WellBeing

7 min read

Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism are the three central pillars of traditional Chinese thought. “Taoism” refers to both a philosophical tradition and an organised religion, which in modern Chinese are identified separately as taojia and taojiao respe

ASIAN Geographic

2 min read

Bruce Lee famously said, “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip an

Beijing Review

2 min read

(Excerpts) My first connection to China was a spiritual journey over 35 years ago. I wanted to identify with and learn from the lives of individuals who ‘died with a smile.’ That journey took me east, to Taoism and the Tao Te Ching written by Lao-tzu

All About History

3 min read

When the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, died in 210 BCE, he was placed in a tomb constructed on a fantastic scale. Alongside the famed Terracotta Warriors he was buried with alchemical secrets. It is said that inside the grave a vast

All About History

1 min read

Kong Fuzi, or Confucius, was born in China in 551 BCE, at a time of chaos and disorder. The Zhou dynasty that had once led with such poise and dignity was on the decline. A keen student, Confucius made it his life’s mission to inspire a spirit of hum

The Writer

5 min read

Sometimes, you talk to a person, and they give you a bunch of hope for the future while simultaneously making it very clear that you still have a lot left to learn. I’m talking to Xu Xi, Jenks Chair of Contemporary Letters at College of the Holy Cros

Robb Report Singapore

1 min read

THE ANCIENT CHINESE philosopher Lao Tzu, and supposed author of the Tao Te Ching – the treatise on which philosophical Taoism is founded – is credited with an enigmatic saying: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” This issue, meant

India Today

1 min read

₹1,800; 228 pages Phanigiri is Telangana’s most important Buddhist archaeological site and this book meticulously catalogues its sculptures and inscriptions, built between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD ₹795; 336 pages The Buddhas of Bamiyan have been

Beijing Review

4 min read

One can easily find Terry Crossman wandering around Shichahai, a picturesque area in downtown Beijing’s Xicheng District. Wearing a red uniform with armband, he blends right into the team of community volunteers, a group of retirees still eager to co

The Independent

5 min read

I remember the first time I heard the word “stress”, I was six years old and playing hide and seek. Wrapped like a burrito in the folds of the living-room curtains I tried not to breathe as I spied on my mum and her friend talking conspiratorially ab

Literary Hub

3 min read

Legend has it that the two Masters met more than once, Lao-tzu being somewhat senior to Confucius. In a probably apocryphal chapter of the later The Book of Taoist Master Zhuang, their encounters are described with a mischievously mocking Taoist sens

Beijing Review

4 min read

In today’s global arena of interwoven and interdependent politics and business, it appears many a Western company is caught in a Catch-22 situation: They have their eye on the Chinese market, but are held back by political stigmata, as China is consi

Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

6 min read

China Root: Daoism, Chan, and Original Zen by David Hinton Shambhala Publications, 2020 176 pages; $17.95 THE COMMON understanding in America is that Zen Buddhism came to us from Japan, where in turn it was transmitted from China in the twelfth centu

The Millions

6 min read

Fiction has the unparalleled ability to grant us insight into a character's psyche. It is therefore uniquely qualified to explore the nature of chess itself. The post Plunging Into the Infinite: How Literature Captures the Essence of Chess appeared f

Dumbo Feather

3 min read

We have stopped. A pandemic encircles the world. Many of us are either partially or entirely isolated, keeping our distances. The planes are mostly grounded, the non-essential stores are closed. The hospitals are filled with people who are sick and d

Beijing Review

2 min read

Tursunjan’s story is a telling example of how culture—and medicine—transcend borders. As a young boy growing up in Shihezi, a city in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in northwest China, he was the only Uygur student in his class in high school, comi

Woman's Weekly Living Series

1 min read

Native to Japan and South Korea, the black pine is found in environments as diverse as mountainsides and cities. Although often known as the Japanese maple, this feathery-leaved tree is native to large areas of Eastern Asia including China. A tall

Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

12 min read

ONE SUMMER a few years ago, a renowned Tibetan Buddhist master came through my city on a teaching tour. Several months before this Rinpoche arrived, I saw the announcement and began making plans to attend. I started early because the teaching lasted

Beijing Review

5 min read

The author is professor of politics at East China Normal University in Shanghai In Poya Village in Funing County, on the southern border of Yunnan Province, just a few kilometers north of China’s border with Viet Nam, two “successors” remain, both of

India Today

4 min read

G EOPOLITICS IS A CRUEL GAME. It rewards cunning and calculating moves and punishes emotional responses. In the 21st century, as we move into an era of massive power shifts, geopolitical nimbleness will become even more critical for all countries. In

New Zealand Listener

2 min read

Joseph Needham was an embryologist at the University of Cambridge in the 1920s and 30s, writing several acclaimed books on the topic and other books on European history. He was a nudist, a Marxist, a high-church Anglo-Catholic, worshipping regularly

Homes & Gardens

1 min read

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz Gaia.com – an online resource for yoga and meditation. Meditation is a daily practice for me, just delete the drama. Bahamas – I love everything about this place. I also r

History Revealed

1 min read

http://bit.ly/JapanPod92 In this whistle-stop tour of Japan, recorded in 2020, historian and broadcaster Christopher Harding explores how Japan was forged, the feudal era of shogun and samurai, and the 20th-century conflicts that were to change it fo

Lion's Roar

2 min read

“LOOKING FOR PEACE is like looking for a turtle with a mustache,” Ajahn Chah once taught. “You won’t be able to find it. But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.” To keep his heart ever ready, Ajahn Chah, a key figure in the Tha

Lion's Roar

1 min read

O house builder, you have been seen;You shall not build the house again.Your rafters have been broken up,Your ridgepole is demolished too. My mind has now attained theunformed NibbanaAnd reached the end of every sortof craving. —THE BUDDHA PROCLAIMS

Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly

1 min read

Edited by Pamela Ayo Yetunde & Cheryl A. Giles Black Buddhist teachers off er lessons on racism, resilience, and achieving a truly representative American Buddhism. David Hinton A compelling and liberating guide to the original nature of Zen in ancie

Womankind

4 min read

In my final year at high school, a career adviser sat inside a makeshift caravan for a full day waiting for students to file in, one by one. “What is your passion?” he enquired. “What are your goals? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What,” he

Chicago Tribune

6 min read

Paula Saunders published "The Distance Home" to strong reviews last year, but it had percolated for decades. The book - a deeply resonant novel that explores the struggles of a Midwestern family - is autobiographical. Saunders grew up in South Dakota

The American Poetry Review

11 min read

Ecopoetry not in the sense of poetry decorated somehow with landscape—bird or snake, river or mountain—but in the radical sense of poetry that weaves consciousness and landscape together, returning the human to “nature” and the “wild,” from which we

Space

1 min read

From July 4 – 28, an exhibition entitled ‘3x =∞’, related to the ‘East Asia Culture City 2019’, was on display in the Incheon Art Platform. Hosted by Incheon City and the Incheon Foundation for Arts & Culture, this exhibition is part of the programme