Arthur Waley, Confucius: Analects Kenneth Rexroth, Classics Revisited Ezra Pound, New Selected Poems and Translations Ai Weiwei and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks David Hinton, The Selected Poems of Tu Fu Ezra Pound, Confucius:…
If I can learn from all those in the world who criticize me and thereby improve myself, they will all be polishing and correcting me. In that case, everywhere is the opportunity for me to…
In short, the Taoists eliminated the usual basis for religion. The ultimate justification for spirituality was not in the promise of an afterlife, not in the gods, not in ritual, and not in clerical authority,…
Yes, as well as this terrible Good with a capital ‘G’, there is every day human kindness. The kindness of an old woman carrying a piece of bread to a prisoner, the kindness of a…
One makes a better world by what Dostoevsky liked to call “microscopic actions.” When you walk down the street, Zossima tells the other monks, don’t scowl. A kindly look can shift a person’s mood and…
My friend of forty years Pat Geier introduced me to the British Buddhist teacher Christina Feldman. After listening to and discussing some of her retreat talks at Dharma Seed, we are beginning to discuss her…
Mr. Elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON: “I have looked into it.” “What (said Elphinston) have you not read it through?” …
ADVICE: “ALWAYS DO WHAT YOU ARE AFRAID TO DO.”–Mary Moody Emerson, to Ralph Waldo Emerson Cited in Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Emerson: The Mind on Fire, 25
Yet we to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions of contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, see generations of men pass away, and are at leisure to establish modes of sorrow, and adjust…
What is my book but just making history among the fools—the sooner I give up literary attainment the sooner Enlightenment will come to me—If on my deathbed I’m still involved in literary matters I’ll deserve…