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❖Ancient Chinese Spiritual Stories and Their Timeless Lessons for Life
Chinese spiritual stories are brief in form but vast in meaning. You will rarely find lengthy explanations or complex philosophical arguments in them. Instead, each parable contains a seed of wisdom that often reveals its true significance not at the moment it is read, but much later – when life presents us with the very same lesson. These stories do not offer ready-made answers. Rather, they pose questions that invite the mind to become still and the consciousness to open to something deeper…

5 Timeless Stories from Zhuangzi that Capture the Spirit of the Tao
Zhuangzi (4th century BC), together with Laozi (6th century BC), is considered one of the founding figures of what we know today as Taoism. What has come down to us from Laozi consists of brief passages collected in the book known as the Tao Te Ching, while Zhuangzi clearly preferred using stories to convey the spirit of the Tao. Here are five short selections from some of his most insightful tales…

How Fazang Revealed the Universe to Empress Wu Zetian
One day, Empress Wu asked Master Fazang if he could give her a simple and tangible demonstration of the principle of cosmic interdependence – of the relationship between the One and the Many, between God and His creations, and of the relationship all things have with one another. Fazang set to work and arranged one of the palace chambers so that eight large mirrors stood at the eight points of the compass – east, west, north, south, northeast, northwest, southeast, and southwest…

