Now, there are about forty thousand Chinese characters in the total Chinese language. Nobody, of course, can possibly know them all, but they exist. The ordinary educated person knows, or used to know, some four thousand, and then the specialists know one or two thousand in addition in their own field by which they recognize each other like magic passwords. Of course, the Bodhisattvas in China know them all; and the Devil knows them all too! He’s been around, and he’s got these forty thousand off — or he thinks he has! (more…)
Filed under: Books, Buddhism, Ch'an / Seon / Zen, Trevor Leggett | Tagged: Art by Marcelle Hanselaar, Bodhisattvas, Buddhist teaching, China, Chinese language, rural Japan | Leave a Comment »










