__________
Books on the Characters
(Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji characters are the same)
Chinese Characters, A Geneology and Dictionary
- Rick Harbaugh (published by Zhongwen.com)
- the number system used in these appendices refer to characters in this book
Kanji and Kana, A Handbook of the Japanese Writing System
- Wolfgang Hadamitzky & Mark Spahn (Tuttle Publishing)
Teach Yourself to Read Modern Medical Chinese
- Bob Flaws (Blue Poppy Press)
Reading & Writing Chinese
- William McNaughton and Li Ying (Tuttle Publishing)
__________
Books on Daoism
Dao De Jing, “Making This Life Significant”
- translation and commentary by Roger Ames and David Hall (Ballantine Books)
Dao De Jing, The Book of the Way by Laozi
- translation and commentary by Moss Roberts (University of California Press)
Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings
- translation by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press)
The Taoist Experience, An Anthology
- edited by Livia Kohn (State University of New York Press)
Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques
- edited by Livia Kohn (University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies)
Early Chinese Mysticism
- Livia Kohn (Princeton University Press)
Early Daoist Scriptures
- Stephen Bokenkamp (University of California Press)
The Taoist Body
- Kristofer Schipper, translated by Karen Duval (University of California Press)
__________
Books on Chinese Medicine
Emperor’s Classic of Medicine
- translation of the Neijing Suwen by Maoshing Ni (Shambala Press)
The Five Organ Networks of Chinese Medicine
- Heiner Fruehauf (Institute for Traditional Medicine)
Hara Diagnosis: Reflections on the Sea
- Kiiko Matsumoto & Stephen Birch (Paradigm Publications)
Five Elements and Ten Stems
- Kiiko Matsumoto & Stephen Birch (Paradigm Publications)
Extraordinary Vessels
- Kiiko Matsumoto & Stephen Birch (Paradigm Publications)
Nourishing Desiny, The Inner Tradition of Chinese Medicine
- Lonny Jarrett (Spirit Path Press)
The Web That Has No Weaver
- Ted Kaptchuk (Congdon & Weed, Inc.)
Medicine in China
- Paul U. Unschuld (University of California Press)
__________
Books on Genetics, Quantum Physics, and their relation to Daoism
The I Ching & The Genetic Code
- Dr. Martin Schonberger (Aurora Press)
DNA and the I Ching: the Tao of Life
- Johnson F. Yan (North Atlantic Books)
Wholeness and the Implicate Order
- David Bohm (Ark Paperbacks)
The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism
- Fritjof Capra (Shambhala Publications, Inc.)
__________
Websites
zhongwen.com
(excellent site to learn the etymologies of Chinese characters; use the “pronunciation” option to look up words using their phonetic pinyin spellings, e.g. qì)
www.planetherbs.com/articles/psych_tcm.html
(online article titled Psychospiritual Aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine, by Francesca Diebschlag)
www.chinavoc.com/history/ancient/legend.htm
(online information about China’s first legendary figures)
www.spiritpathpress.com/index.html
(web page for Lonny Jarrett’s book, Nourishing Destiny)
www.ancientway.com/Pages/ThreeWorms.html
This leads us back to the Three Worms. Parasites, which can include fungal, protozoan, and bacterial infections, all have different ways of affecting their host organisms. In some sense, the less powerful parasites are the most insidious in their effects. Visible worms, which can lead to painful cramping and passing of worms in the stools, are more easily diagnosed and eliminated than a fungal invasion, such as Candida albicans, a yeast who is currently a popular parasitic pet in the west. Candida can lead to a variety of chronic symptoms, hard to pin down and recalcitrant to treat. Depression, lethargy, digestive discomfort, chronic fatigue, poor memory, and all sorts of gooey discharges are all related to Candidiasis. And what does Candida feed on? Mostly grains and sugars!
So the Daoists said there was a worm in each Dan Tien (Elixir Field--the three main energy centers). The one in the lower abdomen causes lust in addition to intestinal distress. The one in the heart center causes anxiety as well as heart and lung diseases. The one in the forehead (Third Eye) center caused psychic distress and attachment to worldly things. They feed off of grains, and endeavor to kill the body for their feast.
To have any hope of living a long time, the Daoists counselled, one must abstain from grains while killing the Three Worms with herbs, exercises, and a diet of vegetables and mushrooms.
www.itmonline.org/arts/understand.htm
* Fu Xi, who provided the people with writing, divination, the yin-yang and five element concepts, and acupuncture (created the nine needles);
* Shen Nong, who provided the people with the plow and agriculture as well as herbal medicine; and
* Huang Di, who provided the people with technology, music (with the aid of his assistant Ling Lun), and medical theories (with his physician associate Qi Bo, and with contributions from his other assistants Lei Gong, Shao Yu, Bo Gao, etc.).
www.planetherbs.com/articles/chinese.html
(article on herbs)
www.shen-nong.com/eng/shen-nong/history/
(TCM history)
www.acupunctureworks.co.uk/SpiritChMed.html
(communist influence)
www.logoi.com/notes/chinese_medicine.html
(original medical works, 168 B.C.)
www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHPHIL/YINYANG.HTM
(chinese philosophy)
www.internalhealers.com/tcm/origins.asp
(origins of TCM)
www.mic.ki.se/China.html
(a whole bunch of stuff on China)
www.sanfranciscoartmagazine.com/april/taoism/taoism.html
(deification of laozi)
www.chinanow.com/english/features/sinic/cosmology.html
(chinese cosmology)
www.kheper.net/topics/eastern/Chinese_cosmology.html
(five phases; trigrams)
www.ignca.nic.in/ps_01005.htm
(chinese cosmogony)
witcombe.sbc.edu/water/religionchinacosmology.html
(chinese cosmology)
www.hum.aau.dk/romansk/borges/vakalo/zf/html/the_chinese_dragon.html
(the chinese dragon)
www.giuliaboschi.com/medicinacinese/eng_ind.htm#medicine
(Italian book on medical sinology)
www.jungtao.edu/resources/ccm/ccm.html
(jungtao school of medicine; process of Western science vs. Eastern science)
www.168fengshui.com/Articles/8_trigrams.htm
(eight trigrams & feng shui)
taotaichi.info/iching2.html
(eight trigrams with their chinese characters)
www.chinabooks.com.au/zhongyi/tcmclass.htm
(modern commentaries on classics)
www.siom.com/resources/texts/articles/v-scheid/yizhe_fn.html
(virtue)[15] This is related to the multiple levels of significance of the word dé, which are based on its original meaning of the potency of a seed. This gives the word a sense of what makes something the way it is, that its potency, power, moral force, etc.
www.siom.com/resources/texts/articles/v-scheid/yizhe.html
(intention)yï zhê yì yê , which for the time being we translate as "medicine is intention."
To answer the first question we can explore some of the contexts in which yì was used in early Chinese philosophy. In pre-Han China yì , (here translated as intention) was considered a pre-requisite of the knowledge and understanding required for and derived from the divination practices based on the Yijing.
"Intention is what the sages used to search out profundity and study the all encompassing. As it is profound, it can penetrate throughout the purpose of the subcelestial realm. As it is all encompassing, it can penetrate throughout the affairs of the subcelestial realm. As it is divine, it is fast but never hurries and arrives but never travels."[20]
Although in later texts, yì takes on exclusively mental connotations, in pre-Han texts such as the Guanzi, it still involves the meditation-like bodily practice of "intending", whereby one opens oneself to the universal flow of qi so as to acquire a luminous awareness of the world.
"Hence this qi, cannot be stayed by force, but can be stabilised by potency (dé); cannot be called by the voice, but one may go to meet it by intending as it comes. By reverence hold it fast, do not let it go: this is called maturing of the potency. Potency being matured, knowledge issues, and to the last one the myriad things are grasped."[21]
"That which takes responsibility for things is called the heart. The heart has a place to focus its attention which is called intention (yì )."[26]
"Medicine is yì . It is not as good to use medicinals as it is to use yì . Whether or not a treatment works is based on yì . If yì can enter the fundamental subtleties [of the illness], one can achieve a penetrating understanding. After this, when one uses medicinals , none will not work as expected."[29]
www.friesian.com/yinyang.htm
(Yin and Yang School, Spring-Autumn Period, 677-476 BC, also called Five Phases School; same period as Bai-Le’s Canon of Veterinary Medicine, 650 BC, treating animals with acupuncture; Confucius 551-479 BC at the end of the Spring-Autumn Period; Confucius aspects of TCM: the five virtues, social position of the elements, eg. Liver is general, mother-son, proper behavior)
Taoism: Verse 28: "The five colours make man's eyes blind." The classic Taoist paradox. One might think that without the colors, one would be blind; but Taoism says that the colors themselves are blinding if you are thinking about them rather than seeing them. To think, "Oh, colors," is not to see them. Only with No Mind, without thought, will they really be seen. Similarly, thinking about notes or tastes is to close out the actual sounds and flavors. Also note the sets of fives here. The world is already being ordered in reference to the five Chinese elements.
Verses 39-41: "The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence..." The essence of Taoist political advice. The ruler practicing Not Doing will not even be noticed, whatever it is that he is literally doing. "The people all say, 'It happened to us naturally.'" Thus the ruler's actions are not distinguishable from natural events, since they are indeed at one with the Tao. This would be unwelcome advice to any modern politician. "Next comes the ruler they love and praise." This would be the Confucian ideal of a ruler, who conspicuously sets an example of goodness and so who will be loved and praised. "Next comes one they fear." A ruler who uses force may be obeyed, as long as the force is credible. The best historical example would be Shihuangdi (246-209), although he probably reigned subsequent to the composition of the Tao Te Ching. Shihuangdi was ruthless enough that he was effective during his lifetime, but after his death the Qin Dynasty (255-207) rapidly crumbled. "Next comes one with whom they take liberties," like the younger son who succeeded Shihuangdi and was overthrown.
It is significant that "benevolence and rectitude" (rén and yì) are the two principal virtues of Confucius. Talking about benevolence and rectitude is what Confucius actually did. The Taoist critique is that the talking doesn't help. Indeed, talking about it really will prevent the Tao from restoring the real things…(and much more on comparing Confucius and Taoism! This is good.)
Verse 76: "The myriad creatures depend on it for life yet it claims no authority." (This also informs the daoist view toward parenting.) "It clothes and feeds the myriad creatures yet lays no claim to being their master." (Much different from the Confucian view.)
setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/entries/laozi/
(all about laozi)
Conceivably, an editor or compiler, or a group or succession of them, could have brought together diverse sources. D. C. Lau, for example, is of the view that the Laozi is an “anthology” (1963, 14). According to Bruce Brooks and Taeko Brooks, the Laozi contains different layers of material spanning the period between 340 and 249 B.C.E. -- “its long timespan precludes a single author” (1998, 151). Indeed, Chad Hansen describes the “dominant current textual theory” of the Daodejing as one which “treats the text as an edited accumulation of fragments and bits drawn from a wide variety of sources … there was no single author, no Laozi” (1992, 201). In contrast, Rudolf Wagner (1984 and 2000) asserts that the Laozi has a consistent “rhetorical structure,” characterized by an intricate “interlocking parallel style,” which would cast doubt on the “anthology” thesis.
In this sense, the Laozi describes the ideal sage-ruler as someone who understands and follows ziran (e.g., chs. 2, 17, 64). In this same sense, it also opposes the Confucian program of benevolent intervention, which as the Laozi understands it, addresses at best the symptoms but not the root cause of the disease. The Confucian project is in fact symptomatic of the decline of the rule of Dao. Conscious efforts at cultivating moral virtues only accentuate the loss of natural goodness, which in its original state would have been entirely commonplace and would not have warranted distinction or special attention (chs. 18, 38). Worse, Confucian ethics assumes that learning and moral self-cultivation can bring about personal and social improvement. From the Daoist perspective, artificial effort to “improve” things or to correct the order of ziran only fuels a false sense of self that alienates human beings from their inherent “virtue.”
With the arrival of the “Way of the Celestial Master” (tianshidao), the first organized religious Daoist establishment (daojiao) in the second century C.E.,
www.lieske.com/5e-8ev.htm
(qimai and trigrams correlations)
www.internalhealers.com/tcm/origins.asp
(influence of Confucius & Dao on TCM)
www.shen-nong.com/eng/shen-nong/history/zhou/index.htm
(themes of SuWen are Daoism, Yin-Yang, and 5 elements)
http://capital.net/~phuston/fiveelements.html
(five phases)
There was also a completely different underlying theory. This difference is so great that many scholars feel that the two systems should not even be designated with the same terms. These scholars prefer to use terminology such as the "five phases", the "five forces", the "five phases of change" (Unschuld), the "five transformational phases" (Porkert), and the "five agents". (Schirokauer) As is apparent, all of these new terms emphasize change, states or phases of change and the flow of energy, rather than the innate composition of a given object. Traditionally most Chinese scholars and developers of traditional Chinese science were much more concerned with how things acted and interacted than in their innate composition, and these terms reflect this important difference. (The term "element" seems to have been clumsily adapted early on when Europeans were first exposed to the Chinese theories and strove to correlate them with their own.) Nevertheless, innacurate as it may be, the phrase "five elements' is the most widely accepted. In fact, while most Western scholars avoid the term, the official publications of the People's Republic of China continue to use the term "five elements".
As with so much in the history of Chinese scientific thinking, the exact origins of the theory remain vague. Although it is credited to a man by the name of Chou Yen (Zhou Yan), the details of his life remain sketchy. Although he is often credited with being the father of Chinese science, we don't know the exact dates during which he lived, although we do know that it was sometime between 350 and 270 B.C. Similarly, although some believe that he invented the system of the five elements in their entirety, most believe that he took a variety of preexisting notions and reworked and formalized them into a unified and combined system.
www.uga.edu/religion/rk/pdf/pubs/YINYANG93.pdf
(I ching, yin-yang, five phases origins; I ching dated to 1000 BC)
acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/chinhist.html
(history***)
weber.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/chinahistory/dynasty0.html
(dynastic history: date detail and name pronunciation) http://133.1.96.43/~seke/tsaou/romanize/eraname.html
www.yutopian.com/history/xia.html
(short version dynastic history)
www.hungkuen.net/tcm-history.htm
(tcm brief history)
www.universalfengshui.com/thalisma.htm
(use of talismans in fengshui)
www.carleton.ca/~bgordon/Rice/papers/an-84.htm
(yangshao culture)
www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/zzz/history/shang.htm
(history)
www.nationalmuseum.mn/mh1.htm
(mongolian history)
mockingbird.creighton.edu/english/worldlit/wldocs/churchill/china.htm
www.nga.gov/education/chinatp_chron.htm
(chronology)
www-chaos.umd.edu/history/time_line.html
www.anthro.mankato.msus.edu/prehistory/china/timeline.html
** (+ maps)
www.metmuseum.org/toah/ht/02/eac/ht02eac.htm
(timeline; art history)**
www.wsu.edu/~dee/ANCCHINA/ANCCHINA.HTM
(history; philosophy)**
http://www.udel.edu/Philosophy/afox/zhuangzi.htm
(zhuangzi)
It is signficant that the important image in this story is the butterfly. This image sums up much of Zhuangzi's thought. The butterfly is a symbol of transformation; it follows the breeze yet arrives at the flower; Its actions are spontaneous and free. Thus it doesn't wear itself out fighting the forces of nature.
Zhuangzi uses several different phrases to refer to a person who embodies the Dao in this kind of natural and effortless fashion. These terms include "genuine person" (zhenren), "etherial" or "spiritual" person (shenren), and "fully realized person" (zhirren). Perhaps such a person resembles a butterfly in certain ways. He or she has become balanced and centered and is thus able to experience the pitch and roll of oppositions (taiji, t'ai chi) without being thrown off-balance by them. The sage can thus fit in the world, at the center, in the socket of the hinge, at the fulcrum of all dichotomies. He or she blends in with the surroundings, and becomes effectively frictionless, transparent and unobtrusive.
www.csuchico.edu/~cheinz/syllabi/asst001/fall97/11kshinn.htm
(confucius)
student.acu.edu/~bls98b/Final:20Web:20Page/limits.html
(confucius)
radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue3_1/06Lee.html
(influence of confucian ideals on korean higher education – a critique and call for change)
acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/chinrelg.html
(history of religion)
philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/taoism/index.html
www.fashiondesignroom.com/eculture.html
(zhou yan, phases in clothing)
acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/chinlng3.html
(wadegiles-pinyin)
http://www.udel.edu/Philosophy/afox/roger.html
(huainanzi)
As already pointed out, a crucial concern of the book is to distinguish Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist strands in the syncretic philosophical discourses of the early Han period. Ames spends a great deal of time systematically analyzing five central and relatively ubiquitous philosophical terms, tracing their development in each of these three traditional modes. The five terms are: a) wuwei ("nonaction/doing nothing/acting naturally"); shi ("strategic advantage/political purchase"); fa ("penal law"); yongzhong ("utilizing the people"); and limin ("benefiting the people"). For instance, Ames discusses traditional Confucian and Daoist interpretations of the idea of weiwuwei or "action without action." He rightfully points out that, historically, the phrase occurs in the Analects (Lunyu) before it shows up in the Dao De Jing. This fact is often overlooked, and underscores the fact that the various Chinese philosophical traditions mostly worked with a common core of ancient notions, like dao ("the way"), wuwei, de ("virtuosity"), and so on. What distinguishes one tradition from another is not the terms they use, but rather their interpretation and manipulation of the terms. For this reason, Ames describes his book as an "exercise in conceptual reconstruction."
helios.unive.it/~dsao/pregadio/tools/daozang/dz_1.html
(tao tsang)
The term daozang ¹DÂÃ, usually translated as "Taoist Canon", originally referred to the collections of texts housed in each Taoist monastery. It later designated imperially-sponsored collections of Taoist texts kept in the imperial libraries. The Taoist Canon of the Ming period -- the Zhengtong Daozang ¥¿²Î¹DÂà or Taoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era -- is the last of these collections and the only one that is extant today.
http://helios.unive.it/~dsao/pregadio/tools/daozang/dz_2.html
(tao tsang)
The almost 1,500 texts found in the present Taoist Canon are formally divided into "Three Grottoes" (sandong ¤T¬}) and "Four Supplements" (sifu ¥|»²). The division into Three Grottoes apparently dates from ca. A.D. 400., and mirrors the division into Three Vehicles (sansheng ¤T¼) of the Buddhist doctrine. Each of the Three Grottoes originally included the texts of one scriptural tradition:
1. Authenticity Grotto (Dongzhen ¬}¯u): texts of the Shangqing ¤W²M (Supreme Purity) tradition;
2. Mystery Grotto (Dongxuan ¬}¥È): texts of the Lingbao ÆFÄ_ (Sacred Treasure) tradition;
3. Spirit Grotto (Dongshen ¬}¯«): texts of the Sanhuang ¤T¶À (Three Sovereigns) tradition.
In general, these three corpora mirrored the three main focuses of Taoism in southern China during the early Six Dynasties -- meditation, ritual, and exorcism, respectively. They also were related to different stages of initiation, from the lowest (Sanhuang) to the highest (Shangqing)… More than one third of the present Canon is taken by only twenty different texts, and more than one half by about seventy commentaries to the Laozi and the Zhuangzi.
http://helios.unive.it/~dsao/pregadio/articles.html (articles on chinese alchemy)
http://groups.msn.com/EJournalEnglish/warringstate.msnw (hundred schools) The relationship between the Hundred Schools and their difference is mostly shown in their unlike interpretation and emphasis of underlying terms like tao 道 ("way"), de 德 ("virtue"), ren 仁 ("humanity"), yi 義 ("righteousness"), li 禮 ("etiquette") and li 理 ("order").
http://www.askasia.org/frclasrm/lessplan/l000019.htm
(chinese inventions)
http://www.tranceform.org/pazgeia/TAOISMEN.HTM
(shamans, fangshi)
http://www.qi-whiz.com/saman.html
(fangshi)
http://www.ancienteastasia.org/special/sandaichronology.htm
(xia, longshan, erlitou)
http://www.homoeopathyclinic.com/acu/neijing.pdf
(suwen, lingshu, and nanjing)
http://www.hku.hk/philodep/courses/religion/Buddhism.htm
(buddhism)
http://www.imperialtours.net/chan_buddhism.htm
(chan buddhism)
**For any characters see Chinaknowledge.de
http://rels.queensu.ca/dao/glossary.php
(pinyin/wadeguiles glossary, brief history)
http://www.acay.com.au/~silkroad/buddha/index.htm
(buddhism)
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/buddhaintro.html
(buddhism)
http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/7/kakol001.html
The basic concept of Buddhism — that dependent becoming (pratītya-samutpāda) is universal — finds a correlate in the basic concept of process thought that relational processes have primacy over things. Both say that (1) there are processes (or events, becomings, dharmas); and (2) processes occur in relational dependence on (or are conditioned by) other processes. There is nothing that does not become dependently; what appears not to become dependently is merely an abstraction from what does. This does not mean that we have to reform language so that it corresponds more to the way things really are, such as substituting verbs for nouns. Ordinary language is a useful shorthand: it is easier to say “tree” than “constellation of arboreal processes.” As long as we do not forget that language is only an intersubjective convention and does not correspond to reality in any simple one-to-one fashion, then there is no problem. That relational process or dependent becoming is primary can be seen in the fact that there can be “unowned processes” (such as “the flashing of lightning” or “the raining of rain”), whereas things and substances cannot be understood apart from processes — for what things are over and above what they do cannot be determined by interactive observation so that a thing’s essence can only be defined in terms of internal and external interactive (or relational) processes. The primacy of processes over things can also be discerned in the fact that the conjunction of becoming and being is itself something that becomes. Furthermore, although being (as that which does not become) can be derived by the negation of becoming, the negation of being yields non-being rather than becoming.
Process Buddhism is thus a philosophy of the middle way for dependent becoming is a dynamic middle way between the two static positions of being and non-being, both of which are abstractions from process. There is neither existence nor nonexistence, but events arise in open-ended dependence on other events.
http://www.buddhanet.net/wings4nt.htm As for the self/other dichotomy, there is the initial difficulty of determining what the self is. Any true self would have to lie totally under one's own control, and yet nothing that one might try to identify as one's self actually meets this criterion. Although the sense of self may seem intuitive enough, when carefully examined it shows itself to be based on confused perceptions and ideas. If one's basic categories for understanding experience are a cause for confusion in this way, they can lead only to confused, unskillful action, and thus to more suffering and stress. For example, when people view the source of their problems as poor relationships between themselves and others, or inadequate integration of the self, they are trying to analyze their problems in terms of categories that are ultimately uncertain. Thus there is a built-in uncertainty in the efforts they make to solve their problems in terms of those categories.
A second problem, no matter how one might define a self, is the question of how to prove whether or not it actually exists. This question entangles the mind in the unresolvable problems of the being/non-being dichotomy mentioned above: Because the problem is phrased in terms that cannot be directly experienced, it forces the solution into a realm that cannot be experienced, either. This fact probably explains the Buddha's statement in §230 to the effect that if one even asks the question of whether there is someone standing outside the processes of dependent co-arising to whom those processes pertain, it is impossible to lead the life that will bring about an end to suffering. Regardless of whether one would answer the question with a yes or a no, the terms of the question focus on an area outside of direct experience and thus away from the true problem-the direct experience of suffering-and actually make it worse. If one assumes the existence of a self, one must take on the implicit imperative to maximize the self's well-being through recourse to the "other." This recourse may involve either exploiting the "other" or swallowing the "other" into the self by equating one's self with the cosmos as a whole. Either approach involves clinging and craving, which lead to further suffering and stress. On the other hand, if one denies any kind of self, saying that the cosmos is totally "other," then one is assuming that there is nothing with any long-term existence whose happiness deserves anything more than quick, short-term attempts at finding pleasure. The imperative in this case would be to pursue immediate pleasure with as little effort as possible, thus aborting any sustained effort to bring about an end to suffering.
These problems explain why the Buddha regarded questions of existence and non-existence, self and no-self, as unskillful, inappropriate ways of attending to experience.
Stress and its cessation, on the other hand, are categories that avoid these problems. To begin with, they are immediately present and apparent. Even babies recognize stress and pain, well before they have any concept of "self" or "being." If one pays close attention to one's actual experience, there is no question about whether or not stress and its cessation are present. Finally, because these categories don't require that one fashion notions of "self" or "other"-or "no-self" or "no-other"-on top of one's immediate awareness [§228-230], they allow one to reach the mode of "entry into emptiness" on the verge of non-fashioning, in which, as we mentioned in III/H, the mind simply notes, "There is this...." Thus they are ideal categories for analyzing experience in a way that (1) reduces the confusion that causes people to act in unskillful ways and (2) brings the mind to a point where it can disengage and transcend all suffering and stress by ending the mental fabrication that provides input into the causal web.
'The leaves in the hand of the Blessed One are few in number, lord. Those overhead in the grove are far more numerous.'
'In the same way, monks, those things that I have known with direct knowledge but have not taught are far more numerous [than what I have taught]. And why haven't I taught them? Because they are not connected with the goal, do not relate to the rudiments of the holy life, and do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding. That is why I have not taught them.
http://www.buddhanet.net/wingscon.htm
(home page of the above)
http://library.ust.hk/lib-chinese/msg00104.html, http://www.loc.gov/catdir/pinyin/romcover.html
(wade-giles to pinyin)
http://www.edepot.com/taoroman.html
(romanization systems)
