Follow Up about Tao Te Ching Contemplation

Thanks to all who responded to the last post about an in depth contemplation of the Tao Te Ching. Although there are not enough people to form a separate study group, there was enough interest expressed for me to come up with an alternative.

Beginning in August, on this blog, I will start a series of posts on specific verses of the Tao Te Ching, taking them in order from 1 to 81. My aim will be to offer something for everyone in these posts.

If you are among those who wanted to participate in the in depth contemplation, I encourage you to get a copy of the book, if you haven’t already. Each post in this series will identify in the title which verse is under discussion. You can read the verse in your own translation and offer your own reflections on the text in the comments if you wish.

If you are not among those interested in the in depth study, these posts will continue to offer the same kind of reflections on the basic principles of Tao that I have already been addressing in other posts, as well as poetry and posts on other topics. In other words, you won’t really notice much difference. The only difference is that those wishing to go deeper will be able to, through having their own translations with which to consider these basic principles. (And if at any time, you decide you do want to go deeper, just get access to a translation in hard copy or online, and jump right in!)

How does that sound? Hopefully this will allow everyone to engage at whatever level of involvement they wish to have.

Some clarification–

A couple of folks thought I was proposing a study of the I Ching, which is not the same text as the Tao Te Ching. Easy to confuse, since they both end with Ching, which simply means book or text. If you are not sure what the Tao Te Ching is, then click here for some explanation.

Sometimes Tao Te Ching is spelled Dao De Jing. Same text, just a different romanization system. The correct pronunciation is closer to the second spelling, although the first spelling is more familiar, which is why I use it. Thus, you often hear Tao pronounced Dao.

And a logistics point–

If you want to be sure to receive all the posts in this series, you can sign up for email delivery of posts. Just enter your email in the box in the right column of the blog page. Or sign up for RSS feed just below the email box in the right column. You can also like my Facebook page, which will post links to the blog whenever there is a new post. However, if you want to leave comments, and I hope you do, you have to go to the blog site.

Okay, that’s it! Let me know if you have any comments or questions.