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What Buddha Discovered While Sitting Under the Bodhi Tree
The monk Gautama awoke in the morning to the sound of birds singing. He was covered with dirt and dust, and his robe was so tattered and threadbare it no longer covered his body. He remembered seeing a corpse in the cemetery the day before, and he guessed that today or tomorrow people would lift… Read more
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Pakistan and Islam: An Ideological Confusion
It would seem self-evident that, as a Muslim homeland built in the name of Islam, Pakistan would be better equipped than most states to define the role of Islam in national politics. Yet, the debate on the place of Islam in national life has raged on, muddied by the claims and counter-claims of its many… Read more
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The Music of Words
As a writer you must care deeply about words. It is a good idea to dedicate some of your time to read quality literature every day. Make a habit of what is being written today and what was written by earlier masters. When you read their writings, go really slow. Notice the decisions that other… Read more
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What Sex Meant in Ancient Greece
In Plato’s Symposium, Aristophanes tells a story about the origin of human beings. According to his myth, humans descend from creature who had spherical bodies, genitals on the outside, four hands and feet, two faces each, and were divided into three genders: one group had two male genitals; the second group had two female genitals;… Read more
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What is Emotion?
The word emotion is a modern invention — and not a particularly helpful one. The first books to use the word in the title do not appear until the 19th century. The most famous of these is The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, by Charles Darwin, which was published in 1872. Philosophers… Read more
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Heraclitus: The Introvert Philosopher from Ancient Greece
Heraclitus (540–480 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who earned the reputation of ‘the riddler’. The title was fair too — consider what he had to say on the subject of death: Death is all things we see awake; all we see asleep is sleep. Obscurity was a trait that Heraclitus happily embraced. One commentator… Read more
