understanding

“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 […]

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’ve found that some people in Taoist circles have passionate ideals about cultivating one’s character. Seen from a symptoms point of view, passion stems from the mother of need — fear. The visceral fear arising from feeling little control over life drives a need to do something… such as cultivate character. Chapter 54 has the […]

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 […]

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. Note how these labels bias the view of cultural progress right away in […]

BRAIN

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

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 […]

A Wealth of Happiness

Chapter 33 says, Being content is wealth. When you think about it, it is easy to see how happiness is wealth. Using correlations, let’s consider how love corresponds to wealth and happiness. Love has two sides; the false or yang side is a grasping, expecting, needy experience. The true or yin side is a giving, […]

You are Immortal!

Yes, you are immortal… we’re all immortal! Certainly, that bold claim demands proof. The proof I have will stand up to your scrutiny only if you concur with Buddha’s account of what ‘you’, ‘I’, and ‘we’ actually are. However, if you don’t accept Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, at least in principle, this post may not […]

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 […]

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understanding