“Some mental disorders aren’t merely common—they’re the norm”, or so a recent Science News article, Rates of common mental disorders double up, reports. Note the tallest bar in the graph showing a recent prospective study of 1000 New Zealanders assessed for mental disorders eleven times between the ages of 3 and 32. No doubt, such […]
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The Future is Now!
About ten years ago, humanity’s plausible future became increasingly obvious to me. I saw our advancing technology leading toward a time of plunging human population to a point where, for example, governments would support citizens during their parenting years. Now, when I travel on freeways, I eerily see a time when they will be half-empty […]
Continue reading…Peeking Through the Covers
The Tao Te Ching is a manual that helps us peek through biology’s covers to reveal the deeper whats and whys of reality as best it can with words. Chapter 70 acknowledges the difficulty of this… My words are very easy to understand… yet no one in the world can understand. As ancient as it […]
Continue reading…Innately Ethical
Chapter 38’s A man of the highest virtue does not keep to virtue and that is why he has virtue served as a model for raising my sons. Yet, given their Taoist upbringing, it is odd to see how rigidly law abiding they are at times. For example, we headed down the street to order […]
Continue reading…Can You Believe What You See?
The Science News report, What do you see? Emotion may help the visual system jump the gun to predict what the brain will see supports what I’ve suspected for years. Namely, our needs and fears (1) generally dictate what we see (2), even though our mind may believe otherwise. Our perception of reality is essentially […]
Continue reading…Suicide Just Doesn’t Work
I was one troubled teenager for a time. I’d go off to the mountains for some peace and solitude. I wasn’t very concerned with my safety; life didn’t seem to offer much advantage over death. One year I climbed Finger Rock without ropes. Going up was easy; going down was terrifying. Was this a latent […]
Continue reading…A Hypochondriac’s Miracle Cure
Hypochondriacs are anxious about their health. They make ‘illness mountains’ out of ‘wellness molehills’. However, we all make mountains out of molehills for issues in life that bother us personally . We are all somewhat obsessed about something, and so the hypochondriac’s cure really applies to us all. Obsessions, both trivial and ominous, overtake the […]
Continue reading…An Essential Taoist Secret
Our perception of difference begins at the cellular level: neurons flip flop between on (+) and off (—). The billions of neural connections in our complex nervous system make for countless ‘not quite on’, yet ‘not quite off’ indeterminacy. This feels somewhat like chapter 14’s, The image that is without substance. This is called indistinct […]
Continue reading…Just How Big Is The Gap?
In discussing human affairs, an old friend said, “We as a species are so very complex and vulnerable we’re easily led by whoever we listen to”. I countered with, “We are a profoundly social species which accounts for how easily we can be led. Human behavior reflects innate emotion…” He countered that with, “I have […]
Continue reading…The Theory of God
We can prove something exists by evidence of its existence. Similarly, we can’t prove something doesn’t exist through a lack of evidence. So, what evidence exists supporting the existence of God? That depends upon what you believe qualifies as evidence I imagine. Oddly, for a believer, belief itself appears to qualify as evidence. This kind […]
Continue reading…Who is Right?
The current uproar over health care reform is fascinating to ponder. Who is right; who is wrong? First, doesn’t that depend on one’s definition of right? If we are referring to Right from a Buddha’s Eight Fold Path (p.604) viewpoint, then those who rant on either side are certainly not Right. The ranting we see […]
Continue reading…You Are Who You Are By Default
A recent report (google [Saey You Are Who You Are by Default]) gives some insight on the nature of who we are, particularly here, at the end of the report: Once people reach adulthood, activity in the network is fairly consistent from person to person, with some slight differences between the sexes and in older […]
Continue reading…Cave Man Shakuhachi?
Google [Stone Age flutes found in Germany] for a report on people living in Europe 35,000 years ago who made this flute out of a vulture bone. It’s shown here from three different angles with a magnified portion of the flute providing a closer look at two of the flute’s finger holes. As far as […]
Continue reading…Into the Jungle?
While working in Australia in the early 60’s, I met folks who intrigued me with their stories of traveling over land through India and Southeast Asia. Instead of returning to USA as planned, I decided to travel to Europe overland through Asia. Lack of funds meant hitchhiking a lot, and this felt weird considering I’d […]
Continue reading…Swimming Tai Chi Spermatozoa Style
Google [Microswimmers make a splash: Tiny travelers take on a viscous world] for research that describes movements of living things in the microscopic world as, “… very majestic, slow and regular…” That parallels the movement sought in Tai Chi. Google [Tai Chi – centertao] Consider this quote from the research. “Motion at low Reynolds number […]
Continue reading…Are you out of touch with nature?
The Garden of Eden story in Genesis parallels the Taoist view of how humanity fell out of touch with Nature: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. Interestingly, chapter 1’s The way that […]
Continue reading…It was a dark and stormy night…
Soon after hitchhiking to Vietnam from Cambodia, some journalist in Saigon invited me to stay with them. They told me that if I got a press pass from the USIA (United States Information Agency), I could hop rides on military flights. Fortunately, I didn’t have to be a journalist; I just had to say I […]
Continue reading…Cease Treading Water and Just Sink
Many people tend to think the benefits of yoga are increased flexibility and balance. To me, this is just icing on the cake. Yoga helps me know myself more deeply than anything else I do. As William Shakespeare observed, “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou […]
Continue reading…Enjoy What You Do – or – Do What You Enjoy?
A tricky part of life lies in how our biology constantly pushes us to do what we enjoy and pulls us away from what we don’t enjoy. This makes work feel like work. This stress is normally avoidable when work feels truly meaningful, if not enjoyable. Here, work can feel restful, or as chapter 56 […]
Continue reading…The Glare Hides ‘Out There’ From View
The glare of emotion, “the flames of desire”, as Buddha put it, obscures our view. All we can see are the objects of our passion. As those flames die down and the glare subsides, we are gradually able to see what is truly ‘out there’. Peering through the darkness what do we see ‘out there’? Strain […]
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