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Martin LeFevre - Meditations - Latest News [Page 22]
Martin LeFevre: Why I’m Not a Buddhist, Part Two
Sunday, 7 October 2007, 7:30 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Many Buddhists make the same argument for why they belong to their religion that followers of theistic religions make. They maintain that humans need tradition and ritual because human nature has a tendency to drift (or plunge) off in any number ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Why I’m Not a Buddhist
Wednesday, 3 October 2007, 11:32 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s strange how one can sometimes have more in common with people that hold opposite views than one does with people who hold very similar views Such is the case with Buddhism, a ‘God-less’ religion with which I have much sympathy, but little simpatico. More >>
Yosemite Isn't Disneyland, Part Two
Saturday, 29 September 2007, 4:29 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
This column is an exchange between the President of the Ansel Adams Gallery, located in Yosemite Valley and one of the select members of “Yosemite Partners,” and myself. The letters reflect a strong divergence of views, embodying the debate between ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Yosemite Isn’t Disneyland
Wednesday, 26 September 2007, 12:09 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Yosemite Valley is essentially a half-mile to mile wide, and seven-mile long canyon between vertical granite walls rising 1000 meters or more from the floor. The living rock is as changeable in the light, and in the unimaginable span of geologic time, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: How I Became a Vegetarian
Monday, 17 September 2007, 8:52 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Fifteen years ago I was living in Silicon Valley across the street from Apple Computer’s corporate headquarters. The Santa Clara Valley was once a small jewel of apricot and cherry orchards running up to the Santa Cruz Mountains, above south San Francisco ... More >>
Mother Teresa’s Mistake
Friday, 7 September 2007, 10:38 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The way the Catholic Church, and the American media, have been spinning revelations about Mother Teresa’s more than half century long “dark night of the soul” is downright sinful. One expects propaganda in politics, but with religious matters, ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Practicing Death
Wednesday, 29 August 2007, 12:15 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s hot, but not too hot for a short hike in the Upper Park at noon. The grasses are desiccated, and the hills are somber brown, but the cliffs still beckon the eye and speak to the heart. More >>
Martin LeFervre: How Evil Works, Part Two
Monday, 27 August 2007, 10:45 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
We must rid ourselves of the illusion that we humans are evolving positively. It simply isn’t so that we are progressing as a species, except scientifically and technologically. But the need to believe it, and our Western conditioning (and perhaps ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: How Evil Works
Sunday, 19 August 2007, 5:58 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Evil is the intentional component of the collective darkness in human consciousness. It is the calculated expression of the entire content of the willful ignorance, hatred, envy, jealousy, and selfishness built up in the human mind and heart over the generations. ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: What Is Knowledge?
Sunday, 12 August 2007, 5:15 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge, especially with reference to its limits and validity, is called epistemology. Ironically, such specialization is at the heart of the problem of knowledge. Indeed, a philosopher who specializes ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: No Transformation in Hillaryland
Monday, 6 August 2007, 10:23 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Senator Barack Obama said recently that his presidency would unleash a "transformation" in America. "The day I'm inaugurated, the country looks at itself differently. And don't underestimate that power. Don't underestimate that transformation," ... More >>
Meditation: The Word Is Not the Thing
Thursday, 2 August 2007, 1:24 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Increasingly, it seems like there are just two seasons in California—the rainy season (from about November to March), and the fire season (the rest of the year). But after three months without precipitation, a rare summer storm brings some cherished ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: An Enquiry Into Romantic Love
Sunday, 29 July 2007, 4:36 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The war between the sexes has left many corpses and few unwounded combatants on the battlefield. Women, being the stronger sex emotionally, have won a Pyrrhic victory, in America at least. But what about romantic love? More >>
Martin LeFevre: The End of Nationalism?
Monday, 23 July 2007, 3:14 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Is dividing the world between ‘them’ and ‘us’ an unchangeable feature of human nature? Is the world as it’s always been, and will always be? Is there any such thing as human progress, except technologically? More >>
My Conversation With President Bush
Wednesday, 18 July 2007, 11:24 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
President Bush has been quietly inviting philosophers and theologians to the White House lately to discuss the ultimate questions of life. Having just returned from my probing conversation with The Decider, as he likes to be called, what follows ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Following the Water
Wednesday, 11 July 2007, 10:13 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s about 45 degrees Celsius; I sit in deep shade with my feet in the creek. Some kids throw rocks at the iron footbridge a couple hundred meters upstream, but despite the heat and noise, meditation ignites. More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Soul of the Universe
Monday, 9 July 2007, 8:20 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A group of guys are swimming in the creek at my sitting spot, so I walk a couple hundred meters upstream and put my pad down across the stream from a picnic site. There is a lone cyclist there, and the minute he leaves, a family descends on the ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: A Workable Global Polity, P. Three
Monday, 9 July 2007, 8:17 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The insight of a Global Polity of world citizens in the evolutionary birthplace of humankind began with a correspondence with the late Kenyan philosopher Odera Oruka. In 1992, we agreed that the UN framework would prove increasingly inadequate, and ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Summer Solstice
Tuesday, 26 June 2007, 11:13 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s been very hot in California’s Great Central Valley the past week. The creek beyond town has dwindled from streamlet to trickle to stagnant ponds in the space of that time. Water won’t run again until the winter rains come, so it’s the ... More >>
Creative Writing: Summer Solstice
Monday, 25 June 2007, 10:42 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It¹s been very hot in California¹s Great Central Valley the past week. The creek beyond town has dwindled from streamlet to trickle to stagnant ponds in the space of that time. Water won¹t run again until the winter rains come, so it¹s the last ... More >>
