HUM 2633: Tao Te Ching Reading Assignment:

Source is located at: http://classics.mit.edu/Lao/taote.html

These questions will help direct students to the most salient elements in the assignment. Students should review the questions carefully before they attempt the reading and keep them out while completing the reading. The questions proceed in order with the text. Students should complete question sets using this document. Use the SAVE AS command and rename to mark the file as yours (LASTNAMEHUM2633TaoQuestions) before submission. Insert answers in spaces after questions. Students should try to answer each question in their own words. They should also locate and include a passage from the text that substantiates their answer. Primary texts are hard reading, and one only gets better at it with practice. It is important to push yourself and work at it. You DO NOT need to understand all of it, even half of it!!!!! I don’t expect that. If you get 10% initially that’s normal. You are not alone. Stick with it! We are just trying to see how the main theories and concepts we discussed are expressed in the original texts of the tradition. Nothing improves your reading comprehension like reading difficult material and as you acclimate to the different style and vocabulary, you will find it gets easier. ?

Reading #8: Tao Te Ching

Part I:

1. Why do you think the Tao that can be named is not the Tao? What would naming imply that is inconsistent with its nature?

2. What analogy is used to describe the role the Tao plays as the originator of things? What feeling does that create relative to the Tao?

3. Does desire expand or limit our perception?

4. How do opposites relate to one another?

5. What should be valued more, work or achievement?

6. How does the image of the bellows communicate the value of emptiness?

7. Modern psychology has a term for our tendency to put ourselves first: primary narcissism. What does the text say about whether we should put ourselves first?

8. How is excellence like water?

9. The text warns that when one hoards possessions, one must guard them. What message is the text trying to communicate regarding the problems that follow when “gold and jade fill the hall”?

10. How does the way in which the Tao nourishes and presides over things set a standard for action not just in individual life, but also social and political life?

11. Why does the text suggest that favor and public acclaim are actually as dangerous as disgrace?

12. Does the text suggest that the rules of benevolence and righteousness (and the expectations of ancestor worship and filial piety) that were emphasized by Confucianism are expressive of the essence of the Tao, or an alternative ordering principle that emerges in its absence?

13. What is the relation between humans, earth, heaven, and the Tao?

14. How is wei-wu-wei evident in chapter 27?

15. Do those who are in alignment with the Tao use force, covet arms (weapons), or take violence (and war) lightly?

Part II:

16. Do those who embody the Tao have to keep busy constantly?

17. What do the contraries (binaries) contribute to the Tao (chapter 40)?

18. In what way does the text refer to the Tao as a first cause of things?

19. What overcomes the other: the soft or the hard?

20. What should we value more: life or wealth?

21. What is the relation between ambition and contentment?

22. Is the Tao easy to hard for people to find and practice?

23. Does the person who speaks endlessly about the Tao know it? If so, why? If not, what does the person who knows the Tao do?

24. Does the proliferation of rules tend to make people better or worse?

25. How is governing a state like cooking a small fish?

26. What practical advice is offered in chapter 63? And how could this advice, if taken to heart, benefit you as a student or in your life generally?

27. What practical advice is offered in chapter 64? And how could this advice, if taken to heart, benefit you as a student or in your life generally?

28. Why does the text suggest that the individual who wants to lead should subordinate him or herself (e.g., one who wants to go high should go low)? How does this relate later to the analogy of the bow (chapter 77)?

29. What are three precious things? What does the text suggest happens if we do not understand things aright, and do not fear what we ought to fear?

30. What is true of the sage (the wise person)?