Category: Classics

Today’s One-Liner (#39)

« Dire que j’ai gâché des années de ma vie, que j’ai voulu mourir, que j’ai eu mon plus grand amour, pour une femme qui ne me plaisait pas, qui n’était pas mon genre !…

Today’s One-Liner (#37)

One advantage of knowing the classics is that no matter the what situation you might find yourself in, you’ll remember that someone else was there before you. –Kenneth Rexroth, quoted in Anne Waldman and Laura…

Reading Jewish

In 1994, I purchased Harold Bloom’s The Western Canon, and would peruse it from time to time, and pick a book off of Bloom’s four lists.    He got me back to Shakespeare  and sparked…

Not Flustered, Not Melancholy, Not Anxious

James Laughlin, Ezra Pound’s publisher, observed that “Pound’s translations of Confucian texts, beautiful as is their language, are seldom applauded by Sinologues.” But we common readers may appreciate such versions from the Analects, when  they…

Taking Refuge in Po Chü-i

Enough already of Useful Idiots, Counterpunch, flare-ups at The Intercept Political yammering by self-appointed soothsayers This Friday night I fade far away from news of assorted American Psychos And am welcomed by Po Chü-i Who…

Gratitude/555

I give thanks for translators whose labors allow me to meditate on the teachings of sages throughout time, like David Hinton’s work with  Confucius’s Analects…   1.16 The Master said: “Don’t grieve when people fail…

From Three Chinese Books

1. The Master said, To learn and at due times to repeat what one has learnt, is that not after all a pleasure? That friends should come to one from afar, is this not after…

Trying To Be One-Pointed

In the autumn, on retreat at a mountain temple Although I try to hold the single thought of Buddha’s teaching in my heart, I cannot help but hear the many crickets’ voices calling as well….

Trying To Be One-Pointed

In the autumn, on retreat at a mountain temple Although I try to hold the single thought of Buddha’s teaching in my heart, I cannot help but hear the many crickets’ voices calling as well….