This blog, and the events, materials, and ideas that develop around it, is a reflection upon Life, conceived in full awareness of the word's ironic double meaning. "Life" is what we name the object of both Biography and Biology - "your life" on the one hand, and "life itself" on the other. I hope that those of you who follow along with the writings and media posted here, with the practice and discussion groups we'll be organizing in person and on the Web, or who otherwise come into contact with the fruits of our activities, will gradually come to see, as I have, a more unified sense of this term Life; to see that your life and life itself are precisely the same process.

This conceptual division of labor is not without its rationale: the interior world does not look much like the exterior - we have different ways of reasoning about minds as opposed to brains, about feelings as opposed to bodies. And we have a lot of pretty handy narratives premised on the notion that What's In Here is not the same thing as What's Out There. But I aim here to explore and share how a deeper attendance to the exterior world with an eye to our own inner world - and vice-versa - can better inform both. The thesis here is that Life can teach us a lot about Life.

The approach will be both philosophical and practical. There will be some fine-grained analysis of vetted works of academic philosophy and science as well as some far-reaching speculation and off-the-cuff reflection. There will be a lot of discussion about yogic practices, particularly meditation and other awareness- or attention-oriented forms of training, as well as in-person instruction, which we can expand or retract in scope according to the interest of the community. We'll cover ideas and techniques deriving from mystical traditions, and address some of the challenges posed by the tension between tradition and progress, between ideology and authenticity, and the more general phenomenon called Habit in one breath and Culture in another.

The Erosion Control Club thus begins its life at the intersection of one person's mosaic of interests, with the aim of demonstrating their underlying unity and the value that can be derived from this synthesis. But any good meditation on Life should rightly have a life of its own, so please, as you read along or join in our meetings, feel free to comment, to get in touch, participate, complicate, raise topics and activities of your own. This is not ultimately about me at all, but about all of us, and Everything.

The first step in this kind of inquiry must begin within, at the foundations of experience itself. For those interested, I'm organizing an introductory Meditation Instruction and Discussion group to meet this Sunday, June 28th, in Brooklyn NY. See the event page for details.