The Yixing Clay Teapot

Table of Contents:

• The Yixing Clay Teapot
• The Style Of The Teapot
• Judging The Teapot’s Value
• Handling The Teapot
• Terminology

Right to Freedom or Freedom to Do Right?

Tuesday, 29 June, 2021

T_____

I have had a tradition for many years, to read the Declaration of Independence on or around the Fourth of July. By some intuition

The Mud Box

Wired for the wind
Yet trapped, in a mud box.

A Little Hole in the Middle

It’s Sunday in July, in S______, 2018.

I’m on duty, in Chinatown, patrolling the plaza above the station, street level. I just spoke to the alcoholic, homeless author, who still manages to scrounge enough money

Unconcentrated

Unconcentrated

我的心里 (wo de xin li)
不停的跑 (bu ting de pao)

Chinaclown

A tool, abused.
A toy, amused.
A teacher, confused.
A healer, b’ruised.

My private life:

My concentration is on three areas, two are more academic than the third (which will not be discussed here). Those two are language/literature and philosophy/history. Why do I designate these as duel topics? Language may be seen as a science: knowledge of language development, language learning, the speaking apparatus, and so on; or art, the spoken word, rhetoric, and writing.

Awakened – In a room of my own

Friday, 22 September, 2017 – 01:08

How rare it is that I find myself awake at this hour, and not working. My mind is a ticking time bomb, and it has been stuffed away in a pressure cooker for over a year. You see, I come awake at night, but not in the talkative, jolly, intoxicated and social way. No. I awaken within,

Thanksgiving, For What?

Wednesday, 23 November, 2016

Thanksgiving ~ Is a holiday, where we celebrate what we have to be thankful for. Is my mind so dark that I should think there is nothing to be thankful for? All the great thinkers have taught us, that our well-being in life is on our own shoulders to bear. We may practice a freedom from desire and carving, as the Buddha suggests. We may celebrate our struggles, living out the Greek tragedies. We may recognize our place and be content as a part of nature, as the followers of the Tao. Or perhaps we can embrace love, and find happiness and satisfaction in wishing, praying, and giving to others as the Mesopotamian prophets.

Plato’s Unwritten Lessons

I have read somewhere that there are lessons which Plato did not preserve in his writing. Had I not heard this, it would seem obvious enough. I think any student of anything would understand that there are things which you can learn from a teacher, and then there are things which are written down. In the case of Plato, his writing seems primarily a form of art, and to the receiver a kind of entertainment. Now, here I should say that I am only speculating, and that my knowledge of Plato is quite limited, and I have not read all of his works (though I wish one day I might know them all well). Perhaps, if some knowledgeable reader stumbles by they might enlighten me on the subject. What I am thinking, the thoughts I am now putting down in writing, are just that, thoughts.

Imagine you’re a philosopher in the 5th century B.C.; what sort of skills would you need?