Tag Archives: desire

The Terrible Toos (Too Fat, Too Poor, Too Old…)

Too this, too that. Theatrical, but moving. Might bring tears. __________ Watching Jade Beall’s TED talk on body hatred recalled for me the general problem of human suffering described by John Koller in Asian Philosophies (2007, p. 9, fifth edition): … Continue reading

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Theorizing Desire

If you think about it, we respond to whatever arises into consciousness with desire, aversion, or neutrality. And the things that appear to consciousness are always in flux: they arise, they ripen, they decline from attention and disappear. Then others … Continue reading

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Thinking about Obsession and Compulsion

It’s that locked down quality that I’m thinking of, like a bulldog latched and focused on a limb. Dante, in his Inferno, sets the obsessive and compulsive in the outer circles of hell. The obsessive and compulsive are not as … Continue reading

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What, Exactly, Is Wrong With Bestiality?

__________ The above video is amusing, but also raises an interesting question: what is it, exactly, that’s wrong with bestiality? Notice that the perpetrator isn’t getting it on with women and fantasizing about animals; instead, he’s getting it on with … Continue reading

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The Tortoise Shell, the Umbrella, and Hindu Meditation

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says to Arjuna (Barbara Miller’s translation, pt. 2 stanzas 55-58): When he [the yogi] gives up desires in his mind, is content with the self within himself, then he is said to be a man whose insight … Continue reading

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Two lives, no books

This post comes from a brief exchange that I overheard, at a garage sale, yesterday morning. A man and a woman, both looking to be in their forties, paused at the same moment and gazed down into a box of books that was for … Continue reading

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Dialing for Love: She Wanted Miracle, Mystery, and Authority

This today in Spiegel: A German woman looking for love dialled the emergency police line 13 times saying she wanted to meet a policeman. And her wish came true — two officers arrived to disable her phone.

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“I Sought the Light”: A Poem by Santi Tafarella

  My heart, she said,   it goes out to you   like a pinched wick.

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Image of a Woman, in Solitude, Reading a Letter

Solider. Mother. Father. Son. Lover. Husband. Friend. Daughter. Sister. Brother. Stranger. Clergyman. Aquantance. Who is the letter from? Is she reading a letter sent to her, or spying words sent to another? In her solitude, as she reads, does she hear the person’s voice in her head? Is … Continue reading

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