Ken Christenson
Author's posts
Jul 26
Young Buddha Speaks, Part-2: a Far More Voracious Creativity.
Sorry, this little essay is a “mouthful” yes. But that’s the point, you see. Please read to the bottom. All of Essay Thirty-five in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. When we claim to describe what’s Really going on by our words, no matter how beautiful, such words are already in error. Truth simply cannot …
Jul 24
Young Buddha Speaks, Part-1: Kick-Starting a ‘Verbal Selection Process’ for Ramifying Thought
A short selection from Essay Thirty-four in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay. —Stephen Jay Gould [1] …
Jul 22
Old Buddha’s Gift, Part-5: Young Buddha Finds a Trinket
A short selection from Essay Thirty-three in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] … though commoners have no method of ‘beating the cart’ … on the way of the Buddha … this is the very eye of study … it …
Jul 21
Old Buddha’s Gift, Part-4: Young Buddha Explores the Subtle Body
A short selection from Essay Thirty-two in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. Therefore, since the truth seems to be like the proverbial door, which no one can fail to hit, in this respect it must be easy, but the fact that we can have a whole truth and not the particular part we aim …
Jul 20
Old Buddha’s Gift, Part-3: Young Buddha Plays with the Absurd
A short selection from Essay Thirty-one in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] It may very well be that in our conscious inner lives the interplay among the senses is what constitutes the sense of touch. Perhaps touch is not …
Jul 17
Young Buddha at Home, Part-4: Lifting the Lid
A short selection from Essay Thirty in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. … and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man—such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite, and revenge for his mind —Bullfinch’s Mythology With the …
Jul 16
Young Buddha at Home, Part-3: Pandora’s Box
The fourth section of Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice begins. PART IV —Pandora’s Box Give me a lever, a fulcrum, and a place to stand, and I will move the Earth. —Archimedes Prometheus … Gk Myth a demi-god … worshiped by craftsmen. When Zeus hid fire away from man [author’s note: according to Bullfinch’s Mythology, fire …
Jul 15
Old Buddha’s Gift, Part-2: Bodymind Re-ligation
A short selection from Essay Twenty-Eight in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] … to understand religion and to affirm it are not the same but almost exactly the opposite. —Merleau-Ponty (as interpreted by Remy C. Kwant) [1] Objectivity is …
Jul 14
Old Buddha’s Gift, Part-1: the Body is Mind
A short selection from Essay Twenty-Seven in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] “If your cart doesn’t move,” [Dogen] asks, “is it better to prod the cart or to prod the horse (sic)” …everyone knows you should prod the horse …
Jul 09
Young Buddha leaves Home, Part-3: Awakening to Old Buddha’s Gift—the Bodymind
A short selection from Essay Twenty-Six in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is …
