One day, the Leader of the School called all his pupils and declared, "Life and death are serious things. You pupils waste your time making offerings, seeking worldly blessings and not even trying to break out of the cycle of life and death! If you give yourself over to delusions, how can blessings save you? Go to your rooms and think for yourselves!

"Those who have true wisdom, use it! Each of you has to write a verse for me. For the student who best sums up the basic ideas taught by the Buddha, I will hand over my robes, naming that person the next Leader... more

The perfected person penetrates infinity with a wonderful mind, and the finite world can't stand in the way. He absolutely dedicates his ears to listening and his eyes to seeing, and neither sound nor color can hold him back. Is this not because he leaves the emptiness of things in ordinary reality, so these things can't affect his innermost mind?

Thus, the sage uses his true mind. He is in agreement with li (principle or propriety), and there's no obstacle he can't overcome. He sees the transformation of all things and clearly understands that... more

I'm not a Chinese-American, but my kids are. Here's something about what that means.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is a blog that's mostly about all-American Chinese food, but recently devoted a little attention to Chinese-American history, thanks to the publication of a new book... more

...On Universal Love.

When the princes love one another there will be no more war; when heads of houses love one another there will be no more mutual theft of office; when ordinary people love one another there will be no more mutual injury. When ruler and ruled love each other they will be benevolent and loyal; when father and son love each other they will be affectionate and supportive; when older and younger siblings love each other they will have harmonious words for everyone. When all the people in the world love one another,... more

Things I've been reading worth passing along:

* How to foster attachment.

This is a page of great suggestions, one of many pages on a site filled with great suggestions. I'm not so sure about the business with singing goofy songs, but I have recollections of playing the Cheerio-passing Cereal Kisses game and it working on her.

Reader, she married me, and then... more

So, here we go with the next drive-by reading of the I Ching, with a lesson filled with sunshine and promises. Everything about this hexagram seems optimistic, although according to Wikipedia, variations on its name include "aquas," which makes no sense at all (shades of blue?).

What's the character mean? The character for jin shows two swooping birds descending over the sun, and literally means to advance or go forward (onward and upward!). Master Huang here veers away from the dictionary and says... more

Listening to the Wind in the Pines, Ma Lin

People say that Wen Wang could drink a thousand jugs of wine and Confucius, a hundred gallons. From this we're supposed to conclude these sages had outstanding virtue, since they could handle so much liquor. If they could sit down and toss back a thousand jugs or a hundred gallons, they must've been winos, not sages!

... more

Curious why this is in a blog about Chinese adoption? Read this explanation.

OK, back to my notes on the Big Text of Chinese Culture, gleaning advice from one of the world's best sources of wisdom.

With da zhuang, we've gone from the last chapter's Retreat to a position of power. Obviously, we weren't running... more

China and Europe have connections that go back further than you'd think. So what *does* a "Chinese" person look like anyway?

National Geographic brings news of a fellow named Yu Hong found in a 1,400-year-old Chinese tomb.

He was buried there with "a woman of East Asian descent" (my guess, and theirs, would be his wife), but his DNA is different.... more

So, back to my notes on the I Ching, that cornerstone of Chinese culture. If you want to know China, there's no way around the I Ching.

After the wise advice of the last hexagram, which was all about hanging in there and keeping on keeping on, we come to the inevitable stopping and backing away. Not all courses are worth following.

What's the character mean? The character for dun shows three footprints over a... more