Category: philosophical counseling

• June 21, 2021

  A Very Brief Comparison Of Christian And Eastern Mysticisms

  I’m only a fifth of the way into The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, ed. Bernard McGinn, but, boy, is it good. True, the excerpts in this volume are quite short, though, it should be added, these are intended to be appetizers, the point being to entice one to read the primary texts in full.…
• June 19, 2021

  The Necessity And Futility Of Seeking

  Chan master Linji (Jap. Rinzai) is addressing an assembly of students: “What are you seeking? Everywhere you say, ‘There’s something to practice, something to obtain.’ Make no mistake! Even if there were something to be gained by practice, it would be nothing but birth-and-death karma” (The Record of Linji, ed. Sasaki and Kirchner, p. 17).…
• June 18, 2021

  We’ve Gotten Rinzai Zen All Wrong

  From the outside, Rinzai Zen Buddhism can look strict, militant, disciplined, stern, and cold. And it can seem herculeanly effortful. To a degree, some of these appearances are true, but let’s listen to the man himself as he offers up the true Dharma. Which man? To Linji (Jap. Rinzai) from The Record of Linji: If…
• June 10, 2021

  Existential Salience + Philosophical Inquiry = Wisdom?

  Let’s suppose that a group of us were committed to philosophizing in the sense of “philosophy as a way of life” (Pierre Hadot). Let’s suppose that, ostensibly, we developed two “knacks.” Say we developed the knack for finding out what, right now, in oneself, and between us is “existentially salient.” Were that to be so,…
• June 9, 2021

  How Does Wisdom Emerge?

  Existential Opening In the last post, I discussed the condition for the possibility of wisdom to emerge. I called this an “existential opening.” Now, once an existential opening has occurred, then the question of wisdom is “on the table.” Our question today, therefore, is: “How does wisdom emerge?” What follows are first thoughts, not final…