RPI scholar to share insight on self awareness
RPI Professor Emeritus John M. Koller will lecture April 8 on the significance in Zen of the 10 Oxherding Pictures and how the Yoga, Daoist, and Zen traditions come together in their attempts to explain how we can become fully and authentically ourselves.
John Koller, RPI professor emeritus
“How to Raise on Ox: Ways of Self-Realization in Yoga, Daoism, and Zen” is the title of a lecture to be presented at 8 p.m. Monday, April 8, by John Koeller. Free and open to the public, the talk will be in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.
How, through deepening awareness of ourselves, can we become fully and authentically ourselves? The ox in the ox-herding pictures and practices is the self, or more pointedly, self-awareness. Koller will explore how Yoga, Daoist and Zen traditions come together in their attempt to answer this fundamental question.
Koller is professor emeritus of Asian and comparative philosophy in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is the author of five books, including Asian Philosophies, The Indian Way, and A Sourcebook in Asian Philosophy, as well as some 50 journal articles and book chapters.
The recipient of numerous awards for teaching and research, Koller has held fellowships at numerous prestigious universities, including the University of Madras and Columbia University.
His Skidmore visit and presentation are sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religion and the Asian Studies Program.
