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For thousands of years, Buddhist meditators have claimed that the simple act of sitting down and following their breath while letting go of intrusive thoughts can free one from the entanglements of neurotic suffering. Now, scientists are using cutting-edge scanning technology to watch the meditating mind at work. They are finding that regular meditation has [...]

This struck me as odd on my third day of sobriety. NOT having drinks has actually made working nights incredibly difficult the last couple of nights. Every time I try to achieve some menial task, like filing away the title to my car, faxing off a production insurance policy, or putting water to my lips, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and there I am, 98-years old, getting ready for bed at ...

In a recent comment on my post on The Spiritual Map of the Elders I got some very good follow-up questions. I’d like to answer them in this post, one at a time. And thanks to Bob for bringing these questions up. How many hours of meditation would you guess you logged until you initially encountered ‘The Three Characteristics’? The first time I remember clearly getting into The Three Characteristics was on my first retreat, ...

Hyvä EFFI-aktiivi! Ns. Lex Nokian (HE 48/2008 vp sähköisen viestinnän tietosuojalain ja eräiden siihen liittyvien lakien muuttamisesta) käsittely on kriittisessä vaiheessa eduskunnassa. Perustuslakivaliokunnan myönteisen lausunnon jälkeen mitään näköpiirissä olevaa estettä lain läpimenolle ei ole olemassa. Vain nopea ja perusteltu kansalaispalaute voi enää estää jälleen yhden askeleen kohti pahempaa isoveliyhteiskuntaa. Tarvitsemme tässä siis sinun apuasi! Haluamme erityisesti korostaa, että laissa ei ole kyse pelkistä yrityssalaisuuksista tai työnantaja/työntekijäsuhteesta vaan yleisestä yhteisötilaaajien (kuka tahansa toimija, joka tarjoaa internet-yhteyttä) ...

Then something just snapped. Something inside of me. I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care about being better than Kakarot. I didn’t care about being a Super Saiyan. I didn’t care if I lived. I didn’t care about anything. And then it happened… That is how I became a Super Saiyan. The sleeper has awakened. – Prince Vegeta, from Dragon Ball Z Pretty much all of the mystical traditions, East and West, have maps that ...

Every map that describes the territory of awakening will have its strengths and weaknesses. Maps, in general, are only as good as the map-makers who’ve made them. They are also only, and always, mental representations of a place which one must explore for themselves. No amount of studying an idea about what a place will be like, or even studying what the path to that place will be like, can replace the actual journey. That ...

Philippe Goldin, Ph.D. is a research scientist and heads the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience group in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. He spent 6 years in India and Nepal studying various languages, Buddhist philosophy and debate at Namgyal Monastery and the Dialectic Monastic Institute, and serving as an interpreter for various Tibetan Buddhist lamas. [...]

Citigroup directors looking to replace their chairman – Reuters The Daily Telegraph reports Morgan Stanley will cut 10% of its investment bank staff The US Government is on the hook for $5 trillion due to the financial crisis writes Forbes Canadian Banks are faring quite well according to Time. Says Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty, "The credit crisis we're facing is the result of unbridled greed. We need to bridle greed."

London based uberVU is about to launch a discussion-tracking product that will aggregate comments, Twitters, FriendFeed comments, trackbacks and other information about any URL (like a blog post) on the Internet. There’s real demand for this. Any given blog post, for example, may have lots of comments and trackbacks (links from other blogs discussing the post). But the conversation can soon splinter off as side discussions spring up on Twitter, FriendFeed, or other blogs. uberVU ...

From the "Random Samples" section of the Oct. 31 Science Magazine:Psychologists at the University of Hertfordshire, U.K., last week unveiled what they are billing as "the world's most relaxing room." The 160-square-meter space, bathed in green lights with an artificially lit blue sky, is furnished with soft mats and lavender-scented pillows "to create a relaxing environment with no sense of threat," explains the project's mastermind Richard Wiseman.The design is based on research on the effects ...

While in L.A., I attended a cocktail party on the roof of The Standard hotel, which has the item shown below on display in its entrance: Before I became an accordion guy, I was a synth guy, and prior to that, I learned how to play keyboards (and bass pedals) on the organ. I remember seeing the organ pictured above – a Thomas 2001 “Space Organ” – at the Canadian National Exhibition in the late ...