1.
Taoist usage of a Confucian term. Originally it meant attaining
knowledge by assessment of thing?. Here it is used to stand for the
exercise of "turning the light around" and reaching toward the source of
knowing. There are many examples of special Taoist uses of Confucian
and Buddhist terms to be found in the literature of syncretic schools such
as that of the Golden Flower.
There follow in Wilhelm's translation six paragraphs that are not in the
Chinese text available to me. Their content marks them as interpolations
or footnotes.
14. Small Stopping and Seeing is a classic compendium of basic meditation
techniques, composed by the founder of Tian-tai Buddhism in the sixth
century
A
.
D
. Wilhelm does hot translate this passage, and he misconstrues
the terms stopping and seeing as "fixating contemplation." The terms mean
stopping random thought and seeing successive layers of truth. This
recommendation of a popular Buddhist meditation guidebook as a
"touchstone" illustrates the close relationship between Buddhist and Taoist
contemplative practices of the time.
15. "Focus on the center" is translated by Wilhelm as "the center in the
midst of conditions" misreading the verb yuan, "focus," as the noun yuan,
"condition" There follows a passage (not in my Chinese text) interpreting
"focus on the center" to mean, as Wilhelm translates, "fixing one's thinking
