on “the four Chinese classics”

For greatest ease in understanding, i recommend that you read the Introduction before this Chapter and that you then read this Chapter in the order i recommend There.

on “the four Chinese classics”, by Victor Luis Villalon-Suarez

most recently reviewed on 3/27/2022 at 14:40

All quotes are from The Four Chinese Classics: Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, Analects, Mencius, translated and with commentary by David Hinton, Berkeley: Counterpoint Press, 2013.

In the Commentaries i assume familiarity with Dr. Hinton’s lexical explanations of the relevant terms, in order to avoid repeating them. These explanations are in the “Introduction” before each work and in the “Key Terms: An Outline of [the author]’s Thought”, after it.

Tao Te Ching

page 36, 2.1-4: “All beneath heaven knows beauty is beauty/only because there’s ugliness,/and knows good is good only because there’s evil.”

page 37, 3.1-6: “Never bestow honors/and people won’t quarrel./Never prize rare treasures/and people won’t steal./Never flaunt alluring things/and people won’t be confused.”

page 37, 3.7-11: “This is how a sage governs./Fill bellies and empty minds,/strengthen bones and weaken ambition,//always keep the people from knowing and wanting,/then those who know are those who never presume to act.”

page 39, 5.1-4: “Heaven and earth are Inhumane:/they use the ten thousand things like straw dogs./And the sage too is Inhumane:/he uses the hundred-fold people like straw dogs.”

page 41, 7.1-2: “Heaven goes on forever./Earth endures forever.”

page 41, 7.6-9: “[…] in putting himself last/the sage puts himself first,/and inn giving himself up/he preserves himself.”

page 41, 7.10-11: “If you aren’t free of yourself/how will you ever become yourself?”