Autobiographical

Grinding Out Correlations

After I finished grinding out Correlations to my satisfaction, I stood back and judged the process by the results, not by the process itself. (See Tools of Taoist Thought: Correlations, p.565.) This was akin to judging a book by its cover. In this delusion, I naively thought this process would shred other people’s preconceptions just […]

Family Life

Watch this CBS video on the Cattoor family (/wp-content/uploads/family.mp4) if you can. The final comment stands out, “Giving your kids what they need is always harder than giving them what they want. Only when you’re older can you appreciate those fences”. This hints at how the American family dynamic evolved. Sure, “fences” are essential, but […]

The Gifts Given – Paid In Full

Most of us accept that each person is born with a God given gift—a talent of sorts. What may be less known is that such talent is not actually a gift at all… talent is paid for in full at birth. I’ve come to know a few people extremely well. Each person, as far as […]

King Kiwi

Kiwi is king of all the fruits. Over the years, I’ve compared all the fruits with each other and the kiwi always comes out supreme. Even so, fruit has nowhere near the overall nutritional value of veggies. Mostly, I see fruit as a healthy candy. Although, it’s true that each variety usually wins high honors […]

Blowing with the sea

I am blowing shakuhachi at the beach. Don’t try this on your beach in the beginning for it will likely feel pretty discouraging (in fact, playing outside was a pain for quite awhile, personally). Rather, pick a good echoing space like your bathroom. Look in the mirror to get a clear sense of your lip […]

In praise of kale

Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone”. Still, as my observations chew mostly on non-bread matters, I thought I’d put in a good word for food today. I grow and harvest kale all year around here in California. As far as I know, this is the most nutritious veggie on the planet. Kale […]

Always be a beginner

The photo here shows my son Kyle and I doing a forward bend. It appears that my bend represents an advanced stage of yoga, while Kyle’s represents an intermediate stage. In fact, we are at the same stage; we are both beginners. Please Note: Some essays may be dense to read, so I’ve used Google’s […]

Am I Bored or Just Content?

Years ago, our Taoist group joked, “Be bored again”. This was the Taoist version of the Christian “Be born again” slogan. No wonder attendance was light! A fine line does exist between boredom and contentment. To be sure, I often slip back and forth across it playing the shakuhachi flute (google [Blowing Zen, One Mind […]

Do Good Christians Make Good People?

It is my sense that Christians believe that good Christians make good people. On the contrary, I’ve found good people make good Christians. In fact, good people also make good Muslims, good Buddhists, and perhaps even good Taoists. Then again, we have the irony chapter 2 refers to, All realizing goodness as goodness, no goodness […]

Is ‘Free Will’ the Only Option?

I think back over all the years I let my life-options distract me from what I knew I ought to do. As Buddha’s Fourth Noble Truth says, “There is salvation for him whose self disappears before truth, whose will is bent on what he ought to do, whose sole desire is the performance of his […]

Seeing the world ‘out there’

I began studying astrology while living in Japan. I soon realized that up until then I’d been seeing everything ‘out there’ relative to myself — subjectivity to the hilt. Astrology opened a window onto the world for me — things were unique in there own right. Not only that, astrology offered what appeared to be […]

Tai Chi Video

Anyone having trouble with Tai Chi? I have just uploaded a video that shows the form in both mirrored and frontal image which may help. My wife has managed to learn the basic movements by just watching the video. When used along with Cheng’s book I reckon it should be even more effective. Go ahead, […]