Moreover, skillful wrestlers begin with open trials of strength, but always end with masked aggression (to gain the victory); as their excitement grows excessive, they display fraudulent tactics. Parties drinking according to the rules at first observe good order, but always end with disorder; as their excitement grows excessive, they become raucous. In all…
This conversation takes place between Confucius and Yan Hui, a court official. Can you imagine a more precarious professional role, than a job in the administration of an autocrat? The topic revolves around how a “fasting-of-the-mind” is advantageous to someone such as Hui. Confucius describes a concentration, a quieting of the will, as one…
In ancient times Kieh killed Kwan Lung fang, and Kâu killed the prince Pî kan. Both of these cultivated their persons, bending down in sympathy with the lower people to comfort, to relieve suffering (as they did) from their oppressors, and on their account opposing their superiors. On this account, because of their moral…
Along with others, I have struggled to understand the nature of my relationship to the Federal Government. This ancient dialog between Confucius and one of his students illuminates the topic. What frame-of-mind is feasible toward a autocrat, and the high-handed murderous administration for which he is the “front man”? The autocrat’s party regards compromise…
Serendipity is coincidence of circumstance that is unexpected. Perhaps occasionally that happens to everybody. Earlier in the day preparing for a session later in the week I composed several questions related to the relationship between life and death. Then, when turning to consider this post was this ancient account of a funeral. The funeral…
The pheasant of the marshes has to take ten steps to pick up a mouthful of food, and thirty steps to get a drink, but it does not seek to be nourished in a coup. Though its spirit would (there) enjoy a royal abundance, it does not think (such confinement) good. Zhuangzi by Zhuang…
Perhaps there is nothing more satisfying than to observe a skilled artisan work. Here is a widely known Taoist story. A humble cook instructs the ruler of the realm on the art of ruling by his manner of dismembering an Ox in the course of meal preparation. No further comment needed. Cook Ding was…
The Mastery of Life There is a limit to our life,but to knowledge there is no limit.With what is limitedto pursue after what is unlimited is a perilous thing; and when, knowing this,we still seek the increase of our knowledge,the peril cannot be averted. There should not be the practice of what is goodwith…
The Penumbra asked the Shadow, saying, ‘Formerly you were walking on, and now you have stopped; formerly you were sitting, and now you have risen up: how is it that you are so without stability?’ The Shadow replied, ‘I wait for the movements of something else to do what I do, and that something…
The lyric penned by Chrissie Hynde is more true now than ever. Resist temptation, irrational faith in “the system,” that’s going to take care of us. The system is an abstraction, a collection of imagined, dream-like benefits, (democracy protects everyone’s rights, captalism-gets-us-all-ahead, etc.) quite divorced from the way things actually work, the sharp-edged reality….
