Understand Chinese -- Dao De Jing Introduction

This is an introduction about Dao De Jing to some of my friends who speak English.

Dao De Jing is the core culture and philosophy of Chinese. If you dont understand Dao De Jing, you will never understand Chinese or Chinese Culture. I believe you will accept this after you read my text.

Dao De Jing is a famous book (or paper?) written 2500 years ago. We believe it was written by Laozi. But who know, many thing was lost in the river of the history. But anyway, almost every phrase of Dao De Jing is an idiom for Chinese. It is part of the DNA of Chinese culture. As a Chinese, he/she may not know they come from Dao De Jing, but he/she just use it. He may not understand or accept the idea of Dao De Jing. But they follow the pattern defined in it. You will understand what I mean after you read my text.

My English is quite limit. But fortunately, Dao De Jing is written in original Chinese character. It makes use of the original meaning of words. I dont need to know high level English culture and philosophy to explain to you and you dont need Chinese background either.

Understand "Dao"

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You may have already heard about "Dao" in other text which talks about Chinese culture. In many of this text, "Dao" is linked to some mysterious stuff, such as "Qi" or "Spirit". But the original meaning of Dao is quite simple. "Dao" means route or way. A route or a way can lead you to the destination. So "Dao" is used to refer to the reality or the best way to achieve a goal. We dont really know how the reality is going to happen. But we do see its pattern by watching the track of how things happen. We saw it again and again. But when we try to catch it, it just moves away in the last minute.

Dao De Jing try to explain why. As its first sentence, it says "道可道，非常道。名可名，非常名"。If I translate it word by word directly, it says "Dao can be Dao-ed, but it is not the general Dao. Name can be named, but it is not the general Name".

Laozi explains that Dao can be caught. But it is not in the way you expect. The major reason is the name. We talk about something or even we think about something with names. But names are just names, they are not Dao. From the very beginning, maybe they match Dao. But when thing move on, Dao will leave it.

When you name something is good. Everything try to be good. Many good is no good. Good "Dao" will leave the name "good".

We may be aware that name is not Dao. But we may not be aware that name even not name the major part of Dao. Name is just naming the "problem" of Dao. When we say something "good", it is just because there is something "bad". We say something "long", it is just because there is something "short"(and cannot fulfill your requirement). If everything is "good", the name is not there. So there is a big part of Dao exist, but you dont name it. Therefore you may not even be aware of it. Name is not the way to solve the problem. The name itself is the problem. Being is another name of Non-being.

Laozi give an example, he says: When the system leave Dao, you see (or are aware of) good. When the system leave good, you see "very good". When the system leave very good, you see "very very good". In a real good system, everybody take their own position, nobody is "good", they just do their own duty. If you see somebody is "good", it means there is something really bad happening. People should try to solve the problem, not try to make good "very good". "Bad" is the reason of "Good". Name is the problem itself.

We can never talk or think of Dao without name. But we have to know they are just names. And when you make the name public, people will try to redefine the name to make sure they themselves are in the positive part of the name. So Dao will then leave the name. You cannot reach Dao by this way.

The reader may have be aware why Dao is linked to the mysterious stuff. Not everybody can feel Dao through names. They cheat or persuade others or themselves they are naming the Dao. But they just lost the track of Dao and are bound to the name.

Name is a trap when you try to catch Dao. To avoid the trap, Laozi said you should catch the problem behind the name. You should dig out the parent of the name until you find the original problem of the name itself. So dont believe any "theory". Theory is the flower of names. It looks beautiful. But it is a trap to drag you out of the track of Dao. Try to do something help to solve the problem, dont try to fix the problem by arguing on or redefining the name.

So now you know Dao De Jing is not a book about a theory to ask you to believe. Dao De Jing is a book to tell you not to believe and keep track of Dao.

It is a theory of non-theory. Yes, it is still a theory, but you catch only its name as soon as you take it as a theory:)

Understand De

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Dao De Jing is talking about Dao and De. (Jing means a classical book. For example, We call Bible as Sr. Jing in Chinese.)

After explaining the non-theory of Dao, Laozi also explained how to use it. Dao De Jing is a book written to the King. Laozi told how to be a good King. He gave another name to name this kind of King. He called him Sheng Ren, which can be understood literally as "The best of all". I will call him the ONE in this blog.

The ONE may not be the King finally. It can be anyone who intends to follow Dao and reach his/her destination.

The ONE own the country, or the organization, or the team. But wait, what is "own"? You have a gun with 6 bullets in your pocket. Do you own the gun? "Yes!" maybe you would declare: "I bought it from the shop with my own money. And Id also got a license from the government." But can you prove it is really yours? OK, now you draw it out and shoot. Maybe you think every shot prove you really own the gun. But after that, do you still "own" it?

"Own" is just a "name"! It is your burden rather than your benefit in some way. It wont help you very much. If you be the King, is it you who own the gun or your soldier own the gun? It doesnt matter. Your position is more important than the fact that you own it. The whole world belong to you if it move as you want it to.

So the ONE move forward by helping the whole system to move forward. He help the system without awareness. So the strategy of the ONE is "Do Nothing". "Do Nothing" means he do a lot but you are just not aware of it. You do as he expect but you feel it is you yourselves want to do it.

So the ONE cannot be clever (in the global name space), because the others will not be clever if he is clever. The ONE cannot be smart, because the others will not be smart if he is smart. He initiate the task when the task is not worthy to gain a "name", and he leave the task to the other when the other come to take the name.

The ONE try to unify all the argument as a acceptable goal for everyone to join. So the system will become big. If the system become big, the system will become good, and then become the Dao itself, and you wont see the name any more.

Laozi also said it would definitely remain some hatred when merging big conflict. Then who should take the name of the hatred? The only choice is the ONE. The one who bear the name of the hatred can bear the world. And the one who bear the world, the world will rely on him. The world rely on him so he own the most "De".

So the ONE gathers no "fortune" or "power", he gathers "De". When the system expanded finally, he become part of the system. Everyone is "good". But nobody is aware it is good. And nobody is aware the ONE is good. But he is just good.

This is the best status of a smart and clever Chinese looking for. The best man do not have a good name. The best theory is non-theory. The best way to do it is just doing it without argument (do nothing).

Some Chinese may not understand this, but some strategy is built inside their DNA. For example, most of Chinese do not want to stay in the center of awareness, do not want to be focus. They dont know why, they just feel bad in that pattern.

Some foreigners told me that you Chinese have no believing. No, you are wrong. We do believe something. But we dont force others to believe it. We believe human being have the same requirement and we can find a way to cooperate. Just as Laozi said, the best strategy of fighting is that we dont need to fight. So for the war between country, we always set a general and a vice general. The vice general is responsible for fight while the general is responsible for peace. War is not the destination, peace is.

And again, all these are still names. When you do it, it is not just as it looks like. But if you follow the track of Dao, you will know you are on the right way.