The Sacred Chao Te Ching

[hooplala]

I tried doing this about a year ago, but having looked at what you guys did yours are MUCH much better than mine... good idea - keep it up!

[LMNO]

This one's for RWHN:

Chapter 32
Original:

The Way is absolute and undefined.
Like natural uncarved wood in simplicity,
yet none in the world can overcome it.
If leaders would hold to it,
the whole world would serve them spontaneously.

Heaven and earth join, and gentle rain falls,
beyond the command of anyone, evenly upon all.
When civilization arose, names began.
With names, one should know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop, frees one from danger.
The Way in the world is like
rivers and streams flowing into the sea.

Our Translation:

Chaos cannot be labled,
Because it contains all lables.
Therefore, all definitions are incomplete.
It's Gödels, all the way down.

Order and Disorder unite,
And Illusion slips into Chaos.
When spags learn language, labels begin.
With labels, one should know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop, the wise spags see the Illusion;
And are free to create as they see fit.

[hooplala]

I'm gonna try giving it a go anyway, but you spags set the bar pretty fucking high... I like a low bar...

[hooplala]

I jumped to 35, just in case anyone else was already working in 33 or 34...  I'm not sure if the two parts gel very well...

Chapter 35
Original:

All men will come to him who keeps to the one,
For there lie rest and happiness and peace.

Passers by may stop for music and good food,
But a description of the Tao seems without substance or flavor.
It cannot be seen, it cannot be heard,
And yet it cannot be exhausted.

Our Translation:

Everyone digs the one who balances the chao
because within it live shits, giggles, and 3D movies

The Cabbage on the street may be starving
but the chao on the menu still doesn't taste like hamburger

[LMNO]

Nice.  Added.

[AFK]

This one's for RWHN:

Chapter 32
Original:

The Way is absolute and undefined.
Like natural uncarved wood in simplicity,
yet none in the world can overcome it.
If leaders would hold to it,
the whole world would serve them spontaneously.

Heaven and earth join, and gentle rain falls,
beyond the command of anyone, evenly upon all.
When civilization arose, names began.
With names, one should know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop, frees one from danger.
The Way in the world is like
rivers and streams flowing into the sea.

Our Translation:

Chaos cannot be labled,
Because it contains all lables.
Therefore, all definitions are incomplete.
It's Gödels, all the way down.

Order and Disorder unite,
And Illusion slips into Chaos.
When spags learn language, labels begin.
With labels, one should know when to stop.
Knowing when to stop, the wise spags see the Illusion;
And are free to create as they see fit.

[LMNO]

Ok, I did 31 - 40, with the exception of and 36, 38, and 39.

Going to lunch now.

[Cramulus]

also i'd like to point out a few themes from the TTC that maybe we can use corresponding discordian terms for them:
So what is a Discordain way of expressing ideas such as...

heres a few ideas I've been riffing on,
and things I think we ought to include... feel free to disagree 

The Master = The Wise Spag - we might want to draw a bit of attention to Spag = Fool, since that's not entirely self evident.

The Way is similar to the Chao.

In Discorida the chao represents the primal state, the source of order and disorder. It balances itself naturally. It is formless, indescribable, separate from matter or energy.


Power and Leadership are common themes in the Tao Te Ching.. to a Discordian, I'd say that power comes from striking the right balance between order and disorder. In this rather bureaucratic world, that often means breaking the rules or generating your own rules, but that's never the bottom line.


If it comes up, we should mention The Five Seasons, which are an allegory about how stuff starts off in a state of disorder and chaos, and then moves slowly towards order, then the tide takes any ordered state back into a chaotic state. the transition and transcendence from Bureaucracy to the Aftermath is of particular importance to Discordians.


I really liked the earlier riffing on the 8-circuit model, though I think we really only need concern ourselves with the first five circuits or so. (they get kind of fuzzy after that IMHO) Each circuit has a way of "transcending" it, in a manner of speaking, that we should be sensitive to. For example, the first circuit is like a test to see if your environment is dangerous or not. The wise spag transcends the neophobic/neophilic programming.

[hooplala]

I like all that except Wise Spag.  What about Wise Ass?  It sort of says the same thing?

[Cramulus]

that works too



This whole project makes me wonder what it'd be like to remix the Tao Te Ching with crowley's Book of Lies...

compare/contrast:

CHAPTER 17

The best leaders the people barely know.
The next best they love and praise.
The next they fear.
And the next they hate.

Those who lack trust will not be trusted.
Then they resort to promises.
But when they accomplish their task and complete their work,
the people say, "We did it ourselves."

CHAPTER 17

PEACHES

    Soft and hollow, how thou dost overcome the hard
      and full!
    It dies, it gives itself; to Thee is the fruit!
    Be thou the Bride; thou shalt be the Mother here-
      after.
    To all impressions thus.  Let them not overcome thee;
      yet let them breed within thee.  The least of the
      impressions, come to its perfection, is Pan.
    Receive a thousand lovers; thou shalt bear but One
      Child.
    This child shall be the heir of Fate the Father.

...if you mixed them together, it might actually be coherent!

in other news, I pasted a ton of source translations into the wiki.

[LMNO]

I would reccomend that we finish the thing before we start to settle on terms.

I'm not trying to smear my thumbprint too heavily here, but I feel that, even though The OPDC (Original Principia Discordia Crew) lifted heavily from the TTC, the subsequent result and evolution is definitively not the TTC v2.0.

To try and directly relate TTC terms with PD terms seems to me that we are simply trying to translate the TTC into PD terms, rather than using the TTC as a template to express Discoridan ideas.

But that's just me.  I'll keep plugging away at chapters, if you feel we need to edit to make it more in line with the TTC ideals, feel free.

[hooplala]

I just don't personally like the term 'spag', but that's just me.  It was y'alls idea, so I say go with whatever you think works best.

[LMNO]

I think it's cool to want to get rid of "spag" (I did notice with a smile, that when Cram said that some PD terms might be confusing, he completely neglected to mention "spag"), I just think we should focus on getting the first step done before editing.

[hooplala]

I agree.  Like we all learned from NaNoWriMo... write first, edit later.

[Telarus]

James Joyce apparently used abstract notation for certain characters in Finnegan Wake (many relating to the symbols that equate to the Hodge, the Podge, and the Synthesis of both~Chaos). He then would identify the character/archetype later on while editing the scene, if necessary (according to RAW, who saw some of JJ's notebooks).