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Speaking of the benefits of solitude, as in the previous post, a pandemic reading list of Chinese and Japanese hermits is always appropriate — even as pan...

The Conversation (an academic newsletter) describes briefly “Why philosophers say solitude can be helpful (even if you didn’t choose it).” Four bene...

Alas, Paul of Thebes is apocryphal, not an historical hermit; he is sprung from the creative quill of St. Jerome. Young Jerome was irascible, strong-willed, mov...

A number of characteristics of the early desert hermits of early Christianity both distinguish the hermits and also underscore important characteristics of all ...

Some of my favorite hermits of Western antiquity had “attitude.” What is “attitude”? — surliness, crankiness, anti-social behavior? This “attitude” would ...

Popular media eagerly links apropos music to the sensibilities of the present pandemic. Fans of pop-rock music will find “Living in a Ghost Town” by...

The coronavirus pandemic has prompted many columnists, bloggers, and popularizers to comment on solitude, usually addressed as a necessary coping mechanism. The...

Q. You have been pursuing meditation? A. Yes. It is going well. Just an aside, though: I notice in reading here and there a growing corporate and institutional ...

What could be simpler! The great thirteenth-century Zen philosopher Dogen reduces the sum of the journey on the Way to a short essay in his enormous Shobogenzo ...

Sadness and sorrow are universal, but cultures express themselves in different ways. Some cultures observe death and passing with formality, impassivity, steeli...