I was watching a couple dozen goldfish – a rainbow of shimmering colors – seemingly quite content within their large aquarium, and at the same time enjoying a plate-full of sushi, when the following memory came bubbling to the surface …

It was about ten years ago, and I was living in a guest-house nestled in the foothills of the Sangre de Christo (“Blood of Christ”) Mountains (so-named because at dusk the mountains were often bathed in stunningly-beautiful crimson light) on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The main house on the property was occupied by the close friend of a classmate (with whom I was studying Chinese Medicine). His name was Colin, and he was a man whose life revolved around two passions: painting and pigeons. His work-studio was in his house, and his paintings exhibited in galleries world-wide. The pigeons lived in a large coop adjacent to both the main and the attached guest-house ... read the entire essay

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touched by the bright
hand of the moon, even the clouds
are beautiful

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Enjoy this beautiful video tour of Wudang Monastery, including an interview with one of the resident Masters -- who has some very inspiring views re: nonviolence (among other things).

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For all you connoisseurs of Taoist poetry, who also have an interest in the Chinese language -- in which many were originally written -- this collection of 300 Tang poems is not to be missed.

What's great about this site is that each poem is presented first in Chinese, with the characters arranged as they would have appeared on bamboo slats (read from right-to-left and top-to-bottom). As you mouse over a character, you're given the pinyin transliteration and literal English translation of the character. Below, the poem is "fleshed out" in a way that makes sense as English poetry.

In this way, we're given an insider's view of the translation process, and a glimpse, perhaps, of the minds of these great Tang poets -- structured as they were by immersion in a language so different from ours.