Philosophy as a Way of Life
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When critical thinking challenges reality
The biggest problem with those who begin coordinating rigged facts into weak–and very often invalid–arguments is that they have given up critique for criticism and argument for arguing. Continue reading
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Dyadic not dualistic
It’s difficult to break out of the Western habitude of dualism. But it is especially important to make the effort when thinking of the Chinese notion of Yin Yang. Rather than another form of dualism in the history of philosophy, it… Continue reading
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Prayer and Thinking
We began with me sharing some ideas about the connection between prayer and thinking. We discussed Poem 27 of the Dào Dé Jing along with some forays into Poem 1. Continue reading
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Reverence Ritual Worship Worldview
For this class, we took a step back to explore a few concepts before we move from India to China. Continue reading
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Ora et Labora
When life itself seemed to fall outside the core attention of his labors, he would go watch the grass and flowers, birds and critters in their communal dance. Continue reading
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Overcoming Duopoly
We need communities of solidarity to elect leaders at all levels that can work toward a constitutional amendment to change how elections are run and districts are drawn. This will create the conditions for debilitating winner-take-all and for demonstrating the… Continue reading
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There is no one here
After my good brother Andrew Teeter shared his experiences living in Korea and learning about the sacred traditions of the Korean people, we took a brief break. On our return, I lectured on the basic points of the Buddha Dharma… Continue reading
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Lonely Nation, Touch Starved People
Americans exist in a sociocultural habitat where touching is discouraged. Yet we are primates, embodied beings evolved to live through, with, and in our senses. And tactility or touching as a sense makes us feel connected–to each other, to our… Continue reading
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Non-violence, non-attachment, non-singularity
Because we were behind in our class readings/lectures, I spent the day making sure we focused on Jain Dharma. Continue reading
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Bhakti Redux
Today’s class we went over the concept of Bhakti for a little while before we spent the majority of time in a circle discussing the purpose of education: devotion to learning, coming to knowledge, bettering our situation in the world… Continue reading
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Diversity of worship, unity of thought
Because we had roamed around in and out of a few topics yesterday, I decided to mostly lecture today with the hope that we would catch up a bit but that there would still be a lot of good questions… Continue reading
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Coordination, Subordination, and Exordination
Yesterday in our class, the discussion led me to talk for a little bit about a distinction originally made by Marcuse, I believe, regarding soft versus hard totalitarianism. I extended this description out to all manner of group structures that lead… Continue reading
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Ordering expectations
In Tuesday’s class, we touched on the diverse story traditions from ancient India. My colleagues spent time at the beginning of our meeting talking with each other about what they had discovered about Indian sacred traditions, and what questions this… Continue reading
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Introducing the Reality of Reality
Beginning our section on Hinduism today. So I decided to do two lecture sessions. Continue reading
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Ultimate Concern
For our Thursday class, we began by everyone sitting in a circle on the floor. We stretched out our legs so that our feet touched each other completing the circle. Then we went around the circle and each named a… Continue reading
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Explanations of religion
Below my lecture from 13 July 2016. Before I addressed the students, we had more discussion on what we take for granted in the everyday world, and then we shared a few things we take for granted about religion. Our questions… Continue reading
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