Month: October 2020
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My Ethical Systems Piece: A Buddhist Philosopher’s Antidote to Modern Nihilism
To care deeply, as Socrates shows us in Plato’s Apology, is to be willing to die for what is truly worth caring about.
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Be Nobody Knowingly
Almost everybody is trying to be somebody. The key to ending your suffering? Stop trying to be somebody. Instead, be what you essentially are: nobody. Nobody at all. Trying to be somebody is contrary to the Way. Being contrary to the Way, it grates with resistance and strain. Grating with both is suffering. There’s no…
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There Is No Pain In Direct Experience
On the last home sesshin (Zen meditation intensive), I saw clearly that in direct experience physical pain does not exist. Before, I had followed a pretty standard line: physical pain exists and is a given whereas suffering is an unnecessary mental add-on. According to the standard line, that throbbing in the knee is pain, but…
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‘Don’t Turn Practice Into Anything Else’
“Don’t turn the practice into anything else,” my Zen teacher states in one of his Dharma talks. “See here, now that there’s no place to go,” I wrote after the last home sesshin, one that ended on Saturday. What are these statements pointing to? You turn the practice of zazen (seated meditation) into something else…
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Clearing And Wising
The question I ask in this long form essay is: “Why are people not kinder to one another and to all sentient beings? Why, indeed, is not kindness the default mode?” And the answer I come to is this one: we are not clear and we are not wise. I’d like to take you on the…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 