The Useless Tree

Taoism

  • Gaokao

         Tomorrow is a big day for Chinese high school students: This year, a record 10 million Chinese youngsters will sit the two-day National College Entrance Exam, starting on Thursday, vying for about half that number of university places.… Continue reading

  • Gender Convergence

         In an NYT article today, researchers say that men and women, in the US at least, are behaving more like one another: Now experts who shared their latest research at a conference this month say that far from… Continue reading

  • The Tao of Losing

        As I have said before: I am a Taoist Yankee fan.  And it is in Taoism that I find solace for the current Yankee losing streak.  How about this passage from Chuang Tzu: Birth and death, living and… Continue reading

  • Tao Mitzvah

         We went to another Bat Mitzvah today, for a classmate in my daughter’s seventh grade.  As a part of the ceremony we recited this poem/prayer: Nature is God’s niggun,a wordless melody of unfolding life.To awaken God we must… Continue reading

  • Euthanasia in China

         A sad story in the LA Times yesterday about a severely disabled woman in China who is asserting a right to die: Confined to a rusty wheelchair and unable to control her muscles below her neck, Li Yan… Continue reading

  • Return

         Where I live, in the extreme northwest corner of Massachusetts, the trees really don’t return to green until mid-May.  It was just this week, therefore, that I noticed the gradual bloom of leaves.  Each day found the branches… Continue reading

  • Burning Mao

        Last Saturday a man from Xinjiang, with a Chinese name, threw some sort of flammable material at the giant portrait of Mao that hangs over Tiananmen Gate, scorching its lower left hand corner:           … Continue reading

  • Another Taoist Mother’s Day

         I wrote this last year and reproduce it here to mark the day, Mother’s Day: A Taoist Mother’s Day    In the US today is Mother’s Day, a day to stop and recognize the love and work and… Continue reading

  • Human Diversity

         The NYT today has a story on the ethical questions surrounding prenatal testing for Down Syndrome.  It focuses on parents of disabled children and their efforts to tell the world, and especially soon-to-be parents, that life with Down… Continue reading

  • Controlling Birth

         With just under two weeks to go until the end of classes here, my mind is starting to turn from the daily routines of course preparation and grading (although a nice big stack of papers sits besides me… Continue reading