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Jackson Houser's avatar

We have dialogs between Confucius and Lao Tzu, recorded out of aether, I would guess, by some devoted Taoist decades after both were dead, but still it can be delightful to be served a steaming cup, lovingly prepared according to the ancient ways, and after rituals of gratitude and thanks, to take a sip and savor: tea!

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Diamond-Michael Scott's avatar

Yes! 🙌

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Michael Portelance's avatar

Thank you.

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Ken Kaplan's avatar

I think there are good points here but wild over generalizations. If we follow the advice of the article iself, there is a need for rigorous thinking and exploring about very complex social and cultural movements, like a stone slowly sinking to the bottom of a river.

I find it ironic that a populist article is written to criticize poplulism.

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Ken Kaplan's avatar

This feels to me like a return to the 70's when the major criticism of emerging "New Age" spirituality was that is was a form of "dilletantism", and not grounded enough in real

traditions. I always argued in any form that emerges there will be shadow but real light at the center.

Catholiscism, for example, has been one of the greatest blights in the history of humanity, yet it has produced some of its greatest Saints.

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Rodney J Owen's avatar

Finding the "self" is an exercise in futility. The best one can hope to find is to discover what St. Francis pointed out: "What we are looking for is what is looking." The same goes for "self" improvement. It's an illusive target. What we can affect is our actions. Via right action we find ourselves in right relation. Everything else follows.

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Ken Kaplan's avatar

Who is the doer in all of this?

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Patty Ortiz's avatar

A lot of “nuggets” of wisdom - thank you. In difficult work I think of the pan mining analogy (a west thing I guess). You have to sort through a lot of mud, grit, sand, rocks to find those couple glints of gold. It’s work, it’s a process.

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