Thought and Belief 思想与信仰
四不像：当「四」成为不可译之物的代名词Four Failed Likenesses — When 四不像 Becomes the Word for the Unclassifiable English At seven in the evening on a patch of open concrete between two tower blocks, forty people are facing the same direction and moving in the same…
四世同堂不是「Four Generations Under One Roof」：被一个介词抹去的堂 Four Generations, Not Under One Roof — What English Cannot Carry Out of 四世同堂 English It is four in the afternoon in the main room of a north-China house. Light comes in through the south…
四的双面：为什么中文里「四」谐音「死」，却又有「四季平安」 The Number That Is Both Omen and Blessing – Why 四 Sounds Like Death, Yet Means 四季平安 English In the lift of a residential building in a Chinese city, the buttons read 1, 2, 3, 3A, 5. The fourth…
四方误译：East, South, West, North 不是「东南西北」 Four Directions, Four Fates — Why “East, South, West, North” Is Not 东南西北 English You are standing at an intersection in a city you do not know. Your phone says: Head north on Chang’an Street…
荣格四型与中医四质Jung’s Four Types and TCM’s Four Constitutions 思维的、情感的、感觉的、直觉的 · 太阳、少阳、太阴、少阴 · 两套平行框架，并置而非强行调和 Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, Intuition · Taiyang, Shaoyang, Taiyin, Shaoyin · Juxtaposed, Not Forced into Equivalence English Across civilizations, thinkers have created typologies to account for divergences in human…
四重道路The Fourfold Path 但丁的三界与佛陀的四谛 · 人类如何用结构回答苦难 Dante’s Three Realms and the Buddha’s Four Truths · How Humanity Uses Structure to Answer Suffering English I first read the Divine Comedy one summer. At the time, I did not know who Dante…
佛教四大菩萨Four Great Bodhisattvas 文殊、普贤、观音、地藏 · 四种精神品质的人格化象征 Manjushri, Samantabhadra, Guanyin, Ksitigarbha · Four Cardinal Virtues Personified English A bodhisattva — from Sanskrit bodhi (awakening) + sattva (being) — is one who has achieved or is close to achieving full enlightenment but…
四大哲学传统：中华、希腊、印度、伊斯兰 English The great philosophical traditions of the world are not primarily answer-machines — they are question-refiners. What distinguishes Chinese Confucian-Daoist philosophy, ancient Greek philosophy, Indian philosophy, and Islamic philosophy from each other is less the specific conclusions they reach…
四种死亡观：华夏祖先祭祀、古埃及来世、佛教轮回、基督教复活 English Death is humanity’s only certain destiny and one of its most enduring philosophical challenges. How a civilization answers the question “what is death?” profoundly shapes its understanding of life’s meaning, its treatment of the dead, and its relationship…
四份叙述，一个身影Four Gospels, Four Voices, One Question 马太、马可、路加、约翰 · 一个普通读者眼中的四福音书 Matthew, Mark, Luke, John · Four Gospels Through the Eyes of a Lay Reader English I am not a Christian. This is not a declaration of identity, merely background. Most people…
道家四大：道、天、地、人 English Chapter twenty-five of the Tao Te Ching contains what may be the most economical cosmological statement in any philosophical tradition. In the original classical Chinese, it requires just over thirty characters; in any translation, it needs more words…
佛教：苦难的诊断与超越之路 English The story begins with four encounters. A young prince named Siddhartha Gautama (c. 563-483 BCE), raised in sheltered luxury in the Shakya republic (in present-day southern Nepal), sees outside his palace walls: an old man, a sick man,…
基督教：起源、分化与文明塑造Christianity: Origins, Divisions, and Civilizational Impact English Christianity began in first-century Palestine with the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and spread from that single point across two millennia to become one of the world’s largest religious traditions. Broad…
伊斯兰教：文化与历史导论 English Islam was founded in seventh-century Arabia through the prophethood of Muhammad, and spread within a century of its founding across the Middle East, North Africa, Persia, and into Central Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Today it is practiced…
印度教：世界上最古老的现存宗教之一 English Hinduism is the world’s oldest living religion — its roots in the Vedic tradition date to approximately 1500 BCE or earlier — and among the most philosophically complex. Unlike Christianity, Islam, or Buddhism, it has no single founder,…