The Useless Tree

Taoism

  • A Taoist Garden?

        A story in the LA Times a few days ago describes the opening of a Chinese-style garden in San Marino.  Although it’s been a long time since I last strolled through the gardens of Suzhou or walked around… Continue reading

  • Is Juno a Taoist?

          A lot, relatively speaking, of Taoism this week here at The Useless Tree.  My Confucian friends might be asking: what about us?  Don’t fear.  It’s all about the moment: I am working with students on the Tao Te… Continue reading

  • Tao in Coffee

        For no particular reason I found myself this afternoon looking at Youtube clips having to do with "Tao."  There were several that had people confidently expounding on this or that aspect of the elusive concept – and I… Continue reading

  • Way is Empty

          This semester I am doing a tutorial on ancient Chinese philosophy.  For the next two weeks a dozen students and I will be reading and thinking about the Tao Te Ching.  Of course, I read and think about… Continue reading

  • Mao and Tao

        Yesterday in my Chinese politics class we discussed Marxist ideology in general and Mao’s Report on the Hunan Peasant’s Movement in particular.  The aim of the conversation was to come to an understanding of how a foreign ideology… Continue reading

  • Way is Vast – More Vast than even the Best Scientists can Know

        About two weeks ago I did a post on synthetic biology, a term that struck me as ironic, if not fully oxymoronic.   The Taoist response came quite… naturally, dare I say.  Today there is something of a follow… Continue reading

  • Dust Off Your A. N. Whitehead

    UPDATED: see below…. The new semester is upon us!  Posting has fallen off a bit because I am working on my syllabuses (syllabi?) for my classes (one on Chinese politics and a tutorial on ancient Chinese philosophy).  But I will… Continue reading

  • The Tao of Obama

        I know: Taoism is not really a good analytic framework for US politics (largely because Taoism is, in itself, anti-analytic, but that is another story…).  Too much weirdness about keeping people uninformed and hiding the weapons and all… Continue reading

  • Walking the Dogs with Confucius and Chuang Tzu

         When I am around my dogs – two beagle-mutts, Rudy and Larry – I am more Confucian than Taoist.    I was reminded of this again today when my wife and I took them both for a walk. … Continue reading

  • Synthetic Biology

        I have drifted away from Taoism in recent weeks.  A trip to an election in another country will do that to you… But I saw a story in today’s NYT that had my Taoist antenna tingling: Scientists Take… Continue reading