Category: philosophical counseling
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Zen Master Bankei And European Intellectuals On The Unruly Passions
In his magisterial essay The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (1977), the late intellectual historian and economist Albert Hirschman canvasses three strategies that seventeenth and eighteenth century European intellectuals entertained for dealing with the unruly passions: 1. Repress: push down this unruly passion 2. Harness: sublimate the unruly passion…
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A Very Brief Summary Of Zen Master Bankei’s Exquisite Teaching
Proposition #1: All beings are essentially the Unborn Buddha Mind. Teaching: Just abide in the Unborn. Evidence: “When you dwell in the Unborn itself,” Bankei states, “you’re dwelling at the very wellhead of the Buddhas and patriarchs” (The Unborn:The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, 1622-1693, p. 53). Proposition #2: The Unborn has a…
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The Buddha Was Right About The Dental Clinic
The Buddha was right. Yesterday my wife and I went to a dental clinic for a routine checkup and cleaning. While I was sitting in the lobby, I overheard one older woman who, upon checkout was told that she had a payment, exclaim about how the treatment was supposed to be covered; she’d spoken with…
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‘This Old Monk Doesn’t Dwell In Clarity…’
The marvelous Chan master Joshu appears in Blue Cliff Record, Case 2: Joshu, instructing the assembly, said, “The supreme Way is not difficult; it simply dislikes choosing. But even if a word is uttered, it is already an action of ‘choosing’ or of adhering to ‘clarity’. This old monk doesn’t dwell in clarity. Do you…
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Two Ways Of Freeing Thought (Thanks To Tskoknyi Rinpoche)
How do we, beginning or–most especially–more seasoned meditators, free ourselves from thought? Tsoknyi Rinpoche speaks about three ways in his book Fearless Simplicity: The Dzogchen Way of Living Freely in a Complex World: There are three ways to be free. The first one is called freed upon arising. In this state, arising and being freed…
Andrew Taggart, Ph.D. 