Philosophy
Western Philosophy…
“Failures of Ultimate Explanation”
The earliest Greek philosophers didn’t really ask ‘what is?’ questions. Rather than quibble over the meaning of words, they tried to solve specific problems by creating bold explanatory theories…
“Plato’s Moral Tyranny”
Only you, the individual, can decide whether a behavior, norm, or institution is right or wrong. It is your burden and yours alone. You can’t shift it to god, nature, history, or even to society, because whatever…
“Contrast & Conserve”
Anaximander therefore postulated a metaphysical non-thing called the apeiron— or the unbounded; something akin to the conservation of the whole, something akin to the equal sign in mathematics, akin to…
“Poetic Imagination”
I hope at least once in your life you’ve seen the Milky Way. The brushstroke of glimmering white light that cuts through the heavens is breathtaking. And to imagine, before all the light and carbon…
“Copernican Revolution”
The Dark Ages was marked by an authoritative and pessimistic theory of knowledge. The Catholic Church, under the spell of Plato, held a monopoly on truth, which stripped people of their freedom…
“How do You Know”
What do I know? How do I know? What is knowledge? How is it created? How does it grow or evolve? Can knowledge ever be demonstrated, proved, or justified as True, with a capital T?…
Eastern Philosophy…
“What is Mindfulness”
Mindfulness practice is currently a fad in the West. And that’s wonderful — it’s great that, as a culture, we’re promoting more mindfulness and less mindlessness. But with its surge in popularity, there has also been a lot…
“The Art of Bare Attention”
Today we’re going to talk about the ancient Buddhist practice vipassana, or insight meditation. Now, just to be clear, this is an entirely secular practice. It doesn’t require you to adopt any dogmatic beliefs…
“The Four Noble Truths”
The Buddha taught only suffering and its end, which is expressed in the Four Noble Truths — the indispensable foundation embraced by all Buddhist traditions and lineages, no matter how far their metaphysics…
“The Noble Eightfold Path”
Dharma practice, then, asks us to live in peace and harmony with the Dharma. Together, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path form an indivisible whole called the Dharma, or Truth, Law, Nature, Life.
“Hallucinations of Perception”
When we perceive the world without mindfulness, which is the norm for most people most of the time, then we simply know and remember only the surface appearance of things. Our experience becomes…
“Thinking Into Being”
Thought takes the seamless and interconnected whole of existence and breaks it into pieces, which can then come into relation to one another. It is in thought that ‘you’ and ‘I’ are born, where ‘you’ and…
“Touching Suffering”
Once we start to open to suffering and dis-ease in our own lives, once we become more familiar with the mind-body process and the cause of ill-being, we begin to see suffering everywhere. We realize that…
“The Morality of Harmony”
Today, we will move into the second arena of training in the Eightfold Path, training in virtue or morality, where we will choreograph our thoughts and understanding onto the world stage through our words and our bodies…
“Acting for Freedom”
If you want to find peace, concentration, and clarity, commit yourself to non-violence. And do this first by making it a practice to fall in love with yourself. Every morning when you wake up, extend some love and…
“Taking What is Not Given”
Non-stealing asks us to live in harmony and reciprocity with the whole of existence. Where stealing is an expression of our greed or our ego, non-stealing is the expression of our love or our non-duality…
“Mindfulness & Insight”
Mindfulness is an immediate, direct, and present knowing. One that can’t be carried into the future, remembered from the past, or written in a book. It can’t be contained in thought. It is a raw or bare awareness…
“Roots & Threads | Focus”
The Buddha said a mind without focus is like a fish out of water, flipping around with no control. We need it to stick with our goals, tasks and aims, and to harmonize our words and actions with these aims…
“Work-Life Harmony”
Work-life and spiritual-life can often seem like two very separate and even incompatible things. But our work is central to our lives and so it must play a significant role in our spiritual journey. For many of us, it…
Epistemology…
“Poetic Imagination”
I hope at least once in your life you’ve seen the Milky Way. The brushstroke of glimmering white light that cuts through the heavens is breathtaking. And to imagine, before all the light and carbon…
“Carving Knowledge from Our Imaginations”
Every civilization throughout history has created a dogmatic school whose main task is to pass on the doctrine of its founder intact to each generation. In the rare…
“The Scientific Revolution”
Though it was Kepler who seemed to have best understood how knowledge is created, it was actually his mistaken contemporaries Francis Bacon (1561–1626) and René Descartes (1596–1650) who…
“What is Science?”
The scientific revolution was largely inspired by the optimistic belief that each person has the power to acquire knowledge for herself. And no doubt Bacon and Descartes were the biggest forces behind that optimism…
All Articles…
“Know Your Spiritual Impulses”
What is it that shapes your very being in this world? What are those inner forces that move you with their own power? Which impulses do you typically act on? When was the last time you looked, not to your…
“Everything Changes”
It’s no secret everything changes. Your experience this morning isn’t your experience now. Yet how many of us act like we really understand this? How often do we grasp onto the illusion of things…
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