About me

Hi, I’m Ethan Lin.

林以安

I was born in Taiwan and raised in America.

My grandfather taught me Chinese traditional culture. What I learned from him shapes how I understand that heritage and what I want to share here.

Ethan Lin in a café

What I take from the tradition

I’m most interested in how these traditions ask us to consider context. Persistence can help you finish a difficult project. It can also keep you attached to something you need to reconsider. The circumstances matter.

I approach a reading with that question in mind: is the way I usually respond helping me here? Some ideas are useful; others deserve more caution. I want to leave room for both.

Why I’m sharing it

I use BaZi as a traditional lens for exploring a person’s “default settings”: the strengths they may rely on and the patterns they may repeat. It’s a metaphor for a starting point, with room for experience and choices to shape what follows.

The I Ching brings timing into that picture. In my reading of Qian, the first hexagram, the dragon learns when to gather strength, when to step forward, and when to pull back. The same ambition can serve you well in one phase and lead you to overreach in another.

That is the perspective I want to share through Spacetime Blueprint: understand what you bring to a situation, consider what the moment calls for, and judge when to advance or protect what you’ve built.

What I’m building

I also build apps. Working on reading apps for the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi is another way I explore these texts: thinking through a passage, how to explain it in English, and what might help someone return to it tomorrow.

If you prefer reading and exploring on your own, here is what I’m working on.

Zhuangzi 莊子

A reading app exploring Zhuangzi’s stories and ideas. Not yet released.

If you’d rather listen

On Ancient Chinese Wisdom for Modern Life, I share these ideas in English, starting with a question I often return to: when to act, and when to wait.

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