Tao Te Tweet: 1. No words for Tao

The Tao Te Tweet is now complete, featuring Twitter-length (140 characters, including spaces) transcreations of verses from the Tao Te Ching. It begins at the beginning, and will work itself in numerical order to the end, hopefully. Since I don't know a lick of Chinese, I have primarily been using the translations and commentaries of Ellen M. Chen (amazing research and depth), as well as the translations by David Hinton (an impeccable translator of Chinese poetry) and Jonathan Star (who has created a grid containing each Chinese character of each verse and its possible translations). I have also used translations by Stephen Mitchell and Red Pine, as well as others included in the links below. But in almost every case, the verse has worked itself into its twitter length through that muse of intuition and rhythm.

1. No words for Tao

#T-L 1 No words for Tao; words are for things. To know Tao, no desire; desires are for things. Both sourced in darkness, doorway to no-thing

1 comment:

breezeFebruary 26, 2010 at 6:38 PM
seems pretty clear that spirit desires form. Theres something about forms...something kind of beautiful actually.
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1. No words for Tao

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