“… the hero of virtue and duty ultimately lands himself in the same ambiguities as the hedonist and the utilitarian. Why? Because he aims at achieving “the good” as object. He engages in a self-conscious and deliberate campaign to “do his duty”…”
Thomas Merton The Way of Chuang Tzu
#Dailydao #daoism
“Just as a tree is mutilated by a human’s axe, so is everything natural mutilated by self-conscious human desires…”
Bryan Van Norden Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy
#Dailydao #daoism
“To a Stoic, it ultimately does not matter if we think the Logos is God or Nature, as long as we recognize that a decent human life is about the cultivation of one’s character and concern for other people (and even for Nature itself) and is best enjoyed by way of a proper—but not fanatical—detachment from mere worldly goods.”
How to Be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci 📚
“Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.”
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown 📚
“Physical force can only win physical obedience, which is superficial precisely because it does not touch the true, inner, conscious locus of the person.”
Edward Slingerland Mind and Body in Early China: Beyond orientalism and the Myth of Holism
#dailydao #daoism
