{"id":1441,"date":"2009-10-22T16:01:28","date_gmt":"2009-10-22T20:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2009-10-22T16:01:28","modified_gmt":"2009-10-22T20:01:28","slug":"the-way-of-beauty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=1441","title":{"rendered":"The Way of Beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cLook at it like this \u2013 how long do you think you could sing about gold?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s yellow and it goes chink and you can buy things with it,\u201d said Tomjon experimentally, as they strolled through the crowds on the Plaza of Broken Moons. \u201cFour seconds, I think.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Terry Pratchett \u201cWyrd Sisters\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/way-of-beauty.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"138\" height=\"212\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1446\" \/>That snippet from \u201cWyrd Sisters\u201d is exactly what I thought of when I picked up the copy of \u201cThe Way of Beauty: Five Meditations for Spiritual Transformation\u201d by Francois Cheng that Inner Traditions sent me.  A book that discusses nothing but beauty?  I mean, how long could I discuss beauty?  Let\u2019s see, um, flowers are pretty, puppies are cute, and Angelina Jolie is smoking hot.  (I just wish she would put a little of her weight back on.  Current Skeletor Jolie is considerably less hot than \u201cGia\u201d Jolie, can I get an amen in here?)  Oh, and sunrises, and sunsets, very beautiful.  So what am I at, like 20 words if you don\u2019t count my aside about Angelina Jolie\u2019s current weight?  Let\u2019s just say I was curious how you manage to fill 116 pages with an examination of beauty and have it not start sounding like \u201cGold, gold, gold, gold, gold, gold\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately beauty, beauty, pretty, beauty, beauty, beautiful, was not how this book read.  \u201cThe Way of Beauty\u201d is an exquisitely personal discussion of Cheng\u2019s thoughts on beauty and our relationship with it, that, like all great personal works, readers can find themselves in the text.  Here\u2019s one of many beautifully crafted excerpts for you:<\/p>\n<p>Formal beauty exists, of course, but it hardly encompasses the entire reality of beauty.  That is more strictly a matter of Being, moved by the imperious desire for beauty.  True beauty does not reside only in what is already manifest as beauty; it resides almost primarily in the desire and the impulse.  It is a <em>becoming<\/em>, and the dimension of spirit or soul is vital to it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Way of Beauty\u201d uses Western and Taoist thought to make the reader consider beauty in ways that they may not have thought of before.  Honestly, it\u2019s nearly impossible to write a \u201creview\u201d of the book.  Such a thoughtful, enlightening, and yes, beautiful book defies review in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>What I can tell you is that it is beautiful.  It will make you think.  You should read it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How does Rebecca manage to write a review of &#8220;The Way of Beauty&#8221; by Francois Cheng while talking Terry Pratchett and Angelina Jolie?  There&#8217;s only one way to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}