Posted inPhilosophy

Gnat, or not?

I passed by a window on my way to meditating this morning. Outside, a barely visible swirl barely caught my eye. Gnats, merrily gnatting in a swarm above and around the rhododendrons. Newly born, I assume. Exploring a cold new world where their life likely is measured in days, maybe hours. Each little gnat was flying around doing what it knew how to do: not much. Each little gnat was experiencing what it was able to experience: not much. And there I was looking through the window at them, doing what I knew how to do and experiencing what I…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Mini-secret of universe revealed

Back in the late 1960’s, illicit pharmacology brought me regularly to marvelous “Aha!” insights into the ultimate nature of the universe. The reason I currently neither have a Nobel prize in physics, nor am I recognized as a great spiritual sage, is that the insights were only insightful while in my artificially altered state of consciousness. They could be shared, though, which lent them more validity than they probably deserved. One moonless night in 1968 a friend and I were rolling rocks off the edge of a ravine in the Santa Cruz mountains, marveling at how long they took to…
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Posted inHome life Philosophy

For want of a zipper, an hour was lost

I’ve always enjoyed the familiar fable that begins with “For want of a nail the shoe was lost” and ends, after the horse is lost for want of a shoe, and the rider is lost for want of a horse, and the battle is lost for want of a rider, with the loss of a whole damn kingdom. Nail. Kingdom. One so slight, the other so tremendous. What sort of connection could exist between them that causes a single small horseshoe nail to have the power to overthrow a vast kingdom? Science would call it chaos theory or non-linear relationships,…
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Posted inPhilosophy Writing/Weblogs

“Science, Spirit, and the Wisdom of Not-Knowing”

When is it wiser to not know something? What distinguishes scientific knowledge from spiritual knowledge? Could I cram an Oscar Wilde quotation into the essay right off the bat? These are some of the questions that I pondered when I began to work on “Science, Spirit, and the Wisdom of Not-Knowing” some years ago. Here's the PDF file. Science, Spirit, and the Wisdom of Not-Knowing It is 24 pages long, so takes a little while to download on a slow connection (you know the mantra that accompanies PDF files: “get the free Acrobat Reader if you don’t have it already”).…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Please God, no more sky-pointing

Last night I decided that a total eclipse of the moon was more common than the Red Sox winning the World Series, so I dashed inside at 8:00 pm to finish watching the real wonder of the evening. The last innings were as satisfying as I had hoped. For while my Red Sox fandom only began eight games ago, when they were down three-zip to the Yankees, it has been as genuine as it has been brief. It’s easy to like a team that calls themselves “idiots.” The linked article says, “Last year's Red Sox used the theme ‘Cowboy Up’…
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Posted inPhilosophy

I become a Taoist

I’ve decided to convert to Taoism. In accord with the spirit of my new faith, I’m taking my conversion pretty lightly. Probably I’ve always been a Taoist. Probably everyone is. But who cares whether what I just said makes any sense or not? This is the nice thing about Taoism. One of the early Taoist sages, Chuang Tzu, is called the “genius of the absurd.” He’s famous for saying that he dreamed he was a butterfly, then awoke and was himself again. But he didn’t know whether formerly there had been a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or if…
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Posted inEntertainment Philosophy

“Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring”

If your fantasy is to live an exceedingly simple Buddhist life on a floating temple in the middle of a beautiful lake, this movie is for you. Set in Korea and spoken in Korean (with English subtitles), it was reviewed in Spirituality and Health magazine, which demonstrates its uplifting credentials. However, Laurel was disappointed that the SSFWS DVD we rented didn’t match her expectations. She thought that the movie would be non-stop Buddhist inspiration, languorous images of water lilies, meditative chanting, strolls through unspoiled nature, that sort of thing. Yes, SSFWS has much of this, but the central theme is…
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Posted inPhilosophy Recreation

The clouds speak to me

During a Metolius River walk with Serena this afternoon I paused to lay on my back in the grass and see what the passing clouds had to say to me. Right away it was evident they could read my mind. Yes, I do have a question. Might as well ask the Big One: What is the meaning of life? And the next cloud that came by had the answer: “I” Hmmmm. Quite profound. Hindus say, “Atman (soul) is Brahman (God). Moses was told by God, “I am that I am.” I am God, the clouds tell me. I like it!…
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Posted inHome life Philosophy

Got a good fried cat recipe?

Here it is, Labor Day weekend coming up, nice Oregon weather forecast, outdoor eating time! And I can’t find a good recipe for fried cat. Damn. Been trying to figure out why Google, for once, has failed me. Best I could do was a song parody, and a warning that if you’re selling fried catfish, a partially burnt out neon sign isn’t good for business. I’m beginning to think that fried cat isn’t a very popular dish. But fried chicken…over a million search results, and plenty of recipes. Funny. Aren’t cats and chickens both animals? Aren’t both non-human? Don’t both…
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Posted inBooks Philosophy

Sacrifice religion for God

It isn’t often that I recommend a 300 page book after reading just 30 pages. But I can already tell that “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason” is a book well worth recommending. I’d been feeling listless all day until I took a first look at Sam Harris’ warnings against religion. Right away I felt energized. Brutally honest words can do that to you, especially when well-written, as Harris’ book is. I sense that Harris is a kindred spirit. He’s working on a doctorate in neuroscience, so his mind is attuned to the scientific method.…
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Posted inPhilosophy Plotinus

Plotinus and me: Spirituality is seeing, not believing

One of the worst things about writing is that your thoughts are visible, always to yourself and often to others. This also is one of the best things about writing. Worst, best? To me it depends on how honest my writing is, and how well my words comport with my actions. I hate to re-read something I’ve written and realize that I don’t believe my own words. Yet, even if I’ve written something true to my beliefs, it is painful to read if I’m not acting as if I believe my purported beliefs. Is there anything worse than hypocrisy? Well,…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Life as a vapor trail

Lying in my Camp Sherman hammock, a jet flies overhead, lit by the setting sun. Passing through an opening framed by the branches of Ponderosa pines, the jet and its vapor trail leave as quickly as they came. Soon, no trace. I find myself going back in time two hundred years. I am an Indian staring at the same patch of sky. I see a hawk, not a jet, coursing across the heavens. Now I leap ahead two hundred years. I am a child of the future watching the passage of an anti-gravity hovercraft. The jet of the present is…
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Posted inPhilosophy Plotinus

Plotinus and me: To think or not to think?

To think or not to think, that indeed is the question—the endlessly repeated question that consciously or unconsciously gets asked and answered almost every waking moment. I spend a lot of time pondering the pluses and minuses of thinking, though not infrequently a still small intuitive voice inside of me whispers, “Are you using the right tool for this investigatory job?” Thinking about thinking is a peculiarly human enterprise. Even if animals think, that seems to be the end of the road. I don’t see any sign that our dog agonizes whether she is too attached to thoughts of chasing…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Church of the Churchless

Fame? Hah. Money? Hah-hah. Creative compulsion? Um, closer. But one of the real reasons I like to write books is being able to have conversations with like-minded souls, such as artist/philosopher/writer Patricia Herron, whom I had the good-fortune to chat with at the south Salem Beanery coffee shop this afternoon. Right away I knew that we had been around the same spiritual bends. That doesn’t mean either of us is close to our destination, but there was no doubt that we’ve traveled similar courses. It isn’t often that I can talk so smoothly about what is most succinctly described as…
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Posted inPhilosophy Writing/Weblogs

Sadly, ego-loss didn’t arrive in the mail

I had been waiting and waiting for ego-loss to arrive in the mail. When the envelope finally was delivered on Saturday you can imagine how excited I was. I’ve been meditating every day for nigh on thirty-five years, and so far I’ve made scant progress in laying aside that devilishly strong “Me! Me! Me!” part of me that doesn’t want to stop thinking about Me, Me, Me. But I was expecting that one glance at what was inside the envelope was going to produce a short-cut to satori land. For this was a copy of an article that I had…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Why Jesus couldn’t have been married to Mary

Today I experienced within my consciousness one of those supernova bursts of enlightened understanding that dazzle me with my own brilliance (though not, it must be admitted, with my own humility). For I have discovered an unarguable answer to the controversial question posed by Dan Brown in his “Da Vinci Code”: Was Jesus married? Specifically, to Mary Magdalene. No. This is an impossibility. For in the time Jesus spent on this earthly plane he came to be considered as the perfect Son of God by those who knew him most intimately. Hence, ergo, thusly, Jesus could not have been married,…
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Posted inPhilosophy Writing/Weblogs

Eccentrics make the world go unround

When you attend a meeting of 500 aspiring mystics of both Eastern and Western persuasions, as I did last weekend, you’re bound to run into some interesting people. But there is “interesting” and there is “eccentric,” the latter being a pearl of greater price. For eccentrics, by definition, make the world go unround. They remind us that neat and tidy isn’t nature’s way. Rivers don’t take a straight course to the sea. Trees sprout branches in every direction. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing some wonderful eccentrics. Eric was a friend of my youth. A few years older than me,…
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Posted inPhilosophy

Not lost in translation

This morning I gave a 45 minute talk to the 500 or so National Satsang Weekend attendees at the Science of the Soul Center here in Petaluma, California. No, I’m not a member of a cult, no matter what my wife says (jokingly, I should emphasize, just as I fondly call her “infidel” with a smile on my face). Aside from my talks, Laurel chooses not to attend meetings of my spiritual group, for reasons I can completely sympathize with. I look upon spirituality as a science that investigates whatever may lie beyond the physical reality with which we are…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Philosophy

Choking on communion

Looking back, I believe it was a sign from God that I almost choked on the wafer that was put in my mouth at my Catholic first communion. When you’re eight or nine years old this is embarrassing stuff, gagging after the priest put the wafer on my tongue. It stuck to the roof of my mouth when I tried to swallow it and wouldn’t go down. I remember hoping to God (still on my knees, of course) that I wouldn’t spit out the wafer and have it end up on the floor, an inglorious way to treat the body…
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Posted inNeighborhood Philosophy

There is no boat in this photo

I snapped this picture of Spring Lake about half an hour ago during my evening dog walk with Serena. There is no boat in this photo. Yesterday there would have been: a shiny aluminum rowboat upside down at the far end, barely visible, but irritatingly present. Boats left at our communal (common property) lake here in Spring Lake Estates are supposed to be locked to a cable near the picnic area. That rowboat wasn’t. Every time I walked around the lake it bothered me to see it beached in a place it shouldn’t have been. In my eyes it was…
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