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Number of words: 191 The dynamic unity of polar opposites can be illustrated with the simple example of a circular motion and its projection. Suppose you have a ball going round a circle. If this movement is projected on to a screen, it becomes an oscillation between two extreme points. The ball goes round the … Read more

Number of words: 301 The crucial feature of atomic physics is that the human observer is not only necessary to observe the properties of an object, but is necessary even to define these properties. In atomic physics, we cannot talk about the properties of an object as such. They are only meaningful in the context … Read more

Number of words: 440 In spite of its rather special character, Zen is purely Buddhistic. in its essence, because its aim is no other than that of the Buddha himself: the attainment of enlightenment, an experience known in Zen as satori. The enlightenment experience is the essence of all schools of Eastern philosophy, but Zen … Read more

Number of words: 258 From the notion that the movements of the Tao are a continuous interplay between opposites, the Taoists deduced two basic rules for human conduct. Whenever you want to achieve anything, they said, you should start with its opposite. Lao Tzu says ‘In order to contract a thing, one should surely expand … Read more

Number of words: 124 Mistrust of conventional knowledge and reasoning is stronger in Taoism than in any other school of Eastern philosophy. It is based on the firm belief that the human intellect can never comprehend the Tao. In the words of Chuang Tzu, The most extensive knowledge does not necessarily know it; reasoning will … Read more

Number of words: 98 The Book of Changes is thus a work that has grown organically over thousands of years and consists of many layers stemming from the most important periods of Chinese thought. The starting point of the book was a collection of sixty-four figures, or ‘hexagrams’, of the following type, which are based … Read more

Number of words: 590 The principal characteristic of the Tao is the cyclic nature of its ceaseless motion and change. ‘Returning is the motion of the Tao,’ says Lao Tzu, and ‘Going far means returning. The idea is that all developments in nature, those in the physical world as well as those of human situations, … Read more

Number of words: 163 The word maya – one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy – has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the ‘might’, or ‘power’, of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of the magic play. As long as … Read more