The set of “principles of being” proposed here may not always seem self-evident. But they are timeless and universal. They appear repeatedly across cultures and epochs, across disparate religious traditions and philosophical schools of thought, across social science disciplines and diverse historical analyses throughout the ages. It is their commonality that makes them unique.

My aim with these posts is to support a deeper understanding of the nature of the reality we are living and an awareness of how our thoughts work with or against that reality to determine the quality of our lives.

Many of us have a sense that life is weird. We sense that so early in our lives that it becomes a part of the background of our being–so much so that we forget that we sense it so profoundly. Alan Watts described it this way: “It’s like waking up after never having gone to sleep. There is something fishy about it all . . . We get a funny feeling when we think these questions really through.”

I’m okay with the funny feeling. I want to think these things through as deeply as possible.