You should not say, 'I know what Zen is,' or 'I have attained enlightenment.' ... According to tradition, Hui-neng became the sixth patriarch of Chinese Zen by superseding his rival in the intuitive grasp of the truth of enlightenment. ... Knowledge of Buddhism has come through three main channels in the West: Western scholars; the work of philosophers, writers and artists; and the arrival of Asian immigrants who have brought various forms of Zen Buddhism with them to Europe, North America and Australia (Web. ... Suzuki claims, "When we have the traditional spirit to...

• Word Count: 3600
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Galileo wrote:By the aid of a telescope, anyone may see that all the disputes which have tormented the philosophers through so many ages are resolved at once by the unmistakable evidence of our eyes, and we are freed from wordy disputes upon this subject, for the Milky Way is nothing else but a collection of innumerable stars planted together in groups? ... In 1597, his friend, Jacopo Mazzoni, a philosopher, published a book against the motion of the Earth. ...

• Word Count: 4135
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

The Matrix of Man, Technology, and Reality And how the program for The Matrix Was written hundreds of years ago Introduction: What is the Matrix? Which pill will you take; will it be the red one or the blue? Will you choose the blissfulness of ignorance, or will you see how far down the rabbit hole goes? This is a question you need to answer, when you decide to dive into the philosophy of the Matrix, one of the biggest blockbuster film trilogies, joining notable other such film trilogies as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Terminator, and Star Trek. The Matrix although it has the ability...

• Word Count: 4259
• Approx Pages: 17
• Grade Level: High School

The monks informed Usui that the route to uncovering the lost jewels of healing could only be found on the path of the Dharma, the Buddhist teachings, which illumine the path to Enlightenment (Stein 9). The life of Christ has many parallels to the life of the Buddha, and many of the brightest lights in antiquity have uncovered the seed of Enlightenment in the Buddhist manner (Stein 9). ... Some historians and philosophers speculate that the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth traveled in his youth (during the period that is unknown of his life) seeking out the wisdom traditions of the day....

• Word Count: 10422
• Approx Pages: 42
• Grade Level: High School

The Thought of One Ayn Rand, the author of many inspirational novels is one of the most controversial authors of the twentieth century. She defines her self as, "I am not primaraly an advovate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recog...

• Word Count: 2861
• Approx Pages: 11
• Grade Level: High School

According to the thoughts of philosophers Marcuse, Adoron, and Horkhiemer, today's culture industry is a tool to subdue the masses from realizing real problems in the world around them, and that culture's main role in a society is to question the standing beliefs. ...

• Word Count: 3068
• Approx Pages: 12
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Nazism and art. Can these two themes be combined to create a high quality movie? Possibly. That is what director Istvan Szabo did. He directed the movie Mephisto in 1981, a movie about the life of a German actor during Nazi's rule pre-World War II. ...

• Word Count: 3223
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

This mystery soldier is the one who ignores the forewarnings prompted by the most respected philosophers of our time, and although he knows that war leads to carnage, continues to fight until an opposing bullet kills him. ...

• Word Count: 4790
• Approx Pages: 19
• Grade Level: High School

Technology was being used to transform myth into reality.1 Much later, mechanical ducks and humanoid figures, crafted by clockmakers, endlessly amused the Royal courts of the Enlightenment-age Europe. ... However, writers and artists were not bound by the limits of science in exploring extra-human intelligence, and the Jewish myth of the Golem, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, along with that movie and other old ones gave us new ideas for other AI movies, but the point being it gave us new - and troubling - versions of the manufactured humanoid.3 Between these engineers and authors, t...

• Word Count: 5546
• Approx Pages: 22
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

One of Thomas Jefferson's most avid lifelong interests was his library. His first collection of books was largely destroyed by fire in 1770, but the twenty- six-year-old lawyer immediately set out to replace it with a more extensive li- brary, one that would encompass virtually the whole of reco...

• Word Count: 4278
• Approx Pages: 17
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

As Michael Bliss says, "this pattern of violence followed by enlightenment continually reasserts itself, a horrifying situation since it makes violence a prerequisite to self-awareness.... As the Catholic philosopher Paul Ricoeur says: Guilt becomes a way of putting oneself before a sort of invisible tribunal which measures the offense, pronounces the condemnation, and inflicts the punishment; at the extreme point of interiorization, moral consciousness is a look which watches, judges and condemns; the sentiment of guilt is therefore the consciousness of being inculpated and incriminated ...

• Word Count: 6941
• Approx Pages: 28
• Grade Level: High School