Book contents
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- A Shakespearean Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 ‘A Spiritually Enlightened Individual’
- 2 ‘The Resources of a Much Earlier Phase of the Tradition’
- 3 The Distractions of Baruch Spinoza
- 4 Immanuel Kant: ‘To Regard as Petty What We Are Otherwise Anxious About’
- 5 Wittgenstein’s Cool Temple
- 6 Rilke, Shakespeare … and a Little Freud
- 7 Concealment and Revelation
- 8 Mindfulness and the Form of a Philosophical Life
- 9 Epictetus: ‘The Beginning of Philosophy …’
- 10 Ted Hughes: Evaporation, Translation, Translocation
- 11 Philosophy as an Inventive Convergence of Methods
- 12 Richard Norman: ‘The Truths It Contains Are Human Truths’
- 13 Perspectives: Marmalade Stains on the Breakfast Table
- 14 David Hume: Wanting the Natural Sentiments of Humanity
- 15 ‘What is the Difference between Love and God’s Love?’
- 16 ‘Peace, Wild Wooddove, Shy Wings Shut’
- 17 ‘Only a Little Snivelling Half-Wit Can Maintain That’
- 18 ‘The World Is Too Much with Us’
- 19 Of Self and SELF, of Ātman and Anātman
- 20 ‘I Am Myself Alone’
- 21 The Five Heaps or Skandhas
- 22 ‘We Claim That There Is a Person, but We Do Not Say That He Is an Entity’
- 23 Birds, Frogs, and Tintern Abbey
- 24 Human Resources and Hubris
- References
- Index
1 - ‘A Spiritually Enlightened Individual’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2021
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Cambridge Studies in Religion, Philosophy, and Society
- Spirituality for the Godless
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- A Shakespearean Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 ‘A Spiritually Enlightened Individual’
- 2 ‘The Resources of a Much Earlier Phase of the Tradition’
- 3 The Distractions of Baruch Spinoza
- 4 Immanuel Kant: ‘To Regard as Petty What We Are Otherwise Anxious About’
- 5 Wittgenstein’s Cool Temple
- 6 Rilke, Shakespeare … and a Little Freud
- 7 Concealment and Revelation
- 8 Mindfulness and the Form of a Philosophical Life
- 9 Epictetus: ‘The Beginning of Philosophy …’
- 10 Ted Hughes: Evaporation, Translation, Translocation
- 11 Philosophy as an Inventive Convergence of Methods
- 12 Richard Norman: ‘The Truths It Contains Are Human Truths’
- 13 Perspectives: Marmalade Stains on the Breakfast Table
- 14 David Hume: Wanting the Natural Sentiments of Humanity
- 15 ‘What is the Difference between Love and God’s Love?’
- 16 ‘Peace, Wild Wooddove, Shy Wings Shut’
- 17 ‘Only a Little Snivelling Half-Wit Can Maintain That’
- 18 ‘The World Is Too Much with Us’
- 19 Of Self and SELF, of Ātman and Anātman
- 20 ‘I Am Myself Alone’
- 21 The Five Heaps or Skandhas
- 22 ‘We Claim That There Is a Person, but We Do Not Say That He Is an Entity’
- 23 Birds, Frogs, and Tintern Abbey
- 24 Human Resources and Hubris
- References
- Index
Summary
The house has caught fire, the children are inside, absorbed in their games and their toys, oblivious of the cries and shouts outside. How do we get their attention, get them to come out before it is too late: better games, better toys – we have to entice them with something more attractive than what now diverts them, and yet within the limits of their understanding. This is from the Lotus Sūtra but there is something dreadful about it: no one is going to risk their life to go in and rescue them – they’re going to have to make their own way out – not for fear of the fire but for the sake of better toys and better games. We know too much about the horror of burning buildings, conflagration, whether in London or in Delhi or Dhaka. But even in the Lotus Sūtra, the story conveys desperate urgency about our predicament.
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- Spirituality for the GodlessBuddhism, Humanism, and Religion, pp. 11 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021