Category: Dao de Jing
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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 in a complex world.
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Ideas vs. Beliefs: Transform Your Mindset
Our Purpose Is Not Understanding Notice for all visitors: I use my AI Assistant, Hermes Wheelwright, to help me arrange my thinking in a way that others might benefit from it. And I continue to share my own thinkering as a free citizen of the United States. There is a…
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Two Aphorisms on Becoming
05 February 2026 (my father’s birthday) Our purpose as organic entities is not understanding. That is our instrument of discovery, organization, and improvement of circumstances. Rather, as beings who live and love and believe, our purpose is becoming. And we become by improvising our way. We do not know where…
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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, I find myself at another threshold. The Buddhist path cleared…
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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 phenomena. Authentic discernment allows for responsive actions, shaped by insights…
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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 to true freedom and serenity in life.
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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 fourfold practice to cultivate authentic responses, ultimately advocating for a…
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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 with deeper uncertainties through mindful practices and the exploration of…
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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 any impediment to overcome?
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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.
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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. Each philosophy concerns a creative force that flows through the…
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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 this planetary electric field. When their silk leaves their bodies,…
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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.
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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 in impossibilities.[2] This also has been a regular definition given to…
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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 online course to prepare me to teach online in the…
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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 deep north and other travel sketches, given me on my…
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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 the wonder of dawn… “Look! How this marvelous daybreak?” —…
CALL ME MAGGIE 