Month: September 2020
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There Are Two Unconformable Truths About The Aged In Modern Culture…
There are two unconformable truths about the aged in modern culture. One is that they are not wise, just old. The other is that they are not allowed to die nor do they want to. It’s not, in fact, wise to assert that “with experience comes wisdom,” and it’s a shame that it’s not true…
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Wrong Ways And The Other Way
Everything we have done so far to end our dis-ease, our suffering, our discontent (dukkha) hasn’t worked. Hasn’t worked because it cannot work. See this clearly. Doing the same thing over and over again isn’t insanity or stupidity. It’s ineffectuality. Could it be that every approach is bound to do nothing but heighten dukkha or…
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Wisdom Is Not Always Pretty
It often comes as a surprise to learn that your pen pal, upon his moving close to you, is not a close friend of yours. Only in retrospect does it now dawn on you that writing or speaking by phone was the glue that held the friendship, as it was, together. You only knew so…
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Craving As The Key to Suffering And Non-craving As The Key To Liberation
This morning I had an excellent conversation with a young man about SN 56, “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Dhamma.” I now understand more deeply–conceptually as well as experientially–“what the Buddha taught” (to cite Walpola Rahula). The Middle Path: Neti Neti and Non-craving The reason the Buddha begins by speaking with the five…
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‘I’m Desperately Searching For Certainty’; or, On Hyperpluralism
A conversation partner told me yesterday: “I’m desperately searching for certainty.” The natural reply would be to point to Descartes’ attempt to provide a rational foundation upon which modern culture could stand, but is that where this hunger–and anxiety–began? The historian Brad Gregory doesn’t think so. In his excellent book The Unintended Reformation: How a…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 