What is Tao Te Ching?
The Tao Te Ching is an ancient Chinese text written by Laozi that explores the principles of Taoism, focusing on wisdom, simplicity, and living in harmony with the universe. It’s known for its poetic and concise style, using paradoxes and analogies to convey deep meanings in few words.
This style encourages readers to think deeply and interpret its teachings in their own way.
Despite being written over 2,500 years ago, its insights remain relevant and thought-provoking, making it a timeless guide to understanding life’s complexities and embracing simplicity.
Why is Tao Te Ching hard to understand?
Tao Te Ching was originally written in ancient Chinese, where each character can encompass meanings that require multiple modern Chinese words to fully express. Even for educated Chinese readers, it demands much effort to truly absorb its teachings.
Not to mention, for those reading the English translations, the challenge deepens. The translations often reflect the interpreters’ own understandings and biases, potentially missing some intended essences.
Linguistically, Chinese and English are also two different mindset systems. Thus, any English translations might color or alter the original message of the text.
What is Laozi Speak English?
Tao Te Ching – Laozi Speaks English is created by Cico, creator of Mindiverse.
It’s not intended as just another English translation of Tao Te Ching. But as a channel to tap into the original wisdom via your truest receptor as a human being.
It’s not about understanding the texts literally. But to experience the totality permeating through the book.
Below is the Prologue of Mindiverse’s Tao Te Ching – Laozi Speaks English.
Tao Te Ching – Laozi Speaks English
Prologue
Tao Te Ching (Daodejing), authored by Laozi (Lao Tsu, 老子) more than 2400 years ago, is a piece of classic and timeless writing that precisely reveals the nature of human consciousness. It consists of five thousand Chinese characters beautifully used by Laozi to point to the truth beyond description.
The writing was finished in an age when paper did not even exist. Those words were written on bamboo slips and have survived twenty-four centuries. No one knows why it can be preserved until today, but when one stays unknown without being influenced by anything and sees the timeless value of Tao Te Ching, one must intuit the unspeakable reason.
When one is at all serious in observing oneself, it is rather obvious that the mind is easily trapped in words, taking words as the thing for a convenient but false sense of certainty. However, words are never the thing, and words, which have their functional purpose, can point to the thing, but one must see the thing, which is independent of but may be facilitated by words.
That is to say, one must go beyond the words to see the thing, which demands diligence, care, and seriousness; otherwise, the mind is lost in verbal things, as most people are in this world.
Unlike reading novels and various writings, which immerse the mind in various thoughts and mental images for pleasure and stimulation, reading Tao Te Ching demands one’s direct perception to observe oneself totally to make sense of what Laozi says. Any distortion of self-observation inevitably destroys totality and brings about contradiction in understanding Tao Te Ching.
Totality comes from a state of mind that is free of any patterns. Thoughts, with their pettiness and subtleties, make numerous fragments and patterns, which are in contradiction with each other.
In reading novels, words are important because the mind depends on words for various stimulation; however, in reading Tao Te Ching, words are less important. What matters is not to literally understand Tao Te Ching but to have that totality that preserves the fresh and natural perception. When one devotes one’s energy to come upon the totality, reading Tao Te Ching or not is no longer relevant.
In the past 2400 years, there have been various versions of Chinese interpretation and translation in other languages; however, many of those versions are not free of issues. The hidden role of an interpreter or translator prevents objective observation and, therefore, inevitably degrades the totality and distorts what Laozi means.
The objective observation must be free of any role because any role is, in essence, an observer that inevitably distorts what is being observed, and the distortion is part of the observer’s experience, which is then surreptitiously expressed in the writing.
The observer is the self; what it observes does not include the observer; therefore, is always fragmented and never complete. The observer denies totality. When the observation includes the observer, the observation is complete, and the observer vanishes.
The complete thing is always one, but the fragmentation always has its intrinsic contradiction. Ending the observer demands much more than interpreting or translating Tao Te Ching. Without the former, the latter is meaningless; with the former, the latter might not be necessary.
As long as the observer exists, however subtle it is, one cannot interpret or translate all the chapters of Tao Te Ching in a naturally coherent way because the perception tainted by the observer is inherently contradicted.
This book is not a translation or interpretation of Tao Te Ching because the author of this book does not assume any role of interpreter or translator. He lives what he teaches and teaches what he lives; he happens to be able to speak both Chinese and English, and this book is merely a byproduct of his accidental encounter with Laozi.
《道德经》，2400年前由老子所著，是一部永恒的经典，精准地揭示了人类意识的本质。在书中，老子用5000多个字符，精妙绝伦地指向了那超越任何言语的真谛。
这本书是在纸张尚未出世的时代完成的。这些文字曾记录在竹简上，至今已流传了二十四个世纪。没有人知道它为什么能够保存至今，但当一个人活在未知中，不被任何事物所影响，并看到《道德经》的永恒价值时，一个人定能意会那无以言表的原因。
当一个人完全严肃地观察自己，不难发现，这颗心容易被语言所困，把语言当成它所指向的东西，这看似方便，其实是一种虚假的确信感。语言从来不是那个东西，语言有它的作用，可以指向那个东西，但一个人必须亲自看到那个东西，它独立于语言而存在，但语言可以辅助理解。
也就是说，一个人必须超越语言去观察，这需要勤勉、呵护和严肃；否则，这颗心就会迷失在言语中，像这个世界大多数人一样。
不像小说等各种读物，让一个人沉浸在各种想法和意象带来的愉悦和刺激中，品读《道德经》需要一个人直接地感知、通盘地观察自己，才能理解老子在说什么。从自我视角来观察，必然会破坏这种整体通透的感知，并在理解道德经的过程中，出现自相矛盾。
当这颗心从任何思维模式中解脱，它自然触碰全然。想法的局限和琐碎，只会带来无数的窠臼和思维套路，互相矛盾。
读小说时，文字很重要，因为大脑依赖文字来获得各种刺激；然而在品读《道德经》时，文字就不那么重要了。重要的不是从字面上理解《道德经》，而是保持新鲜、淳朴和自然的感知。当一个人付诸能量，去触碰内心的整体性，读或不读《道德经》，也就不那么重要了。
2400年来，对《道德经》的中文解读和各语种的翻译，层出不穷。然而，其中许多版本并非没有问题。这个隐匿的解读者和翻译者的角色，在妨碍如实的观察，因此不可避免地破坏融会贯通的理解，并扭曲老子的本意。
如实的观察，必须从任何角色中解脱，因为任何角色本质上都是那个“我”，那个观察者，它必然会扭曲所观察到的实相，这个扭曲是自我体验的一部分，也会在写作中不经意地展露出来。
观察者就是自我，它所观察的不包括观察者，因此总是片面的、不完整的。观察者否定了全然——“我”在，全然不再。当观察包括观察者时，这个观察是完整的，观察者瞬间消逝。
完整的东西总是一体的，而企图分裂的想法总会带来内心的冲突。自我的息止远比阐述或翻译道德经更为重要。内心无我，那么此时解读与否，也就不那么重要了。
只要这个“我”还在，无论多么细微，一个人都无法融会贯通、前后一致地解读或翻译道德经的所有章节，因为被自我所染的感知，总有内在冲突。
本书不是对《道德经》的翻译或解读，因为本书作者既不是解读者，也不是翻译者。他的生活和分享是一体的——他以传达的方式生活，他传达他的生活方式。他恰好会说中文和英文，而这本书只是他与老子偶然相遇的结果。
Who is Cico?
Cico (Chonghe Zhang, 张冲和) was born in March 1986 in China. In 2014, he moved to Amsterdam superficially for the purpose of doing a PhD, but deeply out of disillusionment with the environment in China and curiosity for the Western world. However, after moving to Amsterdam, curiosity soon turned into a stark reality: egoism, individualism, tribalism, and commercialism, with their utter verbalness, high-profile self-expressions, blatant nonsense, and pettiness in the Western world, keep shocking him.
The deep clash with both the Chinese and Western realities with their irreconcilable contradiction, the narrow and questionable focus in each scientific field he witnessed, and the deep sense of horror for the pervading atmosphere of artificiality and mechanicality in the human world cornered him to inquire into himself deeply and completely.
His consciousness went through a mutation, and a simple fact was revealed to him: the self, the “me”, the ego is the root cause of all human issues and man-made disasters; the self, with its numerous destructive patterns, is a physical danger that the vast majority of people fail to see due to their deep-seated self-centered living.
In the face of this physical danger all over the place, he has no choice but to live what he comes upon by being a light to himself. The gathered energy, which is passion and compassion, let him start the lifelong journey of teaching and sharing (in both English and Chinese) to facilitate human beings to observe themselves completely and see the light.
He sees that he cannot change anyone but only facilitates anyone eager to transform themselves completely. His activities have been wrapped up under “Mindiverse” since 2018. It became a charity in Amsterdam in 2021, which Cico and his collaborator Joyce Liu have been taking care of.
He encountered Laozi in 2019 at the request of some audience to let him explain Tao Te Ching. He immediately captured that he shares the same perception with Laozi, and a one-year-and-half-long podcasting project started in 2021. The project is in Chinese, and recording each episode involves careful preparations worth mentioning.
Joyce checked various versions of Tao Te Ching interpretations and prepared a script that roughly translated the ancient Chinese to the modern Chinese. Cico only read the original text of Tao Te Ching, assisted by some translation to make sure he understood the text literally. All of those were to keep him unaware of any interpretations and, therefore, his perception unaffected. During the recording, Cico explained everything from his direct perception and responded to various interpretations by pointing out the issue directly.
As the project progressed, all the content was gradually available on the internet, and the coherence became increasingly obvious. Therefore, the idea of preparing an English book about Tao Te Ching via Cico’s direct perception and direct translation from Chinese based on the podcast project naturally surfaced.
After various preparations, which lasted more than one year, the first version of this book came into being.
This book is to facilitate anyone earnest and serious in understanding oneself and getting clarity about everything in life.
Admittedly, there are many things to improve in the first version. However, the eagerness to let this book, with its pure perception, be passed on to more people takes precedence over all the others. Various minor issues will be addressed in future versions.
Cico（张冲和），1986年3月出生于中国，2014年前往阿姆斯特丹，表面上是为了攻读博士学位，但内心深处是出于对中国现实的幻灭和对西方世界的好奇。然而到阿姆斯特丹之后，好奇很快变成了震惊：利己主义、个人主义、部落主义、消费主义，以及各种空话废话，高调的自我表达，以及那种狭隘和小气，不断让他震惊。
中西方现实之间深刻、不可调和的矛盾，和他所经历的多个科学领域的狭隘和有待质疑的关注点，以及对人类社会普遍存在的虚假和机械的震惊，迫使他深刻而通盘地理解自己。
他的意识经历了一种突变，一个简单的事实在他面前浮现：自我，这个“我”，是一切人类问题和暴力的根源；自我，有无数危险的思维模式，是一个切实的物理危险，但绝大多数人由于深陷自我而无法看到这一点。
面对这种无处不在的危险，他别无选择，只能点亮自性之光。汇聚能量，这股能量也是爱和慈悲，让他开始了传播和分享之旅，以中英文，来辅助有缘人通盘地观察自己，获得清晰。
他深知他无法改变任何人，只能辅助那些热切于彻底改变自己的人。从2018 年以来，他所有的活动一直放在“曼谛悟思”名下，并于2021年在阿姆斯特丹成为一个公益机构，由他和他的伙伴Joyce Liu悉心管理。
他在2019年邂逅老子，是因为一些读者想让他来解读《道德经》。他立刻捕捉到自己与老子有着同样的感知，并于2021年启动了为期一年半的播客项目——曼解道德经。这个系列是用中文录制的，每一期录制都做了精心的准备。
Joyce先查阅多个版本对《道德经》的白话翻译和解读，来整合一份白话译文。Cico只读《道德经》的原文，遇到生涩的古汉语，询问最必要的含义，来理解字面意思。这么做主要是为了呵护这份新鲜、自然的感知，使其不受其它解读的短暂影响。录制中，Cico以他的直接感知来解读一切，并对一些常见的解读中，似有不通、前后不一的地方，做出回应。
随着项目的进行，所有内容慢慢在线上发布，内在的连贯一致也越来越明显。因此，基于中文播客项目，以Cico的直接感知，用英文来重新阐释《道德经》的想法自然浮现。
历时一年多的精心准备，这本书的第一版应运而生。这本书旨在辅助任何热切而严肃理解自己的人，洞察生活的方方面面，获得清晰。
诚然，第一版仍有许多需要改进的地方。然而，借由这本书将纯粹的感知传达给更多人的热情，胜过其它所有顾虑，各种细节将在未来版本中得到解决。
