Wisdom of the East
Confucius, the Buddha, Laozi and Sun Tzu: the thinkers of ancient China and India, and what they actually taught.
- philosophy
- china
- india
- buddhism
Some of the stories included
- The Bhagavad GitaThe Bhagavad Gita, the Hindu scripture set on a battlefield: Prince Arjuna's crisis and Krishna's teaching on duty, the self and action.
Jainism and the Path of Non-ViolenceJainism, the ancient Indian religion that makes non-violence its highest rule, and how it shaped the young Mahatma Gandhi.
Sun Tzu and The Art of WarDiscover the real ideas in The Art of War, from winning without fighting to the 1972 discovery that proved its ancient origins.
The BuddhaThe life of Siddhartha Gautama, the sheltered prince who confronted suffering and became the Buddha, and his core teachings on how to end it.
BodhidharmaThe story of Bodhidharma, the monk credited with bringing Zen to China, and of how the little that is recorded about him grew into centuries of legend.
How Ganesha Got His Elephant HeadIn the Shiva Purana, Shiva beheads the boy guarding Parvati's door, then replaces the head with an elephant's.
Nagarjuna, the Philosopher of EmptinessNagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika runs to about 450 stanzas in 27 chapters and argues that nothing has a fixed essence.
Zhuangzi's Butterfly DreamThe Daoist thinker Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly, and on waking could not say which was the dreamer, questioning the nature of reality.
ConfuciusA failed official in a time of war, Confucius taught that a good society is built from good conduct in ordinary relationships.
Laozi and the DaoThe Dao De Jing teaches the 'Dao', the way things naturally go. Its author, Laozi, may not have been a single person at all.
More like this
The Ship of Theseus ParadoxThe ancient paradox of the Ship of Theseus, first recorded by Plutarch, questions if an object remains the same after all its parts are replaced.
Utilitarianism: The Greatest GoodBentham's felicific calculus weighed pleasure and pain by seven factors, and the theory still shapes how charity is judged.
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