A man is chased by a tiger. Suddenly, he encounters an abandoned well. He jumps in, hoping that the tiger can’t reach him there. But then, he realizes that there’s a poisonous snake at the bottom of this dried out well. Before he reaches the bottom, he grabs a root poking out of the wall […]
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Why Letting Go Is Wealth
One day, the legendary Chinese recluse Xu You watched a mole drinking water from a pond. He then realized that the mole, when thirsty, only drinks a bellyful: no more, no less, but exactly the quantity it needs. The mole doesn’t encumber itself with excesses, because that would only impede its movement. Unlike humans, who […]
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Miyamoto Musashi | A Life of Ultimate Focus
Miyamoto Musashi is one of the most legendary samurai and famed as Japan’s greatest swordsman – undefeated in more than sixty duels. After he escaped death during the Battle of Sekigahara, Musashi became a ronin. Aside from being a swordsman, he was also a philosopher, artist, and well-learned Buddhist. Before he died, Musashi left us […]
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The Art of Doing Without Doing
Have you ever reflected on the word ‘doing’? ‘Doing’ points to performance, achievement, effort. It also implies that there’s a ‘doer’ who engages in ‘doing something’, and that there’s a passive element or ‘the thing that’s being done’. But does it work that way? Is there a separation between the thing that ‘does’ and the […]
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The Philosophy of Cobra Kai
It’s not just to reignite his old passion for karate and to avenge his old nemesis Daniel LaRusso. One of the reasons why Johnny Lawrence re-opens his old dojo Cobra Kai is that he believes that by doing so he can give today’s youth exactly what they need: the way of the fist. After saving […]
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How to Endure The Pain of Life
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer observed that nature is driven by an all-encompassing force, which he called Will, or more specifically, the Will-To-Live. This force is unconscious, aimless, and blind, and gives rise to an insatiable striving within human beings. We live our lives grasping, craving, and attaching ourselves to external things, and we […]
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Miyamoto Musashi | The Way of the Ronin
The Japanese word ‘rōnin’ describes a samurai without a master, who wanders alone. The status of a ronin varied across different time-periods. In a general sense, being a ronin implied failure. More specifically, a ronin had renounced the act of ‘seppuku’, which is a form of Japanese ritual suicide that was applied to restore honor […]
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5 Life Lessons From Lao Tzu
Can you celebrate life and not cling to it? Can you give up control and still get things done? Can you achieve your goals without forcing? These are all themes we find in the ancient Taoist key work called the Tao Te Ching, which was written by a mysterious sage named Lao Tzu. Not much […]
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The Art of Becoming Better
Isn’t it the case we should always stay true to ourselves? Which means that we ought to know who we are, and organize our lives in ways that are compatible with our personalities? When we look for a partner, for example, we look for someone that we’re compatible with, and in regards to education and […]
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7 Stoic Principles for Inner Peace
In times of great uncertainty, the ability to keep calm isn’t an unnecessary luxury. The ancient Stoics didn’t shy away from adversity but, instead, managed to endure while continuing their pathways of virtue. We only have to peek into the memoirs of ancient Stoic Marcus Aurelius, published as Meditations, to see how he struggled to […]
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