larryhammer | “so take me as I am / this may mean you’ll have to be a stronger man”

Offered without commentary (but one footnote):

Opening of Journey to the West

The poem goes:

Ere primal chaos parted, heaven and earth were mixed—
In boundless vastness, there was not a man to see;
But ever since Pangu broke up that mistiness,
Both clear and muddy’s been distinguished separately.
The crowded, overflowing lives all aim for humaneness,
Ten-thousand creatures ’neath the sun tend towards the best.
If you would know how Nature gathered its first merit,
Read “Tales of Woes Resolved upon the Journey West.”

诗曰：

混沌未分天地乱，
茫茫渺渺无人见。
自从盘古破鸿蒙，
开辟从兹清浊辨。
覆载群生仰至仁，
发明万物皆成善。
欲知造化会元功，
须看西游释厄传。

Opening of the Three-Character Classic

People at birth
Are naturally good.
In nature they’re close,
Through habits they part.

If they aren’t taught,
Their natures degrade.
The right way of teaching
Is valuing focus.

Old Mencius’s mother
Picked a good neighborhood.
When the boy wouldn’t learn
She cut shuttle from loom.

人之初
性本善
性相近
習相遠

苟不教
性乃迁
教之道
贵以专

昔孟母
择邻处
子不学
断机杼

“As Mencius grew up, he was sent to school. When he returned home one day, his mother looked up from the web which she was weaving, and asked him how far he had got on. He answered her with an air of indifference that he was doing well enough, on which she took a knife and cut the thread of her shuttle. The idler was alarmed, and asked what she meant, she gave him a long lecture, showing that she had done what he was doing, that her cutting her thread was like his neglecting his learning. The admonition, it is said, had its proper effect; the lecture did not need to be repeated.” (source)

Opening of Dao De Jing

A way that can be described is not the constant Way.
A name that can be named is not the constant Name.
Without a name, it’s the origin of heaven and earth^[1-1];
With a name, it’s the mother of the ten-thousand things.
Thus, those constantly without desires see its mysteries,
While those constantly with desires see its surface^[1-2].
These two things, coming forth the same yet having different names, together are meaning’s Mystery.
The Mystery’s most mysterious [part] is the gate to all subtlety.

[1-1] Other texts have “the ten-thousand things”
[1-2] Other texts have “what they want”

道可道，非常道。
名可名，非常名。
无名天地之始；
有名万物之母。
故常无欲，以观其妙；
常有欲，以观其徼。
此两者，同出而异名，同谓之玄。
玄之又玄，衆妙之门。

---L.

Index of Chinese translations

Subject quote from Bitch, Meredith Brooks.