This small memoir, that ends on a tone of desillusion, is one of the best accounts of a Westerner coming to terms with Zen and meditation. The Empty Mirror, Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery, written by the Dutch adventurer, businessman and author Janwillem van de Wetering, is not perfect (the end is a bit [...]
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The Chinese Tang-poet Bai Juyi wrote the following tongue-in-cheek poem about the Daodejing, the Daoist wisdom book that claims that “those who know, don’t speak”:
Reading Laozi
Those who speak do not know, those who know are silent,
I heard this saying from the old gentleman.
If the old gentleman was one who knew the way,
Why did he feel [...]
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One of the reasons I decided to study Chinese (a decision that shocked both my parents and my teachers at the Grammar School in the small town where I lived) was my discovery of philosophical Daoism. Not satisfied with what the protestant church my family officially was a member of, was teaching, already from a [...]
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In previous posts about Japanese cuisine and sake-making I have talked about the obsession with ultimate quality in cooking (and in cutting, which is very important in Asian cuisine as the diners themselves do not have a knife!), as well as of sake brewing as a handicraft that in the end is practiced on a [...]
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