This is a re-post from my old blog, July 8. I just reread it, found it poignant, and thought I’d post it again. I find that a lot of my writing is self-reflective and used as a tool to get myself clear on a particular ‘rut’ I might be in so as to get out of it. So when I read old posts/journal entries I often suddenly realize that the ‘rut’ described in them is pretty much the same as... Read more

Though still a fan of Mr. Wilber, I have stumbled upon an ugly flaw in his work (I’m now listening to the soundstrue version of ‘A Theory of Everything – A Brief History of Everything‘) , namely his understanding of evolution. It’s funny, because just two weeks ago I saw Kevin Padian, PhD discussing his role as an expert witness in the Dover, PA trial over teaching ID in schools. Dr. Padian pretty well destroyed the ID theorists credibility by... Read more

Tom – (in response to your comments here) Is free / affordable education fair? YES! Check out this report on the payoffs of education. Notice that the average person with a Ph.D. or ‘professional degree’ pays 3-4 times as much in taxes as the person with only a high school diploma. Compound the extra $12-18k/year by, say, 30 years and you get $360,000-480,000 in extra tax revenue for each of those folks. That’s a huge bonus for society. And I... Read more

“[O]ne has to be willing to let go of–or die to–the present level. Perhaps one has run up against its inherent limitations or contradictions (as Hegel would say), or one is beginning to disidentify with it (as Assagioli explained), or perhaps one has just gotten tired of it.”– Ken Wilber (from tom’s comment, #13) As I replied to tom’s comment, I agree with this general formula for spiritual growth. Each level is a sort of consciousness, a world-view, a system... Read more

Mr. Kerry, 1971 All of us, Today: Each day to facilitate the process by which the United States washes her hands of Vietnam Iraq someone has to give up his life so that the United States doesn’t have to admit something that the entire world already knows, so that we can’t say that we have made a mistake. Someone has to dies so that President Nixon Bush won’t be, and these are his words, “the first President to lose a... Read more

It has long been a complaint of mine that philosophers of the 20th century paid too little attention to the issues that mattered to everyday folks. It’s a problem too for many who look at Buddhism in Western societies. But Buddhism gets off the hook as a kind of therapy for new-agers and those otherwise discontent with Western religious traditions. Philosophy is a failure from within, slipping out of the public eye, and as one of my professors recently remarked,... Read more

A cliché well spokenis wisdom of the greatest profundity. Read more

I received this from a friend a couple years ago for Thanksgiving. I’ve been wanting to write about consumerism issues for a while and always find myself too spaced out and/or inarticulate whenever I begin to think of them. I guess that considering Friday is to be the biggest shopping day of the year I might try to put down a few thoughts. First, I feel horribly trapped in this excessively consumerist society. I see people who are barely getting... Read more

From Nacho’s comment here: Here’s something else to discuss: Impermanence, as a mark of existence, truly slices through notions of the persistence of anything (this does not mean obduracy of our imaginations nor of what we deem real), just that its nature is flux, not solidity, nor unchangingness. Hence, no self exists because we have impermanence. This business of impermanence renders the world full of suffering (this is what Lacan calls Lack). These condition each other in the here and... Read more

I’m reading Heinrich Heine’s book “Religion and Philosophy in Germany“, which is actually a collection of essays he wrote in Paris between 1831-1856. It is written in the most lucid and beautiful prose I have come across in a long time. No wonder, Heine was a celebrated poet and literary critic, not a philosopher. However, the philosophy comes through beautifully as well, certainly with no more idiosyncrasies than in any philosopher who writes of prior thinkers. He writes with the... Read more