Sublime

Rinzai’s radical use of buji tells us that Zen is no “thing” whatsoever. In his talk, he tries to cut off any notion we may have of what there is to do or what there is to accomplish. He spells out all the traps that his monks are likely to fall into—his way of flushing out their “secret practices.” Today, Rinzai is famous for answering questions w

Molasses

Zen begins at the point where there is nothing further to seek, nothing to be gained. Zen is most emphatically not to be regarded as a system of self-improvement, or a way of becoming a Buddha. In the words of Lin-chi, “If a man seeks the Buddha, that man loses the Buddha.”

In fact, as Zhao Suisheng argues, the idea of Han ethno-national identity, like that of the Chinese nation, dates only to the late nineteenth…

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Shravasti: This was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kaushala.

WANG P’ANG says, “All creatures share the same breath. But the movement of this breath comes and goes. It ends only to begin again. Hence, happiness and misery alternate like the seasons. But only sages realize this. Hence, in everything they do, they aim for the middle and avoid the extremes, unlike the government that insists on directness and go

Stoicism was a school of philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early third century BC. Its name is derived from the Greek stoa, meaning porch,