Tag: religion

Title: November 17, 2015, 2015 | Author: THE ZEN DIARY – David Gabriel Fischer | Source: www.thezendiary.com | License: CC BY-NC-ND

The Emptiness of Fullness

“Emptiness is the ground of everything. Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible.”  —Nagarjuna, 2nd century Buddhist philosopher “Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence.  Your very essence emerged from emptiness.”  —Wayne Dyer, 21st-century populist philosopher My wife and I recently watched Broadchurch, an ITV crime-mystery series.  It was captivating, well-acted (Olivia Coleman, as always, was amazing), and surprisingly insightful.  Each episode hinted at a different, possible suspect and lured us into believing our assumptions Read More

Pretending

Our dog, Henri, is a big, brown Labradoodle with a loud, deep, fear-inducing bark that would give anyone pause to intrude uninvited. When we take him on a walk he prances loud and proud pretending he is the master of the universe. The truth is that he is a compliant wimp who wouldn’t hurt a flea.

Title: Shikoku Temple Pilgrimage (八十八ヶ所巡) (32) | Author: american_rugbier | Source: Own work | License: CC BY-SA 2.0

Peace Babies

I learned what it was like to live in a first-world country over the past two weeks: no litter, no homelessness, on-time bullet trains, state-of-the-art communications, universal health care, and lower levels of inequality and crime than almost any developed country. Less than 1 civilian in 100 owns a gun compared to 127 guns per 100 civilians in the United States. And children have affordable access to quality education from Pre-K (starting at 2 years Read More

Powering and Empowering

In collaboration with Artie Vipperla, Founder, Energy’s Way Real leaders can step into big moments and make something big happen. They bring a personal power to critical moments that makes all the difference. The key is to recognize the key moments where extra power is needed and to bring total being into those moments before it is too late. Think Churchill. Think Martin Luther King. Where did they find the personal power to make such Read More

Title: Apex Predator | American Football | Author: Fantich & Young | Source: | License: CC BY NC-ND 2.0

The Roots of Madness

When she was in middle school, my younger daughter attended a private, girls academy. She encountered a culture there that was ruled by tall, skinny blonde girls. These privileged and pampered young women believed that their appearance gave them inordinate power and status. And they were right. As a small, Korean child my daughter didn’t have a “get in free” ticket to the elite club. I don’t believe these girls were born to be mean, Read More

Binary Blindness

“Obviously, there is no such thing as race, and in many ways, sex is a continuum, not a binary. So it doesn’t make sense to label people in that way.” —Gloria Steinem I get to the airport 7 hours before departure in hopes of catching an earlier flight home. It’s a busy Friday so all flights are full. I’m stuck with the bleak prospect of surviving the whole day in a chaotic scene I deplore. Read More

Title: March 24, 2016 | Author: THE ZEN DIARY - David Gabriel Fischer | Source: www.thezendiary.com | License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Spirituality and Religion

“Religion is for people who are scared to go to hell. Spirituality is for people who have already been.” —Bonnie Raitt “Spirituality is meant to take us beyond our tribal identity into a domain of awareness that is more universal.” —Deepak Chopra My wife and I (and our dog, Henri) recently spent 38 hours driving from San Diego, California to Traverse City, Michigan. We didn’t want to put 10-year old Henri in the underbelly of Read More

And

“The complexity of things—the things within things—just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple.” —Alice Munro I catch a lot of flak in my family for not being an avid dog lover. Every time someone raves about how much they love dogs, I get a sideways glance that barks, “Why can’t you be more like that?” The truth is that I like dogs, AND I have a hard time accepting Read More

Title: Images from Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics | Author: Kalle Lasn | Source: Adbusters | License: CC BY-NC 2.0

Factivists

I recently saw a simple and profound bumper sticker with just one word describing the driver’s orientation to life: FACTIVIST. I thought, now there’s a person I’d like to meet—an activist with command of the facts. In the last couple of weeks, I also read Stephen Pinker’s wonderful new book, Enlightenment Now and Jeremy Lent’s inspiring new book, The Patterning Instinct. Both of these books arm us with the facts we need to become more Read More

Title: Maya Angelou | Photographer: Susan Mullaly Well | Source: Burns LIbrary | License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Missions and Missionaries

“My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” —Maya Angelou On a recent biking trip on the Creeper Trail in Abington, VA with the Road Scholars, I learned that Barbara Kingsolver lived in the area and owned a restaurant there. Serendipitously, our group had dinner in her restaurant, and I was delighted to see all of her Read More

(Left: Title: Shoes taken off of the Jews-Holocaust Museum | Author: rpavich | Source: rpavich | License: CC BY 2.0) (Right: Berlin Holocaust Memorial)

The Menace of Mendacity

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters. —Albert Einstein There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting. —Buddha Truth is not a trivial thing. Words matter. Being accurate requires curiosity, diligence, and rigor. I know that everyone has a different idea about what is truth. Much of the debate started when Pontius Pilate asked Read More

Title: Blackbird on Mount Sinai, South Sinai, Egypt | Author: David Stanek | Source: Flickr | License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Prophets and Their Purposes

The world has been blessed with powerful messages from prophets of the past. Five of these prophets have a present-day influence on billions of people: Moses, Laozi, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. These five men were the impetus for Judaism, Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Those religions represent almost 6 billion of the 7.6 billion people on the planet. Given those numbers, it seems appropriate to discuss who they were and what they were about. Read More

Featured Author: George Yancy

On June 19th in the New York Times, George Yancy published a Stone article entitled “Is Your God Dead?” I was so inspired by the power and prose of his piece that I am turning the microphone over today to this brilliant scholar will not only give you a break from my endless ranting, but will hopefully rekindle your outrage and stoke your passion for justice. After I read this piece for the third time (yes, Read More

Title: Cnidaria, MultiView Light Sheet Microscopy (3 of 4) | Author: Helena Parra | Source: ZEISS Microscopy | License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Evolution of Consciousness

My wife sometimes accuses me of selective engagement. She says I am much more open to conversation with people whom I find physically attractive, intellectually stimulating, emotionally responsive, or spiritually evolved.

Guilty as charged. As it turns out, the idea of selective engagement goes back 500 million years.

Image Credit: Eleanor Caves and Claire Spottiswoode | Source: African Cuckoos

Shams and Shame

In the book, Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale, Henry Wonham quotes Twain as saying, “the moral responsibility of the American humorist is ‘the deriding of shams, the exposure of pretentious falsities,’ and ‘the laughing of stupid superstitions out of existence.’” Thus, he said, “the humorist is the natural enemy of royalties, nobilities, privileges, and all kindred swindles, and is the natural friend of human rights and liberties.” Twain offered high praise Read More

Title: Window of St. Mary’s Cathedral in linz | Author: Magdalena Sick-Leitner | Source: Ars Electronica | License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Sin and Spin

There is no greater sin than desire, No greater curse than discontent, No greater misfortune than wanting something for oneself. Therefore he who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. —Tao Te Ching, Chapter 46 It seems to me that religions focus too much on sin; and politics focuses too much on spin. They may both be guilty of the sin of spin and the spin on sin. Religions specifically call out the Read More

Title: Half Full Half Empty | Author: Thomas Hawk | Source: Flickr | License: CC BY-NC 2.0

Wisdom and Wealth

All religions allude to the challenge of acquiring enough wisdom to deal with whatever wealth you may have.

These various points of view help us address the questions, “What is wisdom?” and “How do you measure wealth?”

"Isaac Newton vs. Rube Goldberg" http://www.2dhouse.com/rubegoldbergmachines.php

Fear, Fantasy, Faith, and Facts

In the face of fear, most people either substitute fantasy for reality, cling more tightly to their faith, or distort the facts. It appears to me like a chain reaction: fear leads to fantasy that is then expressed in faith which creates its own convoluted “truth” or faux facts. With fear levels at unprecedented heights, we need to explore the components of this reaction more closely.

Title: November 24, 2015 | Author: David Gabriel Fischer | www.thezendiary.com

Truth, Honor, Integrity, and Sensitivity (THIS)

My dad was a man of honor. If he said he was going to do something, you could bank on it getting done. He was also a very talented man. He constructed two family houses pretty much by himself. He built me a small car from scratch. He invented aluminum two-by-fours for houses. I never saw him treat anyone with anything but decency and respect. Most importantly, he stood by his principles, and his word was gold.

"Generative Art - Drawing Machine" by Amber Case

The Many Sides of Extremism

I just finished two books that shed new light on service and sacrifice and put them in perspective. The first, Strangers Drowning, discusses multiple examples of moral extremism; the second, When Breath Becomes Air, describes the experience of a 37-year-old Stanford neurosurgeon who died of cancer the year he finished his residency and was about to embark on a stellar career. In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar shares the stories of people who broke all norms and Read More

20101230-dontvnctoyourself by Flickr user ClintJCL https://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/

The Wisdom of Walls

In response to public charges against his high school principle for soliciting sex from a 13 year old, Liam O’Brien, a 16-year-old student at the school, said: “I guess it’s unnerving, but at the same time I almost feel bad because it seems like the Internet creates this wall where people are separated from the reality of their decisions and so they explore things that they normally would never be OK with – that sort Read More

Photo by Sérgio Rola, http://unsplash.com/sergio_rola

Wonder and Wondering

In 1968, I met Stephen Williams at Fort Holabird, Maryland, where we were both enrolled in Army Spy School.

Photo by Master Wen on Unsplash, https://unsplash.com/@36chambers

Religion: For Better or For Worse

And it seems such a waste of time If that’s what it’s all about Mama, if that’s movin’ up then I’m movin’ out And if that’s what you have in mind Yeah, if that’s what you’re all about Good luck, moving up, ‘cause I’m movin’ out —Billy Joel In psychology, there is a body of work that suggests that confrontation may at times be necessary for change, but it is never sufficient. Similarly, one might Read More

"Falling Leaves, Winter" by torbakhopper

Consciousness: Physics, Philosophy, and Possibilities

Since I am turning 70 today, I thought I would post a bold article on the possibilities and potential of expanded consciousness. Carl Jung once said, “In history, everything depends on consciousness.” There are, however, many conflicting views on consciousness, how it can be defined, and its relationship to the brain.