Buddha Break 2007.04.05

The World Health Organization defines health as, "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

"The suffering itself is not so bad, it's the resentment against suffering that is the real pain." -Alan Ginsberg

"Remembering a wrong is like carrying a burden on the mind." - Buddha; Guilt, shame and the Buddhist practice.

Gifted students who feel the pressure of their ability could be using Heavy Metal music to get rid of negative emotions.

"A Tibetan scholar once complained to me of Zen’s severe reductionism. The scholar was right. Zen is so reductive by nature that it actually self-destructs. The longer I practice Zen the less I have of anything, including Zen itself." -- Lin Jensen; More.

Neurolinguistic programming (NLP) can help you literally think yourself out of depression.

People who bought this book also bought: Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves by Sharon Begley; The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind by B. Alan Wallace; The Dalai Lama at MIT by Anne Harrington; Genuine Happiness: Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment by B. Alan Wallace; The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge.

Scientific studies of meditation and other forms of contemplative experience have only recently become a subject of scientific interest.

Saletan on brain damage, evolution, and the future of morality.

The concept of Nirvana from a psychological point of view.

Paul Broks reviews Nicholas Humphrey's take on consciousness: "One day I'll be dead. It's an oddly exhilarating thought. Something unimaginable—nothingness—awaits us all. I have a hunch that getting an imaginative purchase on mental nothingness would help us also grasp the "somethingness" of sentience. What else was conscious in that summer's evening scene? The tree? No. The bugs? I doubt it. The cat? Who knows? I had an intuition that it felt like something to be the cat, that the animal had some awareness of the cacophony of the cicadas' mating calls, an awareness to which I would ascribe the sensory quality sound. As it stretched and rolled, I imagined it experienced a bodily sensation, which might be labelled pleasure. And I am pretty sure that if I had walked over and stamped on its tail, then it would have experienced pain. But it was just an intuition. An intuition, yes, but one I could surely back up with neurology."

"The biggest obstacle [today for contemplative practitioners] is that Western 21st century culture provides very little support for spiritual practice and in fact its major thrust (consumerism) runs counter to spiritual growth." More.

Being human: Nussbaum and capabilities.

The latest NEWSWEEK poll shows that 91 percent of American adults surveyed believe in God—and nearly half reject the theory of evolution. Maybe it's because humans hard-wired for faith.

Computer-based therapy for such things as depression should be available to all patients in England from April, says the government.

"The reason we experience disgust today is that the response protected our ancestors," said Dan Fessler, associate professor of anthropology and director of UCLA's Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture. "The emotion allowed our ancestors to survive long enough to produce offspring, who in turn passed the same sensitivities on to us."

Would you kill one person to save five others? Your intuition is probably wrong, says Peter Singer.

Slate on The Hostile New Age Takeover of Yoga. Read with a grain of salt.

Click to see larger version.

Buddha Break 2007.03.15

A new videogame teaches Buddhist principles.

New book: Horizons in Buddhist Psychology (2006), edited by Maurits G.T. Kwee, Kenneth J. Gergen and Fusako Koshikawa.

Description:This book is for those who are interested in Buddhist teachings and all who seek routes to growth in human well-being, particularly therapists, coaches, and scientists. It is a vanguard work that sets a cultural revolution in motion by bringing the fruits of the Buddhist heritage together with contemporary therapy, systematic research, and postmodern thought. The volume contains 28 chapters by 38 contributors from 12 countries, and introduces a range of useful practices, evidence of their efficacy, and integrative theoretical deliberations. Its contents move toward a climax called New Buddhist Psychology.

A single, specific memory has been wiped from the brains of rats, leaving other recollections intact.

Is there a moral obligation to be intelligent? Is faith a moral failing? Is dogmatism dangerous?

Through the ages, the killjoys of governing elites have been threatened by public expressions of collective joy; it's time to reclaim what makes us human.

A new study reports on the state of human happiness.

Buddhism lures tourists.

Nichiren Buddhism fits Western lifestyle.

Belinda Carlisle talks about becoming a Buddhist. Here's a concise list of celebrity Buddhists (how cool is it that Lisa Simpson is on the list?).

Deepak Chopra on consciousness.

Buddha Break 2007.03.06

Top 10 ways to improve your mental fitness and make your brain age younger.

"If marijuana were a new discovery rather than a well-known substance carrying cultural and political baggage, it would be hailed as a wonder
drug."

Scientists have discovered why some individuals may be predisposed to drug addiction and believe it may lead to better treatments for this brain disorder.

Make sure you go to bed early because lack of sleep affects moral judgment.

Daniel Gilbert on the "The Vagaries of Religious Experience."

Contemplate this: AI vs. meditation (re: Minsky's The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind & Alan Wallace's Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge).

Insight from metapsychologist Isabel Gois into Benjamin Libet's "Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness."

Genes and fortune determine happiness.

Couples share patterns of life satisfaction.

Mindfulness in mood disorders.

Massaging young minds.

Human compassion surprisingly limited.

Christology and the Human Body.

Buddha Break 2007.02.15

The rise of the technosattva part 1 and part 2.

Read why only geeks and hippies can save the world.

Get your Handbook of Emotion Regulation.

Music has a role in adolescents' mood regulation.

There are 7 reasons why the 21st Century is making us miserable.

Patients suffering from depression are being invited to chill out like Buddhist monks to prevent them from committing suicide.

The Dalai Lama is urging his followers to practice faith with reason, saying that it should not be blind.

Train your mind and change your brain.

Genes may be underestimated cause of bullying.

Mechanism of hallucinogens' effects discovered.

Buddha Break 2007.02.14

Here's an e-mail exchange I recently had with a friend who is discovering the merits of Buddhism, but is worried about its 'religious' aspects and the potential extremes of unattachment (my friend's questions are indented):

> Not counting the obvious practices such as meditation, can you think
> of some examples in which as a Buddhist you've reacted to a real-
> world situation differently than you might have before? Even as one
> who isn't quite ready to consider himself a Buddhist, as a result of
> the reading I've done I find myself being consciously aware of my
> surroundings and my own behavior, and when something begins to upset
> me I remind myself that it is only a feeling that will pass, and so
> it does. Does Buddhism, for you, result in a continual checking of
> yourself, or has it become internalized and automatic?

To me it's an issue of maintaining mindfulness. I'm constantly doing mindfulness checks, which I think is par for the course. Over time it's getting easier and easier for me to remain rooted in the moment and be aware -- with the ultimate goal of having it come automatically and effortlessly. I try to be as self-reflexive as possible. Whenever I have an emotional swing or an emotion spike I try to take a psychological step back and trace the steps that led to such feelings. This doesn't mean you have to fight the feelings; it's more a matter of understanding how those feelings and thoughts were contingent upon one another.

I also work to 'read' those around me to get a sense of their state of mind -- this also gets easier over time because you can see patterns in people that mirror your own. They may not be aware of their state to the degree that you are. This helps in interactions because knowing their state of mind will help in your constructive interactions with them. And of course, this can also help increase your sense of empathy with them.

Some examples of mindfulness include my ongoing interactions with my kids and my work day. With my kids, I strive to remain calm, respectful and helpful. As for my day job, much of my work is menial and repetitive. This is where the Zen Buddhists have it figured out. Each task, no matter how often it is repeated, can be scaled down and analyzed such that it can still be improved upon, or at the very least maintained. If you become bored of a task, then it's important to be mindful of the boredom and work on your psychological self-conditioning to recognize it as an emotional state and a craving of sorts. It may not help with the boredom, but it's a start.

> As a secular Buddhist, who presumably isn't constantly consumed with
> the minutia of doctrine, do you feel like you should be strictly
> following the traditional "rules?" What about drinking? What about
> sex? Is the letter of the law important, or the spirit? I know the
> Buddha says that the dharma is testable through experience, but how
> much "Buddhism" can a Buddhist ignore before he's really just a guy
> who thinks self-reflection and meditation is cool?

I struggle with this. My own personal goal is to do the best I can under the circumstances. First and foremost, a Buddhist's primary motivation is to mete as little harm as possible to other sentient agents (the Dalai Lama, btw, eats meat because he likes it so much; we're not after moral perfection, here -- it's more of a spectrum of behaviour that one is comfortable with). The second priority is to not harm yourself. You're also a sentient agent who deserves to be as free from suffering just like the next guy. Ask yourself: am I abusing or neglecting myself? In what way am I responsible for my unhappiness?

As for striking a balance, I try to do 'relative happiness' checks from time to time. If I feel that I'm slipping down a slope I try to analyze my habits to see if I'm letting a potentially bad habit or craving-of-the-week dictate my negative moods.

One thing I learned early on (and Gautama talked about this) is to avoid a purely aesetic life. Avoidance of all things that give pleasure and the seeking of existential minimalism and even suffering is ridiculous and futile. Take eating, for example. Enjoy eating, but be mentally prepared to give up your favourite food at any given time. You can still honour your preferences and lead a good life filled with experiential goodness.

When Asian Buddhists visit North America, for example, they prefer noodles to pizza when given the option. If they have no choice but to choose pizza, they still eat the pizza without letting it affect their mood. That, imo, is the key to Buddhism. If, on the other hand, you have a habit that you're not prepared to discard if you had to, then you have an issue that's worth exploring.

> One thing I'm really curious about is how one knows when a desire is
> the selfish craving of tanha, and not simply something one wants
> because it is pleasing. Is it simply a matter of enjoying things for
> their own sakes, without expectations? Is my desire to get a new
> iPod merely something that I will enjoy listening to music on, or is
> it something that I subconsciously feel will help make me whole? Is
> it as simple as meditation or just being aware and reflective about
> why I want things? Or are all desires tanha, and some are merely
> more destructive than others? I guess that's really more a technical
> question than a general one, but it's one I'm not sure about
> nonetheless.

I think some of the answers to this question are related to the previous one. I like what you said, "Is it simply a matter of enjoying things for their own sakes, without expectations?" That's a good way of looking at it. The key is to recognize the severity with which you may be attached to something.

I also like that you said, "or is it something that I subconsciously feel will help make me whole." That's a very mindful observation! Experiment! Go ahead and buy that iPod and self-reflect on how your feelings and perspectives change over the course of the transaction.

Here's what I suspect will happen (because I go through this all the time myself): I crave some new technological gadget and look forward to using it and the new outlets it will create for me (ie artistic expression, novel information, superior features, etc). I buy the item and I am immediately filled with buyer's remorse. Once I'm over that I enjoy the product, but never to the degree that I fantasized I would. Eventually the novelty wears off and my craving re-directs to another technological gadget. This is most definitely a cycle of despair. I'm still stuck in this rut, but I've made the first step of being mindful about it and I suspect that I will soon learn that I don't need to buy every little toy.

I'm also mindful about my motivations for wanting technology (or anything for that matter). Consider the impact of our evolutionary psychology: we are hardwired to crave material possessions, we have a desire to increase social status, we love tools, and so on. I may have also purchased the product due to social pressure, the need to conform, and extremely effective marketing (NLP, etc.). Again, my actions may not change, but my *awareness* of what causes my actions are raised to the surface. Eventually I hope to be able to transcend external and internal influences and achieve better control of not just my actions but my psychological reactions as well.

Lastly, Buddhism is soley about psychology and managing your state of mind. It's not about buying the iPod. It's about the quality of your subjective experience leading to the decision and your subsequent mental states.

> I need to read more. On that note, do you have any recommendations
> as far as books or websites that I could learn from?

Batchelor's Alone With Others is awesome. Life changing.

And while not exclusively Buddhist, these articles also had a life
changing effect on me and has helped tremendously in my meditative and
mindfulness practices:
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/

Read the first series at the very least:
http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english.php

Buddha Break 2007.01.31

Seeing as I'm up for some awards as a Buddhist blogger I should start to act like one. Here are some items that recently caught my attention:

David Ian Miller on living with impermanence.

Extreme Buddhism and Hardcore Zen.

My iPod, my self, and my technotranscendence.

"When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help . That's the message he is sending." -- Thich Nhat Hanh. Read more about punishment.

Daniel Harper blogs about the possibilities for post-Christian worship from a UU perspective. [via Arbitrary Marks]

Eastern philosophy promises hope for Western women with eating disorders.

To scientists, he is the world's happiest man. His level of mind control is astonishing and the upbeat impulses in his brain are off the scale.

The new Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of
Pennsylvania studies the physical effects of religious experience.

"The brain seems to have networks that are specialized to produce an explicit, magical explanation in some circumstances..."

Attention and consciousness are two distinct brain processes.

"The Hedonic Set Point Can Be Raised" -- Nancy Etcoff

V.S. Ramachandranon the neurology of self-awareness.

Activation of brain region predicts altruism.