Posted inAwareness Science

The brain creates the mind, which is us

Today Ron E. left a comment on a recent churchless post that I like a lot and share below. I readily admit that my fondness for the comment, which extends to almost all of the comments Ron leaves on this blog, largely is based on the fact that he and I look at reality in much the same way. In a word, naturalistically. Meaning, we as human beings are not separate from the natural world, but are an integral aspect of nature. Nature is us, to put it in three words. But since we're Homo sapiens, not a rock, a…
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Posted inAwareness Reality Science

Prior experiences and assumptions determine how we view reality

As I've noted previously on this blog, one of the spiritual phrases that now irritates me, yet used to make sense to me, is "as it is."  There's a mistaken notion that it's possible to see reality as it is, objectively. That notion gets elevated into various sorts of mumbo-jumbo where this or that meditation technique, or whatever, supposedly gives someone the ability to perceive what is actually there with no trace of illusion. Today I finished reading another chapter in David McRaney's book, How Minds Change. "Socks and Crocs" was super-fascinating. I'll try to do the chapter justice in…
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Posted inAwareness Spiritual practice/meditation

Lose yourself to find yourself

For a long time, over three decades, I assumed that a central goal of my life was to know myself. Another way of saying this was self-realization. The idea was that somewhere hidden away in my psyche was a True Me who was different from the current Untrue Me. So I diligently meditated every morning. Sometimes as long as two and a half hours, sometimes for a shorter period, but never less than an hour.  I don't regret all that meditating, which totaled well over 20,000 hours. Plus, I've continued to meditate every day since the end of my religious…
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Posted inAwareness Reality

Calm acceptance of what is — my newest adage

I enjoy coming up with new pieces of advice that I can tell myself. They become temporary mantras, something I can repeat in my mind now and then to keep myself as centered as possible in an unpredictable world. Calm acceptance of what is. This is my newest adage.  I've always been impressed by people who can stay calm in stressful circumstances. Soldiers fighting in war. Emergency room doctors and nurses. Parents of a two year old having a temper tantrum. So many other examples of humans handling difficult situations with poise and competence. That requires a certain detachment from…
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Posted inAwareness Consciousness

A guided meditation by Sam Harris about the open sky of consciousness

Below is a transcript of a guided meditation by Sam Harris that I listened to recently on his Waking Up app. I enjoyed it a lot. His guided meditations last either 10 or 20 minutes, depending on how much non-speaking time you choose. So the words by Harris should be experienced, not just thought about. Of course, there's quite a bit to ponder in how Harris views consciousness and its contents. What he says reminds me of what I read about Descartes and his famous Cogito, ergo sum, I think therefore I am,  in an intriguing new book by David Chalmers…
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Posted inAwareness Reality Spiritual practice/meditation

The best spiritual practice could be…nothing

Here's some thoughts about the value of basing your spiritual practice on... drumroll please... absolutely nothing. But I'll introduce this topic by sharing an anecdote. Yesterday I took our dog for a walk around the community lake near our rural property. A house is for sale that overlooks the lake. A woman and two children were walking down from the house toward the lake, seemingly because the family was looking into buying the house. A young boy came up to the fence that our dog and me were on the other side of. He pointed and said, "nice lake." Then…
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Posted inAwareness

Be thankful for nothing. Which means, everything.

I'm not a grinch about Thanksgiving. I enjoy this holiday.  My wife just finished making an apple pie. Soon I'll prepare our main dish, a vegetarian Trader Joe's Turkey-Less Stuffed Roast, which requires all of my cooking skills: heating the oven to 375, basting the roast, and cooking it for 45 minutes.  Whew! I feel exhausted already. I'm also totally fine with feeling thankful. I just have a different view about what thankfulness means. Last night I saw people interviewed on the evening news about what they're thankful for. Family. Friends. Having a job. That sort of thing. OK. Totally…
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Posted inAwareness Happiness

Know that you know a lot less than you think you know

I subscribe to The Atlantic, so I'm going to take the liberty of copying in a great piece from the online The Atlantic, "How to Know That You Know Nothing."  (Maybe it's available to non-subscribers, but not knowing for sure that it is, I thought I'd take the advice put forth in the piece and realize that since I'm not confident that I know, I might as well share it this way.) This shows that Harvard psychology professors can sound a lot like Zen masters. Which isn't really all that surprising, since Zen possesses a lot of psychological wisdom. Enjoy.…
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Posted inAwareness

Better self-awareness comes from sharing our self with others

For many years I wrongly thought that the way to "know myself" was to engage in several hours a day of solitary meditation. Sure, I did learn some things about myself in this way and developed a lot of discipline by meditating every morning whether or not I felt like it. Now, though, I've come to realize that it is easy to fool ourselves when the only conversation we're having is within our own mind -- I talking to me; us speaking to ourself; one part of our psyche conversing with another part. As noted in my previous post about…
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Posted inAwareness Books Consciousness

“On Having No Head” has a few simple truths

On Having No Head is a book by D.E. Harding. I'd bought and read it quite a few years ago. Then, when I needed to weed out unwanted books to make room for more, On Having No Head was given away.  Recently, though, I heard Sam Harris speak about the book in his Waking Up iPhone app, so I decided to re-buy and re-read it. Here's my review, which is of a second edition of the book that contains a "Bringing the story up to date" section that was written over forty years after Harding wrote the first edition. My…
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Posted inAwareness Science

Awareness is a process, not a thing

I'm aware of typing on my laptop right now. And after writing those words, I'm also aware that I'm aware of typing on my laptop. This second type of awareness is called meta-awareness, a term I came across in a book I'm reading, "Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body." The authors, Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson, write: When we did our first vipassana courses in India, we found ourselves immersed hour after hour in noting the comings and goings of our mind, cultivating stability by simply noticing rather than following where those thoughts, impulses,…
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