Author: Andrew Taggart
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Modern Culture’s Conspiracy
Almost everything in modern culture conspires to make me believe what I, metaphysically speaking, am not and cannot be. I am not the solid, objectified body, the physical body that I mistakenly take myself to be. When a cut runs across the arm, I mistakenly believe and feel that it is I that is injured. But that…
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The Interminability Of Gain And Loss
Consider that our phenomenal experience is always changing and therefore that anicca–meaning impermanence–may be true. Then we can come to some ordinary ways in which impermanence shows up for us. In Buddhism, these are called the Eight Vicissitudes, and they are: Pleasure and pain Gain and loss Praise and blame Fame and disrepute We might…
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Avoiding The Traps Of Spiritual Tourism And Spiritual Materialism
Spirituality is exploding today. Organized religions are, in many cases, failing to touch the hearts of younger people. Consequently, attendance at houses of worship is, among those in their 20s-40s, declining. Meanwhile, spiritual exploration seems to me on the rise. The opportunity? That perennial questions, through experiments in psychotechnologies of transformation, will be imbued with…
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Humanism Is The Bubble Of Bubbles
“Man is immersed in dreams… He lives in sleep… He is a machine.” –G.I. Gurdjieff Imagine that each of us has been living in a bubble. There is one bubble for each of us. Imagine that when I go to look at a sunset, I see it filtered through my transparent bubble. That when I…
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Metta And The late Fred Rogers
Fred Rogers died in 2003. When I was growing up, I didn’t think much of, nor (if I recall rightly) did I often watch, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. It seemed to me saccharine, sentimental, lugubrious. I was wrong. About a year ago, I saw the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? and was moved to tears. Suppose that…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 