Tag: Beauty

• June 18, 2013

  ‘Why is Tu Fu sad?’ asks the master

  ‘Why is Tu Fu sad?’ asks the master. A Poem About Radiance ‘It is obvious,’ replies the first pupil. ‘It is, as Tu Fu says: the longest bough has been broken.’ A second pupil differs: ‘The world is unjust: the violent and strong will always crack and break the weak and frail. Had we not…
• June 8, 2013

  Wandering babies in Topanga Canyon…

  Early in Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby exuberantly proclaims that there is no place he would rather live than in a cottage and, in particular, in a cottage that in all respects resembles the one the Dashwoods have let. Eleanor replies–come, come now, dear Willoughby–that the hallways are dark and the quarters are cramped. Would he really…
• April 26, 2013

  Can we tell an alternative story of not being at home?

  ‘The one who masters walking leaves no footprints. / The one who masters speaking makes no slips of the tongue.’ —Daodejing 27, trans. Wenlong Lu and Keith Wayne Brown I believe one could write an alternative story of human embodiment, worldly engagement, and understanding that would not avail itself of a psychologist’s categories but would…
• April 25, 2013

  Beauty of Soul: Course Schedule

  My  Short Course at Schumacher College, ‘Beauty of Soul, According to Nature,’ has now been posted on Schumacher College’s website. The course is set to run from November 4-8. I’m including an early draft of the Course Schedule below. Opening Talk ‘The Beautiful Life of the Virtues’ What would modern moral philosophers make of the following…
• April 19, 2013

  Knocking one hell of a squeeze out of life

  John O’Donohue: What would you say about the whole thing now that you’re about to leave it? [And this big roguish smile crossed his visage.] The Man on his Deathbed: By Jesus, I knocked a hell of a squeeze out of it. The Irishman’s words are goodness lifted into beauty. It is the light humor exemplified…