balance

Buddha’s Truths Pertain To All Life

Buddha’s Truths apply to all Earth’s creatures, although only humans need to have truth stipulated. For me, this suggests that our desire for truth is a symptom of something we feel missing. For that reason, considering the widest possible scope of these truths gives helpful context for their application – profound sameness, as chapter 56 […]

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, the sand flies and the seagulls around me. Today I got to thinking how small and insignificant we are — they and me. Then I […]

Stressors of Comfort and Security

Google [Chronic stress can wreak havoc on the body] for research that ties right into my last post, Right state of peaceful mind. Notice how the lightening bolt in the graphic (right) points to the brain, and from there down through the rest of the body. The article puts it this way: “The effect of […]

Science Proves Buddha Right!

Google [CBS News When low expectations achieve big results] for research that reveals how we shoot ourselves in the foot with our expectations. This drives yet another nail into the coffin of faith-based wishful thinking. This is not to say expectations aren’t useful or natural. Indeed, considered from a Symptoms Point Of View, they help […]

Alleviating the Hoarding Disorder

Google [Seeking Help For Hoarding] for a brief yet telling report on hoarding. Here is a brief excerpt: At some point I got a lot of stuff,” said Joanne Garland. “I kept too much paper. I kept too many books. I kept too many clothes.” Too much of everything! Garland’s Greenfield, Mass., home is packed […]

Civilized Insanity

Cults like ISIS and the Nazis help define true human insanity. Ironically however, the tribal instinct driving such insanity is both sane and universal. It arises in all of us to various degrees. So, what drives the fanatic ISIS or Nazi follower to go over the edge? And what is is the best way to […]

Laws as Symptoms, not Solutions

Google [TED Is The Law Making Us Less Free] for a sobering account of yet another way we shoot ourselves in the foot. As the speaker, Philip Howard, says, “More laws now mean more chaos. What we have is a combination of anarchy and public paralysis. There’s this fetish with rules that has kind of […]

Loss Aversion Management

This NPR interview shows how we can’t help but shoot ourselves in the foot. Google [NPR Why We Care More About Losses Than Gains]. When I look around, I see our aversion to loss influencing just about everything we do, albeit often in very subtle ways. The innate emotional aversion to loss, when reinforced by […]

Free Willers Anonymous

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar addiction programs begin their process of recovery by first admitting their addiction and powerlessness over it. That starts clearing away the blind spot that up until then made life very problematic. This first step parallels Buddha’s first step of his Eight-Fold Path—Right Comprehension. Primal instinct drives them all Wouldn’t […]

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. No ‘take my word for it’ hoodwinking here. Now, the advanced capabilities of modern science really help us separate fact from myth. Still, personal experience must always be the final arbiter. Keep […]

Skip links

balance