Why do we suffer? That is one of the fundamental questions we have been asking throughout our human history. And such a sense of suffering could be both internal and external. We often identify them as internal and external threats. Both are sometimes interchangeable, even inseparable. What are the external threats? Still, we suffer from … Continue reading Solomon’s Wisdom
Tag: #Religion
Seeking Knowledge and Wisdom
Life is difficult. As long as our ego dictates our lives, we can never get out of this mindset. It is inevitable. Being in this world and of this world, we can't be wholly egoless and selfless. Even saints and angels have a subtle sense of their ego and self. Given such a condition, we … Continue reading Seeking Knowledge and Wisdom
The World Around Us, The Universe Beyond Us
Language is one of the essential tools for communication. And it is more for one of our critical tools to understand the world around us and the universe beyond us. Like the birth of consciousness, our language was the inception of human history. At the moment when we asked ourselves who we are, where we … Continue reading The World Around Us, The Universe Beyond Us
Apollonian and Dionysian
Is our world in order or chaotic? It depends on how we see the world. If we are Apollonian, it should be in order. If Dionysian, it could be chaotic. It is one of the well-known dichotomies in Greek mythology, and one of the key concepts in understanding works of art, mainly invoked by Friedrich … Continue reading Apollonian and Dionysian
Love Our Enemies
Guernica, 1937 by Pablo Picasso Our human history is full of bloody incidents. We’ve been killing one another ever since. From tribal societies to modern nation-states the world has been indeed in a state of constant warfare. Peace is so rare and scarce. We can't keep it without our tremendous efforts. Where is a noble … Continue reading Love Our Enemies
Things as They Are
When we were a newborn baby, there was no distinction between the world and ourselves. We were utterly unconscious, spontaneous, even intuitive. The world looked chaos. Using a phenomenological term, it is epoché (suspension of judgment) to see things as they are. Unlike this phenological bracketing, however, for a baby, it is not suspension but … Continue reading Things as They Are
Four Noble Truths
After seven weeks of fasting and meditation, Buddha found the way of how we can address the reality that life is suffering. The solution is the Noble Eightfold Path. One of these eight practices is mindfulness, mentioned in this entry. This Noble Eightfold Path is actually the fourth component of the Four Noble Truths. Without … Continue reading Four Noble Truths
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