∞ The Old Way ∞ 20th century ethnographic research reveals that the old way of our Paleolithic ancestors happens to parallel many of the spiritual qualities that the world’s religions advocate. This suggests that those hunter-gatherers were essentially ‘taoist’, not by volition, but rather organically by dint of natural circumstances. As civilized people, we’re unable […]
Continue reading…The Tradeoff
∞ Introduction ∞ Jñāna yoga Many of us find life troubling at times. Knowing how humanity got to where it is today and what to do about it can put to rest many a puzzling and disturbing aspect of life. Jñāna yoga is a spiritual practice that pursues knowledge with questions such as “who am […]
Continue reading…Buddha’s Truths Pertain To All Life
Buddha’s Truths apply to all Earth’s creatures, although only humans need to have truth verbalized. Our need to have truth put into words is symptomatic of something we feel missing. Considering which of these deep truths pertain to all life forms helps them feel more real and inclusive. The First Noble Truth is the existence […]
Continue reading…Trump and the Mandate of Heaven
To better comprehend the Trump phenomenon, I need to examine it from a symptoms point of view (1). Simply judging circumstances at face value leaves out all the underlying causative forces at play, and this just perpetuates my ignorance. First, Trump is symptomatic of the deterioration of the cooperative politics essential for maintaining a stable […]
Continue reading…Refreshing Redundancy
Research reported in Science News, That familiar feeling comes from deep in the brain, sheds light on a problem affecting those who want to remember their life-priorities. This quote sums it up, “The research suggests that novelty and familiarity are two sides of the same brain cells. Turn them down, and even the new is […]
Continue reading…The Year Is 1915
This brief retrospective came across my screen recently. It can be profoundly sobering to see how much life has changed over the past 100 years. Such rapid change is unprecedented in human history, or almost any history that comes to mind.
Continue reading…We All Know We Don’t Know
I enjoy doing yoga on the beach because I can easily pause to look seaward and skyward to soak in eternity, or glance closer in to bond with my friends, all the sand flies and seagulls around me. Today I got to thinking how small and insignificant we are—they and me. Then I thought, they […]
Continue reading…Who are you? (Part V)
It’s about time I wrap up this “Who are you?” series. This time I’ll pass on a few observations from Lorna Marshall’s research of hunter-gatherers that may help demonstrate what I’m driving at. In my last post, Who are you? (Part IV), I pointed out how our ancestral old way just happens to mirror the […]
Continue reading…Who are you? (Part IV)
The social qualities present during our ancestral hunter-gatherer era (1) just happen to parallel the core spiritual qualities that the world’s religions promote. That’s no coincidence. Indeed, those innate qualities of harmony we now seek are the very ones we lost when we left the old way for the alluring material benefits and security civilization […]
Continue reading…Who are you? (Part III)
Recent posts, Who are you? and Who are you? (Part II), examine the losses of emotional security and comfort caused when our civilized way of life replaced our primal ancestral way. Common sense, personal experience, and timely mid 20th century ethnographic research verifies this. (See The Harmless People p.426) This post and the next cover […]
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