The Useless Tree

Taoism

  • You Know, Culture is Business

         It seems that China is running a "huge" "cultural trade deficit:"  Chinese cultural products should be further promoted to the international market to narrow China’s cultural trade deficit with other countries, top officials said.     Ding Wei,… Continue reading

  • Inequality, Again

         A convergence of stories on the growing economic inequality born of globalization.  Walter Kirn in the NYT Magazine has a short piece reflecting, somewhat shallowly, on the cultural meaning of the exploding income gap between the richest CEOs… Continue reading

  • A Taoist Easter

        As I have done for Thanksgiving and Christmas, let me put down a few thoughts here about Easter from a Taoist perspective.     Easter may be the most Taoist of the three holidays.  Of course, Taoists would… Continue reading

  • Compassion

        Little Dragon, at Wanderer Amongst Strangers, directs our attention to passage 67 of the Tao Te Ching.  We find there reflections on compassion.  Here are a couple of excerpts from the Hinton translation: There are three treasuresI hold… Continue reading

  • Something for Presidents Bush and Ahmadinejad

    Auspicious weapons are tools of misfortune.Things may not all despise such tools,but a master of the Way stays clear of them. The noble-minded treasure the left when homeand the right when taking up weapons of war. Weapons are tools of… Continue reading

  • A New Season

        Aidan died on the last day of winter, the day before the first day of spring.  It was almost as if he was reassuring us that, with time, our grief would pass, the darkness would yield to light, we… Continue reading

  • Whence Religion?

          An interesting review in this week’s New Yorker: H. Allen Orr discusses Daniel Dennett’s new book, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon."   Orr tells us that Dennett is trying to construct a "science of religion," to… Continue reading

  • Irish Ghosts

        Last night I saw a marvelous PBS show about the great American playwright Eugene O’Neill.  It was a spooky encounter for me.  O’Neill’s masterpiece, A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, has always hit very close to home.  If… Continue reading

  • Being and Nonbeing

        I read the news differently these days.     One of my daily routines is scanning a dozen or so newspapers.  Although I look for news about China and topics to blog about in general, I cannot help… Continue reading

  • Dwell in the Ordinary

         Somewhere in Chuang Tzu (I am too tired to find the exact quotation just now), he tells us to "dwell in the ordinary."  He might even say it twice in the first eight chapters.  In any event, it… Continue reading