Why Read Dostoevsky
It was never my goal to put together a collection of horror stories, to overwhelm the reader. I was collecting the human. Dostoevsky asked the question: “How much of the human is there in a…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
Forthwith!
All we can know is, what we, who compose humanity, must do, and what not, in order that the kingdom of God may come. That we all know. And every one need but begin to…
Tolstoy’s Feedback for Dostoevsky
“Just recently I was feeling unwell and read House of the Dead. I had forgotten a good bit, read it over again and I do not know a better book in all our new literature,…
Minute Particulars
Active love is always directed at somebody or something in particular. Abstract love of humanity is professed by Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor, by Rakitin, and eventually by Ivan Karamazov’s devil. When it comes to meeting…
Precepts and Parables
Of all the gospels, the Sermon on the Mount was the portion that impressed me most, and I studied it more often than any other part. Nowhere else does Christ speak with such solemnity; nowhere…
Reveling in Resentment
The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him,…
An Incomplete and Ever-expanding List of the Horrible (and Often Absurd) Beauty of It All by Yael
Ram Dass in Risk Being Human talk: “…and I began to expand my awareness to be able to look at the universe as it is and see the horrible beauty of it all…” An incomplete…
Chris Wallach and I Inter-Are
Care is something one learns by observing the way careful/caring people live. It is not a quality that can be learned from a text on moral psychology or Buddhist ethics but only by living and…
Some of Jack’s Dharma
Practice recognition of complete emptiness of all things at all times, under every condition, everywhere, and you will learn by yourself what Buddha preached. Free from Desire: What I really only want, what Ma’s given…
Share the Wealth with Christina Gebel: “Hello, God. I’m Not You.”
In the summer of 2022, I found out I was not God. It might sound like a silly conclusion to come to, or a good one if I’m an otherwise self-absorbed, prideful narcissist. Whatever I…