Tag: philosophy
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Everyday ceremonials
Around the time I began writing these essays, now more than sixteen years ago, I also wrote a poem by the same title: ONE TIME, ONE MEETING Picking up the phone to call my son,I entertain the thought that every act,No matter how familiar or banal,Might be construed as unrepeatableAnd all of life as ceremonial.What…
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An unexpected lightness
In the summer of the year 2000, I had the good fortune to be spending the month of June in Ireland, where I was teaching Irish literature to American students at Trinity College, Dublin. One sunny afternoon, as I was walking down Nassau Street in central Dublin, I stopped to browse at a sidewalk bookstall.…
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The inside story
Many years ago, I was invited to visit a psychology class to speak about Buddhist meditation. The class was taught by a senior professor, a respected scholar who had studied the mind for decades and had published many peer-reviewed articles in the leading journals in his field. Toward the end of my presentation, I offered…