[Buddha-l] Big is beautiful (was: Review of a review)

[Dan Lusthaus]

Joy, Franz, et al.

> Thanks for those great posts. I feel properly embarrassed to be
> American.
>
> Yes, we're big on "big" here. Big doesn't simply mean "large," but,
> for us, carries connotations of expansiveness, ease, and graciousness.
> And of course there's the whole physical side (aggressiveness, sexual
> attractiveness, gluttony, territoriality, etc.).

I believe the French word grand(e) plays a similar game. And, if Zhuangzi 
(Chuang Tzu) is to be believed, the Chinese term da (big, great, grand, 
etc.) similarly was bigger than merely a size descriptor, and served as the 
foundation for evaluative hierarchies. (See Zhuangzi ch. 17 and my 
"Zhuangzi's Aporetic Ethics" in _Hiding the World in the World: Uneven 
Discourses on the Zhuangzi_, ed. by Scott Cook).

Dan