CenterTao.org – Page 3 – taoism, taoist thought, buddha, yoga, tai chi, shakuhachi

Amazon mother

Google [CBS News From Amazon to Garden State] for a story that perfectly exemplifies observations I’ve made on civilization over the last few decades. To be clear, I’m not pro or anti civilization; I simply wish to comprehend its full impact on humanity. Despite the obvious downsides of civilization, we’re never going to turn back […]

Cultivating Character

I find some people in Taoist circles have passionate ideals about cultivating character. Seen from a symptoms point of view, passion arises from fear—the mother of need. The visceral fear arising from feeling one has little control over life drives a need to do something… like cultivate character. Chapter 54 has the only reference relating […]

Cultivating Ego

Google [Rats Experience Feelings of Regret] for research discovering that when a rat realizes it made a mistake, its body and brain show signs of regret (1). Research like this challenges the beliefs of human exceptionalism that we’ve been cultivating to support humanity’s “illusion of self” collective ego. Sure, we are different from rats, but […]

Passing judgment is healthy if…

Okay, first we need to stipulate that passing judgment is an innate part of any social animal’s nature… and most especially human animals. I say “most especially” because we lug around many preconceptions that worm their way into our imagination.

Necessity is the Mother

If you’re unfamiliar with the neuroscience behind the illusion of free will, YouTube [Sam Harris on “Free Will”]. He does a good job of addressing the idea of free will, and points out enough compelling evidence to prove that free will is an illusion. Next, please YouTube [Sam Harris on His Debate with Daniel Dennett […]

Practice what you preach

The saying, “practice what you preach” makes for an appealing ideal, or for a good put down. Taking it deeper, the idea becomes a source of internal strife. We are capable of imagining ideal behaviors that are completely out of reach… even to the point of being humanly impossible. Yet, we dream away, expecting ourselves […]

Of Mountains, Molehills and the Supernatural

I’ve noticed how we humans appear to have a nearly universal sense of the supernatural. Now, I know devotees of science and atheists might dispute that, at least as far as universal applies to them. They’ll claim they don’t believe in the supernatural. Fair enough, so let me rephrase this… The supernatural sense is essentially […]

Civilized Insanity

Cults akin to ISIS and Nazism help define true human insanity. Nonetheless, the tribal instinct driving such insanity is curiously both sane and universal. This ironic blend inhabits everyone to a degree. So, what drives the ISIS or Nazi fanatic to become so obsessed? How can we remedy this? First, calling acts of insanity evil […]

Ancient Signs Of Modern Behavior

The gravest existential issue that ancient man’s thoughts confronted was death. Humanity lost “Eden” when symbolic thought supplanted the spontaneous conscious experience that other animals benefit from. Once we acquired an objective sense of past and future, we could worry about death and other possible misfortunes awaiting us in the near and distant future. Simply […]

The Good Old Days

Some profoundly pivotal points in human existence go back at least 3+ million years. First, let’s review the major ones in the order they occurred to provide context for the genetic research covered later in this post. 1) The beginning of the Stone Age (3,400,000+ years ago). Technological innovation began here with the development of […]