[Cross-posted from IOC.]

Looking Back:

This year seems to have flown by. I don't usually make my yearly review public, but I thought I'd share a brief recap of 2007.

As far as my personal life is concerned, the year can be summed up as a seven day week.

Monday: I fell in love with an amazing woman.
Tuesday: Life was good, and everything seemed bright.
Wednesday: The relationship ended for a variety of complicated reason.
Thursday: Depression.
Friday: Depression lifted and some new perspective dawned.
Saturday: Attended the IFS conference and experienced some profound growth.
Sunday: As the year ends, hope and optimism spring eternal.

As far as IOC is concerned, this has been a great year. The blog rapidly nears 150,000 visitors, about half of those visiting in 2007. Granted, about half of them have come here via Google searches and image searches, but all exposure is good exposure.. These were the most popular posts in the last year, in order (not necessarily posts from this year):

Drugs In Sports
Abusive Guru: Sogyal Rinpoche
Daily Om: As You Believe
Drug Abuse: Ronnie Coleman
Buddhist Audio Chants Available Online

My work life became more sane. I chose in May to begin limiting my work hours as much as possible, to no more than 25 hours a week with clients. At the same time, my writing work began to pick up in late summer, with nearly constant work since then.

I bought a new-to-me car in March, which greatly improved my quality of life in Tucson. Having a car with air conditioning makes all the difference when you live in the desert.

Looking Ahead:

2008 looks like a great year. I'm currently working to secure new writing work, work that will be more steady and reliable. I'm looking forward to the challenge and the flexibility this will provide.

In march, I will be attending the Psychotherapy Networker conference in Washington D.C. Two of the days will be full day sessions with Richard Schwartz, creator of the Internal Family Systems model. I can't express how much I am looking forward to this.

In the fall, I will begin my PhD in clinical psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. It's taken me many years to be ready for this, but I am now, and I am very excited about beginning this new phase in my life.

Hopes:

James at The Buddhist Blog posted this, and I couldn't agree more:

May this new year, 2008 bring more peace, tolerance and happiness to people of all religions, philosophies and those who follow no religion. May this new year bring an end to all wars and strife in the world so that harmony will increase amongst all sentient beings. May we rededicate ourselves to our practice so that we will feel more stability and insight into our lives and help us not to be so swept away by our egos.

As the new year dawns, I'd to see all of us all resolve to surround ourselves with loving and supportive people, rededicate ourselves to finding the compassionate and peaceful center within each of us, and commit ourselves to making the world a better place, one person at a time, beginning with ourselves.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead

With that I wish you all a peaceful and happy New year.

For She Who Is Unknown

We are like water in water
like the water that keeps the secret
~ Octavio Paz

My eyes are closed
and when they open
I am seeing through your eyes

Always awake, seeking
the lost feather of a raven

You surround yourself
with barking dogs,
old books of verse,
dripping fingers of night


Life is a funeral
in waiting, mourners
milling about, bored

But from your eyes
I see the ocean,
gentle waves, kelp
on the deserted beach

_____

I do not know you
and maybe always have

We are rain drops
gathering quietly
in a puddle

Some secret pertains,
but only the voices of birds
can articulate the meaning

_____

On this page I see
the shadows dance and stop,
then wander off
into the forest

Lichens, moss, a faded trail
where only our ghosts reside

_____

I have somehow entered you,
sensed the bones of thought,
the blood of feeling

We are one and yet
we have never met,
so I wait, woodsmoke
in the breeze, your eyes
watching my dreams
.

Edge's 2008 question is, "What Have You Changed Your Mind About?" Major thinkers from a wide variety of fields weight in with their answers, which is always interesting.

Here are a few I liked (though don't necessarily agree with), although I haven't gotten through all of them yet. One question arises, though: Why aren't there more women represented? In the first three or four pages, I only noticed one or two women.

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF
Media Analyst; Documentary Writer; Author, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out

The Internet

I thought that it would change people. I thought it would allow us to build a new world through which we could model new behaviors, values, and relationships. In the 90's, I thought the experience of going online for the first time would change a person's consciousness as much as if they had dropped acid in the 60's.

I thought Amazon.com was a ridiculous idea, and that the Internet would shrug off business as easily as it did its original Defense Department minders.

For now, at least, it's turned out to be different.

Virtual worlds like Second Life have been reduced to market opportunities: advertisers from banks to soft drinks purchase space and create fake characters, while kids (and Chinese digital sweatshop laborers) earn "play money" in the game only to sell it to lazier players on eBay for real cash.

The businesspeople running Facebook and MySpace are rivaled only by the members of these online "communities" in their willingness to surrender their identities and ideals for a buck, a click-through, or a better market valuation.

The open source ethos has been reinterpreted through the lens of corporatism as "crowd sourcing" — meaning just another way to get people to do work for no compensation. And even "file-sharing" has been reduced to a frenzy of acquisition that has less to do with music than it does the ever-expanding hard drives of successive iPods.

Sadly, cyberspace has become just another place to do business. The question is no longer how browsing the Internet changes the way we look at the world; it's which browser we'll be using to buy and sell stuff in the same old world.

*****

HOWARD GARDNER
Psychologist, Harvard University; Author, Changing Minds

Wrestling with Jean Piaget, my Paragon

Like many other college students, I turned to the study of psychology for personal reasons. I wanted to understand myself better. And so I read the works of Freud; and I was privileged to have as my undergraduate tutor, the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, himself a sometime pupil of Freud. But once I learned about new trends in psychology, through contacts with another mentor Jerome Bruner, I turned my attention to the operation of the mind in a cognitive sense — and I've remained at that post ever since.

The giant at the time — the middle 1960s — was Jean Piaget. Though I met and interviewed him a few times, Piaget really functioned for me as a paragon. In the term of Dean Keith Simonton, a paragon is someone whom one does not know personally but who serves as a virtual teacher and point of reference. I thought that Piaget had identified the most important question in cognitive psychology — how does the mind develop; developed brilliant methods of observation and experimentation; and put forth a convincing picture of development — a set of general cognitive operations that unfold in the course of essentially lockstep, universally occurring stages. I wrote my first books about Piaget; saw myself as carrying on the Piagetian tradition in my own studies of artistic and symbolic development (two areas that he had not focused on); and even defended Piaget vigorously in print against those who would critique his approach and claims.

Yet, now forty years later, I have come to realize that the bulk of my scholarly career has been a critique of the principal claims that Piaget put forth. As to the specifics of how I changed my mind:

Piaget believed in general stages of development that cut across contents (Space, time, number); I now believe that each area of content has its own rules and operations and I am dubious about the existence of general stages and structures.

Piaget believed that intelligence was a single general capacity that developed pretty much in the same way across individuals: I now believe that humans posses a number of relatively independent intelligences and these can function and interact in idiosyncratic ways,

Piaget was not interested in individual differences; he studied the 'epistemic subject.' Most of my work has focused on individual differences, with particular attention to those with special talents or deficits, and unusual profiles of abilities and disabilities.

Piaget assumed that the newborn had a few basic biological capacities — like sucking and looking — and two major processes of acquiring knowledge, that he called assimilation and accommodation. Nowadays, with many others, I assume that human beings possess considerable innate or easily elicited cognitive capacities, and that Piaget way underestimated the power of this inborn cognitive architecture.

Piaget downplayed the importance of historical and cultural factors — cognitive development consisted of the growing child experimenting largely on his own with the physical (and, minimally, the social ) world. I see development as permeated from the first by contingent forces pervading the time and place of origin.

Finally, Piaget saw language and other symbols systems (graphic, musical, bodily etc) as manifestations, almost epiphenomena, of a single cognitive motor; I see each of these systems as having its own origins and being heavily colored by the particular uses to which a systems is put in one's own culture and one's own time.

Why I changed my mind is an issue principally of biography: some of the change has to do with my own choices (I worked for 20 years with brain damaged patients); and some with the Zeitgeist (I was strongly influenced by the ideas of Noam Chomsky and Jerry Fodor, on the one hand, and by empirical discoveries in psychology and biology on the other).

Still, I consider Piaget to be the giant of the field. He raised the right questions; he developed exquisite methods; and his observations of phenomena have turned out to be robust. It's a tribute to Piaget that we continue to ponder these questions, even as many of us are now far more critical than we once were. Any serious scientist or scholar will change his or her mind; put differently, we will come to agree with those with whom we used to disagree, and vice versa. We differ in whether we are open or secretive about such "changes of mind": and in whether we choose to attack, ignore, or continue to celebrate those with whose views we are no longer in agreement.

*****

NICK BOSTROM
Philosopher, University of Oxford; Author,

Everything

For me, belief is not an all or nothing thing — believe or disbelieve, accept or reject. Instead, I have degrees of belief, a subjective probability distribution over different possible ways the world could be. This means that I am constantly changing my mind about all sorts of things, as I reflect or gain more evidence. While I don't always think explicitly in terms of probabilities, I often do so when I give careful consideration to some matter. And when I reflect on my own cognitive processes, I must acknowledge the graduated nature of my beliefs.

The commonest way in which I change my mind is by concentrating my credence function on a narrower set of possibilities than before. This occurs every time I learn a new piece of information. Since I started my life knowing virtually nothing, I have changed my mind about virtually everything. For example, not knowing a friend's birthday, I assign a 1/365 chance (approximately) of it being the 11th of August. After she tells me that the 11th of August is her birthday, I assign that date a probability of close to 100%. (Never exactly 100%, for there is always a non-zero probability of miscommunication, deception, or other error.)

It can also happen that I change my mind by smearing out my credence function over a wider set of possibilities. I might forget the exact date of my friend's birthday but remember that it is sometime in the summer. The forgetting changes my credence function, from being almost entirely concentrated on 11th of August to being spread out more or less evenly over all the summer months. After this change of mind, I might assign a 1% probability to my friend's birthday being on the 11th of August.

My credence function can become more smeared out not only by forgetting but also by learning — learning that what I previously took to be strong evidence for some hypothesis is in fact weak or misleading evidence. (This type of belief change can often be mathematically modeled as a narrowing rather than a broadening of credence function, but the technicalities of this are not relevant here.)

For example, over the years I have become moderately more uncertain about the benefits of medicine, nutritional supplements, and much conventional health wisdom. This belief change has come about as a result of several factors. One of the factors is that I have read some papers that cast doubt on the reliability of the standard methodological protocols used in medical studies and their reporting. Another factor is my own experience of following up on MEDLINE some of the exciting medical findings reported in the media — almost always, the search of the source literature reveals a much more complicated picture with many studies showing a positive effect, many showing a negative effect, and many showing no effect. A third factor is the arguments of a health economist friend of mine, who holds a dim view of the marginal benefits of medical care.

Typically, my beliefs about big issues change in small steps. Ideally, these steps should approximate a random walk, like the stock market. It should be impossible for me to predict how my beliefs on some topic will change in the future. If I believed that a year hence I will assign a higher probability to some hypothesis than I do today — why, in that case I could raise the probability right away. Given knowledge of what I will believe in the future, I would defer to the beliefs of my future self, provided that I think my future self will be better informed than I am now and at least as rational.

I have no crystal ball to show me what my future self will believe. But I do have access to many other selves, who are better informed than I am on many topics. I can defer to experts. Provided they are unbiased and are giving me their honest opinion, I should perhaps always defer to people who have more information than I do — or to some weighted average of expert opinion if there is no consensus. Of course, the proviso is a very big one: often I have reason to disbelieve that other people are unbiased or that they are giving me their honest opinion. However, it is also possible that I am biased and self-deceiving. An important unresolved question is how much epistemic weight a wannabe Bayesian thinker should give to the opinions of others. I'm looking forward to changing my mind on that issue, hopefully by my credence function becoming concentrated on the correct answer.

*****

TODD E. FEINBERG, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Author, Altered Egos

 

 

Soul Searching

For most of my life I viewed any notion of the "soul" a fanciful religious invention. I agreed with the view of the late Nobel Laureate Francis Crick who in his book The Astonishing Hypothesis claimed "A modern neurobiologist sees no need for the religious concept of a soul to explain the behavior of humans and other animals." But is the idea of a soul really so crazy and beyond the limits of scientific reason?

From the standpoint of neuroscience, it is easy to make the claim that Descartes is simply wrong about the separateness of brain and mind. The plain fact is that there is no scientific evidence that a self, an individual mind, or a soul could exist without a physical brain. However, there are persisting reasons why the self and the mind do not appear to be identical with, or entirely reducible to, the brain.

For example, in spite of the claims of Massachusetts physician Dr. Duncan MacDougall, who estimated through his experiments on dying humans that approximately 21 grams of matter — the presumed weight of the human soul — was lost upon death (The New York Times "Soul Has Weight, Physician Thinks" March 11, 1907), unlike the brain, the mind cannot be objectively observed, but only subjectively experienced. The subject that represents the "I" in the statement "I think therefore I am" cannot be directly observed, weighed, or measured. And the experiences of that self, its pains and pleasures, sights and sounds possess an objective reality only to the one who experiences them. In other words, as the philosopher John Searle puts it, the mind is "irreducibly first-person."

On the other hand, although there are many perplexing properties about the brain, mind, and the self that remain to be scientifically explained — subjectivity among them — this does not mean that there must be an immaterial entity at work that explains these mysterious features. Nonetheless, I have come to believe that an individual consciousness represents an entity that is so personal and ontologically unique that it qualifies as something that we might as well call "a soul."

I am not suggesting that anything like a soul survives the death of the brain. Indeed, the link between the life of the brain and the life of the mind is irreducible, the one completely dependant upon the other. Indeed the danger of capturing the beauty and mystery of a personal consciousness and identity with the somewhat metaphorical designation "soul" is the tendency for the grandiose metaphor to obscure the actual accomplishments of the brain. The soul is not a "thing" independent of the living brain; it is part and parcel of it, its most remarkable feature, but nonetheless inextricably bound to its life and death.

There are many ideas presented in this collection of observations that deserve more attention. In the coming weeks I hope to take a closer look at some of what these great minds have to say.

This is from The Times (UK) online edition. With the death of many "greats" this year, from philosophy to film, Appleyard wonders if we have seen the end of greatness. He thinks not, and names some names to watch.

Twilight of the greats?

This year saw the death of so many big names. Perhaps it saw the end of greatness, too. So, where do we go from here to find the artists that matter?

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Bryan Appleyard

It was a year in which a certain type of person died — Michelangelo Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Norman Mailer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jean Baudrillard. These were intellectually pungent, culturally potent individuals, angrily dismissed as often as they were called “great”, “seminal” or “genius”. And with Luciano Pavarotti dead, another type of greatness vanished from the planet.

There were others who did not die but, somehow, faded. After a glorious renaissance in the 1990s, with Sabbath’s Theater, American Pastoral and I Married a Communist, Philip Roth began to falter with The Dying Animal and Everyman. After the slightly dodgy Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo produced the not very interesting Falling Man, about 9/11. Francis Ford Coppola, maestro of The Godfather, The Conversation and, greatest of all, Apocalypse Now, produced Youth Without Youth, which is, by all accounts, terrible. Having made the dismal Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino released Death Proof — not so much a film as an act of pathological self-indulgence — and convinced even some of his most devoted fans that the game was up.

Something happened in 2007, something ended. Old gods stumbled and fell. New ones sprang up. But they sprang up in their thousands. That’s the point these days.

Technology, hype and the sheer profligacy of the arts when confronted with a large, hungry and wealthy audience have created a climate of excess — just too many artists, too much money, too many works and too much noise. Who knows who, now, is great? Even if greatness existed, how would we find it? Do we want greatness, or would we simply prefer choice?

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The further, more troubling question is, what is greatness? The climate of excess is also a climate of uncertainty and tribal dispute. When Bergman died, many said he was just a solemn old bore — a startling, almost unbelievable dismissal of one of cinema’s greatest artists. As with leaders of the Lib Dems, in the arts, when you’re out, you’re out. And artists are being pushed in and out all the time by a cultural hype industry that has increasingly infected the ranks of what should be the independent-minded. The carefully cultivated “buzz” about some artists can be so effective that I — like, I am sure, you — actually find myself questioning my own intuitions or, in extreme cases, sanity. And the “buzz” feeds on change, novelty. The very idea of an old master, an artist who endures and grows, is rapidly becoming incomprehensible.

In an attempt to counter this trend, I shall now attempt to pluck greatness from the ocean of money and hype. The intention is emphatically not to pull the usual new-year stunt of identifying bright young things. You have a public-relations industry to do that for you. Instead, I shall simply try to identify great artists, and to say something of the context of their greatness. I haven’t been able to do this alone. I have taken advice, I have consulted. What follows is, therefore, a compilation based on deep wisdom, blind prejudice and sound counsel.

As a mass-market product, the novel is dominated by women. Women, overwhelmingly, buy novels; and, as a result, women write them. Chick lit and Aga sagas are now distinct and, seemingly, enduring fictional forms. The “great” novel, however, is dominated by men. Ask any collection of reasonably well-read people who are the great novelists of our time and the chances are they will reel off John Updike, Roth and, probably, DeLillo as if they were one gigantic genius of fiction. “They,” says Ian McEwan, “are the gods.”

This is not exactly wrong, but it is oppressive. There’s something a bit testosterone-laden about this view of the great novel. Mailer was probably the most extreme example of writer as big, tough guy, but, with the exception of Updike, it is an attitude that infects all of McEwan’s pantheon, as well as our own dear Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie, both of whom aspire to join the gang. I find this odd. Nobody is preoccupied with the masculinity of Tolstoy or Dickens. In both cases, an excess of maleness would be seen as a limitation Now, though, great-novel writing is regarded as a pursuit as male as heading out to the woods and shooting stuff. I suspect that the desire to ensure the continuance of this butch legacy lies behind the mass adulation being accorded to the American writer Denis Johnson for his novel Tree of Smoke.

One effect of this — on me, at least — is that, having bought into this view, I fell into a kind of literary-critical slumber. I have, over the past couple of years, been violently shaken awake. As a result, I can now announce with total confidence that the two greatest living novelists are women: Marilynne Robinson and Shirley Hazzard. Robinson has written two novels — Housekeeping and Gilead — and a collection of essays, The Death of Adam. They are all shattering, as psychologically profound as they are morally serious. She has a new novel out next year, Home. Hazzard’s The Transit of Venus, according to one of my advisers, is “the most perfect novel written in the past 100 years”. I have just read it, and he may well be right. The Great Fire runs it pretty close; in fact, everything she writes is suffused with extraordinary beauty and almost unbearable insight. She is the greatest of all writers on love. Both Robinson and Hazzard have had their awards and successes, but both are quiet, unhyped and deadly serious. And they’re not men.

The death of Baudrillard left a gaping hole in the cultural landscape. Suddenly, we lack a great POFT — a Pointlessly Obscure French Thinker. Baudrillard, like Kristeva, Foucault, Lacan and many others, was a poseur and rhetorician. But, like some of the others, though certainly not Foucault, he was also a very brilliant man. His insights into the constructed nature of contemporary reality were, while usually buried beneath pointless obscurity, scintillating. If the French could shake off the posturing that has disfigured their post-war thought, they could perhaps recover their role as the great essayists of the world. We need a new Pascal, a new Montaigne.

Well, perhaps they are on their way. Pierre Manent is a philosopher whose book The City of Man is both Augustinian — theologically rooted in the tradition of the benign community, neither modernist individualism nor the abject Maoism of Sartre (the title refers back to Augustine’s City of God) — and liberal. He worked with Raymond Aron, one of the great opponents of the savage totalitarianism of post-war French thought. Manent is not a poseur or rhetorician. He is a thinker in the great French tradition. You may well hear a lot more of him in future. He divides his time between Paris and Boston, and has been tipped as the next editor of The New York Review of Books, one of the world’s supreme intellectual gatekeeping positions.

Michel Onfray is a militant atheist. But, unlike the Anglo-American tribe of MAs, he knows intellectual history. His book In Defence of Atheism is a serious contender; it is also clear and unposey. So, there may be no new POFT, and France may be regaining her intellectual equilibrium.

The deaths of Antonioni and Bergman drew painful attention to the lack of great European auteurs. Only Pedro Almodovar can be said to have fully inherited this role. Italian cinema is dead. French cinema is frequently good, but, on the whole, a pale shadow of its former self. Meanwhile, the east has risen in the mighty form of Wong Kar Wai. In the Mood for Love and 2046 display a feeling for film as pure, subtle and profound as that of Tarkovsky, Ford or Kurosawa. Great? Undoubtedly.Among the Americans, Scorsese’s greatness is uncontestable and well known. I would add Terrence Malick. His Badlands and Days of Heaven, from the 1970s, were masterpieces, and The Thin Red Line, of 1998, though strangely underrated, was perhaps the second best war film of our time, after Apocalypse Now. In 2005, The New World made little impression. It was, however, magical, a story told with delicacy and wonder. Malick, like Wong, can send a shiver down your spine with a singleshot or an actor’s glance. To these I would add the Coen brothers, who, in their body of weird films – Raising Arizona, The Big Lebowski – have created both their own genre and their own critical language. Their latest, No Country for Old Men, due out here next year, is, I have repeatedly been told, wonderful. If the Coens are great, then it is because of their astonishing and unique tone.

Music is in crisis, as downloads take over from CDs and record-company profits slump. The old dispensation in which rock and pop supported the classical catalogue is dead. Classical artists are under pressure to deliver the goods as quickly as pop stars. Young talent can be destroyed by this pressure. Cultural pressure can have the same effect. The Chinese pianist Lang Lang was regarded as potentially the greatest of his time. Now, he has sunk into a kind of state-sponsored stardom, an asset of the 2008 Olympics, and is widely critically dismissed. So, a great pianist? Mitsuko Uchida, who has provided me with my most moving Schubert experiences.

Elsewhere, though, with Pavarotti dead, who will replace him as the superstar tenor? Nobody, says my colleague Stephen Pettitt. Greatness is by its nature unique – we don’t want another Pav. This is wise. Pettitt also points out that, if we are simply looking for great singers, we don’t need to leave the country. Ian Bostridge is a wonderful tenor. He is, unlike the Pav, thin; and, also unlike the Pav, intellectual in his approach. But the one everybody nominates for greatness is the oratorio specialist Mark Padmore. “He,” says Pettitt, “has everything.”

Poetry, our national art, is, of course, dead for the common reader. I shall say again, as I have shouted repeatedly into deaf ears for three decades, that John Ashbery is the greatest living poet in English. But now I shall add a contender – Geoffrey Hill. For some reason, I have been avoiding this man for years. There is something forbidding about him. Finally, I have reached the foothills of this poetic mountain, and, yes, I think he’s up there. Accidentally, via my blog – long story – I introduced him to Ashbery, and he seems to think so too.

The visual arts suffer most from the hype industry. With Russians flooding into London to buy anything anybody says is art, values and reputations are inflated beyond reason. When the Turner prize goes to Mark Wallinger – an otherwise gifted artist – for, among other things, his nonsensical and politically corrupt installation State Britain, it is clear that the old conceptualist axis formed by Saatchi, then Serota is not only dead, but smelly and decomposing.

I’m reluctant to dip my toe into these stagnant waters, but, okay: there is a quiet man who lives in the north. He is incapable of self-promotion, and so, but for a few minor works in the Tate, he is ignored. Many people think he is the finest painter in Britain. Many people may be right. He’s called William Tillyer.

Check him out. Oh, and have a really serious new year. As ever, only great artists can make this happen. They are like Geoffrey Hill’s The Jumping Boy – “He leaps because he has serious/joy in leaping.” And 2008 is a leap year.

 

Quote of the day:

"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything."
~ Kurt Vonnegut

Image of the day:


BODY
~ The Mobility Complex -- "We'll admit it. Warm-ups suck. They're no fun, but we realize their importance. Luckily, Jimmy Smith has come up with a couple that are hugely effective while still being tolerable to us warm-up haters."
~ Keep On Track With My Food and Fitness Journals -- "A lot of us have resolved to get healthy in 2008, this includes eating healthy, drinking more water, and exercising more. One of the best proven ways to stay on track with healthy choices is by keeping a food and fitness journal because it allows you to examine and to be accountable for your lifestyle choices."
~ Beat the Crowd with Dumbbells -- "January means the gym's crowded, and a 15-minute routine can last an hour or more. Grab a pair of dumbbells, carve out some floor space, and get jacked in a jiffy with this 5-move rush routine from our Muscle Guy."
~ Tips To Get Into Shape Without Leaving The House -- "Don't have the time, money or the desire to sign up for a gym membership? That shouldn't keep you from making a New Year's resolution to get fit. Colleen Greene, wellness coordinator with MFit, the University of Michigan Health System's health promotion division, says you don't have to invest a lot of money in a gym membership or equipment to develop a successful and sustainable fitness regimen."
~ Bring In The New Year With A New Fitness Routine -- "It's that time of year again you have had your final glass of eggnog and your last bite of pumpkin pie. Now you are ready to start the year off right with a new exercise plan and to keep it up throughout the year so that fitness becomes a routine rather than just another resolution."
~ Cocaine Vaccine in the Works -- "The vaccine stimulates the immune system to attack cocaine molecules."
~ The very old may benefit from L-carnitine -- "The dietary supplement L-carnitine can lessen fatigue and boost mental function in very old people, Italian researchers report."
~ Testosterone pills not much help for men -- "Testosterone supplements don't do older men much good, Dutch researchers said on Tuesday." This study is bullshit. The dose was too small and they used pills instead of a patch or injections. Don't believe everything you read.
~ Over Half Of All Cancers Can Be Prevented By Daily Lifestyle Choices -- "Nearly half of all Americans make New Year's resolutions, most of them health-related. Stop smoking. Start exercising. Lose weight. Eat better. Unfortunately, only 10 to 15 percent of these resolutions are ever kept. Even more unfortunate is that these are exactly the things that can help everyone prevent cancer."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Science: The science of dreams - the results -- "Roger Highfield unveils the results of Telegraph research into the science of dreams and discovers that dreams are much more likely to be shaped by events of the past week than a childhood trauma."
~ Happiness may be good for your health -- "A happy heart just might be a healthier one as well, new research suggests."
~ Study Of Religious Activity Finds Benefit In Mental Health Of Women -- "For many, religious activity changes between childhood and adulthood, and a new study finds this could affect one's mental health. According to Temple University's Joanna Maselko, Sc.D., women who had stopped being religiously active were more than three times more likely to have suffered generalized anxiety and alcohol abuse/dependence than women who reported always having been active."
~ Some Antipsychotic Drugs May Be Missing Their Mark -- "Drugs that treat schizophrenia, depression and other psychotic conditions and that target a particular protein on brain cells might not be triggering the most appropriate response in those cells, new research suggests. The study by researchers at The Ohio State University Medical Center examined the serotonin 2A receptor, a protein on brain cells sensitive to the neurotransmitter serotonin."
~ Is Play "Rational?" Toys and Ambiguous Causal Structure [Developing Intelligence] -- "Play is more often simply observed than studied scientifically - play behaviors occur unpredictably and, when they do occur, are highly chaotic, making it very difficult to study them in the laboratory. Despite these challenges, new work is beginning to make play accessible from a rigorous scientific framework."
~ New Year a Time for Reflection, Improvement -- "Unfortunately, this high tide of fitness zeal will likely ebb over time: surveys have shown that only about 10% of us maintain our New Year's resolutions."
~ We are Blessed, You are Blessed, I am Blessed -- "The very first day of a New Year. A good time to realize how blessed we are. Remember this as you go about your day. Remember it every day. Use it as a mantra when things get you down. Think of all your blessings, whatever they may be. Use it literally as a tool to improve your life at every step of the way. This has nothing to do with religion. It is awareness and mindfulness."
~ Change: Altered Ego -- "How to change your personality--just a little."
~ A Little Art Therapy -- "The ‘painting a day’ movement had been featured in our local paper and I was inspired by these people who had the discipline to develop such a healthy, creative habit. Everyone should have some sort of outlet. Something they truly enjoy doing and can become lost in. It is very similar to meditation in some respects. Thoughts recede, the mind quiets down and time disappears."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Books That Will Change the World -- "Twelve authors on war and peace, dissent, the environment and the empowerment of the poor provide inspiration to transform the world in 2008."
~ From the Air to the Page: The Poetry of John Ashbery -- "Prolific poet and writer John Ashbery has long been honored as one of the country's most important writers. Ashbery shares some of his poetry and talks to the NewsHour about his life and artistic endeavors."
~ Upgrading to Philosophy 2.0 -- "There was no theorizing about ghosts in the machine at an annual meeting of philosophers last Friday. Instead, they embraced technology’s implications for their field, both within the classroom and beyond."
~ Healthy food getting more expensive: study -- "The price of fruits and vegetables is climbing faster than inflation, while junk food is actually becoming cheaper, the findings of a new study suggest." This is why it's so hard for so many lower income people to eat healthy foods.
~ Virgin or Slut: Pick One -- "Welcome to contemporary American adolescence, where sexuality is either up for sale or moralized into nonexistence."
~ Could you vote for a man who abides by Moronish wisdom? -- "The recent contortions of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney show why faith should not trump reason in the public square."
~ Return of the Swift Boaters -- "Christopher Hayes | The shadowy group that smeared John Kerry in 2004 has reorganized and stands poised to do its dirty work again."
~ Bopp: The Eve of Destruction? -- "Is Mike Huckabee the stake in the heart of the Reagan Coalition?"
~ Last full day of campaign in Iowa -- "Presidential candidates are making a final plea to Iowans: turn out for tomorrow's caucuses. Democrat Barack Obama says the "only thing that counts" is showing up. And Republican Mike Huckabee is urging followers to "rent a van" or even "hijack your church's bus" to get bodies to the precincts. Polls are tight for the leading Republicans and Democrats."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ A Divide as Wolves Rebound in a Changing West -- "Sheltered for many years by federal species protection law, the gray wolves of the West are about to step out onto the high wire of life in the real world, when their status as endangered animals formally comes to an end early this year."
~ Spawning Something Fishy -- "How mackerel can breed bluefin tuna — and why that’s cause for quiet celebration."
~ Stressed Squirrels Wig Out -- "Not only do squirrels feel stress, they react to it in some surprisingly familiar ways."
~ Noble or savage? -- "The era of the hunter-gatherer was not the social and environmental Eden that some suggest." Old news, but a good article.
~ Oil Shoots to $100 Per Barrel -- "Oil prices hit $100 a barrel Wednesday for the first time ever, amid an unshakeable view that global demand for oil and petroleum products will continue to outstrip supplies."
~ Carbon sink capacity in northern forests reduced by global warming -- "An international study investigating the carbon sink capacity of northern terrestrial ecosystems discovered that the duration of the net carbon uptake period (CUP) has on average decreased due to warmer autumn temperatures."
~ Scientists find missing evolutionary link using tiny fungus crystal -- "The crystal structure of a molecule from a primitive fungus has served as a time machine to show researchers more about the evolution of life from the simple to the complex."
~ Giraffes And Frogs Provide More Evidence Of New Species Hidden In Plain Sight -- "Two articles provide further evidence that we have hugely underestimated the number of species with which we share our planet. Today sophisticated genetic techniques mean that superficially identical animals previously classed as members of a single species, including the frogs and giraffes in these studies, could in fact come from several distinct 'cryptic' species."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ The Debeaking Machine -- "The Buddha’s teaching on Right Speech admonishes us to not lie and, though I’m not aware of the Buddha’s ever having said so, I think he’d agree that among the most damaging lies are the ones we tell ourselves. When I lie to myself, I do so to avoid the consequences and implications of the truth, and if I don’t or won’t acknowledge the truth, I can’t be guided by it. It’s unworthy to lie to others, particularly for your own advantage and especially if you think you’ve gotten away with it, but it’s tragic to succeed in lying to yourself."
~ Edge 2008: What Have You Changed Your Mind About? -- "Edge is indeed "like the crack cocaine of the thinking world." Now if only our political and religious leaders would follow suit and honestly reflect on this same question..."
~ "I Am Legend"... And A Bodhisattva? -- "Heard of the difference between eating to live and living to eat? These "dark-seekers", who crave for human flesh are the latter. "I am Legend" is the "legend" of how the self-sacrificial protagonist became legendary."
~ Regarding Honen -- "Honen is the teacher of Shinran, who founded Jodo Shinshu, and himself started the whole Pure Land movement in Japanese Buddhism as we know it.* After a nice New Year’s Day service, I felt like going back and reading about Honen."
~ An Integral Recovery Model for Drug and Alcohol Addiction -- "This article describes the Integral Recovery model in some detail, including an overview of the AQAL framework. It shows how the AQAL (“all quadrants, all stages, all lines, all states, and all types”) approach offers a refreshingly new way of looking at addiction, opening the possibility of a much more integrated and effective treatment modality."
~ The Story of Us -- "Where have we come from? Where are we going? These questions are as relevant today as they have ever been. As the older stories we have told each other about 'us' become increasingly irrelevant & sometimes dangerous, it becomes necessary that we evolve new stories, new visions and practices that will help us adapt to our global life conditions, and move forward into an uncertain future."
~ The benefits of understanding Buddhist Epistemology and Psychology -- "Buddhism asserts the mind is not merely a function of the brain nor is it an emergent property of physical processes. Buddhist epistemology - a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of knowledge - defines consciousness as: that which is clear and knowing. Consciousness, knower and awareness are synonymous. Awareness is ‘clear’ as in it is not obstructed by physical phenomena."
~ ...and now for something a little different -- "So, this year we're going to try using Thoughts Chase Thoughts as a place where opposing ideas meet, based on what we find out there in the blogosphere. We're going to take representations of opposite sides of a dispute and see how they can be reconciled. Or, at the very least, we're going to see if we can understand what the crux of the dispute is."
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I'm lucky -- and grateful -- to have some people in my life who remind me that I am a good person. It's easy sometimes to get caught up in the inner voices so many of us have that tell us we are not good enough, or not smart enough, or not pretty enough, or whatever nonsense our inner parts foist on us.

Today's Daily Om addresses this topic in a useful way.

You Are Beautiful
Seeing Ourselves

Many of us do not take the time to notice and acknowledge how beautiful we are as humans. We may be great lovers of beauty, seeing it in the people, places, and things around us, while completely missing it in ourselves. Some of us feel that it is vain to consider our appearance too much, or we may find that when we look at ourselves, all we see are imperfections. Often we come to the mirror with expectations and preconceived notions about beauty that blind us from seeing ourselves clearly. As a result, we miss the beauty that is closest to us, the beauty we are. Sometimes we see our beauty in a shallow way, noticing how well we are conforming to social norms, but failing to see the deeper beauty that shines out from within and that will continue to shine regardless of how we measure up to society’s ideal.

If we can cut through all these obstacles and simply appreciate how beautiful we are, we free up so much energy. We also become less dependent upon the opinions and feedback of others since we become our own greatest admirers. Many of us know that after a great yoga practice or a long, deep meditation, we are more able to see how beautiful we are. This is because we have released some of our baggage, thus unburdening ourselves and summoning forth the spirit that dwells within us. It is the heady combination of the divine spirit and the human body that conveys beauty more accurately than anything else.

To keep ourselves in touch with our own beauty, we can surround ourselves with images that reflect our beauty back to us—photos of a relative or child who has our eyes, images of teachers who embody spirit, or self-portraits that capture our essence in a way that allows us to see ourselves anew. The best way to keep ourselves in touch with our own beauty is to keep looking deeply into our own souls and opening our eyes to the human being we see in the mirror every day.

It can be useful to look at our faults, since that is the only way we can correct them. But if that is all we focus on, we lose sight of our inner and/or outer beauty. Meditation is a good way to become more objective about these things, partly because this is a good way to distance ourselves from those critical inner voice. However we do it, though, we need to be able to see our own beauty and to accept that as a part of who we are.

Frogview hosts forwarded emails -- you can upload your own or send the ones that are there. Some of them are photo collections, such as this one, called Earth Photographs.

Here are a few of the amazing photos in this collection. Click on the image to enlarge.

William Logan, writing in The New Criterion, December 2007, reviews six new books of poetry by well-known and major authors.

The Biplane Houses, by Les Murray
Gulf Music, by Robert Pinsky
Expectation Days, by Sandra McPherson
Littlefoot, by Charles Wright
Waterlight: Selected Poems, by Kathleen Jamie
Time and Materials, by Robert Hass

Logan is known to be a harsh critic, and that is definitely on display here. Only Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie comes out pretty much unscathed. One wonders how his own rather pedestrian verse would stand up to one of his reviews. Wright and Hass are both more highly regarded than Logan as a poet, so maybe there is some ego involved here.

Here are some snippets from each review:

Les Murray:

This is typical Murray: over-baked metaphors, the occasional oafishness in tone or diction (perhaps that should be dictionhood), the list that becomes a longing, the long view across centuries, the deep intimacy with the past—his history has a dark physicality reminiscent of Heaney's. Murray often seems the Diderot of contemporary verse: the world is everything that is the case, and all of it ripe for poetry.

Robert Pinsky:

Robert Pinsky's poems are so professional, you feel he dresses in a suit and tie before sitting down at his desk. Even when he goes a bit wild, as he does at times in Gulf Music, merrily discarding verbs, yodeling when he feels like it ("Mallah walla tella bella. Trah mah trah-la, la-la-la"), or simply making things up, his rashness is the soul of caution—he has all the reckless daring of Walter Mitty. Pinsky's new poems are often political, politically political in that contemporary way, kowtowing to the golden idols of the moment, casting dung upon the correctly incorrect villains, all without a breath of cross-grained opinion.

Sandra McPherson:

Too many of these new poems, however, are private and elusive, rising into quasi-religious vacancy—the world is cast down in fragments, thought cast down in fragments, too. Though meaning may be the more valued for being won bitterly, the cloudy and broken phrases emphasize the difficulty McPherson has in rendering whole a talent for discrete glances. Her poems are so often about happenstance, it seems odd when she has in mind a particular subject—the illustrations on an old book of needles, say, or the death of a bat from the bat's point of view.

Charles Wright:

Wright isn't writing poems any longer—he's laying down a coat of sensibility, as if sensibility were somehow enough; but sensibility isn't like house paint. You have to have a house to paint. America is a forgiving country, and old geezers can write old-geezer poetry for decades without suffering any punishment worse than having a sack of awards dumped on their heads. Wright's late poetry has fallen into a kind of dumb rumination—like the beasts of the field, he has to be prodded not to chew the same damn thing over and over.

Kathleen Jamie:

Jamie's English poems, however, offer a mind with a mortal view. There's nothing preplanned about their architecture—they seem accidental, full of the random imposition of the ordinary. She loves long, implicating sentences that take time to catch her restless intelligence—like Amy Clampitt, she treats syntax as the machine of thought. If many poems seem slight or offhand, Jamie is a poet defined by her limitations as well as determined in them. She's a poet of senses as well as sensibility, interested in the sculpted presence of the world but in little she cannot see. (Scotland has a long tradition of skeptical thought, though Hume would not have written these poems.) The poems look better the more you know of them, and the more of them you know—they live halfway in the shadows, like a predator waiting to strike.

Robert Hass:

Hass wants to say the unsayable; yet his poems imply that happiness must always be guilty, because someone somewhere is dying. The poems are often novel in conception, full of wrenching juxtapositions for which the term discordia concors might have been coined—after a while, though, you recognize that he possesses a rigid set of mannerisms: if he mentions poetry, it's to belabor the self-consciousness of it; if a woman, to spring into bed with her (there's a lot of heavy breathing in this book); if war, to condemn the inhumanity of it. No one would deny him his tastes, but why does he think they're in any way remarkable?

Despite his tendency toward meanness, Logan is a pretty good reviewer, so this whole article is worth the read.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

How does one be a buddha?

 

There is a simple way to become a buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome action, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.

~ Zen Master Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi; from Everyday Mind, a Tricycle book edited by Jean Smith.

 

Quote of the day:

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
~ Niels Bohr

Image of the day (Buck Forester):


BODY
~ Why Bodybuilders Should Stretch -- "What many guys don’t realize is that some of the most flexible athletes around are not the gymnists or the hockey goalies. Rather, they’re body builders. Body builders have excellent range of motion, which is a prerequisite for excelling at their skill."
~ So You Think You Know Strong -- "Can you do three chin-ups with 135 pounds strapped to your be-hind? No, then you ain't "strong" according to Coach Boyle! How much can you bench? Really? Because he doesn't really care. Find out what true strength means to him in this article!"
~ Oveweight Children Risk Heart Attacks as Adults -- "Two new studies in the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine show the probable impact of childhood obesity on heart attack rates."
~ Why are push-ups a good exercise? -- "Closing the kinetic chain by putting your hand on the floor promotes co-contraction of the rotator cuff. This can improve glenohumeral stabilization. Because the scapula is free to move, you must rely on active stabilization of the scapula. The greater your scapular stability, the greater your potential glenhumeral stability."
~ The Effects Of High-Dose Vitamin C On Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Patients -- "Scientists at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center have received approval for a first-of-its kind study on the effect high dose vitamin C has on non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients. Researchers from the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine and Kimmel Cancer Center in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health will study whether high doses of vitamin C can slow the progression of the deadly disease."
~ Exercise Eases Some Menopause Symptoms -- "Exercise is not a cure for hot flashes, but it does help postmenopausal women cope with stress, anxiety and depression, a Pennsylvania study has found."
~ Exercise Balls -- "The use of different balls during exercise can lead to improved muscle strength, muscle endurance and cardiovascular fitness. Exercising with balls brings many benefits."
~ Spices - Health Benefits -- "Not only do spices add flavour to your food, they are also good for your health. This article focuses on 6 of the best."
~ Practice Yoga to Lose Weight -- "The proven benefits of Yoga include toning, strength, endurance, improved balance, and enhanced body awareness, plus relaxation, stress relief and a boost in self-esteem."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Bored? -- "Don't blame your job, the traffic or your mindless chores. Battling boredom, researchers say, means finding focus, living in the moment and having something to live for."
~ Preexisting Anxiety Compounds PTSD Risk -- "Emotionally ravaging events like those involving physical or sexual abuse, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, or the passing of loved ones can affect patients across the social spectrum, often preceding the development of disabling mental health conditions. But lives riddled with any number of recurring anxieties leave subjects more likely to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the wake of particularly disturbing events."
~ The year in sex and psychology -- "Psychologist Dr Petra Boyton has just completed her yearly review of the past year in sex, revisits last year's predictions and looks forward to possible developments in 2008."
~ Anxious Depression Predicts Poorer Treatment Results -- "A new study examining the results of the STAR*D data has found that people who have “anxious depression” have a more difficult time in treatment than those without. A person with anxious depression experiences a major depressive episode and clinically meaningful levels of anxiety as well."
~ Lighten Up! -- "Having a too serious mindset isn’t that great all the time. It can lead to taking things way too seriously and create big problems and negative feelings and events from pretty much nothing. Lightening up can help you to drop unimportant stuff and leave you with more time and energy for the really important things in your life."
~ Personal Growth Books -- "A summary article of excellent personal growth and development books from well known authors." Some good, some not so much.
~ 50 Very Simple Ways to Be Romantic -- "Ok, so maybe Valentine's Day isn't for another month, but that doesn't mean you can't show your partner some special attention now. In fact, I invite you to join me in this experiment. The plan is to show your love for your partner in a small and different way each day for a whole month and see what magic happens."
~ Serotonin Receptors Don't Always Activate the Same Way -- "There are a number of synthetic drugs designed to trigger serotonin receptors and thus restore the brain to a healthy balance. These drugs are used to treat major disorders such as depression and schizophrenia, and there has been so much success with them that many more are in development. Those rushing to develop must pause, though, to read a study published last week by the Ohio State University Medical Center."
~ Humans And Apes Have Ability To Laugh -- "Humans are not the only animals with the ability to empathize and mimic, and perhaps also to laugh; it seems orangutans also have a sense of empathy which forms part of our ability to laugh. A study in Biology Letters suggests that the ability to laugh could possibly come from an early primate ancestor to both contemporary apes and humans. The researchers found that facial expressions were contagious among the orangutans."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ The end of postmodernism: the “new atheists” and democracy -- "The conflict between science and religion promoted by secular intellectuals such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens is a smokescreen. Behind it, a far more important argument about global power and justice in a post-postmodern age is becoming unavoidable, argues Tina Beattie."
~ Can Atheists Be Parents? -- " After six years of childless marriage, John and Cynthia Burke of Newark decided to adopt a baby boy through a state agency. Since the Burkes were young, scandal-free and solvent, they had no trouble with the New Jersey Bureau of Children's Services—until investigators came to the line on the application that asked for the couple's religious affiliation."
~ Fast Food and Proximity to Schools: What’s Wrong With the Picture? -- "Childhood obesity is an ever-growing problem in our society. Many schools are making a valiant effort to fight weight problems more and more children face today. These efforts include revising lunch menus, eliminating soda and vending machines and incorporating better fitness programs. While revising the lunch menu with healthy food choices is a great idea, what do we do about food choices right around the corner?"
~ Likely Voters Prefer Evolution Over Creationism [Greg Laden's Blog] -- "It is common knowledge that most Americans are creationists, and prefer creationist stories of human origins and evolution in general over the findings of evolutionary biology. But this is only true if you ask the questions a certain way, and a new study shows very different results."
~ The editor as curator -- "In the future, therefore, according to Jarvis, editors like me will become "curators", overseeing a vast network of blogs from which we may select the best content to feature on our publications' websites."
~ Cultural elite does not exist, academics claim -- "The "cultural elite" brought up on opera and the higher arts, which supposedly turns up its nose at anything as vulgar as a pop song or mainstream television, does not exist, according to research published by Oxford University academics."
~ Hungry for America -- "The world wants America back. For the next several years, world politics will be reshaped by a strong yearning for American leadership. This trend will be as unexpected as it is inevitable: unexpected given the powerful anti-American sentiments sweeping the world, and inevitable given the vacuums that only the United States can fill and that others will increasingly demand that it fills."
~ The Iowa Scam -- Christopher Hitchens -- "It is quite astonishing to see with what deadpan and neutral a tone our press and television report the open corruption—and the flagrantly anti-democratic character—of the Iowa caucuses. It's not enough that we have to read of inducements openly offered to potential supporters—I almost said "voters"—even if these mini-bribes only take the form of "platters of sandwiches" and "novelty items" (I am quoting from Sunday's New York Times)." Couldn't agree more.
~ Science And Religion -- "As Iowans prepare to go caucusing, the journal Science offers a ten-page special report* on four Democrats and five Republicans' views on science and science policy; the introduction laments that, "So far, with the exception of global warming, [these issues] are not getting much play" in the press. The journal's editor, Donald Kennedy, spells out the reason they deserve more in the issue's editorial: r-e-l-i-g-i-o-n. It's a reactive position, but understandable."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Time is running out - literally, says scientist -- "Scientists have come up with the radical suggestion that the universe's end may come not with a bang but a standstill - that time could be literally running out and could, one day, stop altogether."
~ Thinking Like a Monkey -- "What do our primate cousins know and when do they know it? Researcher Laurie Santos is trying to read their minds."
~ Annalee Newitz: Technology in Wartime -- "Gizmos that a decade ago would have been viewed entirely as communications tools and toys are now potential surveillance and killing machines."
~ Stanford Scientist Links Rising CO2 Emissions and Increased Mortality -- "Stanford researcher finds first link between rising levels of carbon dioxide and increased human mortality, a finding that could bolster efforts by California and 15 other states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles."
~ Alaskan Oil Leases Assailed as Environmentally Dangerous -- "The government's plan to award new petroleum leases covering an area the size of Pennsylvania is ripped for lack of due diligence and the potential harm to the area's wildlife."
~ Natural Causes to Arctic Warming, Too, but Man Still a Huge Factor -- "Not all of the Arctic thaw is caused by man. Nature plays a role, too, but that doesn't let us off the hook for the damage we've done."
~ Two Explosive Evolutionary Events Shaped Early History Of Multicellular Life -- "Scientists have known for some time that most major groups of complex animals appeared in the fossils record during the Cambrian Explosion, a seemingly rapid evolutionary event that occurred 542 million years ago. Now paleontologists, using rigorous analytical methods, have identified another explosive evolutionary event that occurred about 33 million years earlier among macroscopic life forms unrelated to the Cambrian animals."
~ Quest For A New Class Of Superconductors -- "Fifty years after the Nobel-prize winning explanation of how superconductors work, scientists are suggesting another mechanism for the still-mysterious phenomenon and exploring new superconductor candidates. Among the classes of materials that appear capable of superconductivity without phonons are the so-called heavy electron superconductors, certain organic materials, and the copper oxide materials that superconduct at up to twice the temperature at which nitrogen liquefies."
~ Gadgets to Go Green at Electronics Show -- "Consumer electronics aren't exactly easy on the environment - they consume electricity that contributes to global warming, and toxins leach out of them when they end up in landfills."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ The Power of Now -- "I’ve been operating on the premise that I, in fact, AM responsible for my own happiness, having seen time and again how I choose the dulling comfort of the status quo when faced with the possibility of deep personal change. So, naturally I assume most other adults choose a life of relative ignorance and suffer the consequences accordingly."
~ The Atheists are Coming (Gasp…!) -- "The two, hour-long videos of Hitchens, Dennett, Dawkins and Harris talking on atheism are making their way through the Integral Province. I made a short comment on them at Open Source Integral and was asked to expand on the thoughts. One of the main reasons for pursuing the matter further was it gave me the chance to quote this essay by the late Richard Rorty called Universalist Grandeur, Romantic Profundity, Humanist Finitude in which he deftly stated some cultural perceptions that parallel my own."
~ What to Do About Politics? -- "I still regard myself as a novice when it comes to many aspects of the Buddhist teachings. Having now a ten-year daily meditation practice, and having read quite widely in the literature, I do not yet think of myself as a "student" in the the sense that a true student immerses himself or herself deeply and without reservation in the teachings. I am frankly an amateur of Buddhism."
~ God and “Living Biblically” -- "For Christmas, one of my several thousand close friends gave me The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. It’s about one man (an editor at Esquire) who attempts to live for a year by following the literal word of the Bible (8 months to the Old Testament and the remainder to the N.T.). It’s an entertaining, thoughtful exploration of spirituality that mixes a dash of politically-minded satire - i.e., Biblical literalists can be either hypocrites or frightening - with a good measure of silliness."
~ Iowa Hocus Caucus -- "I like Obama's character and charisma. I respect Clinton's political experience. I have a soft spot for the soft-spoken Edwards and his policies. But truth be told, I would more likely vote for someone like Kucinich because he strikes me as the boldest yet most embracing of the Democratic hopefuls. Too bad he doesn't stand a chance in the Iowa Caucus, so he's throwing his support on Obama instead...."
~ Transformation in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism -- "Jodo Shinshu Buddhism is an unusual sect in Buddhism because it eschews what it defines as “self-power” (jiriki, 自力) practices. By self-power we mean practices that are calculated or contrived to bring about Enlightenment."
~ Should Integralists Storm the Religious Battlefield? -- "I've been covering the New Atheists on my blog (since the middle of 2006) way before the "New Atheist" label was in fashion. I even collectively criticized them and called their ideas FLAT. Looking back to my previous criticisms of the New Atheists, I admit that I was too quick on the draw. My bad. I've made a cardinal mistake of treating them as a leviathan with three heads [Dawkins, Dennett, Harris]. However, the more I learn about each of them, the more I realize that their ideas are as diverse as the believers they criticize."
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Peter at The Buddha Diaries has started a new blog, Accidental Dharma: The Gift Wrapped in Shit. I think this is a great idea for a blog. How many of us get our deepest lessons while sitting in meditation? Most of the really juicy lessons come as a shock, through the trials of our daily lives. Sharing these experiences is a great way to realize just how varied and important such experiences can be.

We all get them, these gifts wrapped in shit. They arrive when we least expect them, and certainly didn't want them. But if we unwrap them carefully, we find that they invariably have a heart of gold. Think of Al Gore. He was screwed out of the presidency and ended up with an Oscar and a Nobel Prize.

That's actually a bad example, because the gift is not about prizes and awards. It's about the inner teaching such gifts bring with them, and we'd have to find out from Al himself just exactly what the gift was.

Accidental Dharma seeks submissions of growth experiences, soul lessons if you will, that arose out of challenging situations. Check it out -- there are already many good posts, such as this one:

The weekend we found out I was expecting we were at our friend's annual camp party. It's a 3 day party taking place on an island, typically characterized by a lot of drinking, a lot of dancing, and a lot of music. I had been looking forward to the party for weeks, as this was just the sort of thing that was right up my alley. However, the morning we were to head out rolled around, and I just couldn't get into it. We loaded the car with our camping gear and our dogs, and headed out to the island. I should have suspected something was amiss when I declined the offer to stop at the liquor store - the idea of any sort of alcohol was absolutely abhorrent to me. I spent the entirety of our first day and evening there just sitting near the camp fire with my dogs, reflecting. I wasn't interested in dancing or partying or revelling with my friends - I wanted solitude. Around midnight I put the dogs to bed and headed into the tent to try to sleep. That whole night I just felt wrong - wrong that this was how I was spending my time, wrong that these were the choices I was making. The next day I was so repulsed by the entire scene that I made my husband pack up and head back into town. On the way into town I suggested that we get a pregnancy test. I don't know what made me think that that might be the source of my feeling 'off', but as soon as I took the test I knew what it would say. Several other follow-up tests confirmed.

From the moment the test showed two little pink lines I realised that I had been asleep. I hadn't been living my life, I had been clouding my mind in an effort to get from moment to moment, with the focus always on the future. I was always looking forward to what I COULD do, not what I WAS doing. At that moment I realised how wrong this was - that I needed to be here, in this moment, and experience this moment. I would never again be pregnant for the first time. I would never again experience THIS moment. I didn't want to miss any of these moments with my child - I wanted to remember and live and experience the entire process.

I'm not sure what it was that made me realise the error of the lifestyle I had been living. This shift started even before I knew I was with child. But it was profound and it caused some very difficult times between myself and my new husband. He wasn't interested in partaking of my new desire to live mindfully in the moment - he liked our old life. While I was brutally aware of every action I engaged in, every moment of every day, he wasn't interested in such things. Our relationship eventually mended itself over time, as he too gradually made these connections. Whether this process is something that would have happened to us both independently anyway, or whether it is a direct result of growing into our new roles as parents, I don't know. I suspect that it's a combination of the two, since I know many people whose experience of parenthood did not result in such radical shifts in the way they view the world.

The second milestone that occurred during my pregnancy happened in October. I was working as a bar manager at the local university pub. For a while I had been having problems with my job (selling liquor to students does not really fall under the 'right vocation' category). But I had always grown up with the idea that your career was important - that you would find meaning in the job that you do. So, although I wasn't finding anything other than negativity from this job, I continued to work hard at it, hoping that I would find some sort of fulfillment. After a particularly stressful few days at work (a lesson in 'accidental dharma' in and of itself) I began to have contractions. Being only 25 weeks along in my pregnancy, having my child at this point would have been devastating. My midwife quickly ordered me to leave work and spend my days at home, resting and avoiding stress. This might sound great to most people, but to someone who has, for her entire life, scheduled every last second of every day to insure as many activities as possible get done, this was catastrophic. I had been working fulltime since I was 16. Up until 2 years ago I had also been attending school. My days were used to being crammed - I now had no schedule, no where to go, and nothing to do. For the first time I was FORCED to slow down.

Since October I have gradually become more and more grateful for this time. Living in the Western world we're taught that everything needs to be done quickly, on a schedule, efficiently and that free time is a luxury. We are taught to work hard and make lots of money and buy many things; that we can judge our progress in life and how 'successful' we are by these yardsticks. It's taken me many months to be ok with saying 'I don't work.' I've struggled to be ok with the fact that I have friends who I went to college with moving up the corporate ladder, earning 3 or 4 times what our household income is. I've struggled to be ok with the fact that I live in a space that is about 300 square feet. I have struggled with these things because for so many years I was taught that the measure of my success as a person was not how happy I was or what I was contributing to humanity as a whole, but how much prestige I could earn. Being forced into unemployment, I now realise how ridiculous this concept is.

For the first time in my life, I am truly and completely happy. For the first time I'm not struggling with depression and anxiety. Sure, I have a very basic existence, I don't have fancy clothes or a big house. But I'm spending my days and nights doing things that I LOVE and things that are helpful and productive. My days are spent in meditation and reflection, reading, learning and writing. After my child is born I intend to raise her with this lifestyle. I can imagine no better contribution to society than to raise a child who is happy and mindful and caring and gentle. The act of becoming a mother has forced me see the world differently. I no longer look for fulfillment from external sources, I don't look to the future for ways to be happy. I am truly and completely happy in this moment. It doesn't matter what tomorrow brings, because in this moment, right now, I have all that I need.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Seeking That Which is

 

“Bhikkhus [Monks], before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisattva, I too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth; being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I sought what was also subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement. Then I considered thus: "Why, being myself subject to birth, do I seek what is also subject to birth? Why, being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, do I seek what is also subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement? Suppose that, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, I seek the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbana [Nirvana]. Suppose that, being myself subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, having understood the danger in what is subject to aging, sickness, death, sorrow and defilement, I seek the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbana."

~ Ariyapariyesana Sutta, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, trans. by Bhikkhu Bodhi; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

 

David Brooks makes some good points in the aftermath of Iowa. He titles his piece The Two Earthquakes -- sensing that what happened last night marks a possible turning point in American politics -- I hope he is right.

First on Obama:

This is a huge moment. It’s one of those times when a movement that seemed ethereal and idealistic became a reality and took on political substance.

Iowa won’t settle the race, but the rest of the primary season is going to be colored by the glow of this result. Whatever their political affiliations, Americans are going to feel good about the Obama victory, which is a story of youth, possibility and unity through diversity — the primordial themes of the American experience.

And Americans are not going to want to see this stopped. When an African-American man is leading a juggernaut to the White House, do you want to be the one to stand up and say No?

Obama has achieved something remarkable. At first blush, his speeches are abstract, secular sermons of personal uplift — filled with disquisitions on the nature of hope and the contours of change.

He talks about erasing old categories like red and blue (and implicitly, black and white) and replacing them with new categories, of which the most important are new and old. He seems at first more preoccupied with changing thinking than changing legislation.

And then on Huckabee:

On the Republican side, my message is: Be not afraid. Some people are going to tell you that Mike Huckabee’s victory last night in Iowa represents a triumph for the creationist crusaders. Wrong.

Huckabee won because he tapped into realities that other Republicans have been slow to recognize. First, evangelicals have changed. Huckabee is the first ironic evangelical on the national stage. He’s funny, campy (see his Chuck Norris fixation) and he’s not at war with modern culture.

Second, Huckabee understands much better than Mitt Romney that we have a crisis of authority in this country. People have lost faith in their leaders’ ability to respond to problems. While Romney embodies the leadership class, Huckabee went after it. He criticized Wall Street and K Street. Most importantly, he sensed that conservatives do not believe their own movement is well led. He took on Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth and even President Bush. The old guard threw everything they had at him, and their diminished power is now exposed.

Third, Huckabee understands how middle-class anxiety is really lived. Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has.

In that sense, Huckabee’s victory is not a step into the past. It opens up the way for a new coalition.

A conservatism that recognizes stable families as the foundation of economic growth is not hard to imagine. A conservatism that loves capitalism but distrusts capitalists is not hard to imagine either. Adam Smith felt this way. A conservatism that pays attention to people making less than $50,000 a year is the only conservatism worth defending.

If Brooks is correct, we are possibly witnessing a major change in US presidential politics -- and one might say, an evolution in American politics. For the first time in my lifetime, I am excited about a candidate (Obama) and not feeling like I have to choose the least dangerous alternative. I suspect some conservatives feel the same way about Huckabee.

Who knows what will happen going forward, but at least in Iowa they voted with their hearts, with the idea of a better more compassionate future. And that is a monumental change over the politics of recent years.
.

Quote of the day:

"The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well."
~ Horace Walpole

Image of the day (James Jordan):


BODY
~ (Recipe) Banana Cheerio Protein Breakfast -- "When exercising and/or lifting weights, it’s important to add plenty of protein to your diet in order to develop and maintain muscle. When digested, protein is broken down into amino acids, then turned back into protein to produce and repair our muscles after our training session."
~ Exercise of the Week: The Deadlift From Hell -- "It may just be the biggest of the big compound movements. Find out why this hellacious exercise is a favorite of Charles Poliquin!"
~ The New 300: Craig Ballantyne's Bodyweight 500 Workout -- "This time last year, everyone (especially me) was talking about the now legendary "300 Workout". This year Craig Ballantyne, author of Turbulence Training, has put together a new challenge for 2008." Looks like torture -- I can't wait to try it.
~ Fitness Predictions For 2008 - American Council On Exercise -- "The American Council on Exercise (ACE) has completed its annual survey of its extensive worldwide network of personal trainers, group fitness experts, advanced health and fitness specialists and lifestyle and weight management consultants to identify the leading trends in the fitness industry. 2008 promises to be filled with water aerobics, boxing clubs and spicy Latin dancing."
~ Ways To Reduce Gassiness -- "Gassiness: It's embarrassing, bothersome and -- yes, smelly. Sometimes, changing diet can clear the air. Temporarily avoiding certain foods can help identify causes of gassiness. The January issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter lists foods that sometimes are the culprit: Dairy products: The sugar lactose in dairy foods is a common cause of gas. Nonprescription products such as Lactaid or Dairy Ease may help."
~ Moderate Exercise Yields Big Benefits -- "What's the key to looking and feeling better and enhancing your health? Exercise. Moderately strenuous exercise, about 30 minutes a day, can lead to enormous benefits in terms of your mood, health, weight and the ability to live an independent and fulfilling life. The exercise doesn't need to be athletic or difficult. Studies have shown that simply walking at a brisk pace for 30 minutes or more on most days can lead to significant health improvements."
~ The Ultimate Good Carb Guide -- "Have you ever had a friend tell you that they were giving up carbs? Are you confused by all the talk of carbohydrates? If so, you are not alone. Read on to check out our good carb guide to help you load up on good carbs and cut back on bad carbs."
~ Living With Arthritis -- "Pain may define my condition, but I won't let it define my life."
~ Does milk really do a body good? -- "Some experts say it's a health hazard. Others say it's the most nutritious food you can find. We investigate all the claims about milk to find out if you should have a glass."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ A C Grayling on the Importance of Autonomy -- "Are individuals capable of overcoming limitations to achieve by will and endeavour what they identify as good?"
~ Blogging on the Brain: 1/04 [Developing Intelligence] -- A good collection of links.
~ Decision making, impulsivity and time perception -- "Time is an important dimension when individuals make decisions. Specifically, the time until a beneficial outcome can be received is viewed as a cost and is weighed against the benefits of the outcome. We propose that impulsive individuals experience time differently, that is with a higher cost."
~ 2007 Review: 21 Topselling Books on Personal Growth -- "I use the term personal growth in its broad sense here. Besides self-help books, I also include personal finance, spiritual, and some business books. Of course, my picks are subjective to what I think are related to personal growth, so you can check the complete list if you want to."
~ Altered emotional response in bipolar mania -- "Compared with healthy subjects, manic patients had a significantly reduced VLPFC regulation of amygdala response during the emotion labeling task. These findings, taken in context with previous fMRI studies of bipolar mania, suggest that reductions in inhibitory frontal activity in these patients may lead to an increased reactivity of the amygdala."
~ The Secret of Feeling Grounded -- "Have you ever wondered why full prostrations are a ritual in many world religions? One of the reasons is that something important happens when we bow down and touch the ground with our body: We pour ourself into the earth and into the sky. And this outpouring makes us feel grounded."
~ The Ageless Brain -- "Forgetful? You may be under too much pressure."
~ No One Can Control Your Emotions -- "Many of us feel that when our emotions spill over, when we feel very awful (and even when we feel inordinately good), it is due to our interaction with someone, and therefore we believe that our emotions depend on the good or bad state of our relationship with each person. Obviously this is tantamount to saying that others control our emotions, and nothing could be further from the truth."
~ Enhance Healing Through Guided Imagery -- "Aristotle and Hippocrates believed in the power of images in the brain to enliven the heart and body. Today, research shows they were right. Guided imagery is helping patients use the full range of the body's healing capacity, according to the January issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter. Guided imagery is more than listening to relaxing sounds. It's a learning process to listen to someone's voice, relax the breathing and consciously direct the ability to imagine."
~ Review - The Search for Meaning A Short History by Dennis Ford -- "It is difficult to classify this book. Perhaps one way to give the potential reader some sense of the book is to say what it is not. It is not a philosophy text. It is not a self-help book. It does not present arguments for the way to find meaning. It is not a book about the meaning of meaning."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Paideia in America: Ragged Dick, George Babbitt, and the Problem of a Modern Classical Education -- "ONCE UPON A TIME, every educated boy was made to learn some Greek and Latin. Today none of them learn any Greek and only a bare few learn any Latin. Who can say when this pernicious decline began? Near the end of the nineteenth century, American educators felt a need to offer the rudiments of a classical education to those “bound by their circumstances to the active and laborious employments of farming, of the mechanic arts, of business, of housewifery, and of all the various handicrafts by which material subsistence is procured.” America at this time was bustling; but if these laboring souls could not leave the farm or workshop for a high school or college education, their boys and girls could."
~ The Esthetic, the Sacred, and Originary Modernity -- "The sacred "reproduc[es] the configuration of the originary event in a more or less formalized manner as ritual"; meanwhile, "language, in contrast, is typically a one-on-one phenomenon; as a self-contained gesture that has renounced any role in worldly action, the linguistic sign has no minimal energy requirement." But the qualification, in a part of the passage referring to the sacred I omitted, that "The sacred tends to inhere in stable religious institutions" [emphasis on "tends to" mine], points to the possibility of a form of sacrality that need not inhere in ritual."
~ Dr. Freud, What Do Voters Want? -- "Where is Sigmund Freud when we finally need him? This is the fellow who famously asked: What do women want? He could have put his skills to better use answering a more difficult question: What do American voters want?"
~ State of Emergency -- "When the experts are pressed about the future of media, they all offer the same inexplicable answer: “I don’t know.” Despite all the money, talent and resources available, no one actually knows how to save the media."
~ Authoritarian Temptation -- " Giuliani never disguised himself. While his moderate stances on social issues distinguished him from the Jerry Falwell wing of the 1993 Republican Party, he never pretended to be anything other than what he was. He was not a popular mayor because he softened his prosecutorial zeal or concealed his fixation with imposing order or renounced his faith in centralized power vested in a single, strong, even unchallengeable leader."
~ Iowa Winners Count on Momentum -- "Next week's New Hampshire vote will test the durability of several candidacies."
~ Obama's Historic Victory -- "It's just one win, but Joe Klein says January 3, 2008 may mark the end of the politics of race - and baby boomers."
~ Youth Vote Tripled in Iowa -- "Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee may owe a debt to young people for their victories in last night's Iowa caucuses. Youth voter turnout tripled from 2004, with 65,000 people ages 17 through 29 turning out for the caucuses."
~ Barack delivers, Hillary disappoints -- "Obama's big win in Iowa also highlights the inadequacy of Clinton's campaign strategy -- more caution than inspiration. Now she must change course."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Can We Turn Garbage Into Energy? -- "As proponents of this waste-disposal method always hasten to point out, "plasma incineration" is actually a misnomer—well, at least the "incineration" part. There is no combustion required, and thus no flames or acrid smoke. A more accurate moniker is "plasma gasification," since the end products of the process are syngas and an inorganic solid that can be used to make asphalt or concrete."
~ The Green Upside to $100-a-Barrel Oil -- "Driven by trends both short-term (political instability in Africa and speculation) and long-term (voracious new demand from China and India), oil has quadrupled since 2003, doubled since the beginning of 2007 and now reached triple digits for the first time since it began trading on the exchange began in 1983."
~ Laptop Project Blames Intel for Breakup -- "The founder of the One Laptop Per Child project claimed Friday that Intel Corp. undermined his group's effort to sell $188 computers for schoolchildren in the developing world even after the chip company got a seat on the nonprofit's board."
~ Science to Government: Evolution Is a Fact, So Teach It -- "A new report by scientific advisers to the U.S. government emphasizes the importance of teaching evolution in schools, while taking a swipe at the "unscientific" theory of intelligent design."
~ A New Attempt to Make S.F. a Truly Wireless Town -- "Google and Earthlink tried, and failed, disappearing in a sea of bureaucratic red tape. Now a startup hopes to persuade San Franciscans to voluntarily put radio repeaters on their rooftops. Good luck with that."
~ Baby Mammoth Could Shed Light on Warming -- "Frozen in much the state it died some 37,500 years ago, a Siberian baby mammoth undergoing tests in Japan could finally explain why the beasts were driven to extinction - and shed light on climate change, scientists said Friday."
~ "Shared Space" Traffic Calming: Counterintuitive, But It Works -- "Imagine my surprise, then, when I read this article about the small (13,000 residents) town of Bohmte, Germany, which decided to deal with its own traffic and safety problems using the opposite approach--eliminating most signals and lane markers altogether. On one section of a major thoroughfare through the city, Bohmte officials have erased lane markers, torn up sidewalks, and bulldozed curbs in a radical effort to force people to use common sense and courtesy when driving rather than relying on lane markers."
~ US judge limits marine military sonar in California -- "A US federal judge on Thursday set limits for the use of marine sonar by the military in California, a practice environmentalists have long accused of putting sealife in danger."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Deepak Chopra: The "Soul Hypothesis" -- "One doesn't have to blindly accept religious dogma to believe in the soul. Like any theory that needs proving, the soul is a hypothesis that can be tested. Such testing doesn't take place in a lab. Each person is a living example of the soul hypothesis, and throughout life we can use our own experience to prove whether the soul is valid and real."
~ Final release -- "The final release is also what allows any and all experiences and any and all ways the world of form happens. The only way this can happen is to see, feel and love as all God. And the only way that can happen is to release identification with the idea/sense/feeling/experience of an I with an Other."
~ Movie Review: No Country for Old Men by Bert Parlee -- "The following is a review of the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men by our own integral movie-buff Bert Parlee. This will, hopefully, be the first of many film reviews to come. Thanks Bert!!"
~ The Living Buddhist Faith -- "Sometimes I am amazed when I read the writings of Jodo Shinshu how organic and living the faith is. As I’ve said a few times before, it is in many ways a very counter-intuitive faith at first glance, but as you delve deeper, it really brings out Buddhism in a whole new light."
~ Mixtape Dharma: Trading Music, Sharing Love -- "I hereby propose the first round of a mixtape (er, mix CD) trading session (assuming this is legal?) to take the edge off all this cold. My group-organization skills are limited, so I’m going make this relatively simple: a straightforward two-way trade. E-mail me at first initial last name at gee mail dot com, tell me you want the mixtape below ASAP, and we’ll trade. I’ll send you the following disk and — here’s where the dharma part comes in — you send me one in return."
~ On Tony Blair's and My Own Roman Catholicism -- "I respect Blair's choice of faith. It's his choice and his alone. Aside from his personal faith and other possible political reasons, Blair converted to Roman Catholicism because of his kinship and love for his wife and kids. I sympathize with that. For the record, I respect the personal faith and for kinship reasons."
~ Ahhhh, Why Not? -- "And I keep thinking how hilarious it is that the one thing I've been trying to keep quiet and under wraps is the one thing that is causing what I do to be something that Is Heard. And I can't help but wonder what else I've been trying to hide that really, truly should be let loose. Do you know what I mean?"
~ Am I a Agnostic Buddhist? -- "Like Sam Harris, I don't like putting labels on my belief and faith. But this is very close to what I subscribe to...." Agreed.
.

A very moving victory speech by Barack Obama.

Landscapes

the anonymous dream: a garden
of wind-worn stone, petrified trees,
vultures circling overhead
waiting for my collapse

my lungs are liquid, veins of granite
stiffen my flesh, legs rooted in soil

isolation, loss, a scene
replayed in the mythos of night

always just out of reach, the words
I have sought seemingly since birth
dance around a fire, singing the song
I always wanted to write for her

but that was years ago and still
the dream, a one-act play repeated

I can't remember her face anymore,
wrapped in veils, hidden in poems,
the woman, an apparition I once knew

the carnal crawl of minutes erases
so much, buries me in fine grains of sand

I knew her once, tasted her,
surrendered myself
to a raging river of desire
and drowned

flesh and blood of the first kiss,
marrow of loss,
transcendent psalm

it wasn't me, I object, but
the dense forests of dream
contain my DNA, so little truth
in memory's ossuary

dream-space: knotted roots
can never be untangled
by mere words, deceptive minutes

still the need to say
what can never be said,
to see her eyes reflect
the landscape of her soul

.

Homage

I.
Dionysos once lived in my flesh,
but the abdicated god
now haunts me,
demands my adulation

what loss in forsaking wine,
the elixir of poets?

my blood once flowed as merlot,
rich and chocolaty,
but now I am stone

II.
morning light is caustic,
a poison to dreams
night might offer

I once sought truth
in the fluid of grapes

never did I realize
that moonglow was a poison

I ate pomegranates
hoping for illumination
that never arrived

III.
Day into night : night
into day : undone
and covered in cobwebs

the dark god haunts me,
demands my recognition,
and in his voice
I hear
the deep need of shadows

IV.
can the poet ever be free
from the source?

can voice arise from the throat
in the absence of wine?

kicking in the door
I demand a place
at the altar,
an audience with immortality

V.
A whisper : the warm tongue
speaks in syllables of hope

morning light : loss is bone
crushed beneath the weight of truth
.

This was yesterday's Daily Om, and it offers a good commentary on living our lives RIGHT NOW, rather than always waiting for the perfect conditions, the "as soon as . . ." that seldom ever comes.

Now Is The Time
Bloom Where You Are Planted

Having a vision for our future that differs from our current circumstances can be inspiring and exciting, but it can also keep us from fully committing to our present placement. We may become aware that this is happening when we notice our thoughts about the future distracting us from our participation in the moment. We may find upon searching our hearts that we are waiting for some future time or situation in order to self-actualize. This would be like a flower planted in North Dakota putting off blooming because it would prefer to do so in Illinois.

There are no guarantees in this life, so when we hold back we do so at the risk of never fully blossoming. This present moment always offers us the ground in which we can take root and open our hearts now. What this means is that we live fully, wherever we are, not hesitating because conditions are not perfect, or we might end up moving, or we haven’t found our life partner. This can be scary, because we might feel that we are giving up our cherished dreams if we do not agree to wait for them. But this notion that we have to hold back our life force now in order to find happiness later doesn’t really make sense. What might really be happening is that we are afraid to embrace this moment, and ourselves, just exactly as we are right now. This constitutes a tendency to hold back from fully loving ourselves, as we are, where we are.

We have a habit of presenting life with a set of conditions—ifs and whens that must be fulfilled before we will say yes to the gift of our lives. Now is the time for each of us to bloom where we are planted, overriding our tendency to hold back. Now is the time to say yes, to be brave and commit fully to ourselves, because until we do no one else will. Now is the time to be vulnerable, unfolding delicately yet fully into the space in which we find ourselves.

This ran in Science Daily yesterday, but after I did my speedlinking for the day. It offers evidence that forgiving others is good for our health -- holding a grudge seems to damage the heart and CNS.

Maybe it's just me, but I am struck by the metaphor of a hardened heart -- one that is unable to forgive -- becoming physically unhealthy. It seems that the more we can open and soften our hearts, the more human and healthy we become.

Holding a grudge appears to affect the cardiovascular and nervous systems. In one study, people who focused on a personal grudge had elevated blood pressure and heart rates, as well as increased muscle tension and feelings of being less in control. When asked to imagine forgiving the person who had hurt them, the participants said they felt more positive and relaxed and thus, the changes dissipated. Other studies have shown that forgiveness has positive effects on psychological health, too.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting, condoning or excusing whatever happened. It’s acknowledging hurt and then letting it go, along with the burden of anger and resentment.

There’s no single approach to learning how to forgive. Talking with a friend, therapist or adviser (spiritual or otherwise) may be helpful during the process, to sort through feelings and stay on track. The January issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource covers four steps that are included in most approaches to learning forgiveness.

• Acknowledge the pain and anger felt as a result of someone else’s actions. For forgiveness to occur, the situation needs to be looked at honestly.
• Recognize that healing requires change.
• Find a new way to think about the person who caused the pain. What was happening in that person’s life when the hurt occurred? Sometimes, the motivation or causes for the incident have little to do with those most affected. For some people, this step includes saying, “I forgive you.”
• Begin to experience the emotional relief that comes with forgiveness. It may include increased compassion for others who have experienced similar hurt.

About two and half years ago, I received a card in the mail from an ex-girlfriend, the first woman I had ever really loved. We had spent six intense and challenging years together beginning in college -- when I was 23 and she was 19. At the time the card came, I wasn't prepared to open my heart to that period of my life, the pain seemed to intense to welcome back into my consciousness. I blogged about it at the time.

Even then, after all the time that had passed, I still blamed her for hurting me and couldn't really accept that she probably wasn't the same person she was when we were together (just as I am not the same person, either). Even more, however, I blamed myself for all the ways I hurt her and broke her young and tender heart.

But blame is destructive. Neither of us intended to hurt the other. We were young, wounded, and simply did the best we could at the time -- and no matter how much we wish it otherwise, it happened. It can't be undone. And there was nothing, in retrospect, that we could have done differently.

Looking back now, I think the experience, as painful and filled with regrets as it was, propelled each of us to become better, healthier people. This is one of those dharma gifts that comes wrapped in shit. So often in life, the painful experiences are the ones that help us grow, that force us beneath the wounding to discover the true compassionate nature of who we are -- if we are willing to face the pain.

Last week, I decided to reconnect with her, initially just to request a poetry submission for Elegant Thorn Review. She recently completed her master's degree in writing and has had a chapbook published. One of the things we shared was poetry, and I always knew she would become a successful poet.

Sometimes we make a choice without quite knowing what will come of it. She isn't the young woman I knew -- but it turns out that she is the adult woman I always thought she might become. Maybe being married has helped her find her way, or maybe she did it through her poetry, which like mine, is always a mirror to the content of her psyche. However she found her way, I'm so glad that she is happy.

Even in the brief exchange of emails we've had, the decision to contact her has opened a deep well of grief. I didn't expect that. I thought that I had moved through those feelings in therapy a few years ago. But still the waves wash over me. What has changed, though, is that I don't feel the need to escape them -- I can sit here in the surf and let the feelings come and go with whatever natural rhythm dictates these things.

Sitting with grief has always been hard for me, but the more I do so, the more I can literally feel my heart soften, open, return to its tender nature. I didn't expect this gift to come out my decision to know her again.

[This post was picked up by Accidental Dharma, where you can also find this original post.]

Minutia

I am not of this world, and yet
the mossy stone is my heart,
veins of quartz are my skeleton,
the raven's caw is my voice

Sabino Creek flows with the blood
of my memory, tumbling over rock,
carving its path through the canyon
as I seek my way through each day

life is found in these particulars,
bones crushed beneath the weight
of regret, shedding the skin of the past
with all the urgency of a snake

my flesh is earth, dissolved in rain
and solidified in sun, of this world
and completely foreign, rooted by ivy
in the darkest crevices of being

how then seek connection, give voice
to elements? I am not what I appear
and so much more, an ecology
of minutia, more expansive than night

.

I envy Cassandra. Unconscious on the floor of the temple as serpents whispered in her ear. Such a hideous gift to see the future and be cast aside as insane. But what a gift.

Freud said that dreams are the royal path to the unconscious, wishes conveyed in image. I dream myself a serpent, coiled and hissing, seeking the flesh my fangs crave. The bitten leg was my own. A strange form of cannibalism.

Serpents. Eve was betrayed by her innocence, just as Cassandra trusted the voices she heard. In the end, it was Apollo who betrayed her.

What secret resides in the coiled flesh of snakes? Is it their ability to transcend surface and depth?

Perhaps suffering is inherent in vision?

Cassandra pledges virginity*

quiet

foreseen night

not belief, trees she said and running
water, suffering committed to form,
an isolated smile from behind the leaves

not belief, promise he said and mingled
blood, form committed to suffering,
another dawn, remembered death, more

prophetic body

_____

Apollo pretends his kiss offers
the gift already given, confirmed
by his appearance, ivy and fountains
in the temple of her mistress

unfurled wings, turbulence
of desire, she cringes before
the glow, a shadow presence
beneath his lust, afraid

she swears her loyalty
to the darkness in her blood,
her vows, and he offers
one last kiss in acceptance

breathes death down her throat,
curses her vision, force of breath,
prophecy without belief, torment
and his fragrant laughter

_____

quiet

she knows we disbelieve

is anything more jagged
than morning's fangs, all that
and sun, veins run empty

cactus grows through ice
at noon, who understands

_____

a bridge can never return to soil
the distance between deserts and cities,
between those brief seconds when she
smiles and the rancid debris of shame

she understands the bridge her body
becomes, straddling a liminal river,
a woman of sand and cement, new
vision for eyes blinded by mirrors

_____

she who drinks skullcap tea,
who clawed the winged god
with desire restrained,
who refused his kiss
and is never believed,
who remembers dreams and secrets
we are condemned to live

* * * * *

Cassandra in the desert

serpents flicking tongues in her ear,
black kisses
found on the temple floor
cursed by blood,
unable to refuse

she who walks between day and day
who wears a white gown
dragging in the dirt
who smiles in the mirror and prays
to herself
who sleeps in violet sheets
who worships a dark mistress
filled with forest
who was ravaged by the wings
of his voice

feels light so strange its odor
permeates dream, mystery
of breath, a voice lost
in the space between words

vision enters its driest year

a lizard suns itself
on a flat gray rock

she stumbles along
asking every stranger
for the time, tells each person
the mystery of death
seeks black kisses
in the new cathedral

a cactus growing through ice
signifies something
but no one admits memory,
mismeaning compounded by belief,
sunset delayed

she believes, suffers fore-knowledge,
straddles a liminal river flowing
through temporal soil cursed by blood
seized by dreams in the desert

a crow snatches the lizard
from its rock

she continues walking, sage in her hair
and cannot remember why
she took the very first step

* * * * *

Cassandra confesses all sins

father,
these damp months
searching the cellar,
cleaning webs from my eyes,
confounded by meanings
i see our future
flows in human blood

these minutes drag rotted fruit
to our lips, at noon
no shadow is cast

i misplaced the future
in praise of virginity, my flaw
fells the kingdom,
i bathe my burning eyes in darkness,
proclaim sex the new prayer

flicking tongues of serpents
once filled me with visions

and i am grateful
for bitter taste of blood,
black kisses
my dark mistress
bestows while i pray

willingly led to my death
forsaking deserts and dreams
and Apollo's jealous breath
exhales the quiet syllable
speaking our death,
all this and more
i confess

* * * * *

Cassandra's last vision

we must be blinded to see,
beat across the eyes
with whips of wild roses,
taste salt of blood,
unleash ivy dormant
in the spinal tree,
create phrases capable
of infecting thought,
seek black kisses
in the new cathedral,
granite altars beneath towering oaks,
bodies bared in frenzy of prayer,
die laughing and never forget
darkness opens from silence,
marginalia of inhaled breath,
eat skullcap root and drink
the poison of moonlight,
no more kneel before virgins,
everything, taste it,
wear red dirt as lipstick
when you enter the temple,
seek black kisses,
give voice to stones,
we are everything undone
and dying,
bare your bodies
and proclaim sex
the new prayer,
return to the cave, retrieve
the forgotten body,
not by soul alone
we die,
breathe

* * * * *

death of Cassandra

cry Cassandra cry, this end foreseen,
first minute past noon,
tumbleweeds and cactus growing
through black city streets

old darkness this dust covered
cement soul, grown tired she waits
foreign hands to claim her

kneels to dig, fingers scratch a hole
in dirt, a cradle for the severed
finger, offering, a dark kiss

places bracelets on the table,
her voice gathers death,
serpents return to liminal shadows

knows her day descends,
imagines impossible kisses
in the temple of her dark
mistress, night disrobes

her graved remains give birth
to silence, temporal soil,
threshold restored

In my dreams, Cassandra speaks to me. Do I need to be blinded to see?

What dark god haunts these minutes? Prophecy is always denied. And so I say nothing, content with the torment of a vision that cannot be spoken.


[* Some of these poems have been previously published.]

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week from Snow Lion Publications:

In the frenzy of modern life we lose sight of the real value of humanity. People become the sum total of what they produce. Human beings act like machines whose function is to make money. This is absolutely wrong. The purpose of making money is the happiness of humankind, not the other way around. Humans are not for money, money is for humans. We need enough to live, so money is necessary, but we also need to realize that if there is too much attachment to wealth, it does not help at all. As the saints of India and Tibet tell us, the wealthier one becomes, the more suffering one endures.

...Eating, working, and making money are meaningless in themselves. However, even a small act of compassion grants meaning and purpose to our lives.

~ From How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life by the Dalai Lama, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins

An interesting, though brief, defense of mind and soul from the onslaught of rationalist, reductionist models that "computerize" the brain and discard the idea of consciousness. But Searle's concept of "intentionality" still is not sufficient for neuroscience to accept the idea of consciousness.

From Ovi:

Modern rationalists whose paradigm of reality is Descartes’ philosophy and its idea that we are nothing but so much matter extended into space and complicated biological machines are fond of pointing out that our brains are similar to a computer program and that therefore computers are conscious or will soon be. In some way artificial intelligence is superior to human intelligence: quicker, more precise, clearer and so the sooner we become “humbots,” the better. After all, doesn’t a computer beat most of us at chess most of the times? What is never mentioned, or is considered superseded in this kind of reductionism, are the ideas of mind and soul, very well know to the ancients as integral characteristics of human beings.

But we need not go all the way back to Plato, or closer to us, Vico, to find major opponents of this dehumanizing view of the nature of man. There is a contemporary philosopher of language still alive who has dedicated his life to the study of the mind and has become a pioneer in the field of cognitive science. His name is John Searle.

Searle counters what he dubs “strong AI” (Artificial Intelligence) with a famous thought experiment, which he calls the Chinese Room argument. This is how it goes: imagine you find yourself in a room containing an enormous rule book, which allows you to look up Chinese sentences and tells you how to reply to them in Chinese. Through a hole in the wall you are handed a piece of paper with a question written on it in Chinese. Using the rule book, you look up the answer to this question which you write on another piece of paper, in Chinese, and pass through another hole. To the people outside the room you appear to have thorough understanding of the Chinese language, whereas in fact you could perform the required task without understanding a word of it.

Searle argues that the Chinese room is an analogy for so-called artificial intelligence. The rule book is the equivalent of a computer program, which manipulates symbols according to a set of rules, and produces answers. By doing so it can give the appearance of being intelligent. But it is nothing of the sort. A computer model of the mind is not actually conscious, just as a computer model of the digestive system cannot actually eat pizza. A computer model of falling in love or reading a novel or getting drunk does not actually experience these things, but simply produces a simulation of these processes. The basic ingredient that distinguishes human minds from computers, according to Searle, is intentionality. Computers are defined syntactically, in terms of formal symbol manipulation, and that, he argues, is insufficient to imply consciousness.

So if consciousness is not something that can be experienced by a computer, what is it exactly and how does it emerge? In his theories about the mind and consciousness, Searle rejects Cartesian dualism—that the mind is something non-physical and separate from the body. He also rejects the reductionism of thinkers such as Daniel Dennet, who believe that consciousness can be reduced to a series of physical processes in the brain similar to a software program.

Instead Searle adopts a position which he call biological naturalism. As per this view, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon of the brain. To explain what he means by this, he cites as an analogy the liquidity, or wetness, of water as being an emergent phenomenon brought about by the behavior of the molecules that it is composed of. You cannot pinpoint a particular molecule and say “this one is wet”—the wetness is a feature of the whole system of molecules. In the same way, one cannot point to a neuron and say “this one is conscious.” Consciousness emerges as a result of the whole system. Events at the micro-level—perhaps at the level of individual neurons—causes a phenonmenon, which we call consciousness, at the macro-level.

Some have seen biological naturalism as a form of dualism since micro-level properties can be objectively studied by a brain surgeon. But the brain surgeon cannot in the same way access macro-level properties such as pain, desire, joy. Searle rejects this suggestion. He stresses that consciousness is a type of physical property; it is not something separate like a kind of juice that is squirted out by the neurons, it is the state that the system is in, part of that system and inseparable from it. How it works—how micro-level behavior creates consciousness at the macro level—is a question for the neuroscientists. But as a problem for philosophers, Searle regards it as solved.

His philosophy solves it by intentionality which is the attachment of meaning to an object, such as a belief about it, possession of it or contempt towards it. In his Collective Intentions and Actions, Searle seeks to show how intentionality can operate on the collective level. He contends that collective intentional behavior exists and is not the same as the sum of individual intentional behavior. Vico called it “common sense” while Jung calls it “the collective unconscious,” but Seale insists that there is no such thing as group mind or group consciousness; society consists of individuals. In this there are clear parallels with his theories of mind and his rejection of dualism and reductionism as explanations of consciousness.

In his The Construction of Social Reality (1996), Searle applies his theory of intentionality to society, looking at the way certain aspects of our world are created as a result of the combined intentionality of those who make use of them. We assign functions to physical objects—turning matter into chairs, money, swimming pools and countries, for example—by our common intention to treat objects in that way, and by our willingness to conform to rules for the treatment of those objects.

Other essential readings for an in depth study of Searle’s theories are Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language (1969), Minds, Brains and Programs (1980), Intentionality: an Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (1983).

Merlin Donald is attacking this issue from the realm of neuroscience itself, and therefore makes a stronger case. You can check out a selection of his articles online (all are PDF format).

More on this, and on Donald's viewpoint when I have more time.

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Hidden Wealth

 

Imagine a very poor man living in a decrepit little shanty, the only thing he owns in the world. What he does not know is that just beneath his shanty, but hidden in the dirt, is an inexhaustible vein of gold. As long as he remains ignorant of his hidden wealth, this pauper remains in poverty; but when he attends more closely to his own dwelling, he is bound to discover his own fathomless wealth. Similarly, all we need to do is unveil our own nature, and we will find an inexhaustible source of wisdom, compassion, and power. It is nothing we need to acquire, from anywhere or anything. It has always been there. Seen in this light, the Buddha-nature requires no additions. One does not have to memorize sutras, recite prayers or accumulate virtues to create it. All one needs to do is unveil it.

~ B. Alan Wallace, Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

Quote of the day:

"There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."
~ Oscar Levant

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Twenty of the World's Healthiest Foods -- "When it comes to eating healthy most people think of dull, boring food that's green in color. In reality, most of the world's healthiest foods not only taste great, they also come in a vast array of vibrant colors. Many require little, if any preparation, yet provide you with the energy and stamina to get through the day. They are the ultimate fast food!" The list doesn't include fish or chicken, but it's still useful.
~ Plyometrics: Getting Stronger And Faster -- "Plyometrics are a form of exercise designed to produce the greatest strength gains in as short a time as possible. Plyometrics actually use gravity to store potential energy in the muscles, then quickly turn this stored energy into kinetic energy. Here are some examples of plyometric drills that can be useful to a guy who plays football recreationally, or who is looking to just increase their strength and add variation to their workouts." I LOVE plyos.
~ The 2008 Fat Loss Roundtable, Part I -- "It's the New Year, the traditional time to think about ditching all that blubber. What's the best way to do it, low carbs, low fat, low calories, exercise, supplements, or some novel approach?"
~ Pilates: Why Every Guy Should Try It -- "Pilates is a fitness craze taking the world by storm. Classes are popping up in gyms, home fitness gurus like Denise Austin have put out video tapes, and Pilates mats are being sold everywhere from Target to health food stores. More and more men are practicing Pilates by the day."
~ How to Exercise in Cold Weather -- "It’s freezing outside, it’s freezing when you exercise. Your home gym isn’t isolated. Your gym manager doesn’t heat the gym. But that doesn’t stop you. You decided to stop making excuses not to exercise because it’s too cold."
~ Chronic Pain Relieved By Strength Training Of Neck Muscles -- "Neck pain has been steadily increasing over the past two decades and is now second to back pain, the most common musculoskeletal disorder. Women are more likely than men to suffer from persistent neck pain, in particular those who engage in repetitive tasks such as working at a computer keyboard."
~ Help your preteen get strong the safe way -- "You would expect to find pre-algebra, American history and grammar in a middle-school curriculum, but what about a lifetime lesson in fitness? As childhood obesity reaches epidemic proportions, an increasing number of schools are paying closer attention to what's being taught during physical education."
~ Scientists Explain How Alcohol Causes Hypoglycemia (Too Low Blood Sugar) -- "Scientists at the leading Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have now disclosed the mystery how alcohol may cause exaggerated insulin secretion resulting in severe hypoglycemia (too low blood sugar)."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Actually, happiness isn't within -- "There is, it turns out, little difference between You and Me. Both outlooks reflect a firmly held and particularly American belief that happiness lies deep inside the inner you, or me, or whatever.The self-help industry has it wrong."
~ Language doesn't influence our thoughts ... except when it does [Cognitive Daily] -- "The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis -- stated in its strongest form -- claims that language determines thoughts: if a language doesn't have a means of expressing a particular idea, then people speaking that language can't even conceive of that idea. This strong form has long since been rejected: There are plenty of thoughts we can have without having the words to express them."
~ Progress & Change Aren't Possible if You Keep Doing the Same Things -- "When you feel safe inside of the status quo of whatever it is you have done to this point in your life, and when you feel safe in any field of endeavour that has formed part of your life to this point, you are inside your comfort zone. It is only when you notice the tug of fear, of apprehension, perhaps merely of discomfort, that you actually are feeling the call of what may very well lead to potential growth and change."
~ Fantasies: In Your Dreams -- "Why anxious women fantasize about anonymous sex."
~ How Do We Know When We Have Enough? -- "One of the challenges we face in life is realizing when we have enough. Often there are times when we think we need more of something only to find out that we had it all along. Other times, we feel our lives are missing something – we feel an emptiness that we can’t identify. That emptiness is often a sign that we are missing or don’t have enough of a certain item in our life – be it enough family time, education, happiness or a myriad of other things."
~ The Four Laws of Simplicity, and How to Apply Them to Life -- "It’s been nearly a decade since I first started trying to simplify my life, and in those years I’ve struggled with clutter, I’ve had surges and ebbs of complications and simplicity, I’ve tried dozens of methods of simplifying from as many sources. It’s been an interesting journey, although not one that I can recommend to everyone. If you’re looking to simplify a certain aspect of your life, you don’t want to go through that kind of confusion."
~ Sol Snyder on Finding God in the Brain [Terra Sigillata] -- "The first 2008 issue of New England Journal of Medicine came yesterday in the snailmail box and I read the following story with such great interest that I nearly walked into a tree. Bear with me but the news lately has taken me on a neuroscience streak without my having specific professional expertise in the area."
~ The reading cure -- "The idea that literature can make us emotionally and physically stronger goes back to Plato. But now book groups are proving that Shakespeare can be as beneficial as self-help guides. Blake Morrison investigates the rise of bibliotherapy."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ "There Will be Blood" wins top critics' awards -- "'There Will Be Blood' took top honors from the National Society of Film Critics on Saturday, scoring wins for best picture, best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis and best director for Paul Thomas Anderson."
~ Will the Humanities Save Us? -- "Do the humanities ennoble? And for that matter, is it the business of the humanities, or of any other area of academic study, to save us? The answer in both cases, I think, is no."
~ Revolution -- "Change, particularly generational change, was also at the heart of Barack Obama's victory over John Edwards and Hillary Clinton. Voters under 30 supported him by better than 5 to 1 and he carried independents by more than 2 to 1, according to media entrance polls."
~ Look back in wonder -- "What is the nature of memory? And can it be captured in literature? Craig Raine considers the most successful attempts at doing so, from Wordsworth's 'spots of time' to Proust's tea-soaked madeleines."
~ Can You Count on Voting Machines? -- "But when Platten went to retrieve paper copies of each vote — generated by the Diebold machines as they worked — she discovered that so many printers had jammed that 20 percent of the machines involved in the recounted races lacked paper copies of some of the votes. They weren’t lost, technically speaking; Platten could hit “print” and a machine would generate a replacement copy. But she had no way of proving that these replacements were, indeed, what the voters had voted. She could only hope the machines had worked correctly."
~ Election 2008: What Happens When Politicians Promise Change -- "It is hard to imagine the candidates providing much change when their political strategists are the same crew who've been around for years."
~ You're a Good Man, Charlie Gibson -- "Saturday night's GOP/Democratic debate featured an unusual moment: ABC's Charlie Gibson, its moderator, took advantage of the debate's back-to-back, Republicans-then-Democrats format to ask all the candidates, from both parties, to share the stage."
~ GOP's Focus Is Fear -- "Look for an emphasis on terrorism, taxes, and immigration." That ain't news, it's GOP politics as usual.


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Some Biofuels Are Worse Environmentally Than Fossil Fuels, Analysis Shows -- "Biofuels reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in comparison to fossil fuels. In the journal Science, researchers consider environmental costs of biofuel production. Corn, soy and sugarcane come up short. The authors urge governments to be far more selective about which biofuels they support, as not all are more environmentally friendly than fossil fuels."
~ Intel Banks on Another Wireless Gadget -- "Intel Corp. is betting on a big expansion of "ultra-mobile" computing, an idea that depends on people being willing to tote around a portable device beyond their ubiquitous cell phones."
~ Sunspot is harbinger of new solar cycle, increasing risk for electrical systems -- "A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM transactions, showed signs it was on its way late Thursday when the cycle`s first sunspot appeared in the sun`s Northern Hemisphere, NOAA scientists said."
~ Ceramic hybrid needles take the sting out of shots -- "New polymerization technology may one day take the pain out of injections and blood draws. A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina and Laser Zentrum Hannover have recently used two-photon polymerization to create hollow needles so fine patients wouldn`t feel them piercing their skin. Clustered together on a patch, these microneedles can deliver drugs or draw blood efficiently as standard hypodermic needles."
~ Prairie grass energy boost studied in the field -- "Using switchgrass as a biofuel yields five times more energy than is used to grow it."
~ Why Are Chickens Getting So Fat? -- "Over the years, poultry breeders have bred chickens that grow faster and produce more meat in response to a growing worldwide consumer demand. But modern broiler/breeder chickens don't adequately balance their feed consumption to match their energy requirements. When these birds are given unrestricted access to feed, they will overeat and become obese."
~ Scientists find cultural differences among chimpanzee colonies -- "Socially-learned cultural behaviour thought to be unique to humans is also found among chimpanzees colonies, scientists at the University of Liverpool have found."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Allowing Nirvikalpa -- "There's an interesting comment from an earlier post that I thought was worth responding to. It's from mayagaia, who has an interesting website worth checking."
~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali Tells It Like It Is -- "Ayaan Hirsi Ali reviews The Suicide of Reason by Lee Harris on the NYTimes Sunday Book Review. She sympathized with Lee Harris on his efforts to bring about awareness on radical Islam, but then she left a big gaping hole on the main argument put forth by the book."
~ Why I Don't {Heart} Huckabee -- "I'm quite sure that Mike Huckabee has policies that make perfect sense to his supporters, not to mention their attraction to his religiosity. Case in point: See this Exclusive Interview: Governor Huckabee Speaks with Catholic Online. But this article on Physorg puts it succinctly...."
~ Steve Whitmire on Integral Naked - It's Not Easy Being Teal -- "Steve Whitmire is one of the few individuals who has carried on the whole-hearted legacy of Jim Henson, and the mastery and development of puppetry through Jim’s unique Muppets. Since the passing of Jim Henson in 1990, Steve has served as the animating force and puppeteer for beloved characters such as Kermit the Frog and Sesame Street’s Ernie."
~ Overcoming gender -- "Your gender is a constraint. This is an inalienable truism, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman."
~ Meditation as Natural History -- "To say that the world is an illusion is not to say that there is nothing going on out there. This is the kind of claim that may succeed in amusing idle philosophers and would-be mystics, but that is pretty darned useless for any other earthly purposes. And earthly purposes are the purposes I care about."
~ The Universe Project Continued... -- Andrew Cohen -- "Deepak [Chopra], I’ve come to appreciate, is a deeply genuine and authentic human being. He’s thoughtful, reflective, sensitive, generous, and caring. I have to admit that I didn’t always see him this way. My original—and erroneous—impression from his public persona (and I hope he will forgive me for saying this!) was that he was kind of a lightweight salesman whose ambition superseded his spiritual depth."

.

Eboo Patel, author of The Faith Divide blog at the Washington Post, has posted this partially true but useful (inasmuch as it recognizes that all faith is not the same) entry:

Tribal Religion, Transcendent Religion

There is a story about a Christian minister living abroad during World War II. His congregation sends him money so that he can return home for Christmas. When he doesn’t come back, they ask him why. He says that he used the money to help a group of Jews escape Hitler’s death camps and flee to safety.

“But they’re not even Christian,” writes one member of his congregation.

“Yes, I know,” the minister responds. “But I am.”

All religions have both types of people – the tribal and the transcendent. The tribal type see in the particular narratives of their tradition a narrowing of concern, and therefore care only about the people who look like them, talk like them and pray like them.

The transcendent see in the same particularity a universalizing of care, and therefore focus their energies on all people, especially groups most in need, regardless of creed.

If tribal religion wins, it necessarily pits groups against one another based on identity, and it means that people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris are right – religion will destroy everything.

If transcendent faith wins, it opens the possibility for different identity groups to use their particular narratives to articulate a collective vision that includes everybody.

If that isn’t the future, there will be no future.

This is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my faith heroes. A German Lutheran religious scholar and pastor, he was one of the most important leaders in the resistance to Hitler in Germany, ultimately dying for his cause.

After Kristallnacht, he said to his fellow Christians on German radio, “Those who did not stand up for the Jews do not deserve to sing Gregorian Chants.”

Bonhoeffer died for the Jews of Europe because he was a Christian, one who found the transcendent instead of the tribal in the particular. Drawing on the depths of his faith, Bonhoeffer spoke of “the cost of discipleship” -- which meant a commitment to the transcendent ethic of Jesus and the universalizing word of God, not a narrow concern for a tribe that shared his particular religious rituals.

All of our faiths have a definition of discipleship that transcends the tribe. Acting on it determines the quality of our faith, and the possibility of our future.

Patel's distinction is useful, if simplified, in the current debate between the atheists and religion. Dawkins, in particular, sees ALL religion and all forms of faith as harmful. Most of the others also have issues with faith in one way or another, but transcendent faith, as Patel describes it, should be something we seek to encourage.

We might, again in an overly simplified way, see transcendent faith as the "healthy" form of religion. If we accept that premise, we should encourage those who hold a religious (as opposed to spiritual) worldview to become less tribal and more transcendent. I'm not sure how we would do this, but it seems like an issue worth considering.

Matt Rentschler is the Managing Editor of AQAL: Journal of Integral Theory and Practice, published by Ken Wilber's Integral Institute.

I pretty much agree with his five reasons. I'm not completely convinced that point #1 is true. Obama has a consistently liberal voting record in the Senate. However, he is also able to compromise and work with Republicans, so this is one of those points where we'll have to wait and see.

However, I do need to admit that his campaign speeches have been highly non-partisan, and seem to be seeking unity -- so maybe he has changed course?

 

5 Reasons Why I'm Voting for Obama
by Matt Rentschler

1. His third way politics: not ideologically driven, and not merely political compromise, but a pragmatic flexibility that allows him to move from left to right on, and ultimately through, issues.

2. His cognition, self-identity, and morality are seemingly Green to Teal or higher, which means he meets the prerequisite altitude(s) to handle the complexities of 21st century foreign and domestic policy.

3. As a result, what he lacks in experience or age (his two biggest criticisms) he more than makes up for in political judgment and intuition, as exemplified in his decision to not authorize the invasion of Iraq in the first place, as well as his current stance on Iran.

4. His image. Or more specifically, his face and name. As a man of color with a Muslim background, Obama has the potential to rebrand the long war against global extremism as a truly connected and impartial effort to minimize human suffering, rather than some profit-driven imperialist adventure or fundamentalist crusade.

5. His faith, or "secular humanism." With so much terrorism carried out in religion's name and with the US itself facing a similar pressure cooker, Obama's complex, mature spirituality is a huge asset in both foreign and domestic policy.

I could come up with 5 more reasons, but those will do for now. Probably more so than any other presidential candidate, Obama offers a way to transcend several dualisms and dichotomies: liberal v. conservative; atheist v. fundamentalist; black v. white; Christian v. Muslim. Whether or not he can make good on this potential remains to be seen, but presidential elections are always a gamble, no matter who you vote for. So, as it stands now, Obama has my vote if he gets the nomination, because he holds the most promise of being an "integral leader."

(For an excellent, and I believe Teal, perspective on Obama's candidacy, see Andrew Sullivan's article "Goodbye to All That.")

Don Beck makes another cogent defense of the Spiral theory, and in this case, a point that I think gets repeatedly lost when AQAL proponents dismiss SDi as nothing more than a values line in the integral model.

As far as I am concerned, the identification of the eight stages is of secondary usefulness, at best. The important element in the Spiral model is how it addresses and understands change -- how new stages emerge or don't emerge, based on a variety of factors.

This is from the SDi listserve.

With regard to the current conversation regarding 4Q/8L -- our version is 4Q/8L and AQAL is Wilber's version, the concept of "allometry" might be of use. The danger is to reduce the quadrants to separated boxes as if they are self contained entities. They are not. In a recent posting I made on Third Tier, I described the role of the Spiral in the vortex among the four, as the "verb" that drives the "rise" and meshes the various concentrations and combinations. It is quite OK to separate them for an educational purpose but quite reductionistic and artificial to attempt to decide which one comes first etc. etc. This is the reason we use the term "Integral."

The real contribution of Graves and Spiral Dynamics is not in the array of levels that he identified in his research; rather, the key is in the Dynamics of the Spiral itself.

I have a great deal of difficulty understanding how other theories explain how/why/when the emergence occurs. To my knowledge Graves offers the very best explanation within the "Double Helix" - the interaction between/among Life Conditions, human Capacities, and specific Contexts. As early as 1971 at a presentation in Washington DC (National Institute of Mental Health) he "climbed out on a fragile limb" to declare how Life Conditions shape what we know as the interiors, and why these patterns have correlates within the brain's structure, neuronets, chemical flows, and energy swirls ... nobody else was saying it so well, especially then.

When I speak or write of Spiral Dynamics, I'm referring to the "emergent, cyclical, double helix model of bio-psycho-social systems" -- the Master Code -- not the specific "systems" that many have identified. I didn't find any of this in Loevinger's initial research, for example, and have difficulty tracking the process that creates new world views or value systems in other models. This is one of the reasons I decided, after studying 42 systemic models, that I should cast my lot with Clare. I have never had second thoughts.

( We just completed an empirical study of 20,000 people in Iceland.)

I think this is a useful clarification. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Today's Daily Dharma from Tricycle:

Buddha as Archetype

 

[We can] view the Buddha as a fundamental archetype of humanity; that is, as the full manifestation of buddha-nature, the mind that is free of defilement and distortion, and understanding his life story as a great journey representing some basic archetypal aspects of human existence. By viewing the life of the Buddha... as a historical person and as an archetype, it becomes possible to see the unfolding of universal principles within the particular content of his life experience. We can then view the Buddha's life not as an abstract, removed story of somebody who lived twenty-five hundred years ago, but as one that reveals the nature of the universal in us all. This becomes a way of understanding our own experience in a larger and more profound context, one that connects the Buddha's journey with our own. We have undertaken to follow the same path, motivated by the same questions: What is the true nature of our lives? What is the root cause of our suffering?

~ Joseph Goldstein, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom; from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book.

I like this approach. Buddha was a human being just like any of us.

He undertook the same hero's journey that is available to each of us. Most simply, the journey has three phases:

1) Buddha left his life of wealth and comfort in search of truth (separation)
2) He sought teachers and masters to impart their wisdom to him, culminating in his realization of the Middle Path, and his enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree (initiation)
3) Upon his illumination and realization of the truth, he began his career as the Buddha, teaching all who would hear the truth he had discovered (return)

Joseph Campbell broke it down even further in his monomyth:

Campbell's insight was that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years, all share a fundamental structure. This fundamental structure contains a number of stages, which includes

1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline
2. A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails
3. Achieving the goal or "boon", which often results in important self-knowledge
4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail
5. Applying the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world

Because the monomyth is an archetype, it is available to all of us. Each person can choose to follow this path, test the Buddha's injunctions, and discover their own truth about the nature of samsara.