Invitation to the Reader by Robert Miller

"Okay, there are rather a lot of words here. After all, I am a philosopher. However, I have found in the end that the best approach to life is to frequently practice a kind of close sympathetic nonjudgmental attention to things—a kind of wordless aesthetic attention to what is that tends to heighten a sense of stillness and beauty. Then, when it comes to adopting a reasoned philosophy to surround and support this practice, a way of thinking about the nature of life and
reality, why not try positing a maximally positive and beautiful vision—non-dogmatically, of course—until or unless someone can prove the worse is true? Which they can never do: see inside for reasons why.
This double game of philosophical reasoning and aesthetic contemplation (of reflection and de-reflection) seems to aid toward the re-enchantment and self-enjoyment of life. Things get less heavy: one feels lighter. Of course, the game only applies if one is interested in en-lightening life in some such way. Whether you want to or not is up to you. Each to his own!
But it’s a trip to consider..."

Dr. Robert Miller was born and educated in Ayr, Scotland, before going to Edinburgh University where he did an MA in Philosophy. He did postgraduate research at Cambridge University for a Cambridge M.Litt. on themes in Existentialism and Zen Buddhism, and also practised Buddhism at the San Francisco Zen centre.
He came to Monash University on a scholarship to do a PhD on themes in the Philosophy of Kant, Religion, and Ethics. Since 1990 he has been teaching Philosophy full-time at RMIT University (main interests: Postmodernism, Existentialism, Buddhism, Ethics, and Philosophical Psychotherapy). Over the years he has given many talks at Kagyu E-Vam Buddhist Institute in Melbourne, synthesising Eastern and Western ideas.