Thursday, June 17, 2010

Tao Te Ching Chapter 40-5 Chien yen?


Today's Tao

Therefore, the Chien yen has it. (Ch.40)


According to Osamu Kanaya, Chien yen, 建言 [ken gen] in Japanese, means "saying one's opinion clearly, therefore, it means the maxims that can be a model". (Roshi 老子, [Lao Tzu], p136)

According to Gao Heng 高亨, Chien yen is supposed to be the title of an old book. («Tao: A New Way of Thinking», Chang Chung-yuan)

Unfortunately, there is no genuinely original text of Tao Te Ching.

Comments written by later hands are mixed with the original, and even the specialists are not able to perfectly distinguish Lao Tzu's writings from others'.

Inevitably, the teachings written with pure spirituality were tarnished by academic analyses.

On the other hand, Master Dogen's «Shobogenzo» has not been modified by anyone. That's why I want to use the book as a reliable guide.

The truth must be one. It doesn't matter whether they call it Zen or Tao.


«Related Articles»
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-Laughable Tao 40-3
-If not laughable 40-4
-Chien yen? 40-5
-Evident = Vague 40-6
-Advance = Retreat 40-7
-Smooth = Tangled 40-8
-Highest attainment = Valley 40-9
-Lacking 40-10
-Lazy 40-11
-Changing 40-12
-White = Black 40-13
-Square without corners 40-14
-No completion 40-15
-No voice 40-16
-No form 40-17
-Hidden with no name 40-18
-Generosity 40-19
-Tao by Matsumoto / Tao Te Ching / Chapter 40


Tao answers your question!



-I hope that people who are capable of reading both English and Japanese will agree with me. Not all the good books have been translated from one language to the other. On the other hand, it is amazing how many less important books have been translated. To work on this Tao by Matsumoto video blog, I owe a lot to these two authors, Osamu Kanaya and Fumio Masutani. None of their works seem to have been translated into English. At least, their books in Enlish are not available at Amazon. If you can read in Japanese, please check Fumio Masutani's «Shobogenzo». You can imagine how embarrassed the English translators of this important spiritual heritage in Japanese will be if they read it.

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