Eastern philosophy

Eighty-one short poems describe the Tao, or Way, and how to live and lead by yielding instead of forcing. One chapter holds the famous line that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

43 min reading time

Brief sayings and short exchanges between Confucius and his students on learning, family, and good government. He describes his own life in stages, saying that at fifteen he set his heart on learning.

1h 58m reading time

Thirteen short chapters set out how a general should plan, fight, and win a war. Chapter one gives its most quoted line: all warfare is based on deception.

46 min reading time

Conversations between Mencius and the kings, ministers and students he met traveling among the warring states of ancient China, urging rulers to govern with benevolence. He argues that people are born good, as surely as water flows downhill.

4h 1m reading time

A short Confucian work on how good government grows from the inside out: from a sincere mind to a cultivated self, then an ordered family, state and world. It draws its examples from old poems and the announcements of ancient kings.

13 min reading time

A Confucian work on keeping to the steady middle way, which it treats as living in harmony with Heaven, with sincerity at the root of it all. Confucius, quoted throughout, laments that hardly anyone keeps to the Mean for long.

27 min reading time

A verse dialogue follows the warrior Arjuna as he questions Krishna about duty before a battle. Their conversation unfolds in a chariot between two armies, with Arjuna facing relatives on the opposing side.

1h 34m reading time

Three of the principal Upanishads, the Isa, Katha, and Kena, ask what the self is and how it relates to everything else. In the Katha, a boy sent to the god of death turns down wealth and long life until Death tells him what happens to us after we die.

33 min reading time

Dialogues between teachers, kings, and gods examine the self, breathing, and what happens after death. In one conversation, the god Indra tells King Pratardana to understand him as the breath of life.

35 min reading time

Stories, dialogues, and playful arguments question familiar ideas about knowledge and how people should live. In one famous passage, a man dreams he is a butterfly, then wonders which life is the dream.

6h 41m reading time

These ancient Indian hymns offer prayers and songs to gods associated with nature and ritual. Their verses evoke a world of sacred fires, offerings, and powerful storms.

1h 12m reading time

Short verses present Buddhist teachings on the mind, conduct, and the path away from suffering. A chapter called Flowers compares a wise person's journey through a village to a bee gathering nectar.

53 min reading time