Philosophical Questions"Who am I?" Maybe you've never even asked yourself this question. You might think you already know who you are. Unfortunately, however, it's likely that you don't know who you are at all. And if you don't know your real identity, you're in trouble. You'll spend your life in a kind of dream state—you'll falsely identify yourself as something or someone you aren't. Then, on the basis of this false identification, you'll determine the goals of your life and the purpose of your existence. You use these goals to gauge whether you are making "progress" in life, whether you are a "success." And you are aided and abetted in this delusion by a complex network of relationships with other dreamers. Of course, at death (and sometimes before), the whole thing turns into a nightmare.
The practice of philosophy is a way of life that results from falling in love with questions---the great mythic questions that can never be given definitive answers. As a Writer, Lecturer and Sensei I have focused on exploring these questions:
How can I find a meaning, purpose, vocation for my life?
What can I know?
ought I to do?
For what may I hope?
Is there life beyond death?
Whom do I love? Who loves me?
What curtails my freedom?
How can I escape from the constricting social, political, sexual, and economic myths that were imposed on me by my family and culture?
To what cause, ideal, faith may I surrender without destroying the integrity of my self?
What does it mean to experience the sacred?
How can I live a spirited life in a world dominated by a secular-technological-economic vision of reality?
How can we create a more just and peaceful world?