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Nick Jones

@nicholaos.bsky.social
565 followers 232 following 105 posts

Professor of Philosophy. Interests in Chinese Buddhism, systems sciences, metaphysics. youtube.com/@thenickjones global.oup.com/academic/product/met…

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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Here's a link to a playlist on (short-ish) ancient Greek philosophy lectures recorded during COVID. They're set to release at a pace of 2-3 per week, currently at the Eleatic tradition. (I think the next release has me setting some stuff on fire in my backyard....) www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
Ancient Greek Philosophy (Lectures) - YouTube
Recorded lectures for an upper-level undergraduate survey of the classical Greek philosophical tradition from Thales of Miletus through Aristotle. By Prof. N...
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Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 05/09/2026
This is interesting. You get assigned to being born at a random place and time in history, to see what a typical person's life might have been like then. Unfortunately I was born in 1403 in the valley of Mexico and died at age 4 from dysentery.
anyhumanever.com
Any Human Ever
One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived.
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Buddhistdoor Global (BDG) @buddhistdoor.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
BDG News: Florida Professor Wins Grant to Improve Accessibility of Chinese Huayan Buddhism 🔗 www.buddhistdoor.net/news/florida...
buddhistdoor.net
Florida Professor Wins Grant to Improve Accessibility of Chinese Huayan Buddhism - Buddhistdoor Global
The US$50,000 grant will be used to translate classical Chinese Buddhist texts and develop meditation retreats across the country
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Attn: folks curious about Fazang / Huayan Buddhism. I have a page listing Fazang’s writings with links to English translations…and when there’s no translation, I used Dharmamitra’s AI tool to make a provisional (unedited/uncritical) one. sites.google.com/view/fazang/...
sites.google.com
Fazang - Fazang's Writings
Treatises on Huayan Treatise on the Divisions within the One Vehicle Doctrine of Huayan (Huáyán yīshèng jiàoyì fēnqí zhāng 華嚴一乘教義分齊章). T, volume 45, number 1866. also known as Treatise on the Five Te...
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
What is philosophy? My students this semester say "thinking about thinking" or "thinking about how people think." I floated an alternative: the activity of saying stupid things to other people, with the aim of becoming less stupid, resulting in seeing others as less stupid.
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Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science (CLPS) @clpskuleuven.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Sometimes philosophers really dislike the conclusions of certain arguments by reductio & rebrand them as 'paradoxes,' but sometimes they simply do not. Why is this? Find out in Boaz Schuman's recent 📃, which recovers the logical works of Al-Fārābī 👇 www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1... #philsky #HPS
tandfonline.com
Al-Fārābī and Quine on reductio and paradox
If you dislike the conclusion of an argument by reductio, you can rebrand it as a paradox. We did this with Zeno, and more recently McTaggart. But what – if anything – is the principle at play? Is ...
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Anna Alexandrova @annaalexandrova.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Check out this diamond #openaccess press of very high scholarly quality. Consider it for your #philsci monographs and check out the excellent books they already published
thebsps.org
BSPS Open - BSPS
World-class philosophy of science monographs published Open Access at no cost to authors: a collaboration between the BSPS and University of Calgary Press.
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Bryan Lowe @bryandaniellowe.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Writing a book on East Asian Buddhism and need more support to finish it? Please consider applying for the Kuroda Institute Manuscript Completion Grant, which offers funding up to $5,000 to help scholars ready book manuscripts for publication. Details in the link: uhpress.hawaii.edu/bookseries/k...
uhpress.hawaii.edu
Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism – UH Press
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism is an independent, nonprofit organization that seeks to promote scholarship on Buddhism and its various historical,…
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Chinese researchers have created a bamboo-based plastic as strong as petroleum-based plastics, which can fully biodegrade in soil in just 2 months phys.org/news/2025-10...
phys.org
Bamboo-based plastic can be made to biodegrade quickly, but still holds up in tough conditions
A new method to produce strong, biodegradable plastic from bamboo is reported in Nature Communications this week. The bioplastic resembles oil-based plastics in strength, shapability, and thermal stab...
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 25/04/2026
Question for space people: My son asked, if an ocean were suddenly to be teleported to space, whether the fish would survive. I think yes, since there would still be oxygen in the water (at least until the water froze or boiled?). Is that right?
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Looking forward to meeting people after this talk with Center for Buddhist Philosophy at National Chengchi University! buddhica.nccu.edu.tw/event/370
Venue│國立政治大學哲學系圖書室(百年樓222)+線上視訊
Speaker:Dr. Nicholaos Jones(Professor of Philosophy; Department Chair of Philosophy and Political Science, The University of Alabama in Huntsville)
Type:【分析的漢傳佛教哲學】學術演講
Date:Apr 23, 2026
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Stacy Mitchell @stacyfmitchell.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
1. Amazon has built powerful pricing algorithms that have learned how to steer prices upward — not just on Amazon, but across the web. I have a new piece on how these algorithms work, and how they help sustain Amazon’s monopoly.
washingtonmonthly.com
How Amazon’s AI Algorithms Raise the Prices You Pay
Amazon can steer market-wide prices without ever colluding—exposing a gap in antitrust law that the FTC is now fighting to close.
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The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
Eyeball in a landscape in hat and jacket, human-headed melons, fleeing prisons... these are C. P. Cranch’s very literal illustrations of Emerson’s Nature (ca. 1837–39) — publicdomainreview.org/collection/c…
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Nat Hansen @nathansen.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I made some playable philosophy simulations: -Oxford 1952 -Republic Book I -Jena 1799 -Paris 1945 www.ux-phi.com
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The Mighty Jungle💙💛 @ocanannain.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Iconic Photo
 NASA -- Artemis II crew
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NASA | ESA Space Updates @nasaupdates.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
#Artemis II - Mission Control flip their mission patches to the return side as instructed by Orion crew “Integrity we are earth bound and ready to bring you home” We now see the crescent of the earth as Orion’s signal beams back, which marks the beginning of their journey back to Earth 🚀🌕🌍
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Leads with a banger from Zhuangzi: “The skillful are buried under tasks, the wise are plagued by pings; useless people achieve inbox zero.”
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NASA | ESA Space Updates @nasaupdates.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
#Artemis II - The crew aboard the Orion spacecraft give us a recap from day 2 🚀🌕
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NASA | ESA Space Updates @nasaupdates.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
The amazing moment a plane passenger captured #Artemis II outside their cabin window 🚀☁️
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Claire Lamman @clairelamman.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
So happy to finally share this: I made a long-form comic about Hawking radiation for Physics Today! Although it's a short read, I hope it sucks you in ;) physicstoday.aip.org/features/bla...
physicstoday.aip.org
Black holes aren’t black
A half century after the discovery of Hawking radiation, we are still dealing with the quantum puzzle it exposed.
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Fenner Tanswell @fennert.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
A curious thread from Terence Tao comparing the impact of AI in maths to cars on cities. mathstodon.xyz/@tao/1162527...
mathstodon.xyz
Terence Tao (@tao@mathstodon.xyz)
The current and projected impact of AI and formalization on the practice of mathematics is analogous to the impact that the automobile had on the evolution of cities. Before the introduction of the...
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Brandon Polite @politephilosopher.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Check out my new and improved Philosophy of Games syllabus, featuring @add-hawk.bsky.social, @stephaniepatridge.bsky.social, @cjbartel.bsky.social, and more!!!
brandonpolite.weebly.com
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
This is a great list of techniques for getting real information out of a Google search and avoiding AI slop and paid results. (One thing not included is that if you add "-ai" to a search, you block the AI summary) cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has...
cardcatalogforlife.substack.com
Google Has a Secret Reference Desk. Here's How to Use It.
40 Google features to find exactly what you need, the alternative search engines that do things Google won't, and the reference desk framework underneath all of it.
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
For those in the vicinity of University of Maine next week, on Mar 12 I'll be giving a talk in their Philosophy Department about some different approaches to explaining and justifying the interdependence of all things--in the vein of straightup metaphysics rather than historical interpretation.
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
The first fruit of a now years-long collaboration, with systems engineering folks, on how to conceptualize validation as argumentation. My main contribution is the importance of distinguishing between evaluating warrants (in validation arguments) and evaluating the *aptness* of warrants. #philsky
ieeexplore.ieee.org
A Probabilistic Semantics for Defeasible Argumentation in Systems Validation
Engineers commonly validate complex systems by considering arguments, pro and con, that a system possesses (or will possess) desired properties, like safety or high-quality performance. This argumenta...
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philosophyblogs @philosophyblogs.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 31/01/2026
Warp, Weft, and Way || New Book: Blake, Standards and Reference in Early Chinese Philosophy of Language warpweftandway.com/new-book-blake-s…
warpweftandway.com
New Book: Blake, Standards and Reference in Early Chinese Philosophy of Language
Season Blake’s book _Standards and Reference in Early Chinese Philosophy of Language: Mohist Concepts, Practices, and Texts_ has been published by Bloomsbury; see here. Congratulations, Season! **Description** Philosophy of Language in Early China characterizes early Chinese philosophy of language through a focus on standards (‘ _fa_ ‘) and the activity of giving examples (‘ _ju_ ‘). It argues that standards are understood by early Chinese philosophers to provide the groundwork for judgment and language, not only in the Mohist school, but also in other thinkers from the Warring States and early Han, particularly the Zhuangzi and Xunzi. Blake demonstrates that standards and examples provide a way to identify the reference of words and assess others’ judgments and linguistic competence, similar to some theories found in contemporary analytic texts. They also discuss the ways in which the Mohist account goes beyond a discussion of reference through a focus on communication and predication. Providing new insights into ancient Chinese thought and the nature of language, this book will be of interest to those working in comparative philosophy, philosophy of language, Chinese philosophy and East Asian studies. **Table of Contents** Acknowledgements A Note on Citations of Chinese texts 1. Introduction to Chinese Philosophy of Language 2. Standards and Classification in Early China 3. Select Linguistic Activities 4. Standards-based Critiques of Language 5. Reference in the Mohist Texts 6. The Mohist Theory of Communication Bibliography Index
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Josh Habgood-Coote @impractknow.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
an internet person has made a searchable version of Borges‘ library of Babel and it’s way more horrifying than the actual story libraryofbabel.info
libraryofbabel.info
Library of Babel
A project towards a universal library. By this art you may contemplate the variation of the 23 letters.
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Sophie Loy-Wilson @sophieloywilson.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Reading list on Chinese philosophy used by Chinese Australians in Sydney in 1934
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Terrific article on doing philosophy of (and through) table-top role playing games (D&D specifically)! #philsky
boardgameacademics.com
Roll Insight: Teaching Undergraduate Philosophy through TTRPGs | Board Game Academics
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👻BOOryan BlessDeAd🎃 @bryb.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsi...
reddit.com
From the Damnthatsinteresting community on Reddit: Subway station for cat
Explore this post and more from the Damnthatsinteresting community
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Durba Mitra @durba.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
i am surprised that Manan @sepoy.bsky.social doesn’t publicize this piece saying I told you so but please read his eerily prophetic article on the link between the end of humanistic area studies & language learning w/ the rise of military funded LLMs and now AI spheres-journal.org/contribution...
spheres-journal.org
Technologies of Power – From Area Studies to Data Sciences – spheres
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Tom Mazanec @tommazanec.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
New translation tool for the languages of Buddhism—Pāli, Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Chinese. dharmamitra.org Still makes mistakes (I just tested it on the 宋高僧傳 biography of the poet-monk Guanxiu 貫休 and noticed a few errors), but 1000x more accurate than anything I've seen before.
dharmamitra.org
Dharmamitra · a toolkit for the languages of the Dharma
A toolkit for the languages of the Dharma
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Paul Swanson’s translation of Zhiyi’s Mohezhiguan for BDK is now available! www.bdkamerica.org/product/grea...
bdkamerica.org
Great Cessation-and-Contemplation Volume I
The Great Cessation-and-Contemplation (Mohezhiguan, T. 1911) by Tiantai Zhiyi (538–597) is one of the most influential texts in East Asian Buddhism. It provided the foundation for Tiantai Buddhism as ...
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mrg @mrg.name · 12/07/2025
A new volume of the De Gruyter Library of Chinese Humanities! The Finest Souls of Our Rivers and Alps A parallel text translation of the only extant contemporaneous poetry anthology from the High Tang (completed ca 753 CE).
degruyterbrill.com
The Finest Souls of Our Rivers and Alps
The “High Tang” is the period long renowned as the golden age of Chinese poetry. This book is the first translation into any language of the only extant anthology compiled contemporaneously that was solely devoted to poetry composed during that period. It contains 230 poems by 24 different poets and was completed around 753, providing a rare contemporary view of what one well-informed reader considered the best verse of the age. The selections are of poems in various lengths, forms, and styles. The poets represented include most of those recognized since then as the greatest writers of the time, as well as those who seem largely forgotten now but who were in their own day held in equally high regard.
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Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
My personal 5-min. video: vimeo.com/84252711 on why humanities matter. I can’t improve on the message. But my passion now is the Center for Humanities Communication, which I cofounded to assist the humanities in methods, resources, tools for telling its _why_, center-humanities-communication.org
vimeo.com
Why the Humanities Matter -- A Story About Borders
A story and statement about the importance of the humanities in today's world by Alan Liu, an English professor who started out a chemistry major. Video created…
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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Mindscape 319 | Bryan Van Norden @bryanvannorden.bsky.social on Philosophy From the Rest of the World. There are many interesting footnotes, not all of them to Plato! www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2025...
Title card for podcast episode with Bryan Van Norden.
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
So a psychologist, two systems engineers, and a philosopher walk into an AI symposium. I can’t remember what they said, but someone recorded it for YouTube… www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbMS...
youtube.com
AI Symposium 2025 - Dr. Bryan Mesmer, Dr. Nicholaos Jones, Dr. Nicholas Loyd, & Dr. Kristin Weger
YouTube video by U.S. Space & Rocket Center
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Here's a public-facing effort to think through Fazang's Huayan Buddhist approach to conceptualizing reality's fundamental structure... #philsky
iai.tv
Chinese philosophy's attack on reality's foundations | Nicholaos Jones
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Tracy Pizzo Frey @tpf.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
🧵 Yesterday we released our new risk assessments of social AI companions. They are alarmingly NOT SAFE for kids under 18—they provide dangerous advice, engage in inappropriate sexual interactions, & create unhealthy dependencies that pose particular risks to adolescent brains. tinyurl.com/2nvypku2
A photo of a teen boy with the text, "Social Al companions are not safe for kids under 18...
From encouraging harmful behaviors to providing inappropriate content, here's what parents need to know & what you can do to help protect teens." 

Reports from Common Sense Media
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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Deep into writing my book. Central claim is that we should understand the "everything is mind only" assertion of early Yogacara texts to be a diagnosis that parallels the diagnosis of suffering from the four noble truths.
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Li Kang has an excellent new paper (open access!) on conceptions of interdependence from Chinese Buddhist traditions of Tiantai, Sanlun, Huayan (my favorite!), and Chan. Accessible and insightful, with some great analytic-style reconstructions too. #philsky
doi.org
From Emptiness to Interconnectedness: Identity and Dependence in Chinese Buddhism
“Everything is interconnected” is a central theme of Chinese Buddhism. This article examines how four prominent Chinese Buddhist schools—Tiantai 天台, Sanlun 三論, Huayan 華嚴, and Chan 禪—engaged with inte...
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Columbia University Press @columbiaup.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Now available! Demonstrating why Chinese Buddhist social philosophy offers powerful resources for social justice and liberation today, Just Awakening invites readers to think with modern Yogācāra philosophers about other ways of building egalitarian futures. buff.ly/zrqU8wF #JustAwakening
Graphic announcing that Just Awakening: Yogācāra Social Philosophy in Modern China by Jessica X. Zu is now available. It includes the book cover, an endorsement from Jay L. Garfield, and 20% off with code CUP20SM at cup.columbia.edu.
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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Very proud to see my amazing PhD student @zelny.bsky.social ‘s first peer-reviewed article published yesterday! link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Offloading Wisdom: Four Technological Relations that Mediate Phronesis - Philosophy & Technology
Although there has been much discussion regarding how technology mediates our practical and ethical lives, little has been said about how it mediates phronesis: the skilled deliberative capacity to di...
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Walter Scheidel @walterscheidel.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Out now: What *is* ‘ancient history’? Why it is much bigger and more important than we might think, how generations of scholars have dismembered it, how we can do it justice – and why ‘Classics’ has run its course: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
press.princeton.edu
What Is Ancient History?
From one of today’s most innovative ancient historians, a provocative new vision of why ancient history matters—and why it needs to be told in a radically different, global way
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Jeremy Tiang @jeremytiang.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
my translation of The Hedgehog by Zheng Zhi 郑执 is in The Paris Review www.theparisreview.org/fiction/8386...
theparisreview.org
The Hedgehog by Zheng Zhi, translated by Jeremy Tiang
I found out only later that when my ma called Ensign Wang a lunatic, she’d meant it literally—he really was a mental patient.
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Oxford UP is offering 30% off pre-orders for my book on Fazang's metaphysics of interdependence, with code AUFLY30 at global.oup.com/academic. By way of enticement, a thread. #philsky
A flyer with code AUFLY30 for 30% discount on book orders through Oxford UP’s website
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Just one month to go until the official release of -Metaphors for Interdependence-, the first academic book focusing on Fazang's metaphysics since Francis Cook's 1977 -Hua-yen Buddhism-! Oxford is graciously providing free access to Chapter 1 until May 21. Find it at academic.oup.com/book/59837/c...
Promotional flyer for the book, Metaphors for Interdependence: Fazang's Buddist Metaphysics. Contains a link to read Chapter 1 for free until 21 May 2025. Here is the link: https://academic.oup.com/book/59837/chapter/511317793
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Nick Jones @nicholaos.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
In anticipation of an immanent book release, and before doing a promo, I made a web resource for learning about Fazang. It has a list of his writings, important secondary sources in English, an in-progress list of key teachings, and a list of writings from important predecessors. What's missing?
sites.google.com
Fazang
"this Dharma escapes common sense and is difficult to believe" - Treatise on the Five Teachings, Chapter 10, Section 3 (T45.1866.507b) Fazang's Writings: List of writings attributed to Fazang, alon...
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