bio-hoodwink

“Right state of peaceful mind”

While living in Thailand in the early 1960’s, I bought a book on Buddha put out by the Buddhist Society of Ceylon, as I recall. Recently I wanted to find a copy. I finally found a translation by Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha Paperback, that matched my version of Buddha’s four noble truths word-for-word […]

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 […]

Mind Over Milkshake

I stopped smoking a few decades ago and soon 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 […]

The Pendulum Swings

The Syrian war illustrates our serious inability to avoid swinging from one extreme to the opposite. In wondering why, chapter 64 came to mind, Its peace easily manages… and so on. D.C. Lau’s translates this view more clearly, e.g., It is easy to maintain a situation while it is still secure. Interestingly, the adage, “a […]

Just like Us, Just like Them

Have you noticed how much we compare ourselves to other animals and see to what extent they are like us? That’s all quite normal, of course. All animals judge other animals to some extent, although I should say size up, gauge, or perceive, rather than judge. Judging is intimately tied to thinking and we’re the […]

Who says chickens are stupid?

Who says chickens are stupid? Stupid people, I assume. While this research reported in Science News isn’t about chickens per se, it probably would apply to chickens. I mean how much smarter is a pigeon going to be than a chicken? (Google: Pigeons match monkeys in abstract counting skills.) How much true difference is there […]

Guilt, Shame and the Name Game

I used the experience of guilt and shame for an example in my recent post, I am foolish of human mind also? (p.276) I feel our habit of naming emotional experiences deserves its own post, so here goes, beginning with a personal example… Up until thirty years ago, I had never experienced depression… or so […]

Imagining a Better Way

Human imagination is both a precious survival asset and the source of lingering anxieties. Ironically, imagination also promises us ways to quell these anxieties. I say promises because fulfillment can’t truly be possible. This peculiar dynamic reminds me of the Möbius like geometry of Escher’s Waterfall. We can imagine a better something so we tend […]

Be Careful What You Wish

“Be careful what you wish for”, followed by “it might just come true” is an ironic maxim concerning the perils of wishing without grasping unintended consequences. First, we need to stipulate that wishing for something is relatively synonymous with desiring, expecting, hoping, praying, and craving for something. Next, is there a fundamental source for all […]

Jack of All Trades, Master of None?

Is there any real difference between a generalist “jack of all trades” and an accomplished master? After all, isn’t a “jack of all trades” simply a master generalist? I’ve been doing several activities for many years now: yoga (~55 years), tai chi (~45 years), shakuhachi sui Zen (~40 years), gardening (~35 years) — plus, I […]

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