"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" is perhaps one of the most well-known sayings from the Daode jing. But the Daode jing also counsels "Without going out the door, Know the world. .... The further you travel, the less you know" (ch. 47).

The world's great religious traditions have given the world countless sacred sites, such as Mecca, Jerusalem, and Rome, as well as the many sacred mountains across China's magnificent landscape. At the same time, they have often counseled introspection, meditation, and stillness as pathways to wisdom and insight. '

As many of us in Shanghai are locked down in our apartments and communities, now is the time to reflect on what it means to journey, both in the physical sense of traveling across the world and also in the sense of the personal journeys, the inward or psychological journeys that come to shape our identities as human beings.

In this Zoom seminar, Duke Kunshan University Professor James Miller will explore the theme of the journey within Daoist philosophy and religion and discuss the relationship between the physical landscape of sacred mountains, streams, and grottos, and the inner landscape of the mind and body. Please join him and members of the RAS community on this "journey of a thousand miles!"