✳Living Wisdom
Atlas
Guided reading

Questions worth following.

Short routes into full articles, with room for each tradition to remain distinct.

These paths are reading invitations. They do not claim that different communities share one teaching.

4 readings

What makes a life worth living?

Four different approaches to purpose, desire, judgment, and action. Read each in its own historical setting.

  1. Japanese ways of livingA curated cluster of concepts from Japanese language, aesthetics, and social life, each with its own history.
  2. Epicurean philosophyEpicurean philosophy asks how to live pleasantly by understanding needs, friendship, fear, and the natural world.
  3. StoicismA Hellenistic school concerned with virtue, judgment, and how to live well amid uncertainty.
  4. Daoist traditionsClassical texts, later religious communities, and practices concerning the Dao, naturalness, and skilful action.
4 readings

How do we care for one another?

Proverb, philosophy, public service, and consensus offer different forms of social responsibility.

  1. Ngoyo and Woyo proverb wisdomA historically grounded introduction to Ngoyo and to the Woyo art of using carved proverbs for counsel, disagreement, and reflection.
  2. Ubuntu and hunhuRelated Southern African discussions of character, humanity, social relations, and responsibility.
  3. Inuit QaujimajatuqangitInuit Qaujimajatuqangit names Inuit knowledge, values, skills, and ways of learning that guide life in Nunavut.
  4. Sikh teachingsA living tradition of devotion, remembrance, equality, and service rooted in the Sikh Gurus and Guru Granth Sahib.
4 readings

What can a relationship with land mean?

Begin with named communities and their own accounts of knowledge, Country, and responsibility.

  1. Aṉangu TjukurpaAṉangu understand Tjukurpa as living law, knowledge, and responsibility connecting people, ancestors, and Country.
  2. Noongar knowledge and six seasonsNoongar knowledge relates Country, family, plants, animals, and the six locally observed seasons.
  3. Māori concepts and responsibilitiesInterrelated ideas of genealogy, care, hospitality, and guardianship in Māori life.
  4. Diné HózhóDiné discussions of beauty, balance, harmony, and living well in relation to land and community.
4 readings

How should authority be exercised?

These readings place power beside deliberation, restraint, and duties to others.

  1. Oromo Gadaa systemAn Oromo system of social and political organisation with structured cycles of responsibility and leadership.
  2. Haudenosaunee Great Law of PeaceThe Great Law of Peace is the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's constitutional and diplomatic tradition.
  3. Ancient Egyptian wisdomEthical teaching, ritual, cosmology, and conceptions of order from ancient Egypt, firmly part of African history.
  4. Mohist thoughtMohist thinkers argued for inclusive care, practical benefit, and reasons that could guide public decisions.
4 readings

How can the past guide the present?

Objects, proverbs, genealogy, and philosophical reflection carry memory in distinct ways.

  1. Akan thoughtA rich field of ideas about personhood, character, memory, community, and symbols.
  2. Luba lukasa memory boardsLuba lukasa are crafted memory boards interpreted by trained members of the mbudye association.
  3. Māori concepts and responsibilitiesInterrelated ideas of genealogy, care, hospitality, and guardianship in Māori life.
  4. Ngoyo and Woyo proverb wisdomA historically grounded introduction to Ngoyo and to the Woyo art of using carved proverbs for counsel, disagreement, and reflection.
4 readings

How do people train attention?

The aims and methods of these paths differ; their shared place here is a question for readers, not a claim of sameness.

  1. Buddhist traditionsA family of traditions concerned with suffering, impermanence, ethical action, and paths of liberation.
  2. Jaina philosophyA living tradition with rigorous ethics, accounts of living beings, and disciplined paths of liberation.
  3. Sufi traditionsDiverse Islamic paths of devotion, remembrance, discipline, and ethical refinement.
  4. Christian contemplative traditionsDiverse Christian forms of prayer, silence, scriptural meditation, and disciplined attention.
4 readings

How have people interpreted signs?

Explore documented histories of divination and interpretation without treating them as scientific prediction or practice instructions.

  1. Yorùbá and IfáAn interconnected field of ethics, divination, poetry, ritual, and philosophical reflection across Yorùbá communities.
  2. Yijing and Chinese philosophy of changeThe Yijing, or Book of Changes, is an ancient text used for divination and philosophical reflection.
  3. Serer XooyXooy is a Serer gathering before the rainy season in west-central Senegal.
  4. Tarot: cards, game, and later divinationTarot began as a card game in fifteenth century Italy.