I quit smoking a few decades ago and quickly gained 40 pounds. Not wishing to lug all that extra baggage around, I decided to eat less. Actually, I would have quit eating altogether if I could get away with it. The more I lost, the less I needed to eat to maintain whatever weight I […]
Continue reading…Flow Triggers
The Flow Genome Project researches Flow, which Steven Kotler describes as when performance sharply increases. Google [How to open up the next level of human performance], [How To Get Into The Flow State], and [The Science of Maximizing Human Potential]. Anyone familiar with the Zen(1) point of view will recognize Flow right off. Steven rephrases […]
Continue reading…Naturally Racist
The online matchmaking site Okcupid surveyed its members. Google [Okcupid Race and Attraction]. They looked at first-contact attempts and who was writing who back. They say it was immediately obvious that the sender’s race was a huge factor. That offers some proof to what has long been obvious to me: Homo sapiens are naturally racist. […]
Continue reading…BRAIN
President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) seeks to decipher how the brain’s circuitry produces thought and behavior. The Science News Brain Shot reports on this initiative. This is an excerpt. Ambitious goals: While the BRAIN Initiative’s objectives are hard to express in concrete terms, the project is full of visionary promise. […]
Continue reading…Managing Our Disorders
The DSM 5 — Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — now recognizes hoarding as a disorder. Google [CBS News Seeking help for hoarding] for a short report on this. Frankly, I‘d say we have more of a diagnostic disorder. In our quest to identify human problems as disorders, we are blind to the […]
Continue reading…Bono & Musk on Creativity
Fareed Zakaria GPS is an in-depth podcast with guests who know something of what they speak, often with opposing points of view, which helps pull the discussion deeper. Google [Fareed Zakaria Interviews with Bono and Musk] for his interviews with Bono (lead singer of U2) and Elon Musk (developing SpaceX) on what fuels their creativity. […]
Continue reading…The Harmless People
In the early 20th century, a few pioneers combed the back woods of rural Appalachia to document and record the last remnants of American roots music still unchanged by the cultural upheavals of the 20th century. This music later evolved into the folk, honki tonk, and country music of the 20th century. Similarly, Laurence Marshall […]
Continue reading…Born Again Taoist
How many of us realize the role that instinct plays in our lives? Long ago, our ancestors dreamed up elitist myths that elevated our species from other living things. We are told, “Don’t be an animal” and that Mankind was created in God’s image. One way or another, every culture has a spiritual superiority story. […]
Continue reading…Free Willers Anonymous
Members of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar addiction management programs begin recovery by first acknowledging their addiction and powerlessness over it. Clearly recognizing a problem is an indispensable prerequisite for finding a solution. Such Right Comprehension is the first step on Buddha’s Eight-Fold Path. Until then, life is always a dog chasing its tail. Primal instinct […]
Continue reading…Instinctive Free Will
We easily acknowledge that animals and young children don’t choose their nature; they are born with it. Consequently, society doesn’t regard them as being responsible. With the onset of adulthood, that suddenly changes, and society then holds us responsible for our actions. As adults, we somehow miraculously acquire the power to choose “right” from “wrong” […]
Continue reading…Stupidly Intelligent
UPDATE 2023: The instinct of fear is an emergent property of entropy, and the universal driving force that motivates all living things, from virus on up, to survive. Obviously, fear influences our every thought and action. This is also the driving force behind all the harmful actions of humanity. Artificial intelligence is devoid of this […]
Continue reading…The Proof is in the Pudding
Buddha felt that we needed to rely on our personal experience to verify his Four Noble Truths, and presumably any other alleged truth. There’s no ‘take my word for it’ hoodwinking here. Nowadays, modern science is steadily helping us discern fact from myth. Still, personal experience must always be the final arbiter. Keep this in […]
Continue reading…A Wealth of Happiness
Chapter 33 says, Being content is wealth. When you think about it, it is easy to see how happiness is wealth. Using Correlations (p.565), let’s consider how love corresponds to wealth and happiness. Love has two sides; the “false” or yang side is a grasping, expecting, needy experience. The “true” or yin side is a […]
Continue reading…Natural Happiness
‘To like what I do rather than do what I like’ is a straightforward path to happiness. This motto helps prevent my expectations from dictating my life’s direction. No doubt, scripture (Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Biblical, etc.) first got me considering life this way, and life experience has since verified its truth (1). The previous post, […]
Continue reading…Is Happiness In Your Choices?
Google [Iyengar on The Art of Choosing] for a TED talk that challenges our naive belief in free choice (p.587). Sheena Iyengar makes a solid research-based case for two erroneous assumptions we repeatedly make. One is that we make our own choices, and the other, that more options make for better choices. She also makes […]
Continue reading…Profound Connections Enlighten
Chapter 56 offers what could be another description of sleep… Knowing doesn’t speak; speaking doesn’t know. Subdue its sharpness, untie its tangles, Soften its brightness, be the same as dust, This is called profound sameness. Profound sameness is a continually enlightening point of view. Thus, any research that explores this, even tangentially, warrants review. First, […]
Continue reading…Religion… an Opiate?
Karl Marx famously said, “Religion is the opium of the people”. He went on to identify “religious distress” as the symptom of a social “condition which needs illusions”.(1) Blaming cultural conditions for the dysfunction he saw is putting the cart before the horse—something we do frequently. To see it this way, he must have had […]
Continue reading…Is Gen Y Unhappy?
I read an interesting article that pointed out much of the same causes for unhappiness that I see, so I accepted it without question at first. Yet soon it began to nag me. Something didn’t exactly mesh… there was more too it. If interested, google [Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy] and see how it […]
Continue reading…Remember the Disease
Occasionally I feel a little forlorn since I’m making the same essential points repeatedly. Then I remember the necessity of constant vigilant review. This is akin to attempting to maintain balance under wobbly physical circumstances. Surely, psycho-emotional circumstances are no less demanding, balance-wise. Whew! Hope rebounds as I remember the secret of living balance… The […]
Continue reading…The Pendulum Swings
The Syrian war illustrates our intrinsic tendency to swing from one extreme to the opposite. In wondering why, chapter 64 came to mind, Its peace easily manages… and so on. D.C. Lau translates this view more clearly, e.g., It is easy to maintain a situation while it is still secure. Interestingly, the adage, “a stitch […]
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