Fake Taoist

STRAIGHT Taoist PHILOSOPHY

This is “straight” as in, “directly from the original.”

this phrase, “sparse words, self natural” is a word-for-word translation of this line from Laozi. This is the telegraphic style of Classical Chinese. It can and should be filled in or explained by saying, in this case something like, “it’s normal not to talk a lot,” or “a sparsely of verbosity shows a person is being natural and therefore balanced in the self.” If I’m talking a lot, I’m probably missing the boat Laozi might say.

Since I’m doing all this talking I say I’m a “fake” Taoist because as Laozi says elsewhere,

“the Way that can be spoken is not the timeless Way,

the Name that can be named is not the timeless Name,”

Point being to remember or consider whatever I say about reality is not actually reality, ha ha, you’ve been warned.

Having read this, see for yourself the original Dao De Jing, a canonic text of Taoism.

Selected, translated, and presented by me, Michael Cenkner aka Modig aka Shen Mai..