Browsed by
Tag: Buddhism

Dying. Suffering. Death.

Dying. Suffering. Death.

Comments 2 comments

I have suffered death since 3— Grandmother’s open casket— casting a shadow on everything since I have suffered the death of insects—some drowned, some squashed many on their backs refusing to go gently I have suffered the death of animals, some by my hand— both accidental and with tear-shuddering compassion— some on the vet’s table some on the bathroom floor all struggling, gasping: suffering. I have suffered the dying of family, never death itself, that moment. The hospital bed. The…

Read More Read More

Philosophy as Good for Nothing: A Manifesto

Philosophy as Good for Nothing: A Manifesto

Comments 1 comment

1. “What is philosophy?”— What kind of question is that? I’ve long found it fascinating and of huge importance that, “What is philosophy?” is itself a philosophical question. This is not the same for other fields. That is, “What is science?” is not a scientific question. Perhaps if it is read as asking, “What do people called ‘scientists’ do?” it could be read as an empirical question, though that is not enough to make it scientific. I take the questions, “What…

Read More Read More

Suffering and the “Full Human Experience”

Suffering and the “Full Human Experience”

Comments 0 Comment

If life does not always tend toward the tragic (and I’m not convinced that it doesn’t), then it does tend toward the “son-of-a-bitch!” in a variety of ways. In this vein, Nietzsche recognized that the problem of suffering is not so much that we suffer, but that we crave an answer to why we suffer. And this in the sense of: to what end? What is the meaning of our suffering? —Not only do we experience suffering, but we suffer…

Read More Read More

Realizing the Matrix—On the Possibility and Desirability of “Uploading” Insight

Realizing the Matrix—On the Possibility and Desirability of “Uploading” Insight

Comments 0 Comment

There is a special class of knowledge or wisdom that we might call insight or realization. This comes in a variety of forms and degrees. For example, someone tells you how scary it is to be in the water when someone spots a shark. You’ve been afraid before, you’ve been in the ocean before, so you think you have a pretty good idea of what that must be like. But you don’t really realize what it’s like until you’ve been…

Read More Read More

Nihilism, Hell, and Self-Interest

Nihilism, Hell, and Self-Interest

Comments 2 comments

Often when people fear hell, they fear it in the sense of an afterlife of eternal torment, or, perhaps more sophisticatedly, eternal separation from God. As others have noted, though, hell exists on earth in a variety of forms. For example, you can read Sartre’s “No Exit” as making the case that “hell is other people.” As an introvert, I find that line of thinking attractive, but I think a more pressing form of hell on earth is putting one’s…

Read More Read More

The Wisdom of Pain

The Wisdom of Pain

Comments 0 Comment

“…if I say again that the greatest human good is daily to converse about virtue [value/meaning], and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living – that you are still less likely to believe.” —Socrates in Plato’s Apology Others have written on this essay’s topic, likely better than I. And since my background is largely academic, I feel a pressing urge to research what they’ve said,…

Read More Read More

“You cannot petition Kannon with Prayer!”—Calling upon Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara through Embodied Compassion

“You cannot petition Kannon with Prayer!”—Calling upon Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara through Embodied Compassion

Comments 0 Comment

In Mahayana Buddhism, enacting the life of the Bodhisattva is the goal of every practitioner. The Bodhisattva is one whose compassion for others’ suffering is so great that she delays her final escape from samsara (the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, life to life, and which is characterized by suffering and dissatisfaction) until she has helped to awaken all other sentient beings, freeing them from suffering and samsara. There are two basic varieties of Bodhisattvas. The first are the…

Read More Read More

Not So Single-Pointed Philosophical Activity

Not So Single-Pointed Philosophical Activity

Comments 1 comment

Meditation, particularly in the tradition of Dōgen, is the paradigm for single-pointed activity. Whether you follow your breath or “just sit,” openly aware of the present moment in its entirety, Dōgen makes clear that you are not to judge whatever arises as good or bad. And when thoughts, images, desires, etc., arise, you let them go and return to the “object” of meditation. In so doing you are contributing to the re-habituation of your mind, getting “better” at letting go…

Read More Read More

Single-pointed Activity: When eating eat; when walking walk.

Single-pointed Activity: When eating eat; when walking walk.

Comments 0 Comment

Satori (enlightenment?) on the cushion in all of its ineffability is said to be single-pointed; a dissolution of the self and all selves. But such dissolution could not be the way of lived enlightenment practice off the cushion. For otherwise in your attempt to be compassionate activity in the world, you would be no better off than the perverse skeptic who refuses to avoid the pitfall because he’s convinced his senses cannot be trusted. Nevertheless, off the cushion, there is…

Read More Read More

Cutting Off the Finger Pointing to the Moon: A Commentary on Dōgen’s, “…when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark.”

Cutting Off the Finger Pointing to the Moon: A Commentary on Dōgen’s, “…when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark.”

Comments 1 comment

In Dōgen’s “Genjō-Kōan” fascicle of the Shōbōgenzō, he writes: When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharmas intimately. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. I would venture to say that part of the value of Dōgen’s writing, like that of many good poems and prose, is that it is open to multiple readings…

Read More Read More