For those of you interested in studying Taoism, I have a blog post discussing the books I recommend for you all to read. Check them out here jasongregory.org/books-for-studying-taoism/
Thank you for watching and appreciating it my friend. Any chance I have to present Alan's wisdom I will. He has been a tremendous influence in my life. May his work live on forever.
As a chinese myself... i support Lao Tzu more than Confucius too. Actually to keep in modern term.. Lao Tzu teaches to flow with fate. Dont fight against fate. Even Bruce Lee use Lao Tzu's words of "Be like water". Be like water is also Lao Tzu's teaching of flow with nature, flow with your fate/ course of life. Even also Taichi (The martial arts form) is using this as base. Use softness to counter hardness. Stillness to counter Action. Using retreat as a form of attack.
That's awesome to hear brother. A lot of people in Asia these days scoff at the wisdom of Lao-tzu. But through people like yourself the old master's wisdom is making a comeback because it will never go away.
Im not young anymore. Hahaha... Im not mainland China CHinese. Im a Singaporean. Confucius view is more human centred. Thats why when he see a tree, he see a chair. "I" mentality. Lao Tzu view is more agape. Thats why when he see a tree, he only see a tree. As it is. "We" mentality.
Not to be too incredibly real but how does that track living under a government like yours? As a lifelong lover of the Tao this has never ceased to be a back and forth ponderance of mine, the balance of peace and resistance within oneself.
THANK YOU soooo much for speaking about "enlightenment today" (no need to capitalize the best and most ordinary). This one is honoring yin (the receptive) & moving towards being enlightened each and every day.... every moment my soul/essence/chi has a choice regarding which was to go. Peace is so sweet!
Great explanation, and I appreciate that you bring up Kon Tiki because the first time I read about it in a normal history book they just were concerned with the external achievement, still inspiring, but your input here has brought it to life for me once again with the trust and Tao element, of completely surrendering to the way and being as nature. 🌞
An interesting fact: Theres a short period Ancient China history where was rule by almost complete Taoism. Han WenDi (Son of Han Dynasty Liu Bang) and son of WeiDi: Han JingDi. Both Han WenDi and his wife Lady Dou were supporter of Daoism. Lady Dou is against over exploitation on nature and other resources. She stricted on self control(Daoism) over controlling others (Confucism). She educate frugal living from the top: a type of self control she learn from Daoism. She's a strong supporter of Dao De Jing. With Frugality from Han WenDi and Lady Dou, they able to greatly lowen the taxes from their citizens and give the people a chance of having financial growth. Both Han WenDi and Lady Dou extreme frugality, led to a belief that over-control on citizen will lead to planting a seed of hatred and rebel from the citizen. Han Wen Di and Lady Dou led a short period of economic growth and social peace. When Han WenDi died, Lady Dou pass the Daoism based rule to her son Han JingDi. 2 generation of Daoism frugality, non-materialistic life from the top and self control rule in the Han Dynasty led China to be rich in war rations, rich in financial reserve and social peace. But Han Wen Di didnt do nothing too. He input Confucism idea of Filial piety in his life too. His idea is..on national level use Daoism rule, on personal individual lives use Confucism rule. But Han JingDi's son Han WenDi remove Daoism rule to control-freak Confucism rule. It brings military like rule. It was good in the begining, but when Han WuDi turn supersitious at old age..the confucism rule slowly corrode under him. Confucism rule do not educate frugal living which leads to official able to collect wealth, accept bribe, burns the country financial reserve and exploit nature more for warfare. History repeats smiliar again thousand years later by the manchurian's Qing Dynasty. Emperor KangXi exercise Mozi's agape love to ideas from non-manchurian. He accepted Russian cannon technology, Christian western medicine, Western sciences and etc. His son YongZheng exercise frugality and self control. Under Qianlong time, China become the country with the highest GDP in the world at that time. But Qianlong ruin it by being materialistic, spendthrift and kills KangXi's Agape love rule. Persecute Christians and reject all western sciences. The fall of China begins with QianLong. Another dynasty that has hints of Daoism rule was the early to mid period of Tang Dynasty, they exercise Agape Love in ideas too. More than half of the rules, prime ministers and generals of Tang Dynasty are mixed blood or non Han Chinese. Even a female emperor appears in Tang Dynasty. Tang Dynasty even have fashion on extreme low collar clothes to expose part of the breast of women as a mainstream fashion on the rich and middle income class. Fat women was in fashion. Though Laozi's Frugal and self control living is not very enforced in Tang Dynasty but Mozi's Agape Love in culture and ideas was strong enough to make China rich. Agape Love makes the Han Chinese at that time so liberal minded and more tolerant to foreign culture and idea. It leads to alot of Han Chinese become freethinkers. This even attarct Japan to send students to Tang China to learn and copy them. More of Japan culture were learn from Han WenDi- Han JingDi rule and largely on Tang Dynasty Agape Love rule. So if Daoism rule is followed carefully, it will make the nation rich not just financially, but brings social peace, non religonous and less exploitation in Nature.
FINALLY!! Someone who understands the need for people to relax & stop "constantly stoking the fire" aggressively pursuing Industrial Over-Production/ Consumption /Technology Development without prioritising renewable resource raw materials. ....however, any parent knows that it is nature at work that anyone who becomes a parent.guardian, responsible for a child's survival, can't remain unchanged by needing to create a realistic batman costume out of a binbag with 5mins warning.
I feel like the two forces are both natural and necessary. The growing force needs the breaking down and dispersive force is to help strengthen or disperse the strong or weak for evolvement of everything. Everything is trying to survive with an opposing force that's helping it strengthen. If it's to weak it will disperse it and feed it into another source.
Jason, have you read the Hua Hu Ching? There's a story about it being verbally passed down. From an english speaker point of view, out of the Tao te ching translations, the I Ching, etc, I've found the Hua Hu Ching to be the easiest to read and grasp. Excellent presentation here. This should be required viewing/ reading in all schools. The world or humans would be in a better place.
Yes, I have read it my friend and it is essential for anyone interested in Eastern thought/Taoism. I will likely make a video about it in the future, on top of a bunch of other ones I need to get through.
To translate the Tao Te Ching ... You will need the six ancient manuscripts, available online: Guodian (c. 300 BCE,) Mawang Dui A and B (c. 200 BCE,) Heshang Gong (c. 150 BCE,) Wang Bi (c. 150 CE,) and Fu Yi (c. 500 CE.) Type in the search field, Onkellotus Tao Te Ching manuscripts. Click on daodejing - listed. Then scroll down to number 19, just after LINKS. Click on it, Das Tao Te King von Lao Tse. The six ancient manuscripts are atop. The foreign translations are next, in descending order. The English translations are the bottom third of the page. This page is crucial because it contains the six ancient manuscripts at the top of this page. You will need the MDBG Chinese-English dictionary. You can type in the pinyin (the letters that represent the characters,) or even better, copy paste the Chinese characters into the dictionary search field. Very easy to use! You will need zhongwen.com/daodejing. This resource will give you archaic meanings and is a good complement to your MDBG resource. Just click on 1-10 or 11-20 and so forth, then scroll to the poem you're working on, then click on the character you want information on, and it will appear in the column on the right of it at the top. This resource is particularly good for archaic meanings, as well as for giving you a breakdown as to the meaning of each character you click on.
thanks Jason! but I ching is quite different course and without a skilful teacher we cannot understand it. The other main books of Taoist philosophy in my view are: Chuang Tzu, Huai Nan Tzu, Wen Tzu and Lieh Tzu ! To be honest books written by Alan Watts, Thomas Cleary, Red Pine and Derek Lin are great!
Is there also a Taoist philosopher called Lee Tsu? I was listening to a talk by Osho the other day and he said that the three main Taoist philosophers were Lao tzu, Chuang tzu and Lee tzu (I might be spelling his name wrong). Please let me know if you've heard of him or if I'm mistaken. Thanks for your videos, I've learned something and really enjoyed them. You've also given me knew books to Discover, Many thanks.
I'm glad you enjoy my show my friend. The Taoist Osho is referring to is Lieh-tzu (Liezi in Pinyin romanization). The Lieh-tzu is actually a text attributed to Lie Yukou in the Warring States period of China. So he is commonly called Lieh-tzu and so is the text left behind. There are not many translations of the Lieh-tzu out there, but the most popular one is by Eva Wong. Here is a link www.amazon.com/dp/1570628998/
Thanks Jason, (I thought you'd know who I was refering to :). Watched quite a few of your videos over the past few days and have really enjoyed them. I've also bookmarked many of the books which you recommend so that I can pick them up over the next wee while. I'm finding more and more ease, enjoyment and "flow state" type pleasure arising in my own life when I align myself more with the Laotsian/Chuangtsian way of being as opposed to trying to force myself to "get things done" in a hurried + exasperated fashion as I used to. It's strange how seemingly antithetical this way of being/doing is with the modern primarily western way of doing things which relies on a kind of brute force "I need to get this done" approach. Many people around me think I'm strange now as I don't tend to rush around as much with the same competitive drive that most people have been conditioned to believe in religiously.... Anyway, I can feel myself beginning to go off on a tangent so I'll stop pouring now before my cup is full. Thanking you again, I'll check in with your channel again in the future to see if any new videos have been uploaded. Peace and love Brother.
Hi Jason, Love your videos. I had a question wrt to trust. How do we trust everyone when we know that people can hurt you? And when I say hurt, I mean abuse and assault. I just can't fathom trusting everyone.
One of the few more accurate discussions about Lao Tzu's Tao. None of the classic Chinese texts can be understood without an appreciation of its social, philosophical or cultural contexts, which is the mistake made by 99% of Western interpretations. The translation of Chinese to English is also very critical to accuracy. Finally, many of these texts cannot be understood by merely thinking about them. A student has to involve themselves in Martial Arts and then apply these in context to the actual skill of combat, ie Close Protection in high risk environments to fully master the context. Otherwise it's just becomes 1st class Bullshit.
I am yinyang half pilipino half Chinese I am half man half woman, i am half good half bad,i am hard and soft,i am positive and negative,i am knowledge and ignorance, i am hot and cold the coldness place is in my back the opposite of the heart....i am duality I am magical and for me life is full of mistery ..i am devoted christians but i grow very differently like full of struggles then on my own way i can easily solve my own struggles ,i born differently because i am not a simple person ,my thoughts,my emotions,my words are powerful ,i asking a lot of peo i seek a lot of religions to find an answer to my own questions no one answered me first questions there is a sign numbers for me the seven and 44,77,777 7777, 1111, number 55 is the number of enemy seven is my guidance angel 44 is nimber of yinyang .
Santana dharma the eteranl laws or path or way and the eight limbs of yoga .... talk a lot about what the Tao and Buddhism And confusious talk about ! Wonder what you think ? Namaste !
Can somebody explain the need for a justice system if the way of Tao says to let nature be? Those with say, brain disorders, that are a risk to society can not just be left to be? That would create chaos would it not?
For those of you interested in studying Taoism, I have a blog post discussing the books I recommend for you all to read. Check them out here jasongregory.org/books-for-studying-taoism/
Jason Gregory I will definitely check that out
Excellent my friend.
Thank you so much for sharing this timeless wisdom with humani-team
♥️🕉️☮️☮️☮️♥️ Love and Peace
"Lao Tzu had become dissatisfied and he just wanted to leave and live his life as a hermit."
Yeah, I know the feeling.
Excellent presentation. Thank you for mentioning Alan Watts and his last work, TAO: The Watercourse Way.
Thank you for watching and appreciating it my friend. Any chance I have to present Alan's wisdom I will. He has been a tremendous influence in my life. May his work live on forever.
Great presentation! A movie should be made about Alan Watts' life. And I like Mitchell's translation out of the four I've read.
As a chinese myself... i support Lao Tzu more than Confucius too.
Actually to keep in modern term.. Lao Tzu teaches to flow with fate. Dont fight against fate.
Even Bruce Lee use Lao Tzu's words of "Be like water". Be like water is also Lao Tzu's teaching of flow with nature, flow with your fate/ course of life.
Even also Taichi (The martial arts form) is using this as base. Use softness to counter hardness. Stillness to counter Action. Using retreat as a form of attack.
That's awesome to hear brother. A lot of people in Asia these days scoff at the wisdom of Lao-tzu. But through people like yourself the old master's wisdom is making a comeback because it will never go away.
Im not young anymore. Hahaha... Im not mainland China CHinese. Im a Singaporean.
Confucius view is more human centred. Thats why when he see a tree, he see a chair.
"I" mentality.
Lao Tzu view is more agape. Thats why when he see a tree, he only see a tree. As it is.
"We" mentality.
Not to be too incredibly real but how does that track living under a government like yours?
As a lifelong lover of the Tao this has never ceased to be a back and forth ponderance of mine, the balance of peace and resistance within oneself.
dao de ching is my daily listen and practice, thanks for the lecture
THANK YOU soooo much for speaking about "enlightenment today" (no need to capitalize the best and most ordinary). This one is honoring yin (the receptive) & moving towards being enlightened each and every day.... every moment my soul/essence/chi has a choice regarding which was to go. Peace is so sweet!
Thanks Jason ! After reading these books, we can just take whatever book comes our way... as a daoist practice !
Great explanation, and I appreciate that you bring up Kon Tiki because the first time I read about it in a normal history book they just were concerned with the external achievement, still inspiring, but your input here has brought it to life for me once again with the trust and Tao element, of completely surrendering to the way and being as nature. 🌞
You always have great content and I really enjoy your channel. Thank you!!
An interesting fact: Theres a short period Ancient China history where was rule by almost complete Taoism.
Han WenDi (Son of Han Dynasty Liu Bang) and son of WeiDi: Han JingDi.
Both Han WenDi and his wife Lady Dou were supporter of Daoism. Lady Dou is against over exploitation on nature and other resources. She stricted on self control(Daoism) over controlling others (Confucism). She educate frugal living from the top: a type of self control she learn from Daoism. She's a strong supporter of Dao De Jing.
With Frugality from Han WenDi and Lady Dou, they able to greatly lowen the taxes from their citizens and give the people a chance of having financial growth. Both Han WenDi and Lady Dou extreme frugality, led to a belief that over-control on citizen will lead to planting a seed of hatred and rebel from the citizen.
Han Wen Di and Lady Dou led a short period of economic growth and social peace. When Han WenDi died, Lady Dou pass the Daoism based rule to her son Han JingDi. 2 generation of Daoism frugality, non-materialistic life from the top and self control rule in the Han Dynasty led China to be rich in war rations, rich in financial reserve and social peace.
But Han Wen Di didnt do nothing too. He input Confucism idea of Filial piety in his life too. His idea is..on national level use Daoism rule, on personal individual lives use Confucism rule.
But Han JingDi's son Han WenDi remove Daoism rule to control-freak Confucism rule. It brings military like rule. It was good in the begining, but when Han WuDi turn supersitious at old age..the confucism rule slowly corrode under him. Confucism rule do not educate frugal living which leads to official able to collect wealth, accept bribe, burns the country financial reserve and exploit nature more for warfare.
History repeats smiliar again thousand years later by the manchurian's Qing Dynasty. Emperor KangXi exercise Mozi's agape love to ideas from non-manchurian. He accepted Russian cannon technology, Christian western medicine, Western sciences and etc. His son YongZheng exercise frugality and self control. Under Qianlong time, China become the country with the highest GDP in the world at that time. But Qianlong ruin it by being materialistic, spendthrift and kills KangXi's Agape love rule. Persecute Christians and reject all western sciences. The fall of China begins with QianLong.
Another dynasty that has hints of Daoism rule was the early to mid period of Tang Dynasty, they exercise Agape Love in ideas too. More than half of the rules, prime ministers and generals of Tang Dynasty are mixed blood or non Han Chinese. Even a female emperor appears in Tang Dynasty. Tang Dynasty even have fashion on extreme low collar clothes to expose part of the breast of women as a mainstream fashion on the rich and middle income class. Fat women was in fashion.
Though Laozi's Frugal and self control living is not very enforced in Tang Dynasty but Mozi's Agape Love in culture and ideas was strong enough to make China rich. Agape Love makes the Han Chinese at that time so liberal minded and more tolerant to foreign culture and idea. It leads to alot of Han Chinese become freethinkers. This even attarct Japan to send students to Tang China to learn and copy them.
More of Japan culture were learn from Han WenDi- Han JingDi rule and largely on Tang Dynasty Agape Love rule.
So if Daoism rule is followed carefully, it will make the nation rich not just financially, but brings social peace, non religonous and less exploitation in Nature.
I feel like my studies of Chinese eastern wisdom has shaped my life. Great video!
FINALLY!! Someone who understands the need for people to relax & stop "constantly stoking the fire" aggressively pursuing Industrial Over-Production/ Consumption /Technology Development without prioritising renewable resource raw materials. ....however, any parent knows that it is nature at work that anyone who becomes a parent.guardian, responsible for a child's survival, can't remain unchanged by needing to create a realistic batman costume out of a binbag with 5mins warning.
I really really love this channel man thank you 🙏
Thank you dearly, Alex.
Thank you so much. You are a very great person.
You are a great person my friend. Thank you for your gratitude.
this is the most important topic !!!! Thanks for this :) :)
I feel like the two forces are both natural and necessary. The growing force needs the breaking down and dispersive force is to help strengthen or disperse the strong or weak for evolvement of everything. Everything is trying to survive with an opposing force that's helping it strengthen. If it's to weak it will disperse it and feed it into another source.
Love it. Thank you thank you thank you
Another awesome video brother! Thank you
Thank you brother.
Jason, have you read the Hua Hu Ching? There's a story about it being verbally passed down. From an english speaker point of view, out of the Tao te ching translations, the I Ching, etc, I've found the Hua Hu Ching to be the easiest to read and grasp.
Excellent presentation here. This should be required viewing/ reading in all schools. The world or humans would be in a better place.
Yes, I have read it my friend and it is essential for anyone interested in Eastern thought/Taoism. I will likely make a video about it in the future, on top of a bunch of other ones I need to get through.
@@JasonGregoryAuthor thank you kindly. You are doing great work.
Thank you. A lucid and interesting exposition.
You do not exist without the nature and the universe. You won't compete but move as the universe move.
Excellent!
Thank yo Surendran.
Love your presentations, thanks and I hope you keep posting :)
Thank you Douglas.
Good work jason
Thank you Sanchez.
great job
Thank you for your kind words my friend. I appreciate your gratitude.
Great job!
Thank you Irma. Hope you get a chance to watch more episodes.
Doing gods work. Keep the bar up champ!
Thank you.
To translate the Tao Te Ching ...
You will need the six ancient manuscripts, available online: Guodian (c. 300 BCE,) Mawang Dui A and B (c. 200 BCE,) Heshang Gong (c. 150 BCE,) Wang Bi (c. 150 CE,) and Fu Yi (c. 500 CE.)
Type in the search field, Onkellotus Tao Te Ching manuscripts. Click on daodejing - listed. Then scroll down to number 19, just after LINKS. Click on it, Das Tao Te King von Lao Tse. The six ancient manuscripts are atop. The foreign translations are next, in descending order. The English translations are the bottom third of the page. This page is crucial because it contains the six ancient manuscripts at the top of this page.
You will need the MDBG Chinese-English dictionary. You can type in the pinyin (the letters that represent the characters,) or even better, copy paste the Chinese characters into the dictionary search field. Very easy to use!
You will need zhongwen.com/daodejing. This resource will give you archaic meanings and is a good complement to your MDBG resource. Just click on 1-10 or 11-20 and so forth, then scroll to the poem you're working on, then click on the character you want information on, and it will appear in the column on the right of it at the top. This resource is particularly good for archaic meanings, as well as for giving you a breakdown as to the meaning of each character you click on.
thanks Jason! but I ching is quite different course and without a skilful teacher we cannot understand it. The other main books of Taoist philosophy in my view are: Chuang Tzu, Huai Nan Tzu, Wen Tzu and Lieh Tzu ! To be honest books written by Alan Watts, Thomas Cleary, Red Pine and Derek Lin are great!
Excellent. Thank you.
Thank you Ellen. I appreciate it.
You are great person and intelligent
Thank you for your kind words Krishna. I'm sure you are as well my friend. Best to you.
🙏🏼🙏🏼 great
Thank you Vinny.
If LaoTsu was so wise, why was he discontented with his home in the first place?
All I can see on that 3rd book cover is a huge smiley face.
Is there also a Taoist philosopher called Lee Tsu? I was listening to a talk by Osho the other day and he said that the three main Taoist philosophers were Lao tzu, Chuang tzu and Lee tzu (I might be spelling his name wrong).
Please let me know if you've heard of him or if I'm mistaken. Thanks for your videos, I've learned something and really enjoyed them. You've also given me knew books to Discover, Many thanks.
I'm glad you enjoy my show my friend. The Taoist Osho is referring to is Lieh-tzu (Liezi in Pinyin romanization). The Lieh-tzu is actually a text attributed to Lie Yukou in the Warring States period of China. So he is commonly called Lieh-tzu and so is the text left behind. There are not many translations of the Lieh-tzu out there, but the most popular one is by Eva Wong. Here is a link www.amazon.com/dp/1570628998/
Thanks Jason, (I thought you'd know who I was refering to :). Watched quite a few of your videos over the past few days and have really enjoyed them. I've also bookmarked many of the books which you recommend so that I can pick them up over the next wee while.
I'm finding more and more ease, enjoyment and "flow state" type pleasure arising in my own life when I align myself more with the Laotsian/Chuangtsian way of being as opposed to trying to force myself to "get things done" in a hurried + exasperated fashion as I used to.
It's strange how seemingly antithetical this way of being/doing is with the modern primarily western way of doing things which relies on a kind of brute force "I need to get this done" approach. Many people around me think I'm strange now as I don't tend to rush around as much with the same competitive drive that most people have been conditioned to believe in religiously.... Anyway, I can feel myself beginning to go off on a tangent so I'll stop pouring now before my cup is full.
Thanking you again, I'll check in with your channel again in the future to see if any new videos have been uploaded. Peace and love Brother.
Hi Jason,
Love your videos.
I had a question wrt to trust. How do we trust everyone when we know that people can hurt you? And when I say hurt, I mean abuse and assault. I just can't fathom trusting everyone.
Hey I'm not Jason but I've found you can totally trust those kinds of people, that is, trust them to be abusive and avoid them
One of the few more accurate discussions about Lao Tzu's Tao. None of the classic Chinese texts can be understood without an appreciation of its social, philosophical or cultural contexts, which is the mistake made by 99% of Western interpretations. The translation of Chinese to English is also very critical to accuracy. Finally, many of these texts cannot be understood by merely thinking about them. A student has to involve themselves in Martial Arts and then apply these in context to the actual skill of combat, ie Close Protection in high risk environments to fully master the context. Otherwise it's just becomes 1st class Bullshit.
I am yinyang half pilipino half Chinese
I am half man half woman, i am half good half bad,i am hard and soft,i am positive and negative,i am knowledge and ignorance, i am hot and cold the coldness place is in my back the opposite of the heart....i am duality
I am magical and for me life is full of mistery ..i am devoted christians but i grow very differently like full of struggles then on my own way i can easily solve my own struggles ,i born differently because i am not a simple person ,my thoughts,my emotions,my words are powerful ,i asking a lot of peo i seek a lot of religions to find an answer to my own questions no one answered me first questions there is a sign numbers for me the seven and 44,77,777 7777, 1111, number 55 is the number of enemy seven is my guidance angel 44 is nimber of yinyang .
Santana dharma the eteranl laws or path or way and the eight limbs of yoga .... talk a lot about what the Tao and Buddhism
And confusious talk about ! Wonder what you think ? Namaste !
Is it same that Jesus thought, when he say fret not about tomorrow?
Jesus and lao tzu have alot of compatibility in my awareness I think haha
Can somebody explain the need for a justice system if the way of Tao says to let nature be? Those with say, brain disorders, that are a risk to society can not just be left to be? That would create chaos would it not?
Confucianismo was wrong! All is perfect already… the things on top are the ego.
Lao Tzu is a hippie yes 🌱🌞🧬