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Tao Te Ching, seriously

There is a lot of emphasis on simplicity and that things are the best when they work seamlessly.

Chapter 17, from the translation by Derek Lin, which I wholeheartedly recommend:

    The highest rulers, people do not know they have them
    The next level, people love them and praise them
    The next level, people fear them
    The next level, people despise them

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There are several ways to approach the Tao Te Ching, including the mystical, but I think that there's a great book that explains the underlying approach the Chinese have, called, Treatise on Efficacy.

Essentially, in Chinese philosophy, any given situation has a propensity (water tends to run downhill). It is therefore more effective to work with that propensity, than it is to work heroically against that propensity. This is very much a layer in what the Tao Te Ching talks about.

> Essentially, in Chinese philosophy, any given situation has a propensity (water tends to run downhill). It is therefore more effective to work with that propensity, than it is to work heroically against that propensity.

Interesting, this is similar to the Hindu/Indic idea of dharma (e.g. the dharma of water is to flow) and the idea of working with/towards dharma (both of oneself and the world generally). (Dharma refers to both the proper order of things and to the actions one takes to uphold it.)

Edit: The "See also" section on the Wikipedia page for Ṛta is interesting:

• Asha (Zoroastrianism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asha

• Maat (Egyptian religion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maat

• Me (Sumerian religion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_(mythology)

• Tao (Chinese Taoism) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao

and a few others. In Hinduism there are Ṛta, Dharma, etc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E1%B9%9Ata https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma) (also in Buddhism Jainism etc)

What's also interesting to me is that there are enough similarities between Vedic and ancient Greek thought, and yet here we are with Aristolean ideas in the West, and in India, things went the way of the Puranas. (Treatise of Efficacy went into the flaw baked into Aristolean thoughts separating Theory and Practice, and how going with the propensity bypasses that).

The Chinese word for this propensity of the situation is shi (勢), rather than dao (道). There are other texts that talk about exploiting and profiting from propensity (shi), rather than what the Dao De Jing talks about with wei wuwei (為無為).

The notion of propensity/flow made me question if one's life is not best when being able to see and surf trends as you need. Tiny soft and round exchanges between all parties.. a kind of dance.

Mindfulness — being alive to the changing circumstances — is the key.

And if you want something a bit more relaxed and updated, The Dude De Ching[1], is quite good. It's a rewrite based around the core concepts of Dudeism, a fan-made spiritual practice based on the character "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski.

> The rug is a fabrication which ties our ruminations together.

1. https://dudeism.com/thedudedeching/

Edit: There is an online version available as well, https://aui.me/text/the-dude-de-ching/

Discussed most recently/productively here at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37686713 I think.

This very thread inspired me to read not only this book, but also this particular translation.

Read through the thread and didn't see references to the translation by Derek Lin, could you point to why you selected that version?

It is in the linked post, not - comments.

For Eastern Influence.

I think AI Engineers would be interested in a more Zen take, examining 'conceptual mind', 'subjective experience'.

""The Zen Teaching of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind""

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/276779.The_Zen_Teaching_...

Another great translation is by Witter Bynner - the book is titled The Way of Life rather than Tao Te Ching.

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