Jun 24
A short selection from Essay Twenty in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. The man pulling radishes pointed the way with a radish —Haiku by Issa The wolf is tied by subtle threads to the woods he moves through. —Barry Lopez [1] Our inner cave-man can clearly see his world has changed, but despite the …
Jun 21
The Whole of Essay Nineteen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice. It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer. —William of Ockham [1] The flexible behaviour of higher animals can’t be trusted to maintain resource partitions; only innate structure can. Thus ecological stability requires not only that inapposite curiosity …
Jun 16
The Whole of Essay Seventeen in Darwin, Dogen, and the Extremophile Choice: The story of Old Buddha ends (for the moment) and the story of Young Buddha begins. I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. —Friedrich Nietzsche [1] The final lesson to take from our …
Jun 08
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 01
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
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 16
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 …
