Category: meditation

• June 28, 2013

  The skeptic’s lukewarm mood

  A brief excerpt from a forthcoming guide, Cultivating Discipline Lightly, which is to serve as a companion to the course I am teaching at Kaos Pilots from Sept. 9-13. Enjoy. *  In all of this, it is evident that the skeptic, an allegorical figure of Estrangement, is absolutely unwilling to play along. Out of hubris, she…
• June 27, 2013

  ‘Now being seen off, now seeing off…’

  Kenko writes, ‘In all things, it is the beginnings and the ends that are interesting.’ A greeting, a farewell; a fresh hello, a tender adieu. In Robert Aitken’s translation of Basho’s haiku, we observe the farewell at its most elemental: ‘Now being seen off, Now seeing off–the outcome: Autumn in Kiso.’ What is of interest, of…
• June 26, 2013

  There is nothing worse than a house that is too done up…

  ‘A house, I know, is but a temporary abode, but how delightful it is to find one that has harmonious proportions and a pleasant atmosphere. One feels somehow that even moonlight, when it shines into the quiet domicile of a person of taste, is more affecting than elsewhere. A house, though it may not be…
• June 24, 2013

  The top of the inhalation… the bottom of the exhalation–

  The top of the inhalation is a fold, the bottom of the exhalation is a cut. The fold returns the breath to its downward course, the cut extinguishes it. The cut is the surprise of death, the cleanest mark of impermanence. The beginning of the inhalation is the first dawn, the very edge of the…
• June 21, 2013

  Pei-chien on action and stillness

  The collection, ‘Summer: Collages of Desert Pieties (2013),’ is now visible at andrewjamestaggart.com. There are beautiful photos of summer Daoist travels on each page. Enjoy. * This morning after watering the plants, I meditated upon Zen master Pei-chien’s words (1185-1246). I then put them into a more poetic form: Let your actions be like the…