[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[Dan Lusthaus]

>
> That's sad to hear. Perhaps it is time to let the word "small" stop
> having all those negative connotations and take on the attitude in the
> beautiful little book called "Small in Beautiful."
>
> Richard

Great idea. I'll wave my wand and get a billion Chinese to think differently 
about one of their oldest and most basic valuative terms overnight.

The da vs xiao dichotomy was recognizied early on by the Chinese as the 
paradigmatic evaluative bifurcation. For a discussion of how Zhuangzi 
systematically worked that out, see my :"Aporetic Ethics in Zhuangzi" in 
_Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi_, ed. by 
Scott Cook, SUNY, 2003. That thinking has been around for a long time, and 
it's embedded in the language.

Dan