We come across this phrase 'a hard act to follow' now and again, especially when there are several people taking turns to speak at a conference.

For example, 'thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was mesmerized by Professor Powell's brilliant presentation. That was a hard act to follow, I must say. Of course I won't be so stupid as to try and repeat what Professor Powell said, in my own, less effective words. Instead, I will pick up a few points from his presentation and make an attempt to elaborate on them…'

Here, 'that was a hard act to follow' can be rendered as follows:

刚才鲍教授的发言太精彩了，我的发言充其量只能算是鼠尾续貂罢了。

原来是“狗尾续貂”，但好像不太好听，老鼠可爱一点。

I'm poring over, whenever I have time, Ji Xianlin's book on Buddhism (the linguistic dimension of the evolution of this region) and also one of the Buddhist sutras you gave me (the Long Agama Sutra, chang2 a1 han2 jing1), while I keep up my meditation practice. I have had some questions answered, but many more unanswered. There has been a rather radical 'perspective change' in me and the end result of that is a 'sustainable' sense of peace.

Ji Xianlin's book is a safety valve for me, so I don't get lost in the irrelevant, but luring ramifications of the religion and my reading of the Agama Sutra is confirming Ji's theory. One of his arguments is the evolution of Buddhism from xiao3 sheng4 you3 zong1 (the 'Being' Sect of Hinayana) to da sheng kong zong (the 'Void' Sect of Mahayana) and then to da sheng you zong (the 'Being' Sect of Mahayana), which matches the process of negation, and negation of negation.

If you first read the Agama Sutra and then the Diamond Sutra, they are so contradictory that one gets totally confused.

One thing I've discovered is that unlike Qigong, Buddhism requires a leap of faith first, then takes you from the unreal (fantasy in this realm) to the real (reality in the other realm). It's the first hurdle that is the hardest to step over. I wonder if one can use Taoist meditation to help one get over the first hurdle. From my experience with Qigong, the meditator can get a taste of the energy in the other realm within a very short time. Buddhism has to use imagery, of all the goodies that you crave in this realm, to lure you in. To an intellectual mind, that can't be very effective. But then, Qigong is considered a pagan practice by Buddhism.