blind spot

Where does the fault lie?

“The fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves”. That bit of Shakespeare speaks to our ‘modern’ paradigm. ‘Modern’ began with the Renaissance that followed the so-called Dark Ages. Note how these labels bias the view of cultural progress right away in favor of the modern. I see such progress as a two-step forward, […]

Taoist secrets

Over the years, I’ve come across references to life secrets in general, and occasionally Taoist secrets in particular. A few decades ago a woman inquired about our Sunday Taoist meetings, held weekly back then. I told her we mainly shared our reflections on the Tao Te Ching. She said she already had the Tao Te […]

Loss Aversion Management

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

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 their life very problematic. This first step parallels Buddha’s first step of his Eight-Fold Path—Right Comprehension.

Instinctive Free Will

We easily seem to accept the idea that animals and young children don’t choose their nature; they are born with it. Consequently, society doesn’t usually hold them responsible. With the onset of adulthood, that suddenly changes, and society then deems us responsible for our actions. As adults, we somehow magically acquire the power to choose […]

Stupidly Intelligent

This little ditty in Science News, Our Final Invention, about the impending dangers of Artificial Intelligence caught my eye. Consider this quote, “Computer systems advanced enough to act with human-level intelligence will likely be unpredictable and inscrutable all of the time.” He is worried that, “we could end up with a planet self-serving, self-replicating AI […]

A Wealth of Happiness

They say wealth doesn’t bring happiness. However, when you think about it, it is easy to see how happiness is wealth. Correlations help sort this out. For example, consider how this corresponds to love. Love has two sides; one side is a ‘grasping, expecting, needy’ experience. The other is true love, a ‘giving, empathetic, content’ […]

Natural Happiness

My motto for the secret to happiness, generally speaking, is to like what I do rather than do what I like. Sure, this is easier said than done. Nevertheless, recalling this motto daily helps prevent my expectations from dictating my life willy-nilly. No doubt, scripture (Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Biblical, etc.) first got me seeing life […]

Religion… an Opiate?

Marx famously said, “Religion is the opium of the people“. He went on to identify “religious distress” as the symptom of a social “condition which needs illusions”.(1) Blaming cultural conditions for the dysfunction he saw is putting the cart before the horse. Doing this is as common as it is mistaken. Among other things, he […]

Good Enough Is!

Good enough is good enough, and naturally so. After all, this is how nature works—step by step. Surely, this is the sentiment expressed in chapter 64, A thousand mile journey begins below the feet. We now also call this evolution. Nevertheless, I constantly see people pushing a ‘perfect’ ideal of how something should be or […]

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blind spot