Illuminating Chinese Classics

In a previous episode, we talked about the importance of the mean (中庸) in Chinese thought, which means in essence to keep things in balance. This is something we touch on again in this episode on the Three Character Classic (三字经) about the seven emotions: happiness (喜) anger (怒), sorrow (哀), fear (惧), love (爱), hatred (恶), and desire (欲). All seven are natural and they can be healthy, but as our story explains, too much of any one of them can cause us problems. The三字经 was written by the Song Dynasty (宋朝) scholar Wang Yinglin (王应麟). This 1,134 character text was one of the first textbooks used by students, and provided lessons on education, morality and ethics, science, literature, and history.