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ALONE IN HER BEAUTY 佳人

louise.luo — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:53:19 GMT

ALONE IN HER BEAUTY 佳人

杜甫

Who is lovelier than she?
Yet she lives alone in an empty valley.
She tells me she came from a good family
Which is humbled now into the dust.
...When trouble arose in the Kuan district,
Her brothers and close kin were killed.
What use were their high offices,
Not even shielding their own lives? --
The world has but scorn for adversity;
Hope goes out, like the light of a candle.
Her husband, with a vagrant heart,
Seeks a new face like a new piece of jade;
And when morning-glories furl at night
And mandarin-ducks lie side by side,
All he can see is the smile of the new love,
While the old love weeps unheard.
The brook was pure in its mountain source,
But away from the mountain its waters darken.
...Waiting for her maid to come from selling pearls
For straw to cover the roof again,
She picks a few flowers, no longer for her hair,
And lets pine-needles fall through her fingers,
And, forgetting her thin silk sleeve and the cold,
She leans in the sunset by a tall bamboo.

绝代有佳人
幽居在空谷
自云良家子
零落依草木
关中昔丧乱
兄弟遭杀戮
官高何足论
不得收骨肉
世情恶衰歇
万事随转烛
夫婿轻薄儿
新人美如玉
合昏尚知时
鸳鸯不独宿
但见新人笑
那闻旧人哭
在山泉水清
出山泉水浊
侍婢卖珠回
牵萝补茅屋
摘花不插发
采柏动盈掬
天寒翠袖薄
日暮倚修竹

道德经

louise.luo — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:55:03 GMT

道德经

第一章
　　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。

Chapter 1
The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way;
The names that can be named are not unvarying names.
It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;
The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.
Truly, 'Only he that rids himself forever of desire can see the Secret Essences' ;
He that has never rid himself of desire can see only the Outcomes.
These two things issued from the same mould, but nevertheless are different in name.
This ' same mould' we can but call the Mystery,
Or rather the 'Darker than any Mystery',
The Doorway whence issued all Secret Essences.

　　　　第二章　
　　天下皆知美之为美，斯恶已；皆知善之为善，斯不善已。
　　故有无相生，难易相成，长短相形，高下相倾，音声相和，前后相随。
　　是以圣人处无为之事，行不言之教，万物作焉而不辞，生而不有，为而不恃，功成而弗居。夫唯弗居，是以不去。

Chapter2
It is because every one under Heaven recognizes beauty as beauty,that the idea of ugliness exists.
And equally if every one recognized virtue as virtue, this would merely create fresh conceptions of wickedness.
For truly 'Being and Not-being grow out of one another;
Difficult and easy complete one another.
Long and short test one another;
High and low determine one another.
Pitch and mode give harmony to one another.
Front and back give sequence to one another'.
Therefore[1] the Sage relies on actionless activity,
Carries on wordless teaching,
But the myriad creatures are worked upon by him; he does not disown them.
He rears them, but does not lay claim to them,
Controls them, but does not lean upon them,
Achieves his aim, but does not call attention[2] to what he does;
And for the very reason that he does not call attention to what he does
He is not ejected from fruition of what he has done.

[1]Because 'action' can only make one thing high at the expense of making something else low, etc.
[2]Literally, 'does not place (i.e.classify) himself as a victor'. cf. MenciusⅡ, Ⅰ;

　　　　第三章　
　　不尚贤，使民不争；不贵难得之货，使民不为盗；不见可欲，使民心不乱。
　　是以圣人之治，虚其心，实其腹；弱其志，强其骨。常使民无知无欲，使夫智不敢为也。为无为，则无不治。

Chapter3
If we stop looking for 'persons of superior morality' (hsien) to put in power, there will be no more jealousies among the people. If we cease to set store by products that are hard to get , there will be no more thieves. If the people never see such things as excite desire, their hearts will remain placid and undisturbed. Therefore the Sage rules
　　By emptying their hearts
　　And filling their bellies,
　　Weakening their intelligence[1]
　　And toughening their sinews
　　Ever striving to make the people knowledgeless and desireless.
Indeed he sees to it that if there be any who have knowledge, they dare not interfere. Yet through his actionless activity all things are duly regulated.

[1]Particularly in the sense of 'having ideas of one's own'.

　　　　第四章　
　　道冲而用之，或不盈。
　　渊兮，似万物之宗。（挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘。）湛兮，似或存。
　　吾不知谁之子，象帝之先。

Chapter4
The Way is like an empty vessel
That yet may be drawn from
Without ever needing to be filled.
It is bottomless; the very progenitor of all things in the world.
In it all sharpness is blunted,
All tangles untied,
All glare tempered,
All dust[1] smoothed.
It is like a deep pool that never dries.
Was it too the child of something else? We cannot tell.
But as a substanceless image[2] it existed before the Ancestor.[3]

[1]Dust is the Taoist symbol for the noise and fuss of everyday life.
[2]A hsiang, an image such as the mental images that float before us when we think.
[3]The Ancestor in question is almost certainly the Yellow Ancestor who separated Earth from Heaven and so destroyed the Primal Unity, for which he is frequently censured is Chuang Tzu.

　　　　第五章　
　　天地不仁，以万物为刍狗；圣人不仁，以百姓为刍狗。
　　天地之间，其犹橐籥乎！虚而不屈，动而愈出。
　　多言数穷，不如守中。

Chapter5
Heaven and Earth are ruthless;
To them the Ten Thousand Things are but as straw dogs.
The Sage too is ruthless;
To him the people are but as straw dogs.
Yet[1] Heaven and Earth and all that lies between
Is like a bellows
In that it is empty, but gives a supply that never fails.
Work it, and more comes out .
Whereas the force of words[2] is soon spent.
Far better is it to keep what is in the heart[3].

[1]Though ruthless nature is perpetually bounteous.
[2]Laws and proclamations.
[3]For chung as 'what is within the heart', see Tso Chuan, Yin Kung 3rd year and Kuan Tzu,37, beginning. The comparison of Heaven and Earth to a bellows is also found in Kuan Tzu (P'ien 11, beginning).

　　　　第六章　
　　谷神不死，是谓玄牝。
　　玄牝之门，是谓天地根。
　　绵绵若存，用之不勤。

Chapter6
The Valley Spirit never dies.
It is named the Mysterious Female.
And the Doorway of the Mysterious Female
Is the base from which Heaven and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while;
Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.[1]

[1]Lieh Tzu quotes these lines as coming from the Book of the Yellow Ancestor; but it does not follow that the Tao Ching is actually quothing them from this source. They may belong to the general stock of early Taoist rhymed teaching. For ch' in compare below, Chapter 52, line 9, and Huai-nan Tzu I, fol.2.

　　　　第七章
　　天长地久，天地所以能长且久者，以其不自生，故能长生。
　　是以圣人后其身而身先，外其身而身存。非以其无私邪？故能成其私。

Chapter7
Heaven is eternal, the Earth Everlasting.
How come they to be so? Is it because they do not foster their own lives;
That is why they live so long.
Therefore the Sage
Puts himself in the background; but is always to the fore.
Remains outside; but is always there.
Is it not just because he does not strive for any personal end
That all his personal ends are fulfilled?

　　　　第八章
　　上善若水，水善利万物而不争。处众人之所恶，故几于道。
　　居善地，心善渊，与善仁，言善信，正善治，事善能，动善时。
　　夫唯不争，故无尤。

Chapter 8
The highest good is like that of water. The goodness of water is that it benefits the ten thousand creatures; yet itself does not scramble, but is content with the places that all men disdain. It is this that makes water so near to the Way.
And if men think the ground the best place for building a house upon,
If among thoughts they value those that are profound,
If in friendship they value gentleness,
In words, truth; in government, good order;
In deeds, effectiveness; in actions, timeliness-
In each case it is because they prefer what does not lead to strife,[1]
And therefore does not go amiss.

[1]Even ordinary people realize the importance of the Taoist principle of 'water-like' behaviour, i.e. not striving to get on top or to the fore.

　　　　第九章　
　　持而盈之，不如其已；揣而锐之，不可长保。
　　金玉满堂，莫之能守。富贵而骄，自遗其咎。
　　功遂身退，天之道也！

Chapter9
Stretch a bow[1] to the very full,
And you will wish you had stopped in time;
Temper a sword-edge to its very sharpest,
And you will find it soon grows dull
When bronze and jade fill your hall
It can no longer be guarded.
Wealth and place breed insolence
That brings ruin in its train.
When your work is done, then withdraw!
Such is Heaven's[2] Way.

[1] the expression used can also apply to filling a vessel to the brim; but 'stretching a bow' makes a better parallel to 'sharpening a sword'.
[2] as opposed to the Way of man.

Ex-Husband

louise.luo — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 23:36:34 GMT

Ex-Husband

The young married couple was sitting in a fine restaurant when the wife looks over at a nearby table and sees a man in a drunken stupor.

The husband asks, "I notice you've been watching that man for some time now. Do you know him?"

"Yes" she replies, "He's my ex-husband, and has been drinking like that since I left him seven years ago."

"That's remarkable" the husband replies, "I wouldn't think anybody could celebrate that long."

Just Ask the Boss

louise.luo — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:19:50 GMT

Just Ask the Boss

There was a guy who went into a shop to buy a parrot. There were three parrots in the shop. One was $5,000; another one, $10,000; and the third one, $30,000.

The customer asked the owner, “How come this guy is $5,000? That’s so expensive for this kind of parrot.” The owner said, “Because I have trained him and he can talk.” So the customer asked him, “How about this guy? What can he do that makes him so expensive?”

The owner said, “Well, apart from talking, he can also do some amusing actions, like dancing and so on. That’s why he’s so expensive.” Then the customer said, “How about the third one? What can he do that makes him so expensive?” The owner of the shop said, “I don’t know. Normally, I have never heard him talk, nor dance, nor whistle, nor sing, nothing at all! But the other two call him ‘The Boss.’”

Lion King vs Elephant

louise.luo — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:10:17 GMT

Lion King vs Elephant

There is a Lion that feel he is the King of the jungle.

And to make sure about his opinion, he ask to the gorilla.
Lion: Gorilla, who is the King of the jungle?
Gorilla: You are the King

The Lion become proud to hear the answer.
Then he meet the wild ox.
Lion: Ox, who is the King of the jungle?
Ox: Of course you are.

The Lion very very happy.
Then he meet the big elephant.
Lion: Hi elephant, who is the King of the jungle?

But, the elephant ignore him and go away.
The Lion ask to the elephant once again loudly.
Unexpectedly, the elephant hit the Lion and throw down forcefully by his trunk, and then go away.

With the pain body, the Lion said to the elephant,"If you don't know the answer, don't be anger like that, ok"

The world can be changed by man's endeavor

louise.luo — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:04:42 GMT

The world can be changed by man's endeavor

The world can be changed by man's endeavor,and that this endeavor can lead to something new and better.No man can sever the bonds that unite him to his society simply, by averting his eyes.He must ever be receptive and sensitive to the new; and have sufficient courage and skill to novel facts and to deal with them.

Joke:Smart students

louise.luo — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 06:19:56 GMT

Joke:Smart students

TEACHER: Maria, go to the map and find North America .
MARIA: Here it is!
TEACHER: Correct. Now class, who discovered America ?
CLASS: Maria!
____________ _________ _________ ______

TEACHER: Why are you late, Frank?
FRANK: Because of the sign.
TEACHER: What sign?
FRANK: the one that says, "School
Ahead, Go Slow."
____________ _________ _________ _______

TEACHER: John, why are you doing
your math multiplication on the floor?
JOHN: You told me to do it without using tables!

YOU

louise.luo — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:20:15 GMT

YOU

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.

You are on your own.

And you know what you know.

You are the guy who'll decide where to go.

The spring

louise.luo — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:02:50 GMT

The spring

This is the resurrection time, That which was dead,or so it seemed, has come to life again--the stiff branch, supple; the brown earth, green. This is the miracle: There is no death; there is in truth eteral life.

Everywhere, spring brings the blessed reassurance that life goes on, that death is no more than a passing season. The plan never falters;the design never changes.