France 331, 90 centimes,
René Descartes (1596-1650)
(stamp issued June 10, 1937)

November 10, 1619 It's the 400th anniversary of Descartes' Dreams on this date— Wrote my first pantoum about it and in a poem "Mango's Mystery". Now, I've forgottten this occasion of a spiritual mentor who appeared in my dreams to teach me like he did Princess Elisabeth & Queen Christina. Copy of these dreams in Leibniz's handwriting at the Hanover Library— 1st Dream: Whirlwind sweeps him to town square where a maiden gives him a melon. 2nd Dream: Thunderclap wakes him up while light flakes dance around the room. 3rd Dream: Pythagoras opens secret book inspiring Descartes to new discoveries of analytical geometry and Cartesian philosophy— so overwhelmed by these miracles that he made a pilgrimage from Venice to thank the Virgin of Loreto. Reading Fung Yu-Lan's Chinese Philosophy on Seng-chao's Wu (Nirvana) that "nothing can be said and one must remain silent"— that I wrote on the bottom of page 248— 8:20 AM— Nov. 10, 1969— 350 years after Dream of Descartes (Nov. 10, 1619) I was enlightened by the above lines on the mystery of Buddha's silence. Was working on my doctoral research at Cornell Labs on "Calorimetry of Helix-Coil Transition of Poly-L-Lysine" and have not released the acid yet— Without inducing any chemical reaction, the calorimeter baseline jumped— recording my mental leap at that moment of spiritual awakening!     Peter Y. Chou     Mountain View, 11-25-2019