LIFE, LOVE, & EVOLUTION

In his book, Minding Closely: The Four Applications of Mindfulness , B. Alan Wallace instructs readers to engage in mindfulness meditation as a methodical practice. Now, I'm no mindfulness guru, but I trust that Wallace's instructions accurately reflect the traditional practice of Tibetan mindfulness. In any case, in addition to a philosophical discourse on the foundations of mindfulness that is a bit too anti-materialist for my liking, Wallace lays out a step-by-step guide for hopeful practitioners that is free of "being at one with..." abstractions. The first titular application that Wallace presents is mindfulness of the body. This involves mindfulness of the breath, which is the foundation of many contemplative practices, and, according to Wallace, is a worthwhile entryway to shamatha,  the calming of the mind via a focus on a single aspect of your experience--in this case, your breath. Mindfulness of the body also includes whatever sensations and perceptions ...

The fruits of logical thought are undeniable. Its mathematical and astronomical excursions have taken us to the moon. Its physiological and medical incarnations have cured diseases such as smallpox and given robotic limbs to individuals who had lost theirs. Its philosophical and scientific ruminations have brought us closer to understanding the origins of the universe in the Big Bang and the origins of mankind in the savannas of Africa. The less linear, more intuitive and fast-paced mode of information processing is the counterpoint to logical thought. It is more “hot.” It encompasses not one, but many competing interests, all vying for control of one’s goals, attitudes, and behaviors. So influential is this subterranean world of heuristics and emotions that even the logical stream falls prey to its bias. The problem, as discovered by Dr. Henry Jekyll, is reconciliation. Owing to the multitude of programs and sub-programs populating our modular minds, it is often difficult to fi...

We are swung naked into the writhing streams of life, interacting with its myriad forms as we grow old, and ultimately, succumbing to the cold wind of death. These scenes—these snippets of film—are wound together as moments of passing awareness, encapsulated in their own contexts and time-frames. As T.S. Eliot put it in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock : Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. One day, however, the visions and revisions will end. One day, our incessant wanderings, whether in time, space, or thought, will reach their inevitable destination. The processes sustaining us—the modules that jingle and jangle in the crowded sphere of our bodies and minds—will either dwindle down or come to an abrupt stop. One by one, our organs will begin to fail, and likewise, our mental processes will probably decay in a haphazard fashion; first, we may lose our sight or o...

Natural selection is a passive observer—a lurker in the shadows that is there by not being there. Its presence is made known by what it leaves behind: the functional patterns that perpetuate their own survival and reproduction, or “life.”             We are awakened into our bodies and minds. Some are flawed, others less so, yet all bearing the primordial mark of millions of years of jury-rigged construction. As soon as an entity comes on the scene that enables its own survival and reproduction, its presence in this universe and on this planet becomes a mainstay. And so it goes for our minds; they are here now, though we don’t know for how much longer. Our thoughts and emotions, flowing in patterned rhythms through the four dimensions of this universe, are experiencing these patterns—indeed, they are these very patterns. There are, in fact, no pattern “experiencers,” only the patterns themselves. Of course, these patterns aren’t haphazard; their develop...

Image source: wiredforlego (https://www.flickr.com/photos/wiredforsound23/11186742126)                 The intolerant left may have just found a partner in the censorious right. Of course, this is nothing new; neither side has been an immaculate paragon of free speech rights, despite self-righteous protestations of adherence to the First Amendment.                 Late in the evening on Tuesday, Feb. 7, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took to the Senate floor in opposition to the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as the incoming attorney general, one of President Trump’s administration appointments. In her vigorous attack on Sessions’ nomination, Sen. Warren invoked old criticisms of Sessions from the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and Coretta Scott King that focused on Sessions’ civil rights record. Though a more meaty argument by Warren may have been made if...