“The devil of complacency is in the ignorance of detail.” This is another post that I’ve resurrected, and updated, from four years back, because it places the Extremophile Choice hypothesis in the context of the broader, and not the more fashionable, ecological discussion. The original has earned more attention from ecological nerdom than many of my other blogposts, so …
Tag: Evolutionary Ecology
Aug 30
Young Buddha’s Dreamscape, Part-3: Our Relation to Each Other
A short selection from Essay Fifty — one of the longer essays, and THE LAST — in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice The Great Way is not difficult; just avoid picking and choosing. —from the Hsin Hsin Ming [1] A Buddhist monk commits to pay attention to whatever “arises” in his or her daily life and, when it’s clearly helpful, …
Aug 29
Young Buddha’s Dreamscape, Part-2: Relation to Tools and other ‘Behaviour Extensions’
A short selection from Essay Forty-nine — one of the longer essays, and the second last — in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice There is something in this [experimental path] which reminds us of the obstinate adherence of Columbus to his notion of the necessary existence of the New World; and … may serve to teach us reliance on those …
Aug 25
Young Buddha’s Dreamscape, Part-1: Relation to the Living World
A short selection from Essay Forty-eight — one of the longer essays, and third from the end — in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice Everyone has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of a dry leaf of an old table …
Aug 22
Young Buddha Meets Old Buddha, Part-3: Do Buddha’s have Bodies with Dreamscapes to Fill?
A short selection from Essay Forty-seven in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharmas intimately. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. …
Aug 18
Young Buddha Meets Old Buddha, Part-2: What the Tree of Knowledge can Learn from the Tree of Life
A short selection from Essay Forty-six in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] 9 … God caused to spring up … the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the …
Aug 16
Young Buddha Meets Old Buddha, Part-1: Realizing that Humans are Naturally Compromised
A short selection from Essay Forty-five in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. Do not depart from deceptions and errors; for they of themselves are the nature of True Reality. When all things are illumined by wisdom and there is neither grasping nor throwing away, then you can see into your own nature and gain …
Aug 15
Young Buddha leaves Home, Part-5: Trouble with ‘Visionary’ Philosophies
A short selection from Essay Forty-four in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. [YOU MIGHT WANT TO SKIP THIS ON A FIRST READING OF THE TWO BUDDHAS SEQUENCE] The subtle source is clear and bright; the branching streams flow in the dark. To attach to things is primordial illusion; to encounter the absolute is not …
Aug 09
Old Buddha’s Gift, Part–7: Extravagant Flights of Fancy
A short selection from Essay Forty-two in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. Miss Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled with decided emphasis, “Think.” In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an abstract idea. …
Aug 08
Can Humanity KNOW ITSELF without Knowing the GREAT GOD PAN? Part-4: The Problem of Motivation
A selection (not so short) from Essay Forty-one in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet, believing what we don’t believe does not exhilarate. —Emily Dickinson [1] So with the stage thus set, we are now finally ready to examine the benefits that flow …