no easy believing

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."


As quoted in the Kalama Sutra, as translated in The American Buddhist Directory (1985) by Kevin O'Neill, p. 7

businessless person

“As I see it, there isn’t so much to do. Just be ordinary—put on your robes, eat your food, and pass the time doing nothing.” - Master Linji, Teaching 18

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mental proliferation

A short and useful explanation of the concept of papanca (mental proliferation)


"The result of papañca is that the mental universe we inhabit is entirely constructed by our minds, and we can share little of that with others (most of whom are trapped in their own papañca)."

http://dharmastudy.com/papanca/

new paradigms

New Paradigm Thinking in Science and in Theology

Fritjof Capra and David Steindl-Rast, with Thomas Matus (1992)

Belonging to the Universe – new thinking about God and Nature

Penguin; ISBN 0140172394



3 page summary table


htm version

little things

Hang on to what you got

You aint got much but its all you got

Hang on to what you got

Little things mean a lot

[Clark 1970]

EO Wilson interviewed by Robert Wright

evolutionary psychology (aka sociobiology)

Edward O. Wilson

Edward O. Wilson video of the sociobiology man interviewed by Robert Wright

words

"With all their admitted uses, words have three limitations.



At worst they construct an artificial world wherein our actual feelings are camouflaged and people are reduced to stereotypes.



Second, even when their descriptions are reasonably accurate, descriptions are not the things described - menus are not the meal.



Finally, as mystics emphasize, our highest experiences elude words almost entirely,"
(Huston Smith)

For and against

"If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease".

(Sent-ts'an, c. 700CE)

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Evolutionary psychology is concerned with the adaptive problems early humans faced in ancestral human environments, the nature of the psychological mechanisms natural selection shaped to deal with those ancient problems, and the ability of the resulting evolved psychological mechanisms to deal with the problems people face in the modern world.



Evolutionary psychology is currently advancing our understanding of altruism, moral behavior, family violence, sexual aggression, warfare, aesthetics, the nature of language, and gender differences in mate choice and perception. It is helping us understand the relationships between cognitive science, developmental psychology, behavior genetics, personality, and social psychology.

... more

... wikipedia