Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition

[anonymoose]

really glad to hear just how dialed in you are to your practices..
There's a lot of good stuff going on there. "good karma!" ROFL

I can't even imagine the physical and holistic benefits.
I'm just coming to terms in getting myself tuned up for the long race into ( *inshallah* ) old age.
Losing weight, tightening up has really been helping getting thru the day..

I see what you are getting from the taoists..are they not primarily concerned with balance ? ( like homeostasis)

My personal practice has evolved but yes, Taoism is a balance of Body, Mind and Spirit. For me it includes meditation, massage, physical activity , constant learning (Kaizan in Japanese) and diet. Yes, I enjoy a few beers now and then but the key is always balance. I'm constantly aware of my physical dantian when physically active. That is the source from which the body's energy flows.

I'm sure i'm not getting the gist here..

For me the gist is in Tao, the journey. Balance allows flow (yin and yang), there is no set of practices to maintain.

 

[anatta]

I think one of the more interesting aspects of the human experience is how communities of people fuse and modify philosophical traditions and spiritual heritage to comport with their own local customs. For example, how the Japanese fused their native Shinto traditions with the Buddhism that was imported via China. Or how African tribes fused Christianity with their native spiritual traditions.

There is also no question that a large and complex nation like China has fused the Daoist, Confucian, and Buddhist traditions in interesting ways appropriate to local conditions - even though at face value, traditional Daoism and Confucianism existed as kind of a ying and yang in opposition to each other.

very true.. "all religion is local?" lol
But as you mentioned even about Buddhism alone there are many different practices, or Islam and their many different sects

 

[anatta]

Balance allows flow (yin and yang),

like this concept -balance frees the chi channels

 

[Cypress]

These two video courses are going to fill in a prominent void in knowledge for me:
– the Eastern intellectual tradition, and the history and roles of prominent women of antiquity through the Middle Ages. In my experience, this type of knowledge is not even remotely an expectation of a traditional undergraduate college education, and one has to put effort into seeking it out on your own to acquire any passing familiarity with the subject matter. I consider these courses to be a cure to my ignorance!

I never had any of this stuff in college, and it is pretty bloody interesting to learn about.

Warriors, Queens, and Intellectuals: 36 Great Women before 1400
Professor Joyce E. Salisbury, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, Green Bay

The Trung Sisters of Vietnam Fight the Han
Under the Han Dynasty, its imperial expansion threatened the traditional—and strongly matriarchal—culture of Vietnam. Two of the most famous Vietnamese rebels of this era were the Trung sisters, who led tribal armies against the powerful invaders. See how their story has become a touchstone of Vietnamese culture and pride into the 21st century.

Boudicca Attacks the Romans
Witness the end of Iron Age Britain and the birth of “Roman Briton” with the valiant but thwarted rebellion led by the Celtic warrior queen, Boudicca. Like many rebels before her, she was motivated by personal tragedy as much as she was driven by the bigger picture of freedom for her people. Her legacy would be revived in the rule of another British queen, Victoria.

Hypatia Dies for Intellectual Freedom
Look at the brilliant and controversial scholar, Hypatia, as she lived, taught, and died in Alexandria in the middle of the 5th century. Her role as a public intellectual and philosopher would make her a rare example of respected female scholarship in a male-dominated world—and would ultimately lead to her murder at the hands of an angry Christian mob.

 

[Cypress]

Originating during the late Zhou Dynasty, the philosophy of Mohism emphasizes continuous and honest self-reflection and personal authenticity as being the key to moral cultivation.

I maintain this is a philosophy Trumpf supporters and their morbidly obese president could benefit from.

 

[Cypress]

These two video courses are going to fill in a prominent void in knowledge for me:
– the Eastern intellectual tradition, and the history and roles of prominent women of antiquity through the Middle Ages. In my experience, this type of knowledge is not even remotely an expectation of a traditional undergraduate college education, and one has to put effort into seeking it out on your own to acquire any passing familiarity with the subject matter. I consider these courses to be a cure to my ignorance!

Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition
Professor Grant Hardy, Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Asheville

Warriors, Queens, and Intellectuals: 36 Great Women before 1400
Professor Joyce E. Salisbury, Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, Green Bay

The Trung sisters were completely unknown to me, and that has been rectified by a video course on East Asian history. My key take-away: patriarchy was not quite as rigid and pervasive in Vietnam, in the way it was in China, Korea, and Japan. Resulting in the consequence that Vietnamese women could and did play significant roles in society.

Trung Sisters, byname of Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, (flourished AD 39–43), heroines of the first Vietnamese independence movement, who headed a rebellion against the Chinese Han-dynasty overlords and briefly established an autonomous state. Their determination and apparently strong leadership qualities are cited by scholars of Southeast Asian culture as testimony to the respected position and freedom of women in Vietnamese society, as compared with the male-dominated societies of China and India.

Trac and Nhi’s mother was a widow who raised her two daughters on her own, and this was solidly within the matriarchal tradition. She taught the girls skills usual for both women and men. She had her daughters trained in the martial arts, sword fighting, and archery, and they learned to ride the war elephants that accompanied the armies through the jungles.

In AD 39 she, with her sister Trung Nhi and other members of the aristocracy, marched on Lien Lau, forcing the Chinese commander to flee. Within a year the sisters and their allies held 65 northern citadels. At Me Linh, in the lower Red River delta, the Trung Sisters jointly proclaimed themselves queens of an independent state (of unknown name) extending from southern China to the present site of Hue.

The Trung Sisters’ revolutionaries—without peasant support, without supplies, and with untrained forces—were no match, however, for the seasoned Chinese troops of General Ma Yüan . He defeated them first at Lang Bac, near the present site of Hanoi. The Trung Sisters then retreated to Hat Mon, now Son Tay, where they were decisively beaten. Unable to face defeat, they committed suicide, drowning themselves at the juncture of the Day and Red rivers in AD 43.

Source credit: Encyclopedia Brittanica and Professor Joyce E. Salisbury, University of Wisconsin–Green Bay
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Trung-Sisters