Opening to Oneness: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to the Zen Precepts

Opening to Oneness: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to the Zen Precepts

Nancy Mujo Baker
Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala, 2022. 247 pp., paper, $21.95.

There are precepts without Buddhism but no Buddhism without precepts.

—Bernie Glassman

I remember standing next to swami in a Sunday School as he asked a little girl, “What is your name, dear?” She replied, “My name is Mary, but everyone calls me ‘Mary Don’t.’”

The first thing that struck me about Nancy Mujo Baker’s book is how she has chosen to present the precepts, the prime ethical injunctions of Buddhism. We always see precepts with “do not” or “thou shalt not.” Baker replaces the “not” with “non”: “Do not kill” becomes “non-killing,” and “Do not steal” becomes “non-stealing.” It is a transcendent invitation to merge the teachings from the precepts in our daily life.

Baker’s book consists of two parts. Part 1 is a workbook or study guide for students who will formally participate in jukai—the precepts ceremony—or for anyone who is studying to live by the Buddhist precepts. The book emphasizes practice. Baker writes that the Zen master Dogen “urges us to have our practice to be total, whole, undivided, sincere, authentic from moment to moment.” That means integrating the precepts in our language, thinking, reason, and action.

Part 2 of the book delves deeply into living with the precepts. This part consists of an inquiry, deeply influenced by Dogen’s teachings, to examine the “oneness of Zen and the precepts.” What is this “oneness”? According to Baker, “Dogen’s treatment of ‘suchness’ and the ‘nonduality of duality’” is at the heart of how Zen takes the precepts.

Baker has a unique three-step approach to look at why we fail to live with the precepts. First is to extend the narrow, literal meaning of the precept (“non-stealing doesn’t mean just money!”). The second step is to know ourselves in relation to the precept. It is a practice of no preference, no judgments, no shoulds or shouldn’ts, no ideas of failure. It is just seeing who we are and asking: am I a stealer, killer, or liar? Step 3, a natural outcome of the first two, is how the precepts begin to appear in our actions.

The Buddha taught that the only way we can be free of our sufferings and delusions is to face them and go through them, using them in the process. In the Zen tradition it is said, “If you fall down because of the ground, you must use the ground to get up.”

Baker mentions three things that have influenced her understanding of the precepts. First, being a retired philosophy professor, she has a great interest in languages and how we use words that can point to multiple meanings: “For example, in the case of second precept, non-stealing, we tend right away to reify it into a single meaning—say, ‘not taking what doesn’t belong to me’—when we could be asking, ‘Stealing what? Money? Time? Attention? The last cookie on the plate that doesn’t yet belong to anybody?’” The second thing that influenced her was teaching at a college that strongly emphasizes drawing out the deepest and best in students. Everyone is different, and everyone would relate to the precepts in a unique way. Our work with precepts is intensely personal. Unless we know what we are hanging on to, letting go is not possible.

The third source of Baker’s influence is A.H. Almaas’s psychospiritual Diamond Approach. The first step here is recognizing and truly acknowledging our conditioning without judgment. The second is the value of working with others in this inquiry of who we are. She says, “The Diamond Approach has taught me that learning to voluntarily open up with others is a very effective way to start ending the personal version of distinction between inside and outside, not to mention the self and other, and thus to experience an important aspect of oneness and true freedom.” Each chapter in Baker’s book ends with immensely useful partner or group exercises.

Learning to live with the Buddhist precepts is not just following or obeying some ethical guidelines. As we grow, we transition from good and bad to right and wrong. When we sit for meditation, where does “good and bad” come from? When we see clearly, our relationship with the precepts change. Instead of merely obeying the precepts, we become one with them. It is this level of living that Baker attempts to point out to us. It is the realm of the absolute. Dogen said, “When we sit Zazen, what precept is not observed, what merit is not actualized?”

I went back to read about non-stealing. We steal in so many subtle ways. When I say, “I’ll do this task later,” I am stealing time. When I do something with only a part of myself, I am stealing from the whole. When I am full of expectations, I am stealing from the future and missing the present. Such perspectives trigger a different realization. Zen master Bernie Glassman called these triggers that expand our awareness a “plunge.” Baker says, “Working with the precepts in the way mentioned in this book, and doing so in the presence of others, is a plunge.”

Why don’t we?

Dhananjay Joshi

The reviewer, a professor of statistics, has studied Hindu, Zen, and vipassana meditation for forty years. He reviews regularly for Quest.


Begin Where You Are: Messages of Meaning

Begin Where You Are: Messages of Meaning

As a result of a near death experience, Betty Bland made a critical choice as a young woman to come back to this life and live a life of service to others. Life brought her challenges, joys, defeats, and successes, taking her deeper and deeper into her spiritual journey and leading her eventually to serve as president of the TSA.

Part of the journey was studying and integrating Theosophical ways of living. Her book describes how she made meaning of all this and how important it was for her to share this wisdom with others. She writes with beauty, humor, simplicity, and a fine intelligence.

Betty speaks to the spirit within us. Chapter by chapter, she encourages all of us in our personal lives—and many of us as Theosophists—to “not just keep your nose in a book studying, but to live outwardly, get involved and make what you do count.”

An example of her delightful humor is telling us the secret of life given to her by a spunky earthworm: “Keep wriggling.” This earthworm did not give up but kept wriggling until someone helped him back to his life in the grass. This advice will save your life.

This book needs to be read many times to keep from missing all the words of wisdom embedded in every chapter. Noted in the following paragraphs are key threads that I felt were a particular invitation to choose your pathways in life wisely.

Betty writes that often we are looking for a guidebook or map to guide us in our life journey. We find the writings of Theosophy, and it opens an exciting and new world of understanding, one far grander and more meaningful than we had previously thought. She invites us to use the knowledge and insight gained for practical work in the world through acts of altruism. She cautions us not to get caught in self-absorption through our studies but to balance our lives with service and meditation. If our study is to be useful, she adds, every new understanding should help us discern the real from the unreal.

In another chapter, Betty encourages us to look each day for moments of joy, self-forgetfulness, forgiveness, loving-kindness, or any elevated quality. In order to become the peace that we all long for, it is important to immerse ourselves in what will nurture and encourage it—in what is beautiful and joyful or otherwise uplifts the human spirit.

As Betty notes, “Our consciousness is sticky; things get caught in there, usually in unintended ways. Our minds believe and hold on to what they are fed on a daily basis. And the longer we chew on an idea, the tighter it sticks. It is not easy but we do have the ability to determine the character of our steady diet.”

Another powerful statement in her book reflects a political poster she saw in Germany. It depicted a patch of cracked asphalt with a triumphant blade of green grass pushing its way through into the sunlight. The statement was, “Green breaks through.” Betty describes this powerful image as a metaphor for the spiritual power that is trapped beneath the surface of our minds, waiting for the moment to break forth.

She goes on to say, “Committed intensity and pure intention, aligned with the universal good, bring the waters of unfoldment into the cracks of our consciousness, allowing the spiritual power to blossom forth against all odds.”

Betty also addresses a subject with which many of us struggle: are our helpful intentions for others really helpful? Here is her guidance: “If we don’t say the right words or know the most helpful hopes for the person for whom we are praying, we send a caring vibration through the universe that is carried on the wings of intentionality to help. The power of energy and support gently envelops the targeted recipient with the strength to reassert the natural impulse to wholeness and order. So don’t hesitate to participate.” She encourages us to “tune in to an open, caring concern for your friends, enemies, and strangers all over the world, and nourish those little blades of hope springing up and penetrating the darkness.” She mentions a friend who became willing to receive her prayers for him, saying, “Its strength has the power to break the ravening darkness of the struggles of life and convert it to the greening pastures of hope.” What a powerful description of the importance and benefit of helping with suffering of others!

Throughout the book, Betty shares quotes from H.P. Blavatsky that serve as examples of wisdom. She offers what she has learned throughout her life as inspiration and an invitation to embrace the following charge: “We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological, and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment and indispensable to the creation of a just economy and peaceful global community.”

Marilyn Johnston-Svoboda

Marilyn Johnston-Svoboda, EdD, RN, is a retired nursing professor, currently teaching, mentoring students, and practicing Therapeutic Touch.


Imagine That!

Printed in the  Summer 2024  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Keene, Douglas  "Veiwpoint: Imagine That!" Quest 112:3, pg 10

By Douglas Keene
National President

Doug KImagination. What does that bring to mind? Something wonderful, mysterious, spectacular, or escapist? Or possibly a delusion, a trick, wishful thinking, or something false? Like so much else, It depends a good deal on our nature and nurture.

Imagination is often contrasted with the reality that we perceive through our senses, that which we refer to as the “real world.” We can invoke our imagination to reach beyond our senses for creations, relationships, abilities, and a vast array of applications.

H.P. Blavatsky addresses this concept: “Imagination is . . .  one of the strongest elements in human nature, or in the words of Dugald Stewart it ‘is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement . . . Destroy the faculty, and the condition of men will become as stationary as that of brutes.’ It is the best guide of our blind senses, without which the latter could never lead us beyond matter and its illusions. The greatest discoveries of modern science are due to the imaginative faculty of the discoverers” (Blavatsky, Collected Works 12:133‒34).

Although Blavatsky indicates that imagination distinguishes us from the “brutes,” our younger siblings in the animal kingdom also demonstrate creativity, although what type of imagination they might have, we can only speculate.

Some scholars believe that classical mythology is based on a combination of history and imagination, used to tell tales and teach lessons to a preliterate society. The divine and semidivine entities that inhabit these myths, both good and evil, are often thought to be products of imagination, and yet the message they convey is much more tangible.

Imagination, whether waking or sleeping, whether conscious or unconscious, is absolutely essential to creativity. All works of art need to be imagined before they can be manifested, even through more palpable media such as architecture and photography. In order for a work of art to exist, it needs to originate in the mind and imagination of its creator. From the plays of Shakespeare to modern dance to the silicon chip, all phenomena were first created in the human imagination.

Where does this imagination come from? Where does it live? Immanuel Kant has written: “Imagination is a powerful agent for creating, as it were, a second nature out of the material supplied to it by actual nature.” But this view—that imagination is derivative—is classically more Western, especially from the eighteenth century on.

In Theosophy, it is noted that imagination can be generated from images in the astral and mental worlds, which often operate largely independently from the physical. In, Annie Besant writes: “Impressions made on the mental body are more permanent than those made on the astral, and they are consciously reproduced by it. Here memory and the organ of imagination begin, and the latter gradually moulds itself, the images from the outer world working on the matter of the mental body in forming its materials into their own likeness” (The Ancient Wisdom, 2d ed., 154).

Children tend to be particularly imaginative, as they are not yet fully adapted to the physical and social governance that the more mundane, concrete world teaches us. Eleanor Roosevelt is noted to have said, “The greatest gift you can give a child is an imagination.” Indeed children seem to come by imagination naturally if their elders can avoid suppressing it. Theosophy teaches us that children may be more in touch with the astral world and other higher vibrations, and that they gradually lose the ability as they become older and more grounded in the physical dimensions of life.

At times, imagination can be equated with dreaming. This is often in the context of unrealistic expectations, such as ideas that one may become a U.S. senator or one’s team may win the World Series. The response “you must be dreaming” denotes misplaced confidence (at least in the opinion of the listener) regarding the imagined outcome of a particular challenge. But the analogy should not be dismissed too quickly. According to Theosophical teachings, nocturnal dreams may, like the imagination, be rooted in nonphysical aspects of ourselves but are no less real than our day-to-day world, although they are generally less accessible.

There are numerous examples of scientific discoveries that were preceded by vivid dreams. Niels Bohr envisioned the structure of an atom during sleep. James Watson dreamt of a spiral staircase that led to discovery of the double helix of DNA. Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was based on elements of his vision during sleep. Mendeleev’s periodic table of the elements was essentially presented to him during a dream. Thomas Edison felt that his creativity could be enhanced by napping. He would intentionally fall asleep with a ball in each hand; when one fell to the floor, it would wake him, and he could more easily recall images from his twilight state, which might lead to a solution for a problem he was working on. More recently, Larry Page had a nocturnal encounter as a student at Stanford University that led to the basic infrastructure for Google.

The well-known Theosophical text At the Feet of the Master, written by a young Jiddu Krishnamurti, was largely given to him by the Master Koot Hoomi during sleep. Charles Leadbeater gives an account of this: “Every night I had to take this boy in his astral body to the house of the Master, that instruction might be given to him. The Master devoted perhaps 15 minutes each night to talking to him, but at the end of each talk He always gathered up the main points of what He had said into a single sentence, or a few sentences, thus making it an easy little summary which was repeated to the boy, so that he learnt it by heart. He remembered that summary in the morning and wrote it down” (Leadbeater, Talks on the Path of Occultism, 1:24).

There is yet another role for imagination: it is needed to advance our own spiritual awareness and unfoldment. If we rely only what is known through our sensations and logic, we are extremely limited in being able to expand, elevate, and apprehend other states of consciousness. We need imagination to lift ourselves beyond the known, to embrace the unseen, and to understand ourselves. We need to have a vision of the universe and our place in it in order to open our higher nature. Our deeper insights may be called imagination initially, but ultimately they lead to recognition of our true being and the unity of all life.

Imagination can be our closest associate and our most enduring friend. We will never outgrow it, we never need to surrender it, and it can never be taken from us. With this faculty, we can envisage new worlds, transport ourselves in time, accomplish great feats, witness historical events, soar to new places, visit lost loved ones, and endless other possibilities. Just imagine.


Moksha in a Nutshell

Printed in the  Summer 2024  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Heubel, Peggy  "Moksha in a Nutshell" Quest 112:3, pg 8-9

By Peggy Heubel

Peggy HeubelThe Theosophical worldview emphasizes the essential unity underlying existence. Its teachings advance the concept that every entity in the universe, from the smallest atom to the highest spiritual being, is on a journey of self-realization and ultimate reunion with the divine source—a holistic and cyclical view of the active cosmos and what may lie beyond.

Involution and evolution form the dual mechanism of this process, which involves the unfoldment (or unveiling) of universal consciousness as an ever present and active source. The cyclical nature of this process, guided by spiritual hierarchies and governed by karmic laws, contributes to this unfolding. It leads to a state of cosmic perfection and ultimate unity beyond manifestation.

The activity of the universe, seen and unseen, drives this evolutionary process toward its obligatory reintegration. Despite the perceived inevitability of the outcome, many esoteric traditions emphasize the importance of individual choice and free will.

Few, it is said, understand the mystical need to extricate oneself from the cycles of almost unending rounds of karmically driven reincarnation. These few seek what has been termed “liberation” as a conscious choice to expedite their spiritual progress and take a more active role in their own development.

The journey toward conscious self-determination on the path to higher states of consciousness (or divine union) is called moksha or mukti in Sanskrit, usually translated as “liberation.” But liberation is not the end-all of evolution; rather it is a journey on the way to gaining ultimate enlightenment (although the two are often confused). While both are related parts of the same path, the former indicates an action or process and the latter, a state of being that occurs as a result. Liberation motivates us toward seeking a more profound and conscious connection with the ultimate reality. Enlightenment is the end result of the human stage of existence but not of the spiritual being traversing that stage.

In Hinduism, the concept of moksha is closely tied to the idea of samsara, a continuous cycle of birth and rebirth extending for innumerable eons; indeed moksha is liberation from samsara. All through this enormous cycle, each incarnation offers opportunities for growth, learning, and advancement in spiritual evolution. Through successive lifetimes, karmic lessons are learned, experiences are accumulated, and slow and gradual progress is made towards unveiling higher states of consciousness.

Karmic considerations are frequently intertwined with ideas of reincarnation and spiritual evolution. Methods aimed at gaining liberation from the cycles of birth and death are seen as means to resolving karmic debts, achieving a state of purity, and ultimately reuniting with the source of being. With more advanced efforts, the material world and the cycle of evolution are seen as illusory or temporary. Seeking liberation also involves transcending the illusions of the material realm to experience a higher, more real, state of existence.

As mentioned above, some individuals eventually attain a life in which enough karmic lessons have been learned that they can make conscious efforts towards spiritual development. A tenuous connection to the higher Self has developed, and the personality may unconsciously experience an attraction to inner heights. The first steps of spiritual awakening and moksha have been taken.

Some spiritual traditions, including Theosophy, emphasize that understanding the true nature of reality and our place within it can only be achieved through direct experience or gnosis. Theosophical teachings suggest that conscious efforts towards spiritual development can definitely accelerate one’s evolution.

Seeking liberation involves specific practices, disciplines, and experiences aimed at realizing the ultimate goal in the fullness of conscious awareness. Even relatively minor efforts help to limit the number of reincarnation cycles by reducing habitual and compulsive conditioning, thereby lessening karmic causes and effects.             

There are said to be seven disciplines or yogic paths that are available as means to the realization of moksha: hatha yoga (physical postures); karma yoga (the path of selfless action), laya yoga (laya means dissolution, that is, of personal attachments); mantra yoga (the path of the divine word); jnana yoga (the path of knowledge); bhakti yoga (the path of devotion); and raja yoga (the path of meditation). These practices are forms of conscious evolution whereby individuals actively work on refining their bodies, emotions, minds, and actions to align with spiritual principles.

As we become more and more adept at our chosen spiritual practice, moksha involves transcending the sense of ego or personal self (ahamkara) and realizing the interconnectedness of all beings. This is a stage in the process toward experiencing ourselves as (or becoming) one undifferentiated ultimate Reality.

As we progress, we learn to navigate life in accordance with higher principles, contributing not only to our own evolutionary growth but, it is said, to evolutionary stimuli for all sentient beings. Evolution towards moksha can be seen as an increasing alignment with the cosmic order (dharma). Living in harmony with natural and spiritual laws is considered essential.

The motive for undertaking such steps is everything. H.P. Blavatsky said, “It is impossible to employ spiritual forces [the “attainments”: the siddhis referenced in the beginning of The Voice of the Silence] if there is the slightest tinge of selfishness.” At every step along the narrow way of moksha, “we can never be indifferent to the fate of mankind.” As we gain spiritual wisdom, strength, and courage, our devotion to humanity must increase along with our spiritual growth; otherwise moksha becomes nothing more than words on a page.

Peggy Heubel is president of the TS East Bay Lodge.


Drill, Baby, Drill

Printed in the  Summer 2024  issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Trull, David "Drill, Baby, Drill" Quest 112:3, pg 38-40

By David Trull

David TrullSet a timer, put pen to paper, and write. Let your hand dance across the page. Don’t second-guess its path. Whatever emerges is fine. Judge nothing. Pretty soon you’ll find the shrill cries of your inner critic fading. When the timer goes off, walk away and return in ten minutes. Scan the words for something that shines. Pan for gold. Usually you will find some.

I received this advice in a fiction workshop. The goal, our instructor informed us, was to connect the imagination with the subconscious. When too closely coupled with our surface thought processes, the imagination produces material it thinks will please the little conductor that sits behind our eyes and renders the output dull and quotidian. To infuse your writing with vital force, she said, you must bypass the conscious mind. Of course, she also warned us to revise and revise and revise again, but make sure that what you are polishing is the subconscious gold that first caught your eye.

Before I tried this exercise, my stories were semiautobiographical accounts of past travel experiences, childhood incidents, or thinly veiled imitations of stories I had ingested over the years. I loved none of it. After committing to a daily free-writing habit for several months, my stories became about a boy haunted by visions of a self-immolating Buddhist monk, a woman exhibiting her half-finished paintings as a way to expunge her guilt over abandoning her dying mother, and a homeless teen with leukemia hopping freight trains in the early oughts. As I revised the strange and unfamiliar words, I felt alienated, as if I’d glanced in the mirror and locked eyes with a stranger. It wasn’t unsettling, however. More like exhilarating.

After graduation, a college buddy of mine found work on an oil rig off the California coast. At one point, he had a bit of shore leave, and I grabbed a beer with him at a bar near his launch point, a place with walls festooned with taxidermic swordfish and a murky lobster tank gurgling away in the corner.

I grilled him about his experience, and he told me that although he and his crew were engaged in exploration, they’d found nothing so far. I asked how they knew where to drill, and he said they really didn’t know. It was trial and error, tapping one section of ocean floor and then another, praying to hit the motherload. Sure, they used advanced sonic equipment to identify areas that had a high chance of hiding black gold, but they still had to bounce around and stand ready to capture the stuff when they struck.

This conversation reminded me of my stories, not because I’d written about fossil fuel extraction, but because the drilling process bore a strange resemblance to my fiction exercise. In a way, I was circling above the ocean floor of my mind and drilling for something that could move the world. We know how oil deposits come to be where they are, but where did my strange stories come from?  And how did they get there without my knowing? Would I have ever uncovered them if I hadn’t gone wandering without judgment?

I have always thought of my imagination as my possession, a private world all my own. As we talked, I started to wonder if my imagination might have more in common with a solitary oil rig glittering amidst a dark and vast ocean, perched above a sea no more mine than the one lapping against the barnacle-encrusted pier beyond the windows.

During undergrad, I spent about a month under the spell of Carl Jung and his concept of the collective unconscious. Jung thought that much of the content of our unconscious mind was the result of genetic inheritance rather than the accumulation of personal experience. This inherited material manifests as archetypes (most clearly seen in the repeated character types in literature and storytelling traditions: the Trickster, the Hero, the Tyrant, the Mother) and in our instinctive behavior, such as traditional religious practices and sexual mores. Much of what we consider individual expression is simply a shaping of shared archetypal clay available as a birth rite to all.

While Jung’s theory of a shared unconscious explains the deep patterns found in human society, religion, and behavior, I wonder if some repeating forms emerge because humanity has remained huddled around the same fire, the same deposit of imaginal energy. We are born into a community that siphons its spirit from a particular repository of the mind. The surrounding landscape is unforgiving, and our survival drive keeps us close to this source. To fraternize with novel imagery would, we feel, be futile at best, and suicidal at worst.

Fossil fuels are dwindling. The supply is not infinite, after all. Toxic by-products have accumulated in the atmosphere, wreaking havoc on weather patterns and poisoning our lungs and bloodstreams. Likewise, the images and archetypes that once served to sustain us have begun to lose their potency.

I am not the first to notice that we seem to be collectively running out of fuel, especially in the realm of art. Theater marquees have become bloated with glossy remakes of aged blockbusters, dance floors throb to resampled choruses from thirty years ago, and aging rockers sue young stars for “stealing” their melodies, to the point where the young can only throw up their hands and wail, “There’s only so many ways to put together seven notes, man!”

I once heard someone say that complex societies collapse when the costs of further complexity outweigh the returns. The torrent of economic, literary, and artistic progress over the last few centuries is perhaps a sign that our species, as it shifted into modernity, struck a rich imaginative well. The present struggle to produce novel and interesting work raises a question: has this deposit at last run dry? Are further attempts to mine it worth the energy cost? Maybe this is why, in recent years, talk of collapse has risen in both pitch and volume.

Speaking from experience, I can tell you that millennial and Gen Z artists feel a strange kinship to those California farmers forced by the depleted aquifers beneath the state’s Central Valley to extend their irrigation wells to expensive and dangerous depths, expending ever greater effort merely to maintain the status quo. Same water, same crops. Same notes, same songs. The present condition of the earth mirrors the state of our minds.

I don’t, however, endorse the “nail in the coffin” stance so many older generations of journalists take: those who love to declare that art is finished, that everything worth saying has been said, that kids these days don’t possess the depth of experience required for true artistic expression.

It feels bizarre, as a younger person, to say this, but perhaps the solution is the imaginal equivalent of that cringey fossil fuel rallying cry, “Drill, baby, drill!” (albeit with far more positive possible outcomes). Before I began to access my subconscious, I had concluded that I didn’t have much to say as a fiction author. The jury is still out on that, but now I am at least able to produce something that excites me and some readers: words and images that hold a charge sufficient to draw me to my pen and paper every day to see what might emerge. The process alone, ripe with uncertainty, is enticing.

Maybe oil rigs are the wrong metaphor. It could be that our imagination more closely resembles the ancient conception of the firmament, a glass dome holding back boundless waters. At our core, we are a nomadic species. The patch of imaginal sky beneath which we have pitched our tents may have succumbed to drought, but there are infinite heavens beyond our encampment, skies which may not, as we fear, restrain the destructive waters of a world-annihilating flood, but instead hold a life-giving rain. Physical migration has always been a part of humanity’s development. Perhaps instead of continuing our futile rain dance, we would do better to pull up stakes and find a fresh piece of mental sky.

David Trull has worked as a fireworks salesman, forensic tax researcher, railroad logistician, teacher, songwriter, and musician. He studied philosophy through a Great Books immersion program at Thomas Aquinas College in Ojai, California. A lifelong autodidact, he has advanced his explorations through a self-designed curriculum focused on the intersection of philosophy and theology. Raised in St. Louis, Trull now orbits between Santa Barbara, California, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

           


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