I love this verse!!
Whilst the first verse is always the one that gets quoted when trying to explain what the Dao is (well, usually only those opening lines), I think this verse explains the paradigm better. And I reckon you're soon on the money @TheLynx with that tension of understanding the paradox: striving and non-striving emerging from each other and yet being different to each other too!
What amazed me when I first read this was how it encapsulates Structuralist theory (from semiotics and linguistics, and also anthropology) over 2000 years beforehand!! What's even more amazing is how the work being done in neuroscience is showing that there is indeed something that happens in our neurological systems that shows that our perception of the world is in a sense dualistic and relativistic, in that we always 'know' something as it relates to something else.
I found the last two lines really hard to translate, and it's helpful to have so many translations around as comparison... but other than the grammatical issues, I think my mind gets to the point of struggling to grasp these ideas.
"whether states of being exist because of the existence of their opposites, independent of the awareness of an outside source...or whether the act of something or someone perceiving them gives rise to their interdependence"
My interpretation here is that it is both (of course). 天下 tiānxià is literally "below Heaven", or the whole world. This is a pretty specific phrase, in that humans (and, interestingly plants and animals) are "below Heaven". Heaven is to put it simply a realm of pure consciousness and potentialities. It is only because there is Earth (material existence, manifestation) that differentiations can come into being. A good metaphor would be that Heaven is like an ocean, but Earth is like a collection of individual molecules of water.
The point of this verse and verse 1 (as well as many other verses) is that we cannot have one without the other, and also we can't know one without the other.
If we create distinctions, we are then presupposing Earth (yin) to be the answer; if we create absolutely no distinctions ("all is one") then we presuppose Heaven (yang). This is what the perpetual Dao is.... it is both of these. So we get that awesome line "tangible and intangible create one another" (or "existence and non-existence", - literally "to have" and "not".... to be and to not be).
In a sense, because we are material beings, dependent on physiological sense organs with which to experience reality, our perception can only limit our understanding of this. I've always wondered if these kinds of statements weren't used by the students of this school to create 'pattern interrupts', similar to later zen koans.
Looking forward to the next one, as always.... 😊🙏🏽☯️
Thanks for another great, in-depth response. Before actually responding to anything you said, I'd like to extend an offer to participate in the main post if you're interested. Or keep doing comments, that's great too :-)
Your point about our sensory organs being limiting by their very nature is something that I resonate with quite a bit, and have focused on in MANY conversations about reality, truth, and anything else that we "know". Many friends have asked that double-sided question of "Is there absolute truth, and can humans know it?"... to which I generally say something like "probably... and absolutely not".
The "yes, and" is so key! One of the places I see this debate which really annoys me is the idea that sovereignty/individuality doesn't leave space for communalism/collectivism. In the very first article I ever published online (The 6 Facets of the Paradigm Shift), the first two facets were sovereignty & unity, because thay false dichotomy causes so much suffering & violence.
There was a time that these things surprised/amazed me; at this point I've come to the belief/understanding that everything society is discovering now is so very old and was simply lost/obscured by empire/religion/violence.
Haha.... Thanks for the offer, I'll participate in the comments section. Maybe just shoot me a DM in discord when you post with a link, it took me 5 days to find this one.
All those points you raise are precisely why I'm fascinated with Dynastic China. They have remained consistently autocratic for thousands of years (I'd say their version of Communism is a modern extension to their version of Imperialism), and yet Daoism envisions something different. I think its probably because the notion of sovereignty can logically be extended to every single individual, and some thinkers recognised this early on.
Imagine a world that is a collective of sovereign individuals... it's a tricky balance, but I think we have plenty of road maps and guides to be able to achieve it now, with 5000 years worth of human wisdom to draw on.
Sounds good :-) What's your discord S/N? I tried searching for "metametheus" but nothing came up.
That's a really great point about China's history as compared to this ancient philosophy that has been present and influential in the culture for so long.
I would say that the world already is a collective of sovereign individuals, although so many of those individuals have been tricked into acting as though they aren't sovereign.