The Useless Tree

Taoism

  • Why “The Useless Tree”

         A visitor, named "visitor" appropriately enough, wondered, in a comment, about the title of this blog.  He/she guessed that it was from Chuang Tzu – and that is correct.  When I first started out, on my very first… Continue reading

  • Consumption

        Jared Diamond has an insightful op-ed in the NYT today.  He makes a point that is at once obvious yet still in need of a wide hearing: the developed world, and especially the US, enjoy a level of… Continue reading

  • Darryl Stingley, Taoist Sage

         The NYT Magazine did its annual collection of obituaries, The Lives They Lived, on Sunday.  One story in particular struck me, the reminiscence of Darryl Stingley.  For a man of my time and place that name carries a… Continue reading

  • Requiem for Benazir Bhutto

    This life we’re given comes in its own season, and then follows its vanishing away.  If you’re at ease in your season, if you can dwell in its vanishing, joy and sorrow never touch you.  This is what the ancients… Continue reading

  • Another Taoist Christmas

         Too busy with holiday commitments to blog.  But here’s some recycled thoughts on a Taoist Christmas:     I have blogged on a Taoist view, or my Taoist view, of Thanksgiving.  But what about Christmas?  What would a… Continue reading

  • Winter Solstice – reprise

         I don’t recycle too many posts here, but this is the busy season.  I am running out the door to the store and library and who knows where else.  So, let me re-post something that goes back to… Continue reading

  • The Tao of Virtuality

         Found an article on the China Daily site reporting on the Pew  Internet and American Life Project (which I had just noticed on the AP wire).       The report is large and covers a lot of ground,… Continue reading

  • More Taoist Cosmology

        A story today in the NYT describes some of the debates among physicists over the apparent order of the universe.  Is the seeming law-like "order" something that transcends space and time – something timeless and absolute – or… Continue reading

  • Ancient Sages in New Jersey

         Today’s news: Gov. on S. Corzine signed into law a measure repealing New Jersey’s death penalty on Monday, making the state the first in a generation to abolish capital punishment.      Confucius would be happy.  As I… Continue reading

  • Assisted Suicide

        This past Sunday, the NYT Magazine ran a piece on assisted suicide.  As I started to read it, I thought it conjured up certain Confucian themes, but by the time I had finished it, I was definitely thinking… Continue reading