What Does It Mean?? Interpreting the Riddle of the "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den"

For those who like to figure out riddles go no further in your reading

than the poem shown here. The poem has been written in such a way
so that there may be many possible conjectures. But once a solution
has been read the creativity to the reader's conjecture may be
dramatically reduced in imagination and type form. So, read
the poem, then re-read it, and come to your own thots first!

- Enjoy!


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A 20th century romanized phonetic poem "Shi Shi" by Chinese-American linguist Yuen Ren Chao expresses the homophonic traditions of old Classical Chinese illustrating the language's tonal intricacies when expressed in Pinyin (modern Mandarin). When reading the riddle every syllable has the sound “shi” with only the tonal values differing.

THE LION EATING POET IN THE STONE DEN

In a stone den was a poet called Shi Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten lions.

He often went to the market to look for lions.

At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.

At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.

He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.

He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.

The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.

After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.

When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.

Try to explain this matter.

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A possible answer to the riddle is given here though there can be many more. Before reading any further attempt to your own answers first so as not to deprive yourself of other, perhaps more unique conjectures, such as the one given here by Red Slider in his very clever solution worthy of the art form itself! Enjoy!

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Wikipedia - Lion Eating Poet in the Stone Den

The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den (Chinese: 施氏食獅史; pinyin: Shī-shì shí shī shǐ) is a short narrative poem written in Classical Chinese that is composed of 92 characters in which every word is pronounced shi ([ʂɻ̩]) when read in present-day Standard Mandarin, with only the tones differing.[1]

The poem was written in the 1930s by the Chinese linguist Yuen Ren Chao as a linguistic demonstration. The poem is coherent and grammatical in Classical Chinese, but the loss of older sound combinations in Chinese over the centuries has greatly increased the number of Chinese homophones, making Classical Chinese difficult to understand in oral speech. In Mandarin, the poem is incomprehensible when read aloud, since only four syllables cover the entire 92 words of the poem. The poem is less incomprehensible—but still not very intelligible—when read in other varieties of Chinese such as Cantonese, in which it has 22 different syllables, or Hokkien Chinese, in which it has 15 different syllables.

The poem is an example of a one-syllable article, a form of constrained writing possible in tonal languages such as Mandarin Chinese, where tonal contours expand the range of meaning for a single syllable.

Explanation

Chinese is a tonal language in which subtle changes in pronunciation could change the meaning.[2] In Romanized script, the poem is an example of the antanaclasis in Chinese.[2] The poem shows the flexibility of the Chinese language in many ways, including wording, syntax, punctuation and sentence structures, which gives rise to various explanations.[3]

The poem could be misinterpreted as objection to the Romanization of Chinese. However, the 20th-century author Yuen Ren Chao was a major supporter for Romanization. He used this poem as an example to object to the use of Classical Chinese that is hardly used in daily life.[4][5]

The poem is easy to understand when read in its written form in Chinese characters, due to each character being associated with a different core meaning, or in its spoken form in those Sinitic languages other than Mandarin. However, when it is in its transcribed Romanized form or in its spoken Mandarin form, it becomes confusing.[4] 

Many words in the passage had distinct sounds in Middle Chinese. All of the variants of spoken Chinese have, over time, merged and split different sounds. For example, when the same passage is read in Cantonese (even modern Cantonese) there are seven distinct syllables—ci, sai, sap, sat, sek, si, sik—in six distinct tone contours, producing 22 distinct character pronunciations. In Southern Min, there are six distinct syllables—se, si, su, sek, sip, sit—in seven distinct tone contours, producing fifteen character pronunciations. Therefore, the passage is barely comprehensible when read aloud in modern Mandarin without context, but easier to understand when read in other Sinitic languages, such as Cantonese.

References

Behr, Wolfgang (2015). "Discussion 6: G. Sampson, "A Chinese Phonological Enigma": Four Comments". Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 43 (2): 719–732. ISSN 0091-3723. JSTOR 24774984.

Forsyth, Mark. (2011). The Etymologicon : a Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language. Cambridge: Icon Books. pp. 62–63. ISBN 9781848313224. OCLC 782875800.

Hengxing, He (2018-02-01). "The Discourse Flexibility of Zhao Yuanren [Yuen Ren Chao]'s Homophonic Text". Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 46 (1): 149–176. doi:10.1353/jcl.2018.0005. ISSN 2411-3484.

 彭, 泽润 (2009). "赵元任的"狮子"不能乱"吃"——文言文可以看不能听的原理" [Zhao Yuanren's "lion" cannot be "eaten": the reasons why Classical Chinese can be read instead of being listened to]. 现代语文：下旬．语言研究 (12): 160.

 张, 巨龄 (11 January 2015). "赵元任为什么写"施氏食狮史"" [Why Zhao Yuanren wrote Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den]. 光明日报. Retrieved 22 May 2019.

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The Story of Mr Shi Eating Lions, recited in Mandarin Chinese

Lion-Eating Poet - Chinese Tongue Twister

Counting Tongue Twister in Mandarin Chinese: sì shì sì

Learn ALL 249 Chinese HSK words with “shi”

(with example sentences)

Opening Illustrations to Video:

Learn ALL 249 Chinese HSK words with “shi”

(with example sentences)

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HOW TO READ A CHINESE POEM

WITH ONLY ONE SOUND

https://chinesepod.com/blog/2014/10/25/how-to-read-a-chinese-poem-with-only-one-sound/

by Aaron Posehn

Learning Chinese can be a struggle, especially if you’ve just started out on the path to fluency. The tones, the characters, and the difficult sounds that you might not be familiar with can be a challenge to grasp.

However, once you’ve spent some time learning the basics, next comes reading articles, writing short in-class essays, and even perhaps the ability to understand TV shows and movies.

But once you’re fairly comfortable in these areas, you might take your Chinese even further and dive into the ever obscure Classic Chinese.

Truthfully, it’s not really that bad, but it often differs significantly from the Mandarin that is used in everyday life.

If you’re not familiar with Classical Chinese, here’s a quick example of a famous line attributed to Confucius.

Classical Chinese Simplified: 有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎?

Classical Chinese Traditional: 有朋自遠方來，不亦樂乎?

Pinyin: Yǒu péng zì yuǎnfāng lái, bù yì lè hū?

Modern Chinese Simplified: 有朋友从远方来，不也快乐吗？

Modern Chinese Traditional: 有朋友從遠方來，不也快樂嗎？

Pinyin: Yǒu péngyǒu cóng yuǎnfāng lái, bù yě kuàilè ma?

English: Is it not a delight to have friends come from afar?

Some of the most noticeable differences are in the following words:

朋 (péng) vs. 朋友 (péng yǒu) – friend

自 (zì) vs. 从 (cóng) – from

乐 (lè) vs. 快乐 (kuài lè) – happiness, a delight

乎 (hū) vs. 吗 (ma) – question particle.

You may notice that Classical Chinese often uses only one character where modern Chinese might use two or more. This is okay though, because Classical Chinese is primarily a written language, so if you know what a string of single characters mean, that’s often good enough to understand the sentence (unless the characters have more than one meaning, which they might; the characters might have also meant something different in Classical Chinese than they do in modern Chinese, so there’s also that to watch out for).

One very interesting and famous Classical Chinese poem that I’ve marveled at for some time is that of the “Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den,” or 施氏食狮史 (shī shì shí shī shǐ).

You may have already realized that each character in the title is pronounced “shi,” and indeed, every character in the whole poem is also pronounced this way! This is possible because, although a character may have the same sound as another character, it can have a different tone and can be written with a different character, and so this kind of craziness is possible in Chinese. Remember how I said that you only need to know the meaning of a single character in a string of single characters to understand (more or less) Classical Chinese? This is the case here. If you know the meaning of each character in the poem, even though it’s more of a tongue twister than a verse, you’ll be able to understand it. Here’s the poem below:

Simplified Chinese:

《施氏食狮史》

石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。

氏时时适市视狮。

十时，适十狮适市。

是时，适施氏适市。

氏视是十狮，恃矢势，使是十狮逝世。

氏拾是十狮尸，适石室。

石室湿，氏使侍拭石室。

石室拭，氏始试食是十狮。

食时，始识是十狮尸，实十石狮尸。

试释是事。

Traditional Chinese:

《施氏食獅史》

石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。

氏時時適市視獅。

十時，適十獅適市。

是時，適施氏適市。

氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。

氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。

石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。

石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。

食時，始識是十獅屍，實十石獅屍。

試釋是事。

Pinyin:

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.

Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.

Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.

Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.

Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.

Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.

Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.

Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.

Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī shī, shí shí shí shī shī.

Shì shì shì shì.

English:

« Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »

In a stone den was a poet called Shi Shi, who was a lion addict,

and had resolved to eat ten lions.

He often went to the market to look for lions.

At ten o’clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.

At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.

He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.

He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.

The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.

After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.

When he ate, he realized that these ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.

Try to explain this matter.

If you got all the way through the poem without crying, good for you! You’ve probably got some awesome Chinese skills! However, if you want to challenge yourself, you can go on over to Wikipedia’s page about this poem to see how it would be pronounced in other Chinese languages, such as Cantonese, Hakka, Taiwanese, or even the original Classical Chinese pronunciation. They also show you how this poem would be read in the vernacular Mandarin used today; you can read that here. If you’re not totally scared off by Classical Chinese yet, that’s great. I personally think it’s a very interesting written language, full of such interesting gems as the poem just shown above. If you want to dive deeper into it, you can start out by going here, here, or here. So the next time your Chinese friends come from afar, you can delight them with your knowledge of this little poem. They’ll probably agree that it was worth coming just to hear you try and say it.

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The Structure of Chinese Script

Jan 2020 - World's First Classical Chinese Programming Language

WIKIPEDIA - WHAT IS CLASSICAL CHINESE??

The fuller Wikipedia article linked here to

Classical Chinese would useful to understanding

its Romanization known as Pinyin in Mandarin

"Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese,[a] is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to the end of the Han dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese. Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, and also, during various periods, in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Among Chinese speakers, Literary Chinese has been largely replaced by written vernacular Chinese, a style of writing that is similar to modern spoken Mandarin Chinese, while speakers of non-Chinese languages have largely abandoned Literary Chinese in favor of local vernaculars."

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WIKIPEDIA - MANDARIN CHINESE

Mandarin (/ˈmændərɪn/ (listen); simplified Chinese: 官话; traditional Chinese: 官話; pinyin: Guānhuà; literally: 'speech of officials') is a group of Sinitic (Chinese) languages spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of Standard Chinese. Because Mandarin originated in North China and most Mandarin languages and dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as Northern Chinese (北方话, běifānghuà, 'northern speech'). Many varieties of Mandarin, such those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze (including the old capital Nanjing), are not mutually intelligible or are only partially intelligible with the standard language. Nevertheless, Mandarin is often placed first in lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly a billion).

Mandarin is by far the largest of the seven or ten Chinese dialect groups, spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area, stretching from Yunnan in the southwest to Xinjiang in the northwest and Heilongjiang in the northeast. This is generally attributed to the greater ease of travel and communication in the North China Plain compared to the more mountainous south, combined with the relatively recent spread of Mandarin to frontier areas.

Most Mandarin varieties have four tones. The final stops of Middle Chinese have disappeared in most of these varieties, but some have merged them as a final glottal stop. Many Mandarin varieties, including the Beijing dialect, retain retroflex initial consonants, which have been lost in southern varieties of Chinese.

The capital has been within the Mandarin area for most of the last millennium, making these dialects very influential. Some form of Mandarin has served as a national lingua franca since the 14th century. In the early 20th century, a standard form based on the Beijing dialect, with elements from other Mandarin dialects, was adopted as the national language. Standard Chinese is the official language of the People's Republic of China[4] and Taiwan[5] and one of the four official languages of Singapore. It is used as one of the working languages of the United Nations.[6] It is also one of the most frequently used varieties of Chinese among Chinese diaspora communities internationally and the most commonly taught Chinese variety

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WIKIPEDIA - CANTONESE CHINESE

This article is about the variety of Chinese widely spoken in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau. For related languages and dialects, see Yue Chinese. For other uses, see Cantonese (disambiguation).

Cantonese is a variety of Chinese originating from the city of Guangzhou (also known as Canton) and its surrounding area in Southeastern China. It is the traditional prestige variety of the Yue Chinese dialect group, which has about 68 million native speakers.[3] While the term Cantonese specifically refers to the prestige variety, it is often used to refer to the entire Yue subgroup of Chinese, including related but largely mutually unintelligible languages and dialects such as Taishanese.

Cantonese is viewed as a vital and inseparable part of the cultural identity for its native speakers across large swaths of Southeastern China, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as in overseas communities. In mainland China, it is the lingua franca of the province of Guangdong (being the majority language of the Pearl River Delta) and neighbouring areas such as Guangxi. It is the dominant and official language of Hong Kong and Macau. Cantonese is also widely spoken amongst Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia (most notably in Vietnam and Malaysia, as well as in Cambodia and Singapore to a lesser extent) and throughout the Western world.

Although Cantonese shares much vocabulary with Mandarin, the two varieties are mutually unintelligible because of differences in pronunciation, grammar and lexicon. Sentence structure, in particular the placement of verbs, sometimes differs between the two varieties. A notable difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is how the spoken word is written; both can be recorded verbatim, but very few Cantonese speakers are knowledgeable in the full Cantonese written vocabulary, so a non-verbatim formalized written form is adopted, which is more akin to the Mandarin written form.[4][5] This results in the situation in which a Cantonese and a Mandarin text may look similar but are pronounced differently.

DIALECTS IN CHINA

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WHAT IS PINYIN?

http://blog.tutorming.com/mandarin-chinese-learning-tips/what-is-pinyin

by Sara Lynn Hua

October 19, 2015

Pinyin is the Romanization of the Chinese characters based on their pronunciation. In Mandarin Chinese, the phrase “Pin Yin” literally translates into “spell sound.” In other words, spelling out Chinese phrases with letters from the English alphabet. 

For example:

Characters: 学习中文

Pinyin: xué xí zhōng wén

Historically, Pinyin started as a means of explaining Chinese to Western learners. It wasn’t until the Qing Dynasty that Chinese people really started considering adopting a form of spelling in their writing system. According to some scholars, the beginnings of Pinyin were derived after the Chinese observed the Romaji system and Western learning in Japan.

The Chinese government did not officially recognize this language form until the 1950s, when it became a project headed by Zhou Youguang and a team of linguists. It was then introduced in elementary school in order to improve literacy rates as well as help standardize the pronunciation of Chinese characters.

In the digital age, Pinyin has become exceedingly useful, as it is the most popular and common way to type out Chinese characters on a typical keyboard. Touch-screen devices allow you to draw out the character, which is often unreliable (depending on how bad your handwriting is) and more time consuming.

To those without any knowledge of the Chinese language, Pinyin can look confusing. There are many combinations of letters that do not exist in English. For example, words like “xi,” “qie,” and “cui.” In addition to that, many letters are pronounced differently than they are English. “C” in Chinese is pronounced like the “ts” sound in “grits” as opposed to the “k” sound it makes in English.

When learning Pinyin, you should discard any rules you think you know about languages that use the English alphabet. Xi and Si look like they rhyme, right? Wrong! Xi is pronounced a little like “see / shee,” whereas “Si” is pronounced closer to “sih / suh.”

To make things even more complicated, there are also four tones in Mandarin that help clarify meanings in words. When written, accent marks or numbers are often used to denote the tone. They are listed below:

ma1 or mā (high level tone)

Imagine the tone of your voice if you were asked to sing a pitch, “aaaaah.”

ma2 or má (rising tone)

Imagine the tone of your voice when you ask a question, such as “Huh?”

ma3 or mǎ (falling rising tone)

Imagine the tone of your voice when you say the word “meow.”

ma4 or mà (falling tone)

Imagine the tone of your voice when you say an order, such as “Stop!”

Improper usage of the tone can result in completely different words. For example, shuǐ jiǎo (dumpling) and shuì jiào (sleep) have the same spelling, but different tones. It can make for an awkward moment if you accidently ask your waitress to sleep with you instead of asking for some dumplings.

Some words sound exactly the same, with the same tone and spelling, but have different meanings. "猪 (zhū)" means "pig," but "珠 (zhū)" means "pearl." These are known as homophones.

If you were wondering: yes, it is possible to read and understand text written in pure Pinyin. Yet it is highly unlikely that they will ever completely replace Chinese characters. There is too much tradition and pride in the culture of the language. Chinese characters have persisted for thousands of years for a reason, and will continue to exist thousands of years from now.

Should you learn Pinyin when you are learning Chinese? Absolutely. Pinyin can help reinforce your memory on the pronunciation of certain phrases. It will also go a long way in helping you type out Chinese words and look up phrases you don’t know. Chinese dictionaries are extremely unforgiving to those who can’t read Pinyin.

However, much like English, there are some exceptions to how Pinyin looks on the page to how it sounds. One of them is the common greeting, “nǐ hǎo” or, “hello.” Despite being written with two third tones, the first character is pronounced with a second tone “ní.”

In conclusion, the best way to master Chinese, Pinyin included, is to practice speaking.

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WHY THERE IS NO CHINESE ALPHABET

http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/why-there-is-no-chinese-alphabet

by Frank Liu

October 14, 2015

To many Chinese learners, learning how to "draw" those bewilderingly complex Chinese characters proves to be a major headache. But have you ever wondered why Chinese remains the only ideographic language still in use today and has not been alphabetized like many other languages?

PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS AT ALPHABETIZATION

In fact, there were attempts to Romanize Chinese and subsequently replace all the Chinese characters with alphabets called Hanyu Pinyin, or simply Pinyin for short. But luckily, they failed.

In the early 20th century, some Chinese intellectuals proclaimed that the Chinese characters should be simplified, if not completely Romanized, due to the sheer complexity of the Chinese writing system. The literacy rate among the Chinese was extremely low then, as most people were unable to read or write, and only the elite of society could do so. This greatly hampered China's development, as many people felt that the Chinese people's lack of education was largely culpable for China's plight at that time. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, China was constantly subject to humiliation and invasions from the Western major powers and Japan. Hence, they believed that in order for China to progress, people had to be educated, and the most effective way to raise the literacy rate was to scrap the whole complex Chinese writing system and replace it with alphabets. Lu Xun (鲁迅 lǔ xùn), a renowned writer best known for the power of his words, even said, "汉字不灭，中国必亡" which means, “If the Chinese characters are not discarded, China will be doomed to perish.”

In the 1950s, after the establishment of the new People's Republic of China, there was an urgent need to increase the literacy rate. Mao Zedong then proposed a gradual Romanization of the Chinese language. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) first worked out a new simpler system of writing, which became known as Simplified Chinese (简体字 jiǎn tǐ zì .) This simplified script has since been used in Mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia. This was, however, the first step of total Romanization of Chinese.

Soon afterwards, the government developed an even simpler script called the Second-Round Simplified Chinese Characters (第二代简体字, or "二简字 èr jiǎn zì" for short). This script took simplification even further by keeping only some radicals in a character and discarding the rest (e.g. 雄-厷，停-仃，雪-彐), and it even combined some homophones into the same characters (e.g. 蝴/糊/猢 hú were all simplified into 胡 hú). Contrary to what was intended to help people understand Chinese more easily, many people found it a great deal more difficult to read text in Chinese. Many critics also felt that the second-round simplification destroyed the aesthetics of the Chinese characters, which were reduced to a jumble of meaningless symbols by the simplification. Due to the consequent widespread confusion brought by it, the second round of simplification was soon officially rescinded and the government decided to revert to the first version of the Simplified Chinese Characters. As a result, the government stopped the alphabetization of the Chinese characters.

WHY CHINESE SHOULD NOT BE ALPHABETIZED

The Chinese language itself has a large number of words with the same pronunciation but completely different meanings. They are called homophones (同音字 tóng yīn zì.) These homophones can be a source of ambiguity when they are written in Pinyin.

Some examples of homophones in Chinese are listed as shown below.

报酬 (bào chóu) = "reward"

报仇 (bào chóu) = "revenge"

不详 (bù xiáng) = "not known in detail"
不祥 (bù xiáng) = "ominous, inauspicious"

毅 (yì) = "tenacity, perseverance"
易 (yì) = "easy; change"
亿 (yì) = "100 million"
忆 (yì) = "recall"
议 (yì) = "discuss"
异 (yì) = "different"
疫 (yì) = "epidemic"
艺 (yì) = "art"

and many more...

As a result of the vast amount of homophones, it would become enormously challenging, if not totally impossible to decipher the Literary Chinese (文言文 wén yán wén) or ancient poems without the Chinese characters.

Below is a prime example of what a Literary Chinese excerpt looks like in Pinyin:

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì…

It’s pretty tongue-twisting, isn’t it? But no one can actually figure out what it means. However, the exact same text is comprehensible to most educated Chinese when written in the Chinese characters:

Original Text

《施氏食狮史》

石室诗士施氏，嗜狮，誓食十狮。氏时时适市视狮。十时，适十狮适市…

Translation:

« Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »

In a stone den was a poet with the family name Shi, who was a lion addict,and had resolved to eat ten lions. He often went to the market to look for lions.At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market…

Furthermore, as you know, Chinese characters are ideograms which carry certain meanings but not a definite sound. Without the Chinese characters binding them together, various dialects in China would develop in separate ways from each other and eventually into different languages. This might eventually give rise to regional separatism, destroying the unity of Chinese language and culture.

However, there is certain beauty in the intricacy of the Chinese characters. From something as arbitrary as a soccer team nickname, to an ancient Chinese idiom, to even something as simple as how to say "air-conditioner" in Chinese, the complexity of the Chinese characters is what allows them to hold multiple meanings. Perhaps that is the reason that this deeply pictorial language has persisted throughout thousands of years.

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Amazon Link

"This book is an introduction in the very best sense of the word. It provides the beginner with an accurate, sophisticated, yet accessible account, and offers new insights and challenging perspectives to those who have more specialized knowledge. Focusing on the period in Chinese philosophy that is surely most easily approachable and perhaps is most important, it ranges over of rich set of competing options. It also, with admirable self-consciousness, presents a number of daring attempts to relate those options to philosophical figures and movements from the West. I recommend it very highly."

- Lee H. Yearley, Walter Y. Evans-Wentz Professor, Religious Studies, Stanford University

Review

This lucid introduction to early Chinese thought offers historical, textual and conceptual analyses of the schools of Classical Chinese philosophy, illuminating their basic themes, theories, and arguments and providing readers with an intellectual bridge between Chinese and Western thought. Introductory texts such as this are especially needed today, as the study of philosophy faces the challenges of globalization and the urgent need for dialogue among different philosophical traditions. An ideal text for introductory courses, this book will also inspire graduate students, scholars and experts in philosophy in general, and Chinese Philosophy in particular, with its theoretical insights and comparative methodology. 

 - Vincent Shen, Lee Chair in Chinese Thought and Culture, Departments of Philosophy and East Asian Studies, University of Toronto

A substantial and highly accessible introduction to the indigenous philosophies of China. Van Norden shares his clear distillations of classical Chinese philosophies using conceptual frameworks many will find familiar. This reader-friendly book sets the historical and cultural contexts for the philosophies discussed, and includes appendices, study questions, and imaginative scenarios, which aid us in appreciating some of the most important philosophy ever developed.

 - Ann Pirruccello, Professor of Philosophy, University of San Diego

About the Author

Bryan W. Van Norden is Professor in the Philosophy Department, and in the department of Chinese and Japanese, at Vassar College.

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Amazon Link

This new edition offers expanded selections from the works of Kongzi (Confucius), Mengzi (Mencius), Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), and Xunzi (Hsun Tzu); two new works, the dialogues Robber Zhi and White Horse; a concise general introduction; brief introductions to, and selective bibliographies for, each work; and four appendices that shed light on important figures, periods, texts, and terms in Chinese thought.

Poems for a Nuclear Age of Pandemic

Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman

offers words of hope amid pandemic

April 17, 2020

Let's GoForth

by W.B. Yeats

“Let us go forth,

the tellers of tales,

and seize whatever prey

the heart longs for,

and have no fear.

Everything exists,

everything is true,

and the earth is only a

little dust under our feet.”

W.B. Yeats

The Celtic Twilight: Faerie and Folklore

Jan 1, 1893

During difficult times…

by Elena Mikhalkova

“Grandma once gave me a tip:

During difficult times,

you move forward in small steps.

Do what you have to do,

but little by bit.

Don’t think about the future,

not even what might happen tomorrow.

Wash the dishes.

Take off the dust.

Write a letter.

Make some soup.

Do you see?

You are moving forward step by step.

Take a step and stop.

Get some rest.

Compliment yourself.

Take another step.

Then another one.

You won’t notice, but your steps will grow bigger and bigger.

And time will come when you can think

about the future without crying.

Good morning.”

Elena Mikhalkova

The Room of Ancient Keys

And the People Stayed Home

by Kitty O'Meara

And the people stayed home.

And read books,

and listened, and rested,

and exercised, and made art,

and played games,

and learned new ways of being,

and were still.

And listened more deeply.

Some meditated,

some prayed,

some danced,

some met their shadows,

And the people began

to think differently.

And the people healed.

And, in the absence of people,

living in ignorant,

dangerous,

mindless,

and heartless ways,

the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed,

And the people joined together again,

they grieved their losses,

and made new choices,

and dreamed new images,

and created new ways to live

and healed the earth fully,

as they had been healed.

Kitty O’Meara

How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One

Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer

by Sarah Bakewell

Other Press, October 19, 2010

“The effect, in Montaigne’s time as in our own, can be intoxicating. A sixteenth-century admirer, Tabourot des Accords, said that anyone reading the Essays felt as if they themselves had written it. 

Over two hundred and fifty years later, the essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson said the same thing in almost the same phrase. “It seemed to me as if I had myself written the book, in some former life.”

“So much have I made him my own,” wrote the twentieth-century novelist André Gide, “that it seems he is my very self.”

And Stefan Zweig, an Austrian writer on the verge of suicide after being forced into exile during the Second World War, found in Montaigne his only real friend: “Here is a ‘you’ in which my ‘I’ is reflected; here is where all distance is abolished.”

The printed page fades from view; a living person steps into the room instead. “Four hundred years disappear like smoke.”

Tic Toc

by Tony Smith

93,047 words I’ve found of my writing. I still have 2014 thru 2019 to search. 11 years total of FB. I have more somewhere. A typical novel is 75,000 words. I swear I didn’t know I had this much. I’m a lazy writer. I do not write everyday. I’m discouraged that I won’t get it all together before my time on the boulder comes to an end. Discouraged there is so much more in my noggin’ I haven’t pulled out yet. Discouraged I am having trouble now remembering, finding the right word, even spelling. I’m afraid this is an effect of the tick fever or the onset of an elder mental disability. I never wanted to write as much as I do now. I never thought anyone else would like it enough to encourage me. I never tried to be published like I do now. Hoping for a name brand publisher instead of self publishing. But that takes a great deal of luck and time and I hear tic toc and see the leaves come and go. Tic toc like my heartbeat I heard in my ears as a child.

The man who edits for me is 73. His tic toc I wonder which of ours will stop first. If I’m lucky, I’m in the morning and I'll limp to the coffee pot. Take the 1st round of meds. I’ll start on desk chores I hate. I’ll hope I don’t hurt too much to perform outside tasks. I’ll find a way to sit at the keyboard after a story rushes through my brain and I can at least remember the motion of it, a smell, a noise, the trigger of it. I write a lot of humor but there is also pitch black and tears and screams and clawing in my head. I need to get that out too but watching your reaction is hard to do. The truth is hard to look at, it brings fear, regret, remorse and shame to me. The fear of no reaction is maybe worse.

There it goes again. While I am pecking with my thumb on the iPad qwerty with one eye open, the tic toc becoming bolder taking me to a tomorrow I hope. G'nite. I never am quite sure where I’ll go when I tap the keys.

Tony Smith

April 22, 2020

I thought a song for sheltering in place might be Too Much Time On My Hands by Styx, but chose Chasing Cars as it speaks to being with someone you love and just forgetting about the troubles of the world. Weird video, but I like this song. - TJ

Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars (2007 version)

Courage
by Anne Sexton

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake.
The first time you rode a bike,
wallowing up the sidewalk.
The first spanking when your heart
went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby
or poor or fatty or crazy
and made you into an alien,
you drank their acid
and concealed it.

Later,

if you faced the death of bombs and bullets
you did not do it with a banner,
you did it with only a hat to
comver your heart.
You did not fondle the weakness inside you
though it was there.
Your courage was a small coal
that you kept swallowing.
If your buddy saved you
and died himself in so doing,
then his courage was not courage,
it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.

Later,

if you have endured a great despair,
then you did it alone,
getting a transfusion from the fire,
picking the scabs off your heart,
then wringing it out like a sock.
Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed.

Later,

when you face old age and its natural conclusion
your courage will still be shown in the little ways,
each spring will be a sword you'll sharpen,
those you love will live in a fever of love,
and you'll bargain with the calendar
and at the last moment
when death opens the back door
you'll put on your carpet slippers
and stride out.

Anne Sexton

Samuel Mang'era, Kenyatta University's Arboretum in Nairobi | PTP Studios

 Messages to the Coronavirus

Link to NPR article here

by Eyder Peralta

International Correspondent, East Africa

"We also cannot afford to pay you too much attention" -

especially with a huge plague of locusts at hand.

- Samuel Mang'era

Dear Corona virus,

Welcome to Kenya. A few things you should know. Here we don't die of flu, don't be surprised if you fail to succeed. Usishangae [Don't be surprised], everything fails in Kenya. We are more likely to die of a cholera attack than to be killed by you. For us, every day is a run escape from death. We are the walking dead. Death is part of our lives the shadow that lingers over us from the time the umbilical cord is cut and buried behind the house to the time we fundraise for expensive arrangements to bury a no longer useful block of dead meat. Death can befall us anytime and we are not scared. It if comes, let it come. Why worry over what we can't control? Everything dies right? Even you corona will die!

Samuel Mang'era

Poem by Crown Heights Jewish Teen Goes Viral

Grief

by Nancy Cross Dunham

what I'm learning about grief ...

is that it need not be

a heavy gray shawl

to wrap myself in,

clutching my arms tightly

across my chest

nor ...

need it be

a granite rock

that I should try

to push away

neither is it ...

... at least, no longer ...

a vast dark ocean

ready to pick me up

and slap me down

without warning

what I'm learning about grief ...

is that it is not me,

but that it offers

to become a friend

a friend ...

who will lightly lay a hand

on my shoulder

when tears come in the dark

a friend ...

who will laugh

out loud with me

at remembered silly moments

a friend ...

who can still hear

the music of our life

what I'm learning about grief ...

is that this friend

doesn't intend

to leave me

but promises

to hold my hand

to carry my memories

a friend ...

who will bear witness to my love

as I venture

toward the next day

and the following night

Nancy Cross Dunham

“The Peace of Wild Things”

by Wendell Berry

Listen,

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

Video Link

Sonic Artist Lei Liang - Painting Lost Landscapes, Spiritual and Physical, ​with a Sonic Brush

"Landscapes," album leaf by Huang Binhong. |  Image courtesy
of Elna Tsao with support from the Mozhai Foundation

Painting Lost Landscapes,

Spiritual and Physical,

with a Sonic Brush

Source Link - Open Horizons

Lei Liang -

A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams

​Program Note
​

I always wanted to create music as if painting with a sonic brush. I think in terms of curves and lines, light and shadows, distances, the speed of the brush, textures, gestures, movements and stillness, layering, blurring, coloring, the inter-penetration of ink, brushstrokes, energy, breath, spatial resonance, spiritual vitality, void and emptiness.

​

A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams meditates on the loss of landscapes of cultural and spiritual dimensions. The work implies an intention to preserve and resurrect parallel landscapes - both spiritual and physical – and sustain a place where we and our children can belong.

​

Using a sonic brush, I paint an inner journey: A landscape emerges out of darkness, illuminated by an artist’s inner vision; distant contours, shapes, hints of color, and emptiness. As the viewer draws closer and closer to the landscape, lines and human presence begin to emerge, sounds to resonate, until we become one with each of its brush-strokes and ink splashes, with its every breath. The mountains are breathing, singing and roaring. The landscape vibrates, pulsates and dances; it takes flight; it stirs, swells, rises, grinds, surges, stretches and blooms; trembling, jolting, and collapsing, it breaks into fragments. ... Rain – drops and drops of rain – returns, to heal the landscape in ruin. A prayer, a resurrection, the rain brings life back to the landscapes, and it regains its gentle heartbeat.

--Lei Liang

Artist Bio

Lei Liang (b.1972) began his musical studies in China, completing them in the USA. His music aims at a deeper philosophical engagement with musical sound as a tool for reflection and contemplation, while resisting exoticized and formulaic treatment of Asian musical elements. Liang's music is deeply philosophical, yet sensual, evocative, yet abstract, and disciplined, yet spontaneous.

He studied composition with Harrison Birtwistle, Chaya Czernowin, Joshua Fineberg, and Mario Davidovsky, and received degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and Harvard University. He now teaches at UCSD (San Diego).

• Written for the Arditti String Quartet, Serashi Fragments is a tribute to the Mongolian chaoer (fiddler) Serashi (1887-1968). In this highly virtuosic piece, Liang deploys a wide range of articulation for strings: pizzicato sul pont, stacatissimo, Bartók pizzicato, glissando, harmonics, and glissando harmonics.

• In Some Empty Thoughts of a Person from Edo, Liang expands the timbral possibilities of the harpsichord through introducing "lute stops," clusters formed by the palm and fingers of each hand, along with other extended devices. A plucked passage with arpeggiated chords is reminiscent of the Japanese koto.

• Memories of Xiaoxiang for saxophone and tape presents a personal commentary on Liang's cultural past, including field recordings in the tape part.

• In Praise of Shadows for solo flute is a piece that invites philosophical contemplation on the duality of light and shadow, embodied by the barely audible partials in the multiphonics, whistling tones, or the downward portamento Liang often uses to end a phrase.

• Brush-Stroke allows the listener to be immersed in the transience of each sound as it comes into being and passes away. It is reminiscent of Japanese gagaku and Korean Aak court music.

• Liner notes by Yayoi Uno Everett.

Lei Liang - Brush Stroke

Additional Recordings w/Analysis - click here

Review in NY Times

​

"Over 30 minutes, the work unfurls a fluid stream of instrumental colors, from shimmering filaments of sound to broad sighing gestures that build with unrelenting momentum into muscular blocks of dark matter. A series of brutal percussive slashes leads to scorched silence. In the end, droplets of sound evoke a fragile rebirth.

​The work is intended as a reflection on the man-made destruction of both natural landscapes and cultural ecosystems, and highlights the power of art to preserve them — at least in memory. Mr. Liang teaches at the University of California at San Diego and has collaborated with scientists on innovative ways to record the sounds of Pacific Ocean coral reefs and Arctic fauna.

“We have the external world that we need to protect,” he said in the interview. At the same time, he warns against the kind of self-inflicted damage to a culture’s spiritual heritage that he feels left lasting wounds in his native China: “There is also an internal world that we need to nurture, because it can vanish very rapidly.”

-- Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, NY Times

Sonic Artist Lei Liang

SCORCHED SILENCE, FRAGILE REBIRTH, AWARD-WINNING MUSIC

http://www.bmop.org/news-press/scorched-silence-fragile-rebirth-award-winning-music

The New York Times

by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

December 13, 2019

The apartment building in which the composer Lei Liang grew up, in Beijing in the 1970s, was a musicological beehive. Its residents worked at the Music Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Arts, which had an archive of rare historical recordings that had been saved, often at great personal cost, from destruction in the Cultural Revolution.

Mr. Liang’s father was an authority on Chinese opera; his mother, an expert on American music. Many evenings, a Mongolian friend of the family would drop by for drinks and impromptu performances of war songs, dances and epic poems.

On one wall of the apartment hung a photograph of Mr. Liang’s mother interviewing Aaron Copland in his Westchester, N.Y., home. Years later, as a young composer, Mr. Liang came to live and work there when he won a residency at Copland House, now a foundation.

“Because of that photo,” he said in a recent phone interview, “I found that environment strangely familiar.”

The emotional resonance of fragile environments, both natural and cultural, is captured in haunting ways in the music of Mr. Liang, 47, who this month was honored with the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, one of the most prestigious prizes in contemporary music. He won for an orchestral work, “A Thousand Mountains, a Million Streams,” inspired by a landscape painting by the Chinese ink-brush master Huang Binhong (1865-1955).

Over 30 minutes, the work unfurls a fluid stream of instrumental colors, from shimmering filaments of sound to broad sighing gestures that build with unrelenting momentum into muscular blocks of dark matter. A series of brutal percussive slashes leads to scorched silence. In the end, droplets of sound evoke a fragile rebirth.

The work is intended as a reflection on the man-made destruction of both natural landscapes and cultural ecosystems, and highlights the power of art to preserve them — at least in memory. Mr. Liang teaches at the University of California at San Diego and has collaborated with scientists on innovative ways to record the sounds of Pacific Ocean coral reefs and Arctic fauna.

“We have the external world that we need to protect,” he said in the interview. At the same time, he warns against the kind of self-inflicted damage to a culture’s spiritual heritage that he feels left lasting wounds in his native China: “There is also an internal world that we need to nurture, because it can vanish very rapidly.”

Here are edited excerpts from the conversation:

What drew you to the painting that inspired “A Thousand Mountains”?

Huang Binhong painted this particular set of magnificent landscapes late in life, when he was almost blind. I was fascinated by how a person could use his inner vision to create something even more beautiful than reality, with the environment collapsing.

What are some aspects of the painting that made it into the music?

Huang Binhong made this remark that you have to use white as black. He was referring to void and emptiness that are as substantial as that which is painted with ink. I apply that to my music in a very concrete way. I have a lot of emptiness and silence in the music. I think of those moments as containers of memory and historical resonance.

The end of “A Thousand Mountains” recalls water, with plucked strings and subtle percussion effects, but without using the amplified sounds of actual water, as some of your colleagues might do. Why?

That’s a lesson I learned from traditional Peking Opera: You do not portray anything realistically. In Peking opera alone there were more than a hundred kinds of coughing sounds. Depending on the role types and what the cough symbolizes — whether you’re entering or interrupting a conversation — it was expressed in a particular vocal way. I was very inspired by this idea to not portray things realistically, but to find an imaginative way to filter an idea and distill it using purely instrumental means.

“A Thousand Mountains” is itself the result of a process of distillation, isn’t it?

Yes, and it’s very much about recovering and reimagining my own history. I was acutely aware of how fragile my own cultural and spiritual landscapes are. After I started working on this project, which started with the analysis of the landscape painting and going through electronic music experimentation and transforming that into an experience using purely acoustic instruments, I discovered the connection of the inner landscape that was disappearing before our eyes and how that parallels the environmental landscape that is collapsing around us.

Were there specific examples of environmental depredation that came to mind?

The first time I went back to China, six years after moving to America, I lost my voice because of the pollution. I didn’t recognize my own city. I also think of Mongolia, whose music was one of my earliest loves, and of the sand storms that now come in from the desert there, which some researchers have attributed to the overconsumption of beef in China. And, of course, now in California there are the fires that affect us and personal friends.

You have spoken of the cultural epiphany you experienced when you arrived in the United States at 17. How did the move change you?

I discovered China in America. It was only in Austin, Tex., and then during my 14 years in Boston studying at the New England Conservatory and Harvard, that I really reconstructed my family’s past, my culture’s past. These were things that we hadn’t been taught — in fact things that were denied. I hand-copied Buddhist and Taoist classics and treatises on paintings. I learned the traditional Chinese characters on my own because I had not been taught them in mainland China.

It takes some effort and even struggle to earn a membership in a cultural community. I mean, I was born a Chinese citizen. But to be Chinese culturally and spiritually? That is a process, a cultivation and, in the end, a path of self-discovery. It’s about what we choose to inherit.

The study of calligraphy, poetry and traditional painting were central to the Chinese concept of the wenren, or Renaissance man. How do you identify with that term?

It’s a challenge to see myself as a vessel, as an imaginative and creative force that has a place in history — so that you create while you preserve at the same time. Today, in a different world, that encompasses the environmental, cultural and spiritual responsibilities an artist has.

*wenren - The Qing literati (wenren Chinese:文人) were officially designated as literate or cultivated persons. Parallel to wenren are two terms, "shi"(Chinese:士), scholar, and "shen"(Chinese:绅), often defined as gentry or official. - Wikipedia

John Prine - Boundless Love

John Prine, Boundless Love

BOUNDLESS LOVE

Link

by Jay McDaniel

Appreciation for the American country folk

singer-songwriter and for boundless love

Thank you, John Prine.

An angel from Montgomery, now residing in the boundless love of the great forgiveness, received one of her own into her arms on April 7, 2020: the singer-songwriter John Prine.

Missing you, John. And sending love to your family. By the way, the great forgiveness, is another name for what process theologians like me call the consequent nature of God. This is the side of God that is totally accepting. My own mentor, John Cobb, experienced it one night, and describes it as an experience of total transformation, boundless love, and full acceptance. Legend has it that this side of God is filled with more angels than even Montgomery can hold. As you find your rest, John, please send some more our way. But wait! You already sent so many, didn’t you, with your songs. Thank you so much.

John Prine: Boundless Love

I woke up this morning to a garbage truck

Looks like this old horseshoe's done run out of luck

If I came home, would you let me in?

Fry me some pork chops and forgive my sin?

Surround me with your boundless love

Confound me with your boundless love

I was drowning in the sea, lost as I could be

When you found me with your boundless love

Sometimes my old heart is like a washing machine

It bounces around 'til my soul comes clean

And when I'm clean and hung out to dry

I'm gonna make you laugh until you cry

Surround me with your boundless love

Confound me with your boundless love

I was drowning in the sea, lost as I could be

When you found me with your boundless love

If by chance I should find myself at risk

A-falling from this jagged cliff

I look below, and I look above

I'm surrounded by your boundless love

Surround me with your boundless love

Confound me with your boundless love

I was drowning in the sea, lost as I could be

When you found me with your boundless love

You dumbfound me with your boundless love

You surround me with your boundless lov

- John Prine

Joan Baez: For John and Fiona Prine

March 2020: Shared while John was critically ill

with  COVID-19 and Fiona had also tested positive

John Prine and his wife/manager Fiona Whelan Prine at Prine’s album release party
for The Tree of Forgiveness in Nashville in 2018. | Photo: Neilson Hubbard

John Prine’s Wife Fiona Whelan Prine

Shares Message Following Legendary

Singer-Songwriter’s Passing

Music Row link

by Jessica Nicholson

April 8, 2020

John Prine‘s wife and manager, Fiona Whelan Prine, shared a post on Facebook following John Prine’s death on Tuesday (April 7) at age 73 due to complications from the COVID-19 coronavirus.

She shared that she was able to be with Prine in the hours before his passing, and urged readers to follow the guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She also asked that in lieu of gifts or flowers, that readers donate to organizations including Thistle Farms, Nashville Rescue Mission and Room in the Inn. John and Fiona wed in 1996; John Prine is also survived by three sons, Jody, Jack and Tommy, as well as two brothers and three grandchildren.

Message from Fiona Whelan Prine - 

Our beloved John died yesterday evening at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville TN. We have no words to describe the grief our family is experiencing at this time. John was the love of my life and adored by our sons Jody, Jack and Tommy, daughter in law Fanny, and by our grandchildren.

John contracted Covid-19 and in spite of the incredible skill and care of his medical team at Vanderbilt he could not overcome the damage this virus inflicted on his body.
I sat with John – who was deeply sedated- in the hours before he passed and will be forever grateful for that opportunity.

My dearest wish is that people of all ages take this virus seriously and follow guidelines set by the CDC. We send our condolences and love to the thousands of other American families who are grieving the loss of loved ones at this time – and to so many other families across the world.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the outpouring of love we have received from family, friends, and fans all over the world. John will be so missed but he will continue to comfort us with his words and music and the gifts of kindness, humor and love he left for all of us to share.

 

* * * * * * * * * *

Taste of Country -John Prine Website

Wikipedia - Who Is John Prine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prine

John Prine (October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American country folk singer-songwriter. He was active as a composer, recording artist, and live performer from the early 1970s until his death and was known for an often humorous style of original music that has elements of protest and social commentary.

Born and raised in Maywood, Illinois, Prine learned to play the guitar at the age of 14. He attended classes at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.[1] After serving in West Germany with the U.S. Army, he returned to Chicago in the late 1960s, where he worked as a mailman, writing and singing songs first as a hobby, and then becoming a club performer.

A member of Chicago's folk revival, Prine credited film critic Roger Ebert and singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson with discovering him, resulting in the production of Prine's eponymous debut album with Atlantic Records in 1971. The acclaim earned by this LP led Prine to focus on his musical career, and he recorded three more albums for Atlantic. He then signed with Asylum Records, where he recorded an additional three albums. In 1981, he co-founded Oh Boy Records, an independent record label with which he would release most of his subsequent albums.

Widely cited as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, Prine was known for humorous lyrics about love, life, and current events, as well as serious songs with social commentary and songs that recollect melancholy tales from his life. In 2020, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

John Prine: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

March 2018

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Amazon Link

"Surround me with your boundless love.

Confound me with your boundless love.

- John Cobb

In his Theological Reminiscences John Cobb tells readers about a time in his life when, for perhaps a minute or so, he felt surrounded by God as a pure, boundless love. He was in the army in WWII, living in a room in Arlington, Virginia. He had recently undertaken the discipline of directing positive feelings toward everyone he saw; and one night, as he knelt beside his bed for a “relatively perfunctory prayer," the experience fell upon him. Unbidden, and to his surprise, he had a feeling, a feeling of being loved totally accepted, just as he was. “The room was transformed, it was filled with spirit, it was filled with love.” Don't we all seek to be totally accepted, just as we are. Even and maybe especially when our horseshoes have run out of luck, and we're at risk of falling off a jagged cliff. Isn't it at this point, if not many others, when we seek that angel from Montgomery. And isn't it good that she arrives in so many forms? - Jay McDaniel

Book Blurb

In these remarkably intimate and forthcoming “reminiscences,” theologian and philosopher John B. Cobb, Jr., reflects on major theological developments of the last sixty years, from the Latin American, feminist, and black liberation theologies, to Vatican II, the “death of God,” and the shift from existentialist to process philosophies. A major conviction of Cobb’s work—amply displayed in these reflections—is that theology must engage contemporary issues. To that end, he followed a transdisciplinary approach throughout his career, integrating insights from many different areas of study and bringing different specialized disciplines into fruitful communication. As a result, Cobb has been influential in a wide range of disciplines, including theology, ecology, economics, biology and social ethics. His descriptions of these encounters are rich in personal detail and refreshingly honest.

Boundless Love

by Henry Van Dyke

O Thou whose boundless love bestows

The joy of life, the hope of Heaven;
Thou whose unchartered mercy flows
O'er all the blessings Thou hast given;
Thou by whose light alone we see;
Thou by whose truth our souls set free
Are made imperishably strong;
Hear Thou the solemn music of our song.

Grant us the knowledge that we need
To solve the questions of the mind;
Light Thou our candle while we read,
And keep our hearts from going blind;
Enlarge our vision to behold
The wonders Thou hast wrought of old;
Reveal thyself in every law,
And gild the towers of truth with holy awe.

Be Thou our strength when war's wild gust
Rages around us, loud and fierce;
Confirm our souls, and let our trust
Be like a wall that none can pierce;
Give us the courage that prevails,
The steady faith that never fails,
Help us to stand in every fight
Firm as a fortress to defend the right.

O God, make of us what Thou wilt;
Guide Thou the labor of our hand;
Let all our work be surely built
As Thou, the architect, hast planned;
But whatsoe'er thy power shall make
Of these frail lives, do not forsake
Thy dwelling. Let thy presence rest
Forever in the temple of our breast.

Remembering The Beatles

Himesh Patel - Ob-la-di,Ob-la-da
(From "Yesterday"/2019)

The Beatles Greatest Hits Full Album
- Best The Beatles Songs Playlist









Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs | GQ



1 - Paul McCartney talks about the moment he realized George Harrison could ALSO write songs!

2 - Paul McCartney on Who Broke Up the Beatles

Ringo Starr Remembers Being Asked to Join the Beatles

Rare John Lennon Interview Footage

The Life and Career of John Lennon

The Beatles Greatest Hits Full Playlist
- Best Of The Beatles Full Album 2018









John Lennon meets Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney on “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”

The Beatles - Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da (Music Video)