Category: philosophical counseling

• 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 25, 2013

  Rip Van Winkle: A parable

  Rip Van Wrinkle, writes Washington Irving, was ‘sorely perplexed,’ and nearly everything about him, including his appearance, had changed. His musket had rusted over, his beard had grown down to his waist, and the public places he used to frequent were no longer there or were in a state of disarray. In place of his old…
• 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…
• June 20, 2013

  Basho’s poetic spirit: A mode of radiance

  For Basho (1644-1694), in whose hands the haiku form achieves its essence, the poet must submerge himself within a natural object, to perceive its delicate life and feel its feelings, out of which a poem forms itself. A poem may skillfully delineate an object; but, unless it embodies feelings which have been naturally emerged out…