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Can Meditation Help Enable Human Flourishing?
In my first piece for The Partially Examined Life, I consider what the latest scientific research on mindfulness and meditation means for project of human flourishing.
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Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism Is True
An invaluable introduction to the riches of secular, naturalistic Buddhism.
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Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia
I am very happy to have had the chance to analyse Billy Griffiths’ Deep Time Dreaming – a book which considers non-Indigenous Australia’s coming to terms with it’s Indigenous past. The excellence of Griffiths’ work is to use archeological discovery as a prism to reflect on issues of dispossession, identity and socio-political change. It is an important and…
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On Tibetan Buddhism and Secularism
I have a new piece about Tibetan Buddhism and atheism over at Philosophy Now. The article explores Tibetan mythology, ritual and belief through a review of The Monk and the Philosopher: A Father and Son Discuss the Meaning of Life. Check it out.
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Tangled Thoughts of Leaving Yield To Despair
Yield to Despair, the new album from Tangled Thoughts of Leaving, opens with a cacophony of crackling noise, growling bass and pounding drums. It’s an abrasive opening to a difficult and often gruelling record. The progressive flourishes that helped this Perth powerhouse to breathe new life into the glittery corpse of post-rock on their debut…
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Viktor Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist, was interned in a number of concentration camps during World War II, including the infamous Auschwitz. His parents and young wife were also interned, though Frankl was the only member of his family who survived long enough to see freedom. Man’s Search for Meaning is, in part, a…
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Sam Harris’ Waking Up
Sam Harris, the author of Waking Up, is best known as one of the “Four Horsemen” of the “New Atheist” movement. I first heard him speak on atheism in the summer of 2007 and was struck not so much by his disdain for the destructive potential of Biblical prophecy, but rather his interest in mysticism…
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Cuba: Walking the path between myth and reality
Part 1: First impressions and façade As I stepped off the plane at José Martí Airport, haggard and sleep-deprived, I was embraced by a gust of hot, wet Caribbean air. It had taken three days but I had finally arrived in Havana, Cuba. The intense humidity helped me stir some semblance of consciousness as I…
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George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London
George Orwell moved to London in 1927. Heavily disillusioned from his time at as police officer in Burma, he resolved to make his living as a writer. In the two years following, Orwell struggled intensely with homelessness and poverty in shelters across London and Paris. His first book, Down and Out in Paris and London,…
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Don DeLillo’s White Noise
White Noise was my first experience with Don DeLillo. I’d heard his name uttered over the years, usually coupled with the recognition that he is one of the most important novelists in recent decades. DeLillo’s literary gifts were apparent from the moment I began reading; his metaphors are sublime; his prose, smooth and easy to…