Diary of a Daoist Hermit

Faith The Monks of St. Benedict serve as a salient example of good that has come from religious faith. In fact, there is a very strong argument that much of modern Western Europe was created by them. Everyone knows about the role that...

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I recently got involved in a minor controversy over planning in my town. The Sikh community wanted to buy some land and build a Gurdwara. The people who would be neighbours to this group made some wild accusations about the seating capacity of the building and things boiled over into...

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The Emotional Response Despair The preceding description of the crisis that we face is not primarily meant to convince the sorts of folks who would be interested in reading this essay that an environmental problem exists. That shouldn't be necessary because any intelligent, sensitive, well-read person who has...

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People often express real surprise that when I say that I see a role for religion in our society. To be honest, I often find myself thinking the same thing. But having said that, I can see some worth, in principle, of something even if I myself often find it...

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Economic Growth A second “sacred cow” that sabotages real environmental debate is the way that environmental destruction turns on the hinge of economic growth. As I mentioned above, our economy grows through the human activities that involve a financial transaction, and these almost invariably involve some sort...

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I've spent the last couple weeks diving into some of the new scholarship on Daoism. What's really exciting for me is that a body of research is being created for Daoism that is similar to what already exists for Christianity. That is to say that books are now...

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The Problem with Sacred Cows Another structural problem that undermines any significant approach to the environmental problems is that any significant attempt to deal with them can only do so by threatening two pillars of human society that are so fundamental that they are...

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One of the things that separates Daoism from other religious world-views is the way it has traditionally posited that the human body is an important part of the spiritual man. In contrast, most other religions have tended towards a form of dualism where something like a "soul" inhabits a...

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I'm still grinding away at my essay instead of working on the blog. I have lots of great ideas for blog posts, but no time. :-( Exponential Versus Linear Thinking Beyond the issue of positive feedback, there is one further element of the current crisis...

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This is the next part of the book I am writing. It doesn't really have much directly to do with Daoism, but it does address the issue of why I am what people usually call a "religious" instead of a "philosophical" Daoist. I'm using the provisional title of...

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I've been a bit negligent in posting to my blog over the last few months. Primarily, this is because I have been working on writing a long essay about an issue related to Daoism, but not directly relevant. I've been on the horns of a dilemma about whether...

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People who practice the Japanese martial arts have a ranking system that gives them some sort of feel for their progress in learning the system. Taijiquan is different. Most practitioners are not interested in learning how we compare to other people but how what we are now compared...

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People who are interested in such things usually spend a lot more time thinking about the term "Dao" than they do "De". But it is still very important, so much so that one of the oldest versions of the Laozi that has been found actually bears the title "De...

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Most people nowadays suffer from the delusion that it is possible to find happiness in the externalities of life. It isn't surprising that this is the case, because our culture pretty much rams this idea down our throats from an early age. Not only is it enshrined in the...

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One of the reasons that I have devoted so much of my life to the study Daoism is because I think of it as a rare and endangered part of our cultural heritage. I first saw this issue articulated by a Bill Moyer's clip on television where he showed...

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I just finished reading Karen Armstrong's latest book, The Case for God. Like everything else that I've read by her, I liked it a lot. She is obviously well read and passionately interested in religion. She is not an academic, but she isn't afraid of using big...

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I sometimes go to "meditation" sessions organised by various religious groups and I am often appalled by the confused ideas people have about "meditation". One of the things that especially bugs me is what goes by the name "guided meditation". For those of you who have not heard...

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I sometimes hear from people who assume that because I am a Daoist that I am a fan of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). I suspect that the hidden assumption is that TCM must be grounded in Daoism, so anyone who studies the Dao should have some affinity to it....

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A while back I wrote a post about the "episodic" nature of human existence. This was an attempt to explain one of those prosaic things with very profound implications that comes to a person as a result of internal alchemy. That is, in case you can't be bothered...

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One of the chapters of the Dao De Jing that "new age" people rarely quote is number five---the one that compares people to "straw dogs".Heaven and Earth are not benevolent.To them men are like straw dogs destined for sacrifice.The Man of Calling is not benevolent.To him men are like straw...

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I've been busy for a while doing the sorts of things a hermit does in the summer and it occurred to me how important they can be for a spiritual life. In fact, this thought came while I was picking red currants off the bush that grows in my...

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A while back I heard a fascinating radio documentary about how the events of our childhood influence the development of our nervous system. Basically, it suggested that our patterns of behaviour---both psychological and physiological---are shaped by the experiences that we have from infancy up until young adulthood. ...

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Last week I heard an economist by the name of Jeff Rubin talking about his book, Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. Basically, his thesis is that because of peak oil there is going to be a very significant increase in the price of...

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One of the perennial problems that Daoist "newbies" have is the way they tend to fixate on the idea of enlightened "Masters". I've already written a bit on the subject, but since it is one that so many people tie themselves into knots over, I think it bears dealing...

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Since I first started on the path that leads away from the land of dust, there has been an absolute explosion of books written on Daoism. This means that when someone develops an interest in the subject, there are no end of books that he or she can read....

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