The Useless Tree

Taoism

  • Taoist Thoughts on the Yankees 27th World Series Title

    Passage 2 of the Daodejing: All beneath heaven knows beauty is beauty only because there's ugliness, and knows good is good, only because there's evil. Being and nonbeing give birth to one another, difficult and easy complete one another, long… Continue reading

  • Stop Thinking

    NYT sports columnist George Vecsey has some Taoist advice for Alex Rodriguez: The instinctive A-Rod of the first two rounds seemed to have vanished. He was squeezing the bat. Gone was the guy who lashed home runs in the postseason,… Continue reading

  • The New York Yankees and the Mandate of Heaven

    For those readers who follow US sports, you'll know that that the New York Yankees have been winning of late.  For a Taoist Yankee fan like myself this is a pleasant thing.  For followers of the Boston Red Sox, however,… Continue reading

  • Taoism in Texas

    Every so often I write "Taoism" (or "Daoism") into Google just to see what pops up.  And today that search took me to the newspaper of Longview Texas, The News-Journal, and an article, "Line up: Taoism advises believers to align… Continue reading

  • The art of emptiness

    I didn't see this the other day in the NYT: sculptor Li Chen has a major show in Singapore.  He is inspired by Buddhism and Taoism: “Li Chen is regarded as one of the leading Asian sculptors today,” said Tan… Continue reading

  • The very nature of things

    While driving my daughter to school today, I ran into a deer.  Neither of us was hurt; the car was not damaged; and the deer, after spinning across the pavement in the opposite lane, somehow ran off.  I live in… Continue reading

  • What you won’t see on PRC TV for the National Day celebration

    Here's clip of a HK indie band, My Little Airport, singing an English version of their song, "I love the country but not the party" (我愛郊野，但不愛派對) in Shanghai last Saturday.  Notice the local Shanghai audience cheers for the lyric: "I’d… Continue reading

  • Chris on Taoist Parenting

    Chris, at A Ku Indeed!, has been blogging up a storm of late.  Some great stuff.  I have to call out his rumination, "The Tao of Kids." Without explicitly saying so, he is pushing back against Legalist-like parenting strategies that… Continue reading

  • “I” am “Laozi”

    Roland, over at ESWN, reports on how the term "Laozi" 老子  is sometimes used colloquially to refer to "wuo" 我.  Laozi is, of course, the name of the legendary author of the Daodejing.  So, confusion can be created when the… Continue reading

  • Growing old well

    NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes (and speaks) a tribute to Fred Stocking, a man who taught at Williams College for over forty years.  Living and working here for the past twenty years, I came to know Fred mostly by reputation,… Continue reading