Category: Philosophy as a Way of Life
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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.
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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 USA’s diverse voter make up.
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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 and shared a more mythological take on the story of…
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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 inner selves, to our world. Below, a great podcast that…
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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.
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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 by developing our selves.
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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 from my friends. From what I read toward the end…
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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Yesterday in our class, the discussion led me to talk for a little bit about a distinction originally made by Marcuse, I believe, regarding soft versus hard totalitarianism.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 to implicit or explicit domination. Thinking about it last night,…
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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 had brought up to them. There were basic similarities, of…
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Introducing the Reality of Reality
Beginning our section on Hinduism today. So I decided to do two lecture sessions.
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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 thing we find in the world that is circular (e.g.…
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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 and answers led us to a place where I believed…
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The High Priests of Capitalism
Richard D. Wolff takes some time to describe how traditional intellectuals and economic theorists keep the superstructure mostly clear of those who disagree. Highly placed economic theorists usually evaluate the system prevailing in their societies very positively and construct celebratory theories about it. Those theorists are the high priests of…
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Hidden Desire: Nietzsche, Gay Philosopher
Most folks I know who focus on Nietzsche are very heteronormative. Yet Nietzsche as gay man has always made so much sense to me. Why do folks NOT read Nietzsche as a man who loved men, a man even more trapped by living in a culture where it was easier…
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The #perfect is the enemy of the #good
Sitting around with the first occupiers of Zuccotti Park on the first anniversary of Occupy, I listened to one lovely young man talking about the rage that his peers, particularly his gender, often have. But, he added, fury is not a tactic or a strategy, though it might sometimes provide…
CALL ME MAGGIE 
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