In praise of the present moment

One of the things that helped me realize the need for self-improvement by not-self-improvement was regular practice with the excellent Headspace meditation app, created by a former Tibetan monk named Andy Puddicombe. Headspace is at the epicenter of “McMindfulness”: the Continue reading In praise of the present moment

Self-improvement by not-self-improvement

Years ago, in a difficult period of my life, I had looked for philosophical help and explicitly found it in Buddhism and not Daoism, rejecting Daoism and its sudden-liberation views in about the strongest possible terms. But that wasn’t the Continue reading Self-improvement by not-self-improvement

Conference on “Spiritual exercises, self-transformation and liberation in philosophy, theology and religion”

Pawel Odyniec, who is among the foremost experts on Vedānta and on K.C. Bhattacharya, organised a conference that looks extremely thought-provoking on May 22nd–24th. Please read more about the participants (among which Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, James Madaio, Jessica Frazier, Karl-Stephan Bouthilette…) Continue reading Conference on “Spiritual exercises, self-transformation and liberation in philosophy, theology and religion”

Who cares about phenomenological similarities?

I think one often learns the most about a philosopher from those points where her views change. With that in mind, I’d like to highlight a way I think my own thought has changed recently. Ten years ago on this Continue reading Who cares about phenomenological similarities?

Mystical experience across cultures

There are likely a number of religious-studies scholars who would cringe and groan at Roland Griffiths’s studies of drug-induced mystical experience. I haven’t gone into their literature in a while, but I think it would be easy for them to Continue reading Mystical experience across cultures

Book Review of Indian and Intercultural Philosophy: Personhood, Consciousness, and Causality by Douglas L. Berger (Reviewed by Chris Rahlwes)

Douglas L. Berger. Indian and Intercultural Philosophy: Personhood, Consciousness, and Causality. viii + 231 pp., London, New York, and Dublin: Bloomsbury Academic. 2021. $115 (hardback). In the introduction of Indian and Intercultural Philosophy Berger notes: “In certain respects, a number Continue reading Book Review of Indian and Intercultural Philosophy: Personhood, Consciousness, and Causality by Douglas L. Berger (Reviewed by Chris Rahlwes)

Preliminary thoughts on divine omnipresence

Within the paradigm of rational theology (in my jargon, God-as-Lord or Īśvara), can God have a form and a body?… Do They need one? Possible arguments in favour of Their having a body:  —Yes! They need it to exercise Their Continue reading Preliminary thoughts on divine omnipresence

Perennial nondualism

I have spent a good deal of time criticizing the idea of a “perennial philosophy”, the idea (expressed by Ken Wilber and others before him) that the great sages of the world have always basically agreed on the really important Continue reading Perennial nondualism