CONTRARY TO WHAT MIGHT SEEM OBVIOUS, DOUBT ISN’T THE ENEMY OF FAITH. Certainty is. In fact, doubt and faith, properly understood, are complementary drivers in a dialectic of growth. Certainty, on the other hand, stalls growth and often weakens faith. The primary problem behind our common misunderstanding of doubt and faith is our tendency to …
When Something Ordinary Is Extraordinary
SOMETIMES SOMETHING HAPPENS that makes no sense, but isn’t nonsense. Instead, it seems eerily significant; uncanny, yet meaningful. You know it’s just a coincidence, but it feels like a touch of enchantment, like the flow of Dao, like providence or maybe fate. A meaningful coincidence like that, according to Carl Jung, is synchronicity at work …
Hide and Seek
Alan Watts told a remarkable story about God playing hide-and-seek. It was a playful presentation of key ideas from Hindu philosophy. The Upanishads say, "You are That." Watts said, "You're IT!" The story goes something like this ...
“Life is change. How it differs from the rocks.”
In 1968, Jefferson Airplane released Crown of Creation, their fourth album, in which the political facet of their psychedelic rock became clearly visible. The album’s title track, written by Paul Kantner, blends philosophical insight with countercultural attitude in a song that, in the end, turns out to be a love song. The song’s closing lines …
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Reaching One Through Addition
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION ACTUALLY HAS SOMETHING TO SAY that’s important for us to hear, right now. Recognizing the ambiguity of the American national motto, E pluribus unum, points us toward the same understanding. How does one get to one, through subtraction or addition? In mathematics, reaching one through addition means we’re dealing with abstractions …
René Descartes, Meet Peggy Lee
“EGO” IS IMPLIED IN DESCARTES’ (IN)FAMOUS EPIGRAM: “COGITO ERGO SUM.” In English, it’s explicit: “I think, therefore I am.” I feel it should be emphatic. Intended to be a statement that could not be denied, Descartes’ epigram only holds in a world without Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Sufism, or any form of self-transcending mystical experience. As …
Soul Spirit Wisdom 