The Useless Tree

Taoism

  • Laozi’s Biography

    It seems that there is a new biography of "Laozi" published in China.  I haven't seen it yet, but Francesco Sisci reports that it is a "quasi-novel" by Yu Shicun.  That sounds about right – quasi-novel – to me, but… Continue reading

  • Return

    We're back from Ireland, just as the Daodejing would predict: Return is the movement of Way, and yielding the method of Way. All Beneath heaven, the ten thousand things, it's all born of being, and being is born of nonbeing. … Continue reading

  • Ephemera

    The show is over.  We had our last performance yesterday.  It was a great day – the Governor of Massachusetts was in the audience! – and a great run.  It was a marvelous five weeks.  But it's over now. By… Continue reading

  • More Thoughts on Taoism and Acting

    We have settled into the stretch run of Our Town: seven performances over the next five days.  Some nice photos over at our Facebook page.  The work has thus shifted from developing characters and relationships to consistently reproducing those characters… Continue reading

  • It’s not Zen, it’s Taoism

    Atul Gawande has a beautiful piece in last week's New Yorker on hospice care and end of life issues.  Having had end of life experiences in recent years with my son, my mother and my aunt, it really hit home… Continue reading

  • “Inception:” Zhuangzi on Steroids

    We saw the movie, "Inception," last night (reviews here and here).  It was fun.  An exploration of the dynamics of dreaming and the boundary between dreams and reality.  Visually stunning but not all that challenging philosophically (or should I say… Continue reading

  • Big Questions Online

    A new e-zine, Big Questions Online, opened today and I have a piece there, The Tao of Aidan.   Thanks to Rod Dreher for the opportunity to tell my son's story again.  Continue reading

  • In the company of actors

    This summer I am acting.  I have a small part in a regional theater production.  Rehearsals began yesterday and I want to write a bit about the experience, but I am going to do so in a circumspect manner, to… Continue reading

  • Mind Wandering

    Looks like psychologists have empirically confirmed a part of Zhuangzi: But now that researchers have been analyzing those stray thoughts, they’ve found daydreaming to be remarkably common — and often quite useful. A wandering mind can protect you from immediate… Continue reading

  • Diversion

    The blog has been quiet of late because I was on a bit of a holiday.  My wife and I took our daughter and her cousin to the new Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios in Florida.  It was… Continue reading