freewill

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Where does the fault lie?

“The fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves”. That bit of Shakespeare speaks to our modern paradigm. By modern, I mean the epoch beginning with the Renaissance (14th century) that followed the fall of Rome, i.e., the so-called Dark Ages. Notice how these labels bias the view of cultural progress right away in […]

Loss Aversion Management

Recent research reveals how we can’t help but shoot ourselves in the foot. 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 thought, traps us even more. I’m going to explore this issue […]

BRAIN

President Obama’s BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) seeks to decipher how the brain’s circuitry produces thought and behavior. The Science News Brain Shot reports on this initiative. This is an excerpt. Ambitious goals: While the BRAIN Initiative’s objectives are hard to express in concrete terms, the project is full of visionary promise. […]

Born Again Taoist

How many of us realize the role that instinct plays in our lives? Long ago, our ancestors dreamed up elitist myths that elevated our species from other living things. We are told, “Don’t be an animal” and that Mankind was created in God’s image. One way or another, every culture has a spiritual superiority story. […]

Free Willers Anonymous

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar addiction management programs begin recovery by first acknowledging their addiction and powerlessness over it. Clearly recognizing a problem is an indispensable prerequisite for finding a solution. Such Right Comprehension is the first step on Buddha’s Eight-Fold Path. Until then, life is always a dog chasing its tail. Primal instinct […]

Instinctive Free Will

We easily acknowledge that animals and young children don’t choose their nature; they are born with it. Consequently, society doesn’t regard them as being responsible. With the onset of adulthood, that suddenly changes, and society then holds us responsible for our actions. As adults, we somehow miraculously acquire the power to choose “right” from “wrong” […]