We often ascribe personality and character traits to animals: courage to lions, wisdom to owls, cheerfulness to beavers, for example. Simon & Garfunkel’s popular 1967 song “At the Zoo” offers a clever rendering: “The monkeys stand for honesty / giraffes are insincere / and the elephants are kindly but they’re dumb…” Seldom are insects included among the popularized animals; their simplicity and lowness tends to ascribe no traits to them. But their lowness has attracted pensive poets who respect the humility of insects and derive insight from theseway of these creatures. In the West, the Ro ..read more

A characteristic of institutional religions, east and west, is consolidation of scripture and doctrine into ritual. This is especially conspicuous for Westerners seeing the evolution of Christianity into a set of founding narratives followed by evolution of doctrine and rote ritual, primary institutions of church and monasteries, and the providence of bishops, priests, abbots, and ..read more

The ancient Chinese Taoists originated a singular form of non-communal life. As noted in the Encyclopedia of Taoism, “eremitism was rarely a permanent way of life for practicing Taoists, and that after completing a period of eremitic self-cultivation and descending from the mountaintop many Taoist men and women travelled the land, performed rituals, and converted ..read more

The traditional image of April as the source of seasonal renewal is enshrined in the opening lines of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: “When April’s gentle rains have pierced the drought Of March right to the root, and bathed each sprout Through every vein with liquid of such power It brings forth the engendering of the flower ..read more

I was fortunate enough to be in the precise path of the recent solar eclipse in northern North America on April 8, precisely enough within the path to view the eclipse event from a comfortable front yard chair at home over a thousand feet in elevation. Post-event comments in media by observers confirmed the similarity ..read more

The divergence of Eastern and Western philosophy came to be expressed in the relationship of individual and state. This relationship is a more reliable measure than the words and dictums of representative thinkers. Thus in ancient China the saying attributed to Confucius identifies the ethical foundation of Chinese philosophy. Because educated males were expected to ..read more

Green kale is an attractive and nutritious vegetable, growing to a couple feet tall, useful in every kitchen garden. Towards the end of fall, the gardener should monitor overnight temperatures, although kale reputely is cold hardy and can tolerate occasional frost. This recent autumn, however, an overnight rainfall froze to heavy snow in the morning ..read more

A favorite website Existential Comics presents in a nutshell the clash of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). By assuming a violent and degraded human nature, Hobbes can pretend to lament summoning authoritarianism as a necessity, while at the same time presenting himself as a staunch ally of ..read more

Yuan-wu (Yuanwu Keqin, 1063–1135) was an early Chinese Zen (Chan) master credited with constructing The Blue Cliff Record, probably the most representative compilation and discussion of Zen koans. The later Japanese Rinzai Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769), whose students and disciples organized his lectures into essays, acknowledged the important influence of Yuan-wu in Hakuin’s first ..read more

In the late poet Louise Gluck’s poem ”Celestial Music” are presented two friends reflecting on fundamental sensibilities about nature, death, and reality. The friends are walking on a country road. One friend senses the indifference of nature toward suffering and violence, even in the cruelty of battling insects encountered on the roadside. The friend is ..read more