Rather intrigging. My study of the early Greek philosophers and Heidegger is temporarily put on hold. I am not at all into Taoism as a religion. Tai Chi is a good way to get into the flow of Tao principle. Maybe someday i will pick it up. I live not far from Lombard, IL where there is a Tai Chi group (listed in this website.0 Just enough as an introduction of myself. Wayne