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There is a place where the flow of your environment and your inner impulses converge, and this is where you’ll find the next right step for you.  I’m just writing to encourage you all to listen a little more to your inner impulses, open your senses a little more intentionally to the space around you, and … Continue reading Spring Exhortation

Part Ten – Final Segment As we close out this series on Confucian and Daoist philosophy, there’s one question that keeps scratching at the edges of each reading for me: What happens when we try to apply any of this to our complicated, fragmented, 21st century lives? Does it hold up, and what does it … Continue reading Ancient Chinese Philosophy Wrap-up

Part Nine – The Zhuangzi In the Zhuangzi, there’s a story of a great oak tree who speaks to the carpenter in a dream. “As for me, I’ve been trying a long time to be of no use… how do you know I’m a worthless tree?” (60) The message is profoundly pro-life and anti-instrumentalist. What … Continue reading Ancient Chinese Philosophy

Part Eight Well, I finished the Mengzi book and started reading The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. It’s helped me clarify (again) that my whole project as a clinician and as a student of philosophy is about liberation. Where are the places within your mind-body-heart-spirit complex that … Continue reading Ancient Chinese Philosophy (Plus!)