Searching for what we already have is one of the key, if not the key, messages of Sufism. If you are a god, what are you looking for out in the world that is not already inside of you? This and related Sufi parables remind us that we already have what we are looking for. The music is from the album Mystified - Poetry of Rumi (1997) by iranian musician Shahram Nazeri.

The "sound of one hand clapping" is a famous, now seemingly trite and often ridiculed, Zen Koan that is quite profound. The Koan asks to pause and reflect on how much of our world is filled by ghosts of our own creation that have little or no actual relation to the world. A simple, powerful and difficult Koan. The music is from the 1971 album “Drumming” by the american composer Steve Reich.

From Being and Time, this example highlights the very different ways we relate to objects in the physical world. We rarely reflect on how we interact with physical objects and how they impact our experience of the world but, indeed, there are radically different modes of being that come into play in our interactions with objects like hammers. The music is from the 2003 album “Melancholia” by William Basinski.

How does a story become a myth or parable? It is retold so many times, in so many different ways, that it survives and passes on from generation to generation. Here is a version of the value and rewards of hardwork and dedication as told in a classic CBS new story. The music is from “For musicians only” (1958) by Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz and Sonny Stitt.

This classic Zen tale asks us to consider the nature or our attachments and how what we carry in our minds is as important - perhaps even more important - than the experiences we have. The music is from Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Four Postcards (2004).

This classic fable from Aesop and the different version that is often retold today tells a lot about the values of farming cultures and how our concern with the individual often reshapes the narrative.

A selection from the Mahabharata that presents a completely different relationship between man and the gods than is generally present in the western world. It also expresses the deep Hindu belief in the endless cycle of living and learning that encompasses even the gods.

One of the great moments of human compassion and expressions of the utter waste of war. While Achilles is often raised as the symbol of the ultimate warrior, here he weeps and acknowledges the pointlessness and painfulness of war. The music is from the album Sketches of Spain (1960), by Miles Davis.

In a very simplified version of the famous Yaksha parable from the Mahabharata, we encounter the strangely rich and human nature of Hindu stories. In the original, there are something like 30 different questions so I have just mentioned a few of them here. The music is from the soundtrack by Chitragupta of the 1965 indian film “Mahabharat”.

In this tale, originally from the work of Chuang Tzu, a simple problem illustrates two different kind of thinking errors we make in day to day life and how Taoism seeks to help us avoid them. The music is from the 1982 album “Rythm ‘n’ Bliss” by Laraaji.

It seems so simple, and yet this story from Ancient Greece captures many of the problems with time, identity, and meaning - a kind of one paragraph version of Heidegger’s Being and Time. It also brings into focus, at least for me, how thinking slowly about simple things can really reveal how tenuous our grasp on the world really is.

I like this parable from the New testament because it highlights one of the great tricks of philosophical 'reasoning' - the assumed frame. Allow me to frame an argument and I will win it. This common homily is so completely misread and the assumptions so horrifying it makes a fun example.

The Symposium is oft quoted and seemingly rarely read. This crazy scene explaining - well something - based on this completely fabricated myth captures much of the power of Plato's capacity for storytelling and how he leads the reader along the most preposterous paths to often quite amazing conclusions. Aristophanes ridicules Socrates in the Symposium for using these kinds of arguments.

This scene from Book II of Thus Spake Zarathustra - the Riddle and the Vision - is one of my favorites and captures some of Nietzsche’s ability to create a visceral sense of the challenge of addressing our most deeply held habits and beliefs.