Ken Christenson
Author's posts
Jun 08
Old Buddha Speaks, Part-2: Sexual Traits Guide Reproduction of Species just as Words Guide Reproduction of Ideas
A short selection from Essay Fifteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. A bird might marry a fish, but where would they live? —Tevye character, in Fiddler on the Roof For the need of a niche, or for the good of a ‘race’, sexual traits intensify the cut of new species, just as they …
Jun 04
Thoughts on the 2022 Ontario Election: the Meaning of LEADERSHIP for Human Beings
[If you came across this post in the TWO BUDDHAS sequence, it’s a diversion that belongs with the main sequence of uncategorised posts; just skip it and go on to the next post.] Many of us are trying to make sense of the desperately apathetic response to the greatest challenge of ALL human history revealed …
Jun 01
Old Buddha, Part-4: The Tree of Life ‘Conceptualizes’ its Own Form
A short selection from Essay Fourteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice According to modern ecological theory, high diversity at any trophic level of a community is possible only under the influence of cropping. —Steven M. Stanley, 1973 [1] The wolf makes the deer strong. —Oji-Cree stone-age wisdom Though the young of a species …
May 30
Old Buddha Speaks, Part-1: Resource-Partitions, ‘Favoured’ by Competitive Exclusion, are ‘Codified’ by Sexual Traits
All of Essay Thirteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. … the result is not death to the unsuccessful competitor, but few or no offspring. Sexual selection is, therefore, less rigorous than natural selection. —Charles Darwin [1] From the ecological standpoint, a species is a population of organisms that can’t breed beyond itself without …
May 27
Old Buddha, Part-3: the Trees of Life and Knowledge are not the Trees you Know.
A short selection from Essay Twelve in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice The heavy is the root of the light. The unmoved is the source of all movement. Thus the master travels all day without leaving home. However splendid the views, she stays serenely in herself. Why should the lord of the country flit …
May 25
Old Buddha, Part-2: Natural Selection is “Selfless” Selection
A short selection from Essay Eleven in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] If, wherever you are, you take the role of the host, then whatever spot you stand in will be a true one. Then whatever circumstances surround you, they …
May 23
Old Buddha Meets Young Buddha, Part-1: A Contract Broken?
A short selection from Essay Ten in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. Look again at that dot … every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there—on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam … In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come …
May 21
Old Buddha, Part-1: the Tree of Life
The second section of Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice begins. PART II —Darwin and the Tree of Life … as a result of competition two similar species scarcely ever occupy similar niches —Georgii Frantsevich Gause [1] I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, …
May 17
Two Buddhas, Part-6: What is it “Like” to know?
A short selection from Essay Eight in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] Primordial Awareness [the Way] is perfect and all-pervading. How could it be dependent upon practice and realization? The movement of Reality does not need us to give …
May 16
The Great God Pan, Intelligent Designer? Part-2: But, how can Evolving Ecosystems be Conscious?
A short selection from Essay Seven in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] Personally, I (as a thinking mind) prefer the reflecting pool simile given in Two Buddhas, Part-5 over the other more discrete conceptions of consciousness listed there; for …
