Robert Eno, "Guanzi : The Inner Enterprise", 2005
www.indiana.edu/~p374/Neiye.pdf

Translations often differ significantly because there are at least five early manuscripts to draw upon, dating from around 1300 to 1600 AD. In addition, Chinese scholars in the last few centuries have made many suggested modifications to the existing original sources. Attempting to reverse centuries of possible transcription errors, they replaced many symbols which apparently make no sense with symbols that have a very similar shape and/or sound (often to complete a rhyme), and whose meaning seemed more appropriate. To make matters worse, there are no readily available printed copies of the oldest manuscripts in their original form, so the Chinese symbols used for this work came from various web sites and were cross-referenced against Roth's book (below). Every care has been taken to ensure that the symbols used here are correct, but how accurately they match the original manuscripts is unknown.

The Translation Process ———————————- Often, translators just try to get the general "feel" of what the Chinese is trying to say, and then write an English sentence that means about the same thing. What I tried to do (for no other reason than to see if it could be done) was to preserve as much of the original Chinese as possible by always using each symbol in the English sentence, and an exact translation of each symbol wherever possible, with as few added English words as possible. This sometimes results in sentences that are somewhat stilted in English, but that I hope retain more of the original Chinese way of thinking. I also tried to use the same English word for the same Chinese symbol whenever possible, so that the English reader could better see what the writer(s) were trying to say. Occasionally more than one English meaning for a symbol fits equally well, and the translator must pick just one. However, I sometimes took both meanings and combined them into a single phrase, such as "heart/mind", or "fair and just". Exact translations are interpreted when they either don't make as much sense literally, or when the resulting phrase would be awkward in English.

The approach used here for the corrected symbols was to always use the original symbol whenever possible, and only use a suggested correction when the original symbol makes no sense.

While I originally intended to present each sentence "as is" (with no additional interpretation of the sentence as-a-whole on my part), there are many sentences which do not seem to make sense without a context. The more I study the Nei Ye, the more I have come to believe that it is talking about aligning the heart/mind, not the physical body, to receive Dao, De, Qi and essence. In particular, I believe that some references to "form" are referring to the "form of the heart/mind" (a phrase which is used explicitly three times), and so have added that phrase in two more places, indicated by [brackets]. In addition, a couple of references to "returning" are assumed to be referring to returning to one's nature (a phrase which is used explicitly once), and they are also indicated by brackets. There are a few more personal assumptions indicated by brackets. Other scholarly and personal interpretations are explained in the footnotes.

The section (—-) and sub-section (blank line) divisions are entirely due to the hubris of the translator. As far as I know, there are no section markers in the original manuscripts, because Rickett, Roth, and Eno often use different divisions.

Definitions
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Some of the terms that are used repeatedly need to be discussed
beforehand for clarity :

Dao (Tao) : in the Dao De Jing, Dao is both the natural way of things and the process of following that way; here, it is something that is essential for life and that can dwell in the heart/mind; it is left untranslated so that the readers may "fill in the blank" for themselves as they read

De (Te) : in the Dao De Jing, De is most often translated as "virtue" or "power" and is described in Chapter 49 as "goodness" or "virtue" and "honesty" or "trust"; here, it is something that can "arrive" in a person and is used daily; it is also left untranslated so that the readers may "fill in the blank" for themselves

"Qi" (Ch'i) : vitality, life force, life energy, vital energy; it can also refer to the breath; here, it is needed for life and dwells in the heart/mind, and is also left untranslated