Carl Abbott

Am I Bored or Just Content?

Years ago, our Taoist group joked, “Be bored again”. This was the Taoist version of the Christian “Be born again” slogan. No wonder attendance was light! A fine line does exist between boredom and contentment. To be sure, I often slip back and forth across it playing the shakuhachi flute (google [Blowing Zen, One Mind […]

Do Good Christians Make Good People?

It is my sense that Christians believe that good Christians make good people. On the contrary, I’ve found good people make good Christians. In fact, good people also make good Muslims, good Buddhists, and perhaps even good Taoists. Then again, we have the irony chapter 2 refers to, All realizing goodness as goodness, no goodness […]

PS

I struggled to make the essence of my previous post read as simply as I saw it. I feel I failed, so I’m going to take another shot at this. The following excerpt from the article The Decider […Informing the debate over the reality of free will], is my launch pad: “So brains are programmed […]

The Decider

Google: [Can Neuroscience Inform the Free Will Debate] for an overview of science and free will. This excerpt from Science News’, The Decider […Informing the debate over the reality of free will] also touches on key points: “Perhaps,” write neuroscientists Alireza Soltani and Xiao-Jing Wang, “we are entering a new period of consilience between the science […]

Peeking in on Nature’s Hoodwink

We are born with a bio-illusion — a bio-hoodwink(1) — that goes like this: Through hunting, “I” gathers fillers to satiate (fill) the hole. Primal emotions of need (e.g., desire, wish) and fear (e.g., insecurity, anxiety) drive this illusion forward. This illusion originates in the survival instinct to find food to fill the empty belly. […]

How to Know You’re Happy

I recall sitting in math class looking at the clock. Time stood still… minutes felt like hours. Time also crawls by sitting in the dentist chair. Now in my late 70’s, time flies by. Years feel like months, months like weeks, and weeks like days. Certain activities make time fly by too. A sound sleep […]

It Is Spooky

A Centertao member recently said on the Forum, “Philosophers see a subtle difference between two anti-Realist philosophies: “Dialectical Monism” and “Non-Dualism”. Well, I don’t doubt it! It is difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to communicate things as simply as they are. The difficulty lies in subtle semantic differences. Oddly, we readily discount this, the […]

Of What Is The Taoist Model Symptomatic?

I was relaxing in the hot bath this morning and recalling CenterTao member Dave’s reply to Butterflies have wings; we have minds came to mind. A hot bath never fails to loosen up thought, I find. Anyway, Dave said, “Our models in our minds are staler than we know.” He also quoted George Box, one […]

Is ‘Free Will’ the Only Option?

I think back over all the years I let my life-options distract me from what I knew I ought to do. As Buddha’s Fourth Noble Truth says, “There is salvation for him whose self disappears before truth, whose will is bent on what he ought to do, whose sole desire is the performance of his […]

Butterflies have wings; we have minds

Butterflies have wings and fly; we have a mind and our thoughts soar. So far so good. The trouble crops up from trusting that our thoughts get us somewhere real. Any resulting belief easily leads to difficulty. When you believe the dream is real, nightmares are more likely. Granted the mind can drive us crazy, […]

Mind in Body in Mind in Body…xin

Science gradually debunks long held myths. It relentlessly peels away the cosmetic ideals with which we adorn ourselves. Warm-up your contemplative mind with this excerpt from a recent Science News report, Body In Mind. (Also Google: Grounded cognition) It takes another step towards taking the ‘sapiens’ out of Homo sapiens (Latin: sapiens = wise man). […]

Such Synergy

I just came across this little diagram I drew up a few years back. It’s not a bad way to ponder some elemental issues using a minimum of words. It points to the synergy that exists between these elements. At the center is Meaning / need. I’d probably add fear to that core. Need & […]