Dao De Jing "ranks only behind the Bible as the most widely translated book in the world. "According   to statistics, there have been almost 200 English versions since it was introduced to the western world about 300 years ago. If you found that each translator told a different story, if you felt that the texts were often         inconsistent or even self-contradictory, and if you felt you did not understand what they were talking about     from time to time, you are not alone. The truth is: it is one of the most mistranslated, misunderstood, and     misinterpreted books in the world, if not the most. This is the new translation I am going to talk about today.

        Dao De Jing is fundamental to Daoism, both philosophically and religiously. The Chinese Character     Dao has been translated as Way, Path, Road, or Doctrine. Are they all correct? Or is any one of them         correct? The answer is absolutely not in the sense of Daoism.

        Then what does Dao mean? Dao, like many other Chinese characters, means many things. If I am         asked to use one word that could replace Dao in English in Daoism, that word is truth. Dao means universal truth, and law of nature. So can I translate Dao into truth? Of course not, Dao means much more than truth. Even the Chinese character Dao is not good enough to describe Dao in Lao Zi's eyes. In Chapter 25 Lao Zi   says, “I do not know its name, and just manage to call it Dao.” And in Chapter 1, he says, The Dao that can be defined is not the eternal Dao. By reading the whole book, you will have a good understanding of Dao.

       Then what does De mean? De means virtue. In Daoism, De is the reflection of Dao on human beings.     That means a person of virtue is the person who understands Dao and follows Dao completely.

        Before my presentation continues, I’d like to introduce the principles I always follow in translation. That is: Be absolutely faithful to the original texts, be as stylistic as possible to the original texts, and be             cautiously flexible in using English expressions in order for the original texts to be acceptable. No addition,   no omission, and no paraphrasing are basic professional rules I stick to.

        Let's start with chapter one to see how the main point was mistranslated.

        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，众妙之门。

        The red character part has been translated as the following:

        Muller: The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth While naming is
the origin of the myriad things.

        Walker: Tao existed before words and names, before heaven and earth,
before the ten thousand things. It is the unlimited father and
mother of all limited things.

        Lin Yutan: The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; The Named
is the Mother of All Things.

        Star: Tao is both Named and Nameless
        As Nameless, it is the origin of all things
        As Named, it is the mother of all things

        The universe has no name originally. Does it make any sense? This kind of meaningless language is everywhere among the previous translations.

        Grammatically, if we consider无名(nameless) as a compound noun, where is the verb? Furthermore, if so, the following sentence should be故常无名 instead of故常无as it is.

        Here 无and有 are subjects; 名is a verb. It means:

        Nothing is what the universe begins with; and something is the mother of all things.

        Nothingness and somethingness is a significant pair of philosophical concepts. English physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking spent thirty years trying to prove that the universe begins with nothing. Lao Zi had already made the same conclusion 2500 years ago. This is probably the first assertion on the origin of the universe.

        Sometimes we have to get the whole idea of a chapter to translate the individual sentence. Word by word translation may lead you to a terrible mistake. The previous translations of Chapter 2 provide us with an example.

        天下皆知美之为美，斯恶已；皆知善之为善，斯不善已。
        有无相生，难易相成，长短相形，高下相倾， 音声相和，前后相随，恒也。
        是以圣人处无为之事，行不言之教：

        This chapter is talking about truth relativism. Its significance is no inferior to the previous one.

        Here “相生”，“相成”，“相形”，“相倾”，“相和”and“相随”all mean “相对”（“relative”） in different ways. That is, there is no one without the other. There is no “long” without “short” as comparison.

        Let’s see how “有无相生”has been turned into absurd English:

        Lin: Therefore Being and non-being interdepend in growth
        Star: Life and death are born together
        Wu: Indeed, the hidden and the manifest give birth to each other.
        Muller: Therefore Being and non-being produce each other

        Do you know what they were talking about? Actually, the question is: Did they know what they were talking about?

        “有无相生” means: Nothing and something are relative to each other;

        Let's look at the whole context:

2. Relative Truth
        People all know what is beautiful due to something ugly, and what is good due to something bad.
        Nothing and something are relative to each other; difficult and easy are due to each other; long and short define each other; high and low depend on each other; music and sound are related to each other; and front and back are next to each other. These are eternal.

        Thus, a great man conducts himself by doing nothing and pursues the wordless teaching.

        In the original book, the chapters have no title; I added titles for two purposes: one, to help readers understand the main idea of the chapter; two, to give readers reminder where certain text is located.

       Now we can see one of the main concepts of Daoism—“doing-nothing”–is based on truth relativism.

        It is said that to translate a poem, a poet is needed. Then to translate a philosophical work like Dao De Jing, one should have some sense of philosophy.

        道冲，而用之或不盈。

        Beck: The Way is infinite; its use is never exhausted.
        Byrn: The Tao is like an empty container: it can never be emptied and can never be filled.
        LinYutan: Tao is a hollow vessel, And its use is inexhaustible!
        Wu: The Tao is like an empty bowl. Which in being used can never be filled up.

        If Dao is a bottle, or a container, you can use the word “empty” to describe it, unfortunately Dao is not a bottle or something that can be compared to a bottle or something that can be empty. In classical Chinese, 冲means “empty”, “void”. But when we use it to describe a philosophical concept, it means “abstract,” or “抽象” in Chinese. Why did Lao Zi not use “抽象”? for there was no such a phrase at that time.Here 冲 means 抽象.In Chapter 14, Lao Zi describes Dao as invisible, unhearable, and intangible. That also means Dao is abstract.
        Correct translation:

        Dao is abstract, but if applied it can never run short.

        Dao De Jing has been a must read for Chinese politicians of all ages since it came into being. It has many chapters covering leadership.
        Coming next, we will look at Chapter 68

        善为士者，不武；善战者，不怒；善胜敌者，不与；善用人者，为之下。是谓不争之德，是谓用人之力，是谓配天，古之极也。

68. Power of Leadership

        A well-versed statesman does not appeal to force; a well-versed fighter does not look mighty; one who is well-versed in overcoming the enemy does not engage; and one who is well-versed in leadership is humble with the followers.
        This is called the virtue of not competing; this is called the power of leadership, and this is called conforming to the law of nature, which is the supreme principle of the ancient.

        The followings are what I randomly picked up from the previous translation:

        Mitchell: The best athlete wants his opponent at his best.
        Lin: The brave soldier is not violent;
        Muller: The best warrior is never aggressive.

        Here “士” does not mean "a soldier" but "a politician or a statesman."

        I will leave the rest of the texts for you to compare afterwards.

        Simple but profound is one of outstanding features of Dao De Jing.
        The following is a typical example.

        知者不言，言者不知.
        In China, most common explanation is that“知”is exchangeable with“智.” “知者”= “智者.” In modern Chinese translation, the popular ones are something like this: 智者不轻易说话，轻易说话者不智。 (The wise does not speak lightly, one who speaks lightly is not wise.) We do not know where “lightly” comes from. If without “lightly,” it reads: The wise does not speak, one who speaks is not wise. In other words, or other way around, one who does not speak is wise. This is obviously ridiculous. On the other hand most English translations are more or less like the following, but no one is right or close to right.

        Beck: Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.
        Lin Yutan: He who knows does not speak; He who speaks does not know.

        First of all, “知者”≠ “智者.” Here知者”does not mean “智者.”In Dao De Jing, 知and 智have been used multiple times. 知means知, and 智means智. Even 智者has been used in Dao De Jing. Here Lao Zi is unlikely to use知者to mean智者. Because people could not figure out its meaning, they fabricated it.

        But “Those who know do not speak, Those who speak do not know” is not correct either. It can be logically and reasonably interpreted as "Those who do not speak know." Furthermore, one knows as long as one shut up one’s mouth. This is not what Lao Zi meant.

        知者不言，言者不知. Here 言does not mean speak or talk or say as previous translators render it. 言 means “claim.”In modern Chinese it means “知者不言(知)，言(知)者不知. In English, it means “One who knows does not claim to know; one who claims to know does not know.” Or “One who is knowledgeable does not claim to be knowledgeable; one who claims to be knowledgeable is not knowledgeable.”

        In Liu Xiang’s “Huainanzi, Dao Yinxun” 《淮南子，道应训》, there is a story delivering this idea which is included in the interpreting assistance of Chapter 56 of my book. I will not repeat it here but let me use another example to illustrate this point.

        When an elementary school teacher asks a first grade class, --who can draw a tree in our class? Nine out of ten, if not everybody, will put their hands up. When they grow up into their twenties, then a university professor asks them the same question: Who can draw a tree in our class? Probably, nine out of ten would not raise their hands. The truth is: the more we know about a subject matter, the less we would feel comfortable to claim the knowledge of it. This is just as what Lao Zi says: “One who is knowledgeable does not claim to be knowledgeable; one who claims to be knowledgeable is not knowledgeable.”

        In the following example, I will not only correct a misunderstanding of one of the most significant thoughts of Dao De Jing, but also show you how Lao Zi's thoughts are applied to our life.

       In Chapter 42

        故物或损之而益，或益之而损。

        Here “损harm”and“益benefit”are two divinations (“两卦”) in Yi Jing. The theory of “harm”and “benefit” is one of the most significant thoughts of Yi Jing. These two divinations mainly talk about what harms and benefits really mean to a person.

        When Confucius read Yi Jing up to Chapter Harm Divination and Benefit Divination, he sighed emotionally and said, “The issue of “benefit” and “harm” is what a king should be concerned about seriously. Chances are whom one intends to benefit is actually harmed, and whom one intends to harm is actually benefited instead. The reverse of “harm” and “benefit” and the root-cause of misfortune and blessing are what have to be paid attention to.”

        Like other divinations, “harm” and “benefit” are described by lines called 卦爻象and characters called卦爻辞 in Yi Jing. Both 卦爻象 and 卦爻辞 are highly abstract. Lao Zi’s “故物或损之而益，或益之而损.” is one of the best word accounts of these two divinations. It means:

        Thus chances are what harms benefits, and what benefits harms.

        Previous translations:

        Lin Yutan: For sometimes things are benefited by being taken away from, And suffer by being added to.

Bynner: Because in true succeeding High and low correlate.
Beck: Often gain can be a loss, and loss can be a gain.
Wu: Truly, one may gain by losing; And one may lose by gaining.

        Like Lao Zi’s other thoughts, this is universally applicable.

        There was once a grown-up girl crying before her father. She said, I had a miserable childhood. My mother was erratic and bad-tempered and I was much annoyed without a moment of quietness. I did not have a happy childhood like other kids. The father did not comfort her as people usually do. On the contrary, he told her that this was not necessarily a bad thing. If you could handle tough people like your mother, who else can you not deal with in the future? Actually you are stronger and better prepared for your career than other kids. "What harms benefits." The girl was suddenly awakened and realized that her suffering experience was something plus and something valuable. She was greatly encouraged. If the girl had kept on feeling sad about her past and being self-abased, she would never pull herself together.

        To help readers better comprehend the text, at the end of many chapters I have included “Interpreting assistance.” The essays in “Interpreting assistance” were selected from authoritative works in history, such as Zhuangzi, Hanfeizi, and Huainanzi, to help illustrate the contents of Dao De Jing. These essays themselves are valuable cultural heritage.

        Before my presentation comes to an end, I want to quote what I wrote in the preface of my book: “As a Confucius saying goes, ‘Should I learn Dao in the morning, I would not regret dying in the evening.’ No matter who you are, I hope this book will bring you truth, wisdom, power, success, and longevity.

        Dao is invisible, but a person armed with Dao is invincible.

        Thank you.