Book400 BCE
Tao Te Ching
Laozi
Eighty-one short chapters arguing that yielding outlasts force and that the most effective action often looks like restraint.
about 45 minutes to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Eastern & Comparative Philosophy
Traditions with different starting assumptions.
9 topics · 16 curated works
Topics
- 01Foundations & Overviews2
- 02Confucianism2
- 03Daoism2
- 04Buddhist Philosophy2
- 05Hindu Philosophy & Vedanta1
- 06Zen2
- 07Japanese Philosophy2
- 08Indian Logic2
- 09Comparative Philosophy Method1
Reading in Eastern & Comparative Philosophy
16A way in
Start here
No prior grounding assumed.
Tao Te Ching
Laozi · 400 BCE
Eighty-one short chapters arguing that yielding outlasts force and that the most effective action often looks like restraint.
+6 more at this level
Then
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi · 350 BCE
Uses parables, dialogues and dream logic to argue that clinging to fixed distinctions between self and other, or right and wrong, is the source of…
+2 more at this level
Go deeper
Primary sources and full treatments.
Xunzi
Xunzi · 240 BCE
Argues, against Mencius, that human nature is innately selfish and unruly, and that goodness is an artificial achievement produced by ritual,…
+5 more at this level
12 of 16 works
Book400 BCE
The Doctrine of the Mean
Zisi
Argues moral cultivation means finding and holding the mean between excess and deficiency in feeling and action, achieved through a sincerity that aligns inner disposition with outward conduct.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Book300 BCE
The Dhammapada
Buddha
A compiled anthology of the Buddha's teachings in verse, arguing that suffering originates in craving and delusion and ends only through disciplined control of thought, speech and action.
about 50 minutes to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026Book1228
The Gateless Gate
Wumen Huikai
Collects forty-eight koans meant not to be solved by ordinary reasoning but to exhaust it, on the premise that awakening happens only once discursive thought has run out of road.
link failing as of 17 Sept 2026Essay2001
Comparative Philosophy: Chinese and Western
David Wong
Argues comparative philosophy has to work between the extremes of assuming traditions are secretly saying the same thing and assuming they are too different to compare at all, and sets out what disciplined comparison looks like in practice.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Essay2005
Nishida Kitaro
John C. Maraldo
Introduces the founder of the Kyoto School's attempt to describe a 'pure experience' prior to the split between subject and object, built out of both Zen practice and close reading of Western philosophy.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Essay2019
Japanese Philosophy
Thomas Kasulis & Raquel Bouso
Surveys the Buddhist, Confucian and Shinto strands that Japanese thinkers wove together, and the distinctive problem modern Japanese philosophy set itself of thinking through Western categories without simply adopting them.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Book350 BCE
Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi
Uses parables, dialogues and dream logic to argue that clinging to fixed distinctions between self and other, or right and wrong, is the source of suffering, and that a sage moves with change rather than resisting it.
about 7.5 hours to readlink checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Book1880
The Religions of China
James Legge
Compares Confucianism and Daoism against each other and against Christianity, arguing the two native Chinese traditions answer different needs, one for public order and one for the individual's relation to the Way.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeIntermediate
Book1934
An Introduction to Zen Buddhism
D. T. Suzuki
Introduces Zen to a Western audience as training aimed at satori, a direct non-conceptual insight, arguing Zen escapes ordinary logic and doctrine by design rather than by obscurity.
PaidIntermediate
Book240 BCE
Xunzi
Xunzi
Argues, against Mencius, that human nature is innately selfish and unruly, and that goodness is an artificial achievement produced by ritual, teachers and law rather than something to be uncovered by introspection.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
Book150
Nyaya Sutras
Akshapada Gautama
Sets out a formal theory of valid inference and the means of knowledge, arguing that correct reasoning about categories of being, not revelation, is the route to liberating truth.
link checked 17 Sept 2026FreeAdvanced
In order written
400 BCE – 2019- 400 BCETao Te ChingLaozi
- 400 BCEThe Doctrine of the MeanZisi
- 350 BCEZhuangziZhuangzi
- 300 BCEThe DhammapadaBuddha
- 240 BCEXunziXunzi
- 150Nyaya SutrasAkshapada Gautama
- 150MulamadhyamakakarikaNagarjuna
- 800VivekachudamaniAdi Shankara
- 1228The Gateless GateWumen Huikai
- 1650Tarka-SangrahaAnnambhatta
- 1880The Religions of ChinaJames Legge
- 1899The Six Systems of Indian PhilosophyF. Max Muller
- 1934An Introduction to Zen BuddhismD. T. Suzuki
- 2001Comparative Philosophy: Chinese and WesternDavid Wong
- 2005Nishida KitaroJohn C. Maraldo
- 2019Japanese PhilosophyThomas Kasulis & Raquel Bouso