Ancient Egyptian have many relatives

By surfing YouTube, I found out there were many
discussions about which race the Ancient Egyptian
belonged to. African American said they were
African, Caucasian American said they were European.
Interestingly the Chinese said they were Chinese as
the Ancient Egyptian resembled Chinese most.
Had Ancient Egypt had poor culture, would anybody
eager to associate them with?
The Chinese had an old saying: "Many claim to be
the relative of a rich person living in remote mountain,
no body mentions his poor relative living in downtown."
By the way, I think the Ancient Egyptian were melting
pot, just like all the great civilization in human history.

Holy Spirit

During the old days in China, common people learn
how to recognize Chinese characters by reciting
San Zi Jing or The Book of Three Words. The
whole book contains meaningful three word phrases,
and read like a poem. It begins with
"Men are born good, environment differntiates us from
each other; men should acquire knowledge ..."

Zen Master Huineng said, "Men are born with Buddha
potential, discover that wisdom within, and you'll be a
buddha."

So men are born with good nature and conscience,
hasting world sometimes blinded our wisdom within.
This inner wisdom is very much like the Holy Spirit,
it is in us, and up to us to find it and follow it.

The wisdom of Sun Bin

Sun Bin was the grandson of Sun Tzu, the author of
the famous book The Art of War.

When Sun Bin was young, he went to Master Guigoozi's
House and tried to be accepted as his disciple.
Master Guigoozi, sitting in his living room, said: "To be
my disciple, you must pass any test I give you now."
Master Guigoozi then said, "Now I am inside the house,
see how you can make me go outside the house."
Sun Bin bowed down and said, "Master, you are wise and
knowledgeable, of course I have no way to convince you
to go outside if you already made up your mind to stay
inside. However if you are outside the house, I do know
how to make you go inside the house."
Guigoozi thinking, what's the difference, and agreed to change
the test to from outside in. So Guigoozi walked to the
front yard and said, "Now show me how you can make me
go inside."
Sun Bin bowed down and spoke softly, "Master, I just made
you came outside the house."
Guigoozi suddenly realized that Sun Bin past the original test.

Sun Bin later bacame a great military stategist, just like his
grandfather.

Billy Graham - Face Reading

Billy Graham is blessed.











Reverend Graham has a long rectangular face;
eyes, nose, mouth, each shaped nicely and
located properly on his face.
His eyes are clear and bright, radiant with
passion and righteousness.
His voice is deep and strong, fit to be a
commanding general.
His stature is straight and firm, his manner majestic.

According to the face reading,
Mr. Graham would get a 10, the perfect score.

Before he even speaks, people probably already
believe his preaching.

Charity

In the King James Version Bible, love was
written as charity. Nowadays, charity usually
means give.
The Buhdda taught his deciples that there are
3 types of give: money, skill, and free from fear.
Give money is simple and useful, but has limited
value.
Teach skill is better, the recevier can use the
skill to earn more money.
The best is to give "no fear".
Roosevelt said "the only thing we have to fear is
fear itself". When fear comes, love disappears.
So when the Buddha said give no fear, he meant
give the kind of love defined in the Bible,
First Corinthians chapter 13:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not;
charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own,
is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things,
endureth all things.
Charity never faileth

King David and Tang Taizhong

To most Chinese, the greatest emperor in China's history
is Tang Taizhong, the founder of the Tang Dynasty.
Although the official history named his father as the
founder, but it was really Tang Taizhong conquered all
the adversaries and unified the country.
During Tang Taizhong's reign, and continued on
for 200 years, Tang dynasty blossomed in all respect,
be it military, political or culture.

I find King David and Tang Taizhong has one thing in
common: They are God's choices. Even though they
committed unforgivable sins, they lived through life
gloriously and died peacefully.

When I first read the Bible about King David,
One thing I couldn't reconcile was that how could
God forgive King David after he commited the wrost
crime possible: Steal his subornate's wife and then
murder him by purposely send him to the front line
to die in the battle.
In The Ten Commandments, King David's crime
violated four: Murder, steal, adultery and coveting
other's wife.
By any standard, this crime is unforgivable, nothing
short of death sentence can justify the punishment.
God did punished him, but was totally inadequate.

King David became the greatest king of Isarel, and
Jesus was his decendent.

King David died in old age in bed.

Now about Tang Taizhong,
when Tang Dynasty was established, Tang Taizhong's
father, Tang Gaozu became the new emperor. By
tradition, the eldest son of the emperor became the
crown prince, so the crown prince title went to Tang
Gaozu's eldest son: Li Jiancheng, even though
Tang Taizhong was the one won most battles
in unifying the country.

Tang Gaozu had four sons from his official wife:
Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin (Tang Taizhong), Li Xuanba and
Li Yuanji. The third son Li Xuanba died young.

The conflict between Li Jiancheng group and Li Shimin
group escalated after Li Jiancheng became the Crown
Prince. Later, Li Yuanji, the Fourth Prince, joined the
Crown Prince group to counter Li Shimin's group.

Under the pressure from his generals and staffs,
Li Shimin caved in and agreed to have a coup. The famous
Xuan Wu Gate Coup finally unfold:

On the day of the coup, Emperor Tang Gaozu went boating
with his concubines in the palace lake. Li Shimin group figured
the Crown Prince would pass through Xuan Wu Gate
by horse to pay respect to the emperor, so they plotted
an ambush nearby.
As Li Shimin and his generals waited, the Crown Prince,
together with the Fourth Prince, riding on the horses toward
Xuan Wu Gate.
When the two came close, the Crown Prince sensed something
was not right, and immediately they turned around. Li Shimin,
riding on a horse, came out and shouted: "Big brother and
little brother, hold on!". Li Yuanji knew right away there
was a plot, and shot a arrow toward Li Shimin, Li Shimin
bent himself on the horse and ducked the arrow. Li Yuanji shot
3 times without hitting Li Shimin, so in frenzy he tried to flee.
Li Shimin's goal was the Crown Price, so he opened the arc
wide and mount a giant arrow, twice as big as a normal arrow,
and shot at the Crown Prince Li Jiancheng, and bullseye! the
arrow penetrated the heart of the Crown Prince, the Crown
Prince fell down from the horse back and died instantly.
The Fourth Prince Li Yuanji was killed by Li Shimin's generals
while he was fleeing.

After Xuan Wu Gate Coup, Tang Gaozu said to Li Shimin: "It
was you who unified the country, the country should be yours
anyway. Now you are the only prince left."
Two months later, Tang Gaozu retired and Li Shimin was crowned
as the new emperor: Tang Taizhong.

Tang Taizhong murdered his two brothers and forced his father
to abdicate, in order that he became the emperor.
In retrospect, the coup was good for the country and good for the
people, as Tang Taizhong turned out to be a great statesman.
But his sin commited at Xuan Wu Gate was unforgivable,
particularly in China's confusian world.

Tang Taizhong died in old age in bed.

God's way - the story of Empress Bo

In the Bible, the book of Isaiah, it says: "The Lord thoughts are
not our thoughts, nor His ways our ways."

The story of Empress Bo of China demostrates how God chose an
empress, beyond human imagination.

In the 3rd century BC, when the first unified Chinese empire
Qing Dynasty crumbled, the country was in chaos, with Zu and
Han as the two major powers. Among the less powerful
states, there was Wei.

There was a lady in the King of Wei's court named Lady Bo, her
father came from Wu kindom with last name Bo, her mother
followed King of Wei. Lady Bo probably became a concubine of
the King of Wei.

Lady Bo was quiet and conversative, followed LaoTze's naturalistic
phylosophy.

One day Lady Bo's mother consulted a fortune teller about
Lady Bo's future, the fortune teller said Lady Bo's future son will be an
emperor.
King of Wei originally planned to join the Han side to
defeat Zu, but after learned this story about Lady Bo will
be the mother of a future emperor, he decided to stay neutral,
thinking Wei might be emerged as the ultimate victor.

Later Han defeated all adversaries, unified the country, and
established Han dynasty. King of Wei lost the battle and died,
and Lady Bo became a prisoner of war and was sent to the new
dynasty emperor's palace as a knitter.

One day Emperor Han Gaozu, the founding emperor of the new (Han)
dynasty, passing by the knitter's corridor, and discovered Lady
Bo was beautiful, and acquired her as a concubine.

Emperor Han Gaozu had many concubines, and Lady Bo was not one
of the favorite, so for more than one year as a concubine, she did
not have a chance to meet the emperor in person.

When Lady Bo was young, she had two good friends Lady Guang and
Lady Zhao, both of them later became concubine to Emperor Han Gaozu
also, and both found favor with the emperor. One day the two were
chatting in the palace garden and remembered three of them sweared
before that whoever got ahead later would help the other two, and
laughed at Lady Bo's unloved situation. Emperor Han Gaozu passing by and
asked what's funny and they told the emperor about Lady Bo. The emperor
was moved, and had pity on Lady Bo, and asked her to be his
companion that night. That night Lady Bo told the emperor she
had a dream the night before that a dragon was clinging on her belly, the
emperor said this was a lucky sign and they slept together, and Lady Bo
became preganent and had a son, whom would later become King of Dai.
Since Lady Bo was not a favorite to the emperor, the emperor seldom
saw her afterwards.

When Emperor Han Gaozu died, his successor was young, so the power
shifted to Empress Lu, the mother of the young emperor.
Empress Lu hated Emperor Han Gaozu's concubines, and
jailed them one by one. Since Lady Bo was not a favorite before,
Empress Lu did not give her hard time. At that time
Lady Bo's son was assigned as the king of Dai State, far away from the capital,
so Lady Bo asked to join her son in Dai, and was approved by Empress Lu.
This removed her far away from the palace politics, which was terrifying.

Empress Lu 's son, the official emperor, was mentally tortured by
her and became insane, and died young. So Empress Lu
created a few pseudo emperors, all of them young, to keep
herself in power.

When Empress Lu died after 15 years in power, court ministers and generals
decided not to keep any of those pseudo emperors, and elected to choose
from surviving sons of Han Gauzu to be the next emperor. The selection criteria
would be he was a good natured person, preferably older age so to avoid
being manipulated by his mother empress. King of Dai, already a grown up, and
a peaceful person, with conservative mother Lady Bo, emerged as the best
choice, and was crowned as the new emperor. Hence, Lady Bo, the mother
of the new emperor, became Empress Bo.

Empress Bo's great grandson, Emperor Han Wudi, became one of the
greatest emperor in China's history. Today, the majority of
the Chinese call themself Han race, is due mainly to Emperor Han Wudi.

The wisdom of Huineng

As I wrote before, Huineng is a natural,
even though he is an iliterate, his sayings
coincide with the sayings of great
philosophers and religious leaders.
Here are some of his sayings:

"Man born with pure heart,
to be pure hearted is to be Buddha."
This reminded me of what Jesus said: "Blessed
are pure in heart, for they shall see God."

"Fool prays to go to heaven, wise repents.
Heaven is where the pure hearted be."
No wonder John the Baptist said: "Repent, the
kingdom of God is near."

"Be good in this life, why wish next?
Without repent, you'll search God in vain."

"You are what you think."
Conincides with a great western philosopher's
saying. (can't remember his name)

"To be Buddha is to have a free mind, a
playful attitude and a rightous life."
Reminded me of American Constitution.

Jesus and Guanyin

The most populus sculpture or painting in China is not
Mao Zedong or Chiang Kaishek, it's Guanyin. If you go
to any typical chinese buddhist home, chances are
you'll find Guanyin's painting or sculpture in the house.
Guanyin temple can be found almost anywhere in China.
The famous Pudala Palace of Tibet is a Guanyin temple.

Guanyin's appearance resembles Virgin Mary, with merciful
and majestic face. She has power to turn herself into
an angel and help the needy whenever she is called
upon. She can rescue the sailor in the stormy sea, protect
the innocent from evil and make barren woman bear child.
She'll answer prayer.

Guanyin was actually a male deciple of Sakyamuni,
the founder of the Buddhism. Sakyamuni had many
deciples, but Guanyin emerged as the most popular
buddha, in some places surpassing Sakyamuni's
popularity.

Guanyin was honored in the Buddhism Sutra as a son
of the Buddha, with pure and majestic looking, and a
merciful heart. Guanyin has godly power, whomever
called upon him, he'll answer.

Because Guanyin answers prayer to man and woman
alike, he became the favorite to woman believer,
especially for woman praying to have a son. Since
Guanyin has power to change his appearance as the
situation fits, he sometimes appears as a woman
to facilitate the rescue mission. As time goes by,
his appearance was being changed gradually by the
worshippers to feminine look, and became today's female
appearance.

There are many paralell between Guanyin and Jesus.
Jesus is the son of God, full of lovingkindness, he is
the savior of the human race, bear the cross for us
sinners, answer our prayers.

Guanyin is not a redeemer like Jesus,
because Buddha is not God.

Saint Paul said, "Faith, hope, love, the greatest is
love." Christian say Jesus is love. The best description
of Guanyin is also: love.

PS, if you can read Chinese, you are welcome to visit mychinese blog site: http://hi.baidu.com/vincentyo/blog

Huineng - The Natural

According to the Gospels, Jesus never had a formal
education, but his words amazed pharasees, his teachings
triumphed in history. Of course, if you are a Christian,
there is nothing to be surprised, because Jesus was and is
the son of God, wisdom bestowed upon him.

Huineng (638-713 AD), the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese
Zen, came in the same way.

Huineng came from the low class of the society, iliterate
and poor. His father died while he was young, so he made
living by selling firewoods. One day while deliverying
firewoods, he overheard a nun reciting Diamond Sutra aloud,
so he stood by the window to listen, and understood right away.
The nun was amazed and told her relatives that this boy was
a saint, and her relatives sponsored Huineng to go to the
Fifth Patriarch Hongren's monastery to learn more and hopefully
making Huineng a great monk.

The monks at the monastery saw Huineng poor and ugly (
I guess because he came from the lower class), assigned him
to perform labor tasks, chopping woods and cooking meals.
For 9 months, Huineng never met Patriarch Hongren.

One day Patriarch Hongren told his deciples that he
intended to pass on the patriarchship to the next generation.
He asked his deciples to each write a poem to express their idea
about Zen, whoever had the best poem, he would pass on
the patriarchship to him.

Leading deciple Senhui, respected by everyone, with
humble heart, did not dare to present his poem to Patriarch
Hongren directly, so he wrote his poem on the wall without
signing his name:

My body is like the wisdom tree,
my mind is like the mirror stand,
I constantly polish,
allow no fallen dust on it.

Everyone was facinated at the beauty of this poem,
and knew this must come from Senhui, our next patriarch.
One monk, after saw Senhui's poem, reciting it loudly while
passing by the kitchen, and overheard by Huineng.
Huineng asked what's about, he explained the situation
and said how wonderful this poem was. Huineng told him
this poem did not get to the heart of Zen. Nearby monks
laughed at Huineng and called him a twit. Huineng said:

Don't look down upon the beginner, sometimes the
beginner knows what's the best.

So Huineng asked to see the poem on the wall, the monks
led him to there, after reading Senhui's poem, Huineng said
he had one, too, and asked someone to write it on the
wall, since Huineng was iliterate. Here was Huineng's poem:

Wisdom has no tree,
mind is not a mirror stand,
nothing is there,
where can the dust fall?


Everyone shout with amazement after reading Huineng's
poem. Soon Patriarch Hongren heard about it and came in
person to see Huineng's poem.

Not long after, Hongren passed on the patriarchship to Huineng,
with the objection of everybody, to become the Sixth
Patriarch of Chinese Zen.

Remember, Huineng was poor, iliterate and no-good looking.

I'll talk more about Huineng's stories in future.

PS, if you can read Chinese, you are welcome to visit my
chinese blog site:

http://hi.baidu.com/vincentyo/blog

Confucius

Like a major religion, Confucius teaching dominated
China for more than 2 thousand years.

When Mongul ruled China, confucian was ranked between
prostitute and beggar, with beggar the lowerest rank.
But after Mongul was driven out of China, Confucius status
was restored quickly.

In late 19th century when the western powers overwhelmed
China, the chinese blamed their country's weakness
squarely on Confucius teaching, branded it the "Kung family
franchise".

During China's Culture Revolution in the 1960s, Confucius
again was the target of condemnation, source of all evil.

But look what happen now? Confucius is again being
revered in China.

Deep down, I think Cofucius teaching has things people
really longing for, that's why it stands the test of time.

From Confucius's own mouth, he said his teaching boiled
down to 2 words: Zhong Su.
Zhong means loyalty, or be your best.
Su means put your shoe in other's place, or forgiveness.

For Christian, if you add God to the equation, they sound
like: Trust God with all your heart; and forgive our debts,
as we forgive our debters.

Confucius refrained from talking about god or devil, but his
teaching is not far from the teaching of the major religions.