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on humour
I love a laugh. It’s probably my favourite thing in the world—better than sex, even! And so I’ve often wondered, particularly as I’ve spent more and more money on stand-up tickets, what’s so good about it? It definitely feels good to laugh, but I think it goes even deeper than that. For a start, I…
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dead or alive?
As a kid, I had this little wood carving of a man crouched over in a cross-legged position, appearing to cry into his hands. I was told it was called the weeping Buddha. I don’t know what happened to that carving, but I came across another as I was browsing a store some two years…
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philosophy without religion (& vice versa)
I’ve often said that if I ever did a PhD, I would want to do it in Asia. From what (admittedly little) research I’ve done, their universities often seem to combine their departments of philosophy and religion. In fact, I recall reading somewhere (I think in A Short History of Chinese Philosophy by Feng Youlan?)…
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Kiviuq
In grade three or four (something like that), for one of our classes, each of us had to give a presentation on one of the provinces or territories. I chose Nunavut, which is Canada’s most recently established province or territory, only becoming official in the 1990s. Why did I pick it? To be honest, I…
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zen & tidying
Earlier this year, I did the Kon-Mari method of tidying. You may have heard of it from that book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo. Funnily enough, I’m not sure I ever embraced the method fully. I have to accept that I didn’t set aside a day to make an “event” of…
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silent music
Meditation halls are very, very quiet places. The one I find myself in every week is no exception. Sitting there, I can hear all of the minutest and subtlest sounds a human being will ordinarily make: the rhythmic sound of one’s breathing, the ruffling of clothes as someone adjusts their posture, and the grumbling of…
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the land of enchantment
My favourite place in the United States is undoubtedly New Mexico. It’s difficult to put a finger on it, especially after so long, but it really is the land of enchantment. Perhaps it’s the particular beauty of its desert, or the fusion of Hispanic and American culture. It has a certain aesthetic that’s hard to…
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Atheology, or Theology for Unbelievers
Theology is a strange discipline—that much I’ve learned in the two-ish years that I’ve studied it. One the one hand, I have found that theology can easily become, if you’ll forgive me, philosophically lazy, particularly when dealing in the theologies of revealed religions. I say this not to disparage it, but simply as an observation…
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Shantideva
“Sleeping, eating, and shitting.” Those were said to be the three realisations of Shantideva, who was an exceptional Buddhist monk famous for delivering the Way of the Bodhisattva off-the-cuff per the request of his confrères who intended to throw him out of the monastery. You might laugh, as I certainly did. It’s seen as uncharacteristic…
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