Re: CHAT: Tao Te Ching translations (long-ish ;)

>From: J Y S Czhang <czhang23@...>
>>><SNiP>  The religion called Taoism has spent much imagination on ways to
>>>prolong life interminably or gain immortality, and the mythologized Lao
>>>Tzu was supposed to have run Methuselah a close race; but the Lao Tzu who
>>>wrote this had no truck with such notions.
The hyper-imaginative Chuang Tzu also had even less "truck with such
notions." One can even say that Chuang Tzu (and Lieh Tzu and many of the
latter _philosophical_ Taoists) were "Chinese proto-anarchists" and even go
as far as to say that they were some of the first "Deep Ecologists."

<SNiP of long quoting of even more translations/interpretations> <<<

Yes - I've always found the quest for actual immortality of the more
religious interpretations of Taoism to be somewhat paradoxical.   If the Way
is change, then immortality would actually be counter to the way....  and
you'd have to be enlightened to be immortal, because otherwise you run the
risk of prolonging what is a beautiful, but often tiring and frustrating
experience - of course, more frightening is the thought that you could
become immortal by drinking a elixers of mercury, lead, and other heavy
metals.

Andy

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