Category: meditation

• December 6, 2012

  Simplicity, silence, natural eloquence

  Porphyry relates this anecdote about his spiritual guide Plotinus: One day, when Origen came into his class, Plotinus blushed from head to toe, and made as if to stand up and put an end to the class. When Origen urged him to continue, Plotinus said, “One’s desire to talk is reduced when one knows that…
• December 5, 2012

  Rehearsing a line of thought

  Rehearsing a line of thought has its place in philosophical life. Saying this seems, however, to present us with a puzzle. If a philosophical inquiry is “an unrehearsed genre whose principal aims are, first, to reveal to us what we don’t know but thought we did and, second, to bring us a greater sense of…
• December 3, 2012

  The 3 basic conditions of a gift economy: generosity, onus, wholeheartedness

  Welcoming a number of new conversation partners into my philosophy practice has enabled me to rethink the basic conditions of my gift economy. I’ve been urged to find better ways of saying what a gift economy is (and, in conversation, to explore why it matters). All this has involved learning to speak more clearly, more…
• November 29, 2012

  Goodbye, New York

  You come to New York thinking that you have a pretty good idea what it is you’re looking for, only to discover that, once you live here long enough you have no pretty good idea at all. New York is a great instructor that way. I remember speaking with a man in his early 40s…
• November 28, 2012

  Neil Young and no sense of an ending

  Some old men resign themselves to death; others rock out, failing to convince. Philip Roth, age 79, has said that he plans to write no more books. Neil Young turned 67 this month and, to celebrate, reunited with “Crazy Horse” at Madison Square Garden last night. We were there for part of the evening. In…