Dao de Jing
Personal translations & commentaries on Lao tze’s timeless classic
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Care-Free Wandering (Zhuangzi)
[PREVIOUS] Responsive to Skillful Attention Following the river where it bends—not because rivers knowbut because bending is what rivers dowhen they meet the unmovable. After months of decluttering awareness through Nagarjuna’s emptiness and learning to show up with skillful attention,… Continue reading
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Mountain dog school for living philosophy
The Mountain Dog School for Living Philosophy promotes philosophy as a way of life, inviting individuals from diverse backgrounds to explore existential questions through dialogue and reflection. Its mission emphasizes personal engagement in philosophizing, fostering authenticity, self-actualization, and meaningful relationships… Continue reading
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Responsive to skillful attention
The concept of discernment is vital for cultivating awareness, as it involves skillfully distinguishing experiences without over-determining or under-determining. This harmonizes extremes to avoid the fall into nihilism and eternalism. Simultaneously, it reawakens the empty yet interconnected nature of all… Continue reading
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Decluttering Awareness: Nagarjuna and Emptiness
Nāgārjuna’s thinkering dives into emptiness to abandon how we cling to rigid views, which just messes with our understanding of reality. He shows that everything arises through dependence and encourages us to let go of fixed beliefs, which can lead… Continue reading
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A Fourfold for the Current Empire
I explore the concept of “transistance,” a practice of navigating life’s complexities without adhering to rigid frameworks. It emphasizes the importance of embracing ambiguity and interdependence, while rejecting traditional revolutionary approaches. I propose it is a first step of a… Continue reading
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Whispering New Directions
The text explores the concept of the practical spirit, emphasizing three modes: contemplative, scientific, and operative. It critiques the dominance of operationalism in modern society, linking it to systemic dehumanization. I advocatesfor “transistance” to navigate beyond established orientations and connect… Continue reading
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Aphorism 17Mar2023
Do not talk to show-off the many things in your stable of understandings. Rather, speak to shine-forth the experience of passing-through this moment. Otherwise, remain in the dignity of silence. Flowing quietly with the Encompassing Now/Here, how can there be… Continue reading
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Beholding the beheld
Truth, Beauty, and Joy each have different kinds of ideas and facts. Not knowing this distinction allows systemic bigotry to continue oppressing folx despite contradictory scientific discoveries, socio-cultural evolution, and personal evidence. Continue reading
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Open Virtue, Closed Propriety: Considerations on Daoism and Bergsonism
No consideration of parallels between Daoism and Bergsonism has been accomplished. Yet there is a profitable comparison to be made between the ancient Chinese philosophy of the Dào Dé Jing and the more contemporary work of French philosopher Henri Bergson.… Continue reading
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Spiders fly hundreads of miles on earth’s electric field
Every day, around 40,000 thunderstorms crackle around the world, collectively turning Earth’s atmosphere into a giant electrical circuit. The upper reaches of the atmosphere have a positive charge, and the planet’s surface has a negative one… Ballooning spiders operate within… Continue reading
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Arriving by assistance of the Whole
Most who brag of being self-made—to the point of believing their own rhetoric—sooner or later will find themselves self-unmade. Yet even in this, they will become an unmaking alongside all those of whom they took advantage in Violent Struggle. Continue reading
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Finding a Way: Faith in Times of Crisis
“Philosophy is the faith which unifies man.” —Richard M. Owsley[1] For the entirety of my life in Bible Belt Texas, I have encountered both religionists and atheists who interpret “faith” as an irrational action: a totally emotive, rationally groundless hope… Continue reading
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Protected: A braggart unmakes themself
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. Continue reading
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Unchained Mind-walking
My visit to Abilene this last week has been quiet and refreshing after teaching two courses during the second part of Summer school. Humble thanks to my colleagues Doug and Loni who co-taught one course with me at UNT. First… Continue reading
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Silent road, cloudless mind
Saturday, I went to visit my mother at the nursing home in Abilene, TX. Almost 91, she has become much less active, sometimes sleeping most of the day. I brought with me Bashō-Sensei’s beautiful haibun, The Narrow road to the… Continue reading
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Wonder of dawn
The shared reason of the day says, “See, the sun comes up in the east as the earth stands still.” Or maybe, “See, the earth turns on its axis as it swings around the sun.” Yet neither truly responds to… Continue reading
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Socrates in the Anthropocene
I want to thank Scott Knowles for encouraging me to leave my little town of Denton, Texas, and come up here for the Anthropocene Campus Philadelphia at Drexel University. A word of warning as I follow up my colleagues on the roving… Continue reading
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The nameless backgrounds the nameable
MWF PHIL 1050.006, 1:00pm, Friday 16 Sep 2016 We took a close look at poem 1 about the Dao (Way), spending time on the (ironic) difference between the Nameless and the nameable. Basically, it is difficult to name the Ultimate Source of Reality… Continue reading
CALL ME MAGGIE 