i'm getting drafts with no bibliography. even with in-text citations, you need to have a bibliography list at the end of the draft

the following students should come to my office and input their first quiz

Nakescha Tabuteau, Marshall Stowe, Victor Velazquez & Luis Rodriguez

please, pass by my office and input your tests into the right scantron. this is way past due!!

if you don't do it you have no grade for the first quiz.

zen action = zen person: questioning = response

How does one think about not-thinking? The Master replied, "Without thinking."

without-thinking?

what this means is that context determines character. part of that context is the questioner's state of mind.

the master replies to the student's question rather than the student's question.

if a student reveals a nihilistic attitude, the master might say there is an essence to the person. if the student is bound to categories, the master might say there is no essence to the person. in this way, the master can more powerfully enter into the self-constituting of the student's own experiential flow (we always carry our baggage). by seeing the student's perspective (empathy), the master can modify that perspective as needed. thus, zen strives to return to the point at which experience, including thought, initially occurs. this emphasis on without-thinking is what is distinctive in the zen understanding of the person. 

zen follows the nay of thought.

heidegger helps here:  Das Fragen ist die Frömmigkeit des Denkens.

the zen context of a person is mu or "nothingness." 

through mu the student achieves personal-meaning. at the most basic, it means (hishiryô) without-thinking. at first, it may seem odd to regard hishiryô as a relationship.

in zen situations, however, personhood is grounded in without-thinking rather than thinking. so there is necessarily a gap between the zen buddhist's own without-thinking experience of relationships and an outside observer's objectified, thinking characterization of them. this is the essence of anatman.

in a sense the zen buddhist does not have a different meaning in each situation. it's like mr. X with different roles during the day: father, driver, student, cook, etc. 

a person doesn't have meaning or relationships; rather, a person achieves meaning through relationships. 

in the words of taoist zhuangtzi:

If you talk in a worthy manner, you can talk all day long and it will pertain to the Way. But if you talk in an unworthy manner, you can talk all day long and it will pertain to mere things. Tao and things—neither words nor silence are worthy of expressing it. Not to talk & not to be silent—this is the highest form of debate.

let's go tao with tao

kusta saksi, via juxtapoz

sorry, kids, this is a little bit late, but still in time for comments by next tuesday??

from our last discussion, there were different points brought up by pedro's intense but honest exploration of truth. i tried to respond to some of his points straight from the tao te ching. 

wu-wei: to yield is to come back again. 

this is deep: what lao-tzu suggests is that if "acting" means a voluntaristic approach to life, we'll be up for a stringent surprise. simply put: not all our plans bring fruit, the more reasons to yield. perplexity reigns! the process doesn't disappear: it comes back again and again multifariously! 

wu-wei also implies the ability not to "give up," but to "give forth," a mental flexibility. it means as cristopher once said "to be in tune" with tao. 

what is tao? nature doesn't have to insist.

i know, too poetic. too abstract. but nature IS poetic. the tao te ching communicates this through and through. 

being in tune with tao yields te:

te: with things, plans, projects? be a parent not a possessor, attendant, not master.

cycles: How can a man's life keeps its course if he will not let it flow?

as per pedro's suggestion: do you want to address our discussion of Bushido? 

go ahead!

sun tzu's the art of war

one of the most important treatises on war happens to be influenced by taoist principles. how come?