Professor Roger T. Ames was the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Hawaii for ten years, and has been the Editor ofPhilosophy East and West since 1987. His teaching and research interests focus on comparative philosophy, the philosophy of culture, environmental philosophy, classical Confucianism, and Taoism. He has written many interpretive works on Chinese philosophy and culture, and has over the past d...

The stories we hear of the successful often make it seem like they were destined for greatness. They identified their purpose from an early age and forged ahead, cutting down distractions in their path. But if you peel back the facade, few encountered sudden revelations. Purpose is hard won. Child prodigies like Mozart or Tiger Woods are the exception. Robert Greene, best-selling author, worked dozens of jobs as a construction worke...

Prince Wen Hui’s cook Was cutting up an ox. Out went a hand, Down went a shoulder, He planted a foot, He pressed with a knee, The ox fell apart With a whisper; The bright cleaver murmured Like a gentle wind. Rhythm! Timing! Like a sacred dance, Like "The Mulberry Grove," Like ancient harmonies! "Good work!" the Prince exclaimed. "Your method is faultless!" "Method?" said the cook, Laying aside his cleaver. "What I follow is Tao, Beyo...

Mount Kailash, depicting the holy family: Shiva and Parvati, cradling Skanda with Ganesha by Shiva's side. This image represents the Axis Mundi, or the Cosmic axis, which represents the "connection between Heaven and Earth" or the "higher and lower realms". Notes The Story of Jacob The story of Jacob, later Israel (he who struggles with God). After serving his time with his uncle Laban, and being deceived by him in the most karmic o...

Notes Themes: * Material reality versus the nature of being. * Carl Jung and John Boyd regarding information, reality, orientation, and never having the ability to explain a system by looking into it because the nature of learning about the system changes your orientation. * Seeking truth versus the other thing that is explained. * Ideas have people versus people having ideas (from Carl Jung) * Fractal localism and why the little act...

Notes Virtue encompasses and extends beyond moral and religious contexts. The ideas transcend reality through compelling stories. The necessity of virtue is both for the individual and for society. The Origins of Virtue You cannot understand what makes a virtue until you modulate what constitutes being. Modern people are fundamentally materialistic. And there is some utility in that. We are masters of material transformation. And th...

Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe by Jacques-Louis David (1772). Niobe, the queen of Thebes, shelters her youngest daughter from Apollo and Diana‘s arrows. The queen’s thirteen other children lie wounded or dead in the painting’s foreground. This violent scene, drawn from a 1st-century Roman poem, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, illustrates Niobe’s punishment for boasting of her own power and fertility and for refusing to pay ho...