Sometimes it’s easier to understand ourselves by using something else as our lens. Let’s take that tree outside your window. As an analogy, this particular example is especially helpful given that a tree is rooted in the ground, growing up and out to participate in its local and regional ecosystem. Lots of fascinating connotations attachContinue reading “Meditation on a Tree”
Tag Archives: being-itself
Living By What We Know
I’m going to make an argument that will likely seem strange to you, at least at first. It applies to our current situation as a species on this planet, specifically to our apparent disorientation and confusion when it comes to knowing how to live and get along. Add to this a chronic frustration over soContinue reading “Living By What We Know”
Becoming Whole
In his important work The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Friedrich Nietzsche interpreted the dynamism of ancient Greece as a tension between two principles, which he saw represented in the gods Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo, the celebrated solar god of light, logic, and the visual arts, stood in mythologic opposition to Dionysus, the equally celebrated (butContinue reading “Becoming Whole”
The View from Where You Are
The power of language as a tool for constructing meaning and making sense of things is painfully evident when we lack the words to build narratives and fashion lenses for taking our perspective on reality. One of the consequences of religion’s fall from relevance is that its historically deep toolbox of symbols and terms hasContinue reading “The View from Where You Are”
Christ Consciousness, Buddha Nature
In Would Jesus Join a Church? I reminded my reader that Christ was not Jesus’ last name, nor is it a title that belonged exclusively to him. We should think of it rather as an archetypal designation for one who has been “anointed” – ordained and commissioned to carry out the will of god. AnContinue reading “Christ Consciousness, Buddha Nature”
Deconstructing Yourself
One important application of the idea that meaning is constructed by our minds and not discovered in reality is in the way it forces us to see ourselves in our constructions. The meaning we put together and project onto things is itself a symptom of our deeper insights, aspirations, ignorance, and insecurities. Our product revealsContinue reading “Deconstructing Yourself”
The Long Adventure
As we search for a fuller understanding of ourselves as human beings, it’s necessary to beware of explanations that reduce us to essentially one thing. On one side, scientific materialism wants to insist that we are nothing more than a highly evolved marvel of organic chemistry. On the other, metaphysical realism says that we areContinue reading “The Long Adventure”
Science, Spirituality, and The World To Come
I probably spend too much time defending the role of religion in our lives, especially in the opinion of those who identify themselves as nonreligious or atheist. While they tend to define religion as a belief system oriented on the supernatural, driven by superstition, stuck in the past, prone to fanaticism, and utterly irrelevant toContinue reading “Science, Spirituality, and The World To Come”
It’s Not All About You
The holiday season affords fresh opportunities for us to get poked, when others get to see sides of us that, in normal and less stressful times, we manage to keep off-stage. A combination of spending money we don’t really have, fighting traffic on the streets and in stores, and gathering with family members who knowContinue reading “It’s Not All About You”
Spirituality Basics 2: The Beyond Within
In Spirituality Basics: The Human Condition I explored our situation as it comes together (or perhaps rather, falls apart) around the delusion of a separate identity known as ego. Insofar as our ego is insecure and driven by ambition to resolve or compensate for this insecurity in various ways, we end up in an evenContinue reading “Spirituality Basics 2: The Beyond Within”
Tracts of Revolution 