There are two main approaches to life. The most common one is striving to conform to your culture’s ideals of how to live. This typically amounts to expecting yourself and others to conform to your culture’s code of ethics… religious, political, and what not. I call this approach ‘small conformity’. Chapter 65 hints at the […]
Continue reading…thinking
Really, Have We No Clue?
As a child, I marveled at how everything seemed to work so well. The infrastructure and logistics to run society blew my mind, although I didn’t know that was the word for it. How the authorities dealt with all the sewage and garbage my hometown produced baffled me. I am still in awe that civilization […]
Continue reading…Gone Fishin’, Back Soon
The fish are still biting and I’m reeling them in, I’m just not posting them. Posting my fishy observations requires so much cleaning up to make them suitable for consumption. Finishing the last chapter of my translation of the Tao Te Ching — Tao Te Ching, Word for Word — was the catalyst I needed […]
Continue reading…The Wealthy Poor
Why do many wealthy people often keep upping the ante, buying increasingly more expensive things? This may follow a progression I first noticed when I experienced my own slight wealth upgrade in Japan (see Peaches and Pleasure, p.32). We innately appear to convert any upgrade in our standard-of-living into a new bottom line in our […]
Continue reading…Sobering up!
Up until my early forties, I was drunk on thought bolstered with the certainty of belief. Fortunately, I found a way to detoxify myself, although this is still a work in progress. Recovering alcoholics continue to confess, “I’m an alcoholic”, even as they strive to stay continuously on the straight and narrow day after day. […]
Continue reading…Naked Thought
Styles of thinking and clothing have a lot in common. We are born with mind simple and body naked. We soon dress our body in clothes and our mind in thoughts. Wishing to return to our original self physically, we can just go naked. Wishing to return to our original self mentally is another matter. […]
Continue reading…Is Rock Conscious?
A while ago, I attempted to pin down a friend (1) of mine on the subject of consciousness. My view that a rock could be conscious didn’t go over too well. He said, “Words are sounds that gain meaning with use. Saying that a rock is conscious is like saying a rock is alive. That might work […]
Continue reading…So, I’d like to ask…
A Centertao member asked me if I had any advice for a 30 year old. Right away, too much came to my mind for that question! I had to sleep on it awhile. Interestingly, not thinking about a tricky issue is often the best way to resolve it. Not thinking doesn’t mean disregarding it, but […]
Continue reading…It’s Simply Nature’s Way
The Pope’s reference to suffering struck me. (Google [Pope Benedict stumped by Japanese girl’s question about suffering inflicted by the Tsunami].) Briefly, a young girl asked him, “Why do children have to be so sad?” Benedict admitted: “I also have the same questions: why is it this way? Why do you have to suffer so […]
Continue reading…Fear Rules
The 2011 disasters in Japan triggered much anxiety among some people in America. This is curious considering how far removed we are from that experience. Thinking easily exaggerates (or minimizes) reality and makes matters feel even worse than they actually are, or vice versa. Media only adds to this by feeding our fears and needs. […]
Continue reading…Nothing’s Certain but Death and…
They say that nothing is certain but death and taxes. I’d add to that the certainty of spending! The ongoing debate over spending, taxes, and the debt problems that this country faces is a good example of chapter 70’s, My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice, yet no […]
Continue reading…So, You Want Enlightenment, Eh?
There are two phases of enlightenment. One is a sudden flash of knowing, the Zen Satori, as the Japanese call it. I suppose most people experience a degree of this at least sometime in their life. I mean, one’s bastion of belief is bound to crack a bit and let in the light of darkness […]
Continue reading…Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
I often mention the benefit of watching out for similarity. The more literal translation of chapter 56 puts it this way, Knowing doesn’t speak; speaking doesn’t know. Subdue its sharpness, untie its tangles, Soften its brightness, be the same as dust, This is called profound sameness. Focusing on differences, while often stimulating, is not as […]
Continue reading…Water in Mind
This morning’s early light and hazy sky brought back memories of arriving at Bokor Hillstation Casino in Cambodia. Light has a nostalgic effect on me as music has for many people. It must be genetic for my mother was also that way. Merely looking up into the sky can transport me back to primordial times, […]
Continue reading…Why God?
Why God? I have not heard this question asked much… if at all. Debate focuses mostly on whose God is true, the nature of God, or does God even exist. I suppose asking “Why do we believe in God” is a zoological inquiry of sorts. That is the place to begin… After all, we are […]
Continue reading…John Cleese, a ‘Taoist’?
John Cleese has given some very witty talks on creativity in which he comes off as a de facto Taoist, or as I like to say, a small ‘t’ taoist. Well, I suppose anyone with contrarian views is potentially a de facto ‘t’aoist. To get the most from this post, google this short video [youtube […]
Continue reading…The Spirit of Yoga
2019 Postscript: This is a copy of the 2010 PRINCIPLES update for the yoga book I wrote in 1979. At that time, I was focused on the problems that arise out of a belief in free will. In 2017, I finally realized the natural roots of this belief and most everything else that haunted me […]
Continue reading…The less I think, the more I know
The less I think, the more I know sounds a little odd. It parallels that equally peculiar line in chapter 56, One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know. If anything ever begged for elucidation, this does! The problem with thought lies in the preconceptions necessary to think and speak. This […]
Continue reading…What Shapes How You Think?
Google [Does Your Language Shape How You Think?] for research that speaks to my recent post Thinking Clouds Consciousness (p.119). This offers interesting details underlying this question, although, in my view this is a no-brainer. Clearly, language and thinking are inextricably linked… It takes one to do the other. If you can, flip off the […]
Continue reading…Balancing Difference With Similarity
Noticing differences greatly assists survival… up to the point of diminishing returns, especially for a thinking animal like us. Even so, the naïve acceptance of difference as a true portrayal of reality would not have been a problem for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, given their truly down to earth circumstances. Conversely, our naive acceptance of difference […]
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