ericgerlach79
Gerlach is German and rhymes with bear-lock. I was born and raised in the Haight Ashbury of San Francisco, moved to Berkeley for college and grad school, with an MA in History of Religion from the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, and now teach Philosophy and the history of human thought at Berkeley City College. I have taught Intro Philosophy, Ethics, Logic, Asian Philosophy, Greek Philosophy, Modern European Philosophy and Social & Political Philosophy there for the past several years, and it has been a joy.
Thought Itself 
October 20, 2020 at 4:04 am
I am not sure what to listen to next, seeing as everything is being posted so quickly, but this was a joy. In my later teens I adored the Tao-Te-Ching before getting beat up by Zen and falling in love with it.
One of my favorite guys on Zen, R.H Blyth, talks about Zen being born from the clash of the high flown and verbose metaphysics of indian buddhism and the more pithy, grounded (heavily taoist influenced) culture of china. This sits very well with me, as Zen doesn’t seem to be concerned with say… “living a long life” life taoism is, but does carry over its style and language… Curious on your thoughts here.. that is, on what Zen carries over from Taoism.
As said before, excited for the oncoming lectures !
October 20, 2020 at 5:21 pm
I grew up with the Dao on a bookshelf, and it was weird poetry to me until I was a teen myself. I never realized how Daoist Zen was until I had to write it out for lectures in these later years, so I plan to take my time going through the Daoist texts and then Zen texts, koans and stories. I truly think having more of this and other philosophy out online can help people, and it isn’t out there as it should be yet. At least, it isn’t in my Anglophonic sphere, and that is significant in the world today.