XPost: alt.philosophy.taoism, alt.buddha.short.fat.guy, alt.philosophy.zen   
   From: wudao@wuji.net   
      
   Tang wrote:   
      
   > ...   
   >What is piquant (and relevant to these boards) is that white   
   >scholars massively fail to understand a major strand of   
   >European thought, Stoicism (they don't even know that it is a   
   >major strand of European thought),   
      
   I suppose all dead white guys that you perceived did as you say   
   and didn't know that they didn't know. I really don't know.   
   Not having ever studied the matter much at all.   
      
   And live whites don't study Stoicism either, if you say so.   
   I never knew the ivory halls were ever full of them.   
   Then again, I've not been in the towers recently to know.   
      
   Lots of people chop the world into white and non-white.   
   I know why some of them do that, in the States.   
   That system perpetuates itself.   
      
   Since I studied under Miyuki, at a University, it's possible   
   that my experience did not induce me to see the world   
   as you appear to see it in terms of scholars,   
   be they German or otherwise.   
      
   It seems to me Miyuki translated the Secret of the Golden Flower   
   into German, perhaps from Chinese or Japanese, in his day.   
      
   He never mentioned Stoicism that I recall.   
   Maybe that would have been a different class, instead of Zen   
   or the Asian Religions classes he taught, in what you   
   seem to be calling some kind of white washing.   
      
   > and therefore miss the   
   >sweeping influence of it on European thought, specially in   
   >philosophy, theology and mysticism. And without an   
   >understanding of Stoicism, they are unlikely to understand   
   >Oriental philosophy and religion, like Buddhism and Daoism,   
   >which are very similar to it in both structure and content.   
      
   I tend to see mystics as mystics and many scholars may be mystics.   
   They may have had religious experiences of various varieties   
   of which they speak or choose not to speak.   
      
   Your emphasis on all the white ones remains strange to me.   
   As is your thinking that they didn't know of Stoicism.   
      
   > I   
   >quoted the passage from Hegel to indicate the Stoic nature of   
   >it, and the similarity of it to Buddhism and Daoism, though   
   >have not elaborated on such purviews.   
      
   I have no idea how selective your perception is.   
   It seems a bit narrow minded to me.   
      
   - knot that it matters   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)