The Analects of Confucius
The Analects of Confucius Translated by James Legge Chapter 1 The Master said, “Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? “Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? “Is he not a man of complete virtue, who feels no discomposure though men may take no note of him?” The philosopher Yu said, “They are few who, being filial and fraternal, are fond of offending against their superiors. There have been none, who, not liking to offend against their superiors, have been fond of stirring up confusion. “The superior man bends his attention …
Tao Te Ching
Peter Merel’s Tao Te Ching Caveat This document attempts to draw the texts of several popular English translations of Lao Tse into a consistent and accessible context. It is based on the translations of Robert G. Henricks, Lin Yutang, D.C. Lau, Ch’u Ta-Kao, Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English, Richard Wilhelm and Aleister Crowley. This work is not a translation, but an interpolation. It does not represent the original text; the original, if there was an original, has been jumbled, mistranscribed and reinterpreted many times over many thousands of years, and is here cast into a language that is incapable of …
Julian Jaynes’ Theory of the Bicameral Mind and A Different Path to Subjective Consciousness in China
By You-Sheng Li (September 2008, written for The Jaynesian Newsletter; edited 15/02/2009) Abstract: That the man-made secondary society is foreign to humans is once more illustrated by the phenomenon of bicameral minds, first described by Julian Jaynes. According to Jaynes, people with bicameral minds followed auditory hallucination, the divine voice, in response to an enlarged community from 9000 to 1000 BC, and subjective consciousness appeared around 1000 BC. Unlike the Mediterranean civilizations on which Jaynes’ theory is based, Chinese civilization started with genetically coded primary society and therefore, went through a different pathway in the evolution of human minds to …
The Global Crisis is the Birth Pangs of a New World
By You-Sheng Li 20/03/09 What began as a reversal of the real estate market in the United States has spun out of control and ended as a full blown global crisis that humans have never faced before. There is almost a meltdown of the world’s financial and banking systems; trillions of dollars worth of assets have evaporated. Even some governments have collapsed, investors are devastated, and consumers terrified. According to the World Bank’s estimation, 53 million people will be pushed back into poverty, joining up to 155 million who now live on less than US$2 a day. There are three …
Taoist Philosophy for the 21st Century: an Alternative Way to View Life, Society, and the World
When people meet unexpectedly far from their hometown, they say, “It is a small world.” People also say, our world has shrunk to a village, global village. Modern communication technology has brought people unprecedentedly closer especially since the end of the Cold War. We are facing a new world that humans have never faced before. Do you think we need a totally new way of life? Many scholars say YES, and they predict that different cultures will replace nations to compete with each other in this new world. The show on the stage of the new world will be around …