People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t.
Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.
In one area of gray matter, the thickening turns out to be more pronounced in older than in younger people. That’s intriguing because those sections of the human cortex, or thinking cap, normally get thinner as we age.
There's so much time to write and think here. I run around the beach, pool and carry the baby around Tel Aviv and don't have a chance to actually think about anything but whether he's sticking something in his mouth or nose...but he must nap. And rest, and all these little things, and then I'm here...thinking. It's so obvious to me how uncomfortable I am with missing things. I think I hate it. Until recently I've never missed anything. I remember being in Austin for months and not even thinking of home. I remember Ireland, I remember looking out my window and being so peaceful with where I was. In June everyone packed and bought their plane tickets with these huge smiling faces so ready to go back home. I remembering backpacking through Europe and listening to everyone talk about these people they missed so badly that their hearts ached. I never felt that way. I never ached. I never wanted to go home. BUT NOW, I feel this thing called home. I see my friends in the summer, and my parents in the sun. Facebook is like kryptonite. It's weird.
"The optical illusion of two suns rising or setting has been recorded in human history. It was taken as a symbol of cosmological importance and of omens good and bad in equality.
Filmed - Lawrence Martinez
Caught this footage backstage at the Strand Theater, in Lakewood, after their first big concert of the year. Song to be featured on their debut album "American Pain."
(C) 2012. Thomas Wesley Stern & Lawrence Martinez"
This privatized military company is often hired by the U.S. government to protect American interests overseas -- and so the government can claim no responsibility for Dyncorp's actions. Dyncorp is best known for its brutality in impoverished countries, for trafficking in child sex slaves,for slaughtering civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and for training rebels in Haiti. Among some stiff competition, mercenary Dyncorp may be the deadliest and most evil corporation in the United States.
"I know, it's just weird having someone you love so much and had so much with feel nothing towards you. I think it literally drives me mad. Like a failure. I'm not sure. But it hurts like hell. Like a hole in your heart that won't close no matter what you try and fill yourself with because it's already been filled and now it's gone. It's never really gone, you have the memories, but they're gone. They're dead. Dead to you."
After an 11 hour flight, a bus ride and a long nap, I finally opened my eyes to Tel Aviv. My balcony overlooks the Mediterranean Sea. The beach and sky line are incredible and in some kind of foggy gray mist. I'm not sure what it reminds me of but I feel like I've seen it all in my mind before.
Wandering around the streets, friendly strangers stop and help me find my way to nowhere and I can not believe I am here. I sat on my balcony and watched the sunset on this beautiful sea and will rise tomorrow in this distant land that feels so calm. Israel...and I feel calm.
When I grow up
what I want to be.
Is a person who has.
climbed a tall mountain.
swam in a plenty seas.
had beautiful babies
with warm tummies.
sung a song.
beautifully.
woken wrapped in arms
that I love.
many times.
When I grow up
what I want to be.
Is a person who has.
done many things.
kissed many faces.
found grace in the sunshine.
and sobbed in the grass
on her knees.
and stood back up.
smiling.
When I grow up
what I want to be.
Is a person who has.
"Nick Hanauer, self described "super-rich" entrepreneur, gave a fantastic TED Talk about how the middle class—not the super-rich—are the real job creators. But TED, which has released over 100 different political videos in the past, thought this one was too partisan and refused to release it. We normally love TED, and were surprised they didn't think this talk was TEDworthy. Under pressure from the internets, TED finally relented and released the video. Watch it and decide for yourself if it's really all that controversial to say that the "super-rich are not job creators." Then share it like crazy."
If you haven’t read Daniel Everertt’s fabulous Don’t Sleep, There are Snakesabout his work as a linguist in the Amazon—well, stop whatever you are doing, go directly to Amazon and enjoy.
After 30 years living with and studying the Piraha, a tribe living in the Amazonian basin, Everett has concluded that neither Chomsky’s argument—that language is innate to humans and there are universal laws of grammar—and Skinner’s argument—that language is completely learned and genetics account for nothing—are correct.
Instead, Everett posits that language and culture are completely intertwined and you cannot study one without the other. Furthermore, and this is where things get really interesting, Everett believes that grammar is significantly less important than culture-based meanings and constraints on talking” are the key.
So what’s the big deal?
This is the deal: About 40 years ago, University of Chicago psychologist (and Flow State guru) Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi argued that the human brain takes in about 400 billion inputs a second (some people now feel this number is as high as one trillion) but only 2000 bits of information make it up to consciousness.
Those 2000 bits are what we call conscious reality.
We are now pretty sure Csikszentmihalyi was right in his assessment—but what’s really curious is that none of us—no matter the species—experience the world exactly the same.
That is, we all see 2000 different bits of information, thus we all live in different worlds—quite literally.
Some of this is straight up anatomy. Cognitive Ethologist Patricia McConnell (also in a compelling article about Everett’s work) points out: “the sensory system of each species creates a different reality than other species.” Her example of this is bees—who see colors that humans can’t see (and we see colors they can’t see). Either way, when we glance at a solid yellow flower, bees instead see a swirl of lines and hatching and shading that literally acts as pointers and landing strips driving them towards the pollen within.
McConnell’s conclusion is twofold: “Thus, there really is no such thing as “reality,” and Everett’s work reminds us this is true within our own species.”
I have elsewhere argued that belief shapes perception which shapes reality. What McConnell and Everett are saying is that this chain goes back even farther: ie. language shapes belief shapes perception shapes reality.
And right now, this is a critical bit of information. The reason this is so important is that in a few weeks time, when the Copenhagen climate talks commence, one of the topics on the table is REDD—Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation.
The goal here is to find ways to protect indigenous tribes and the rainforests they live within. This is a big deal. Between June 2000 and June 2008, over 150,000 square kilometers of Amazonian rainforest has been stripped bare by loggers and miners and cattle ranchers.
The number are higher in a few other parts of the world.
When we speak about what was lost in this slaughter, people most frequently talk in terms of dead animals, extinct plants and—perhaps most critically—a vanishing carbon sink.
Clearly, these are all things we cannot afford to lose. But one of the greatest losses may be the indigenous cultures themselves.
For example, in 2008, the Permanent People’s Tribunal in Colombia warned that there are now 28 tribes in Columbia alone facing extinction because of habitat degradation and deforestation.
Now, since each of these tribes speaks a different language, then each of them have a altered worldview and thus occupy a different reality.
Once these folks are gone, we don’t just lose a group that makes the world more culturally distinct, we lose a way of being in the world. We lose a slice of reality. And, in turn, we also loose a way of interpreting the world that might just be critical to our survival.
What do I mean by this? Well, according to Everett: “Pirahas laugh at everything. They laugh at their own misfortune: when someone’s hut blows over in a rainstorm, the occupants laugh more loudly than anyone. They laugh when they catch a lot of fish. They laugh when there’s no fish to catch. They laugh when they are full and they laugh when they are hungry….”
Think about this for a moment. How many of us can actually laugh when our basic survival needs are not met? How many people start cracking up when they find out the bank is repossessing their house? How many people laugh when they don’t have enough to eat for dinner? Or breakfast? Or both?
Think about what this really means. The last time anyone checked, we are a nation where 10 percent of us are on anti-depressants.
Everett argues that the this depression is not just based on our “neurochemistry” (the reigning theory—thanks, methinks, in a large part to pharmaceutical company advertising)—but also on our language.
Something in the English language perhaps shapes our perception which shapes our reality which makes us freak out when stuff goes wrong…
But the Pirahas just don’t see the world that way.
And—since we also know that worldviews shift when you remove people from their home environment (or remove their home environment altogether)—one of the key things that is going away in all of this is knowledge about emotional contentment.
We are not just losing plants and animals, we are, also, losing a key bit of information that could keep us happy in the face of tragedy.
Considering how heavily medicated some of us currently are, this doesn’t strike me as a loss we can particularly afford.
I don't know who wrote this. And I hope they don't mind me publishing it, but it's the best birthday present I've ever gotten. And I want them to know how thankful I am.
"I'm sorta interested in everything" You had me at that: five words. I was hooked, and terrified; more so in five words from you than in thousands from Hemingway It started there, and got worse. Soon, it was hard being around you; like the shock of an icy stream, I spent a lot of time frozen. I did get to make you laugh (you're good at it) before you slipped away along the edges of the calendar. But by then I'd found this place; of beauty, of love, of dreams, of space. I couldn't tell if I was crazy, or crazy lucky. Still can't.
You live out loud; and you make a joyful noise that's music to the part of me that can't see pain, and can't work odds. Feeling for you challenged me to understand: why? Why you? Well, because. Because you had adventure in your heart. And stories on your lips. And because you were interested in everything. And because you were cute. Still are.
You were gone; to the far corners of the distant horizon. But it was only when I saw you find love that I walked away. I've always been good at letting go, just bad at deciding when. And when I saw you suffering, I came back; I knew you needed the misery to learn how strong you were, so the comment above was all I could do.
And then someone else found you. Someone who was there to say to your face the things that I could barely think to it. And I'm grateful. I suffered, and it made me understand: life's opportunities come and go. And I stick around all the same; and so does most of what I love most. And again, I walked away. Out of mind; into the past, at peace. A breathing, beautiful lesson in facing down my fears, taking loss without bitterness, in relishing the good things, and in moving on.
You were that.
And then you kept writing.
I saw how you cared, and how you struggled. I saw more, and I was caught. Caught in your songs, in your poems, in the thousand ways you spoke to the little things that fill my world with splendor. I used to think less of moths near the fire. But the light you shed, I couldn't help but seek; karma, I guess. And the whole while, some part of me wouldn't stop suffering for something that had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with you and someone who might have been a better man. But it was this that finally taught me that fear happens when we think we have something to lose. And that there's nothing as liberating as being forced to see that in this brief instant between two silences, we really don't have as much to lose as we fear.
It might have ended there, too, if not for that goddamn poem. Four lines at first. Then more. I didn't know who you were talking to. Just that I was willing to risk the painful answer to find out. Which seems to be a theme for life's important questions. Kind of shitty, really. But I don't know if it could, or should, work any other way. Even the stars need the dark to stand out.
I can see, now, the layers between the shadows and the light, and the flickering summer branches, gently shivering sights. I've inherited the world's simple treasures. I long for pinnacles and trails with no name, and bobbing fields just high enough to lose your head, and the sound of music when you close your eyes. After a life of questions, I've given up on needing every answer. I know what I want, and why I want it.
Starting with the part of me that wrote this. The part of me that keeps looking over at your seat in the row, that still wants to travel. Still hopes we might spark in the cold, fascinating stranger, and perhaps even find ourselves warm.
And now that you know, I can finally just let it be; in the past, in the future, in peace.
Happy birthday Sam. No matter what happens next, I'm glad that I got to meet you, and to live this thing.
I remember when these were being taken. (I hate when people take pictures of me.) I was happy these were being taken though, I was so grateful to be in this moment that I knew they would be beautiful. What you're feeling and thinking always shows in a photograph. I think you can see exactly what I'm feeling here.
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs, and practices largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, who is commonly known as the Buddha (meaning "the awakened one" in Sanskrit and Pāli). The Buddha lived and taught in the eastern part of Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE.[1] He is recognized by Buddhists as an awakened or enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end ignorance (avidyā), craving (taṇhā), and suffering (dukkha), by recognizing dependent origination and sunyata, and attain Nirvana.
Life as we know it ultimately is or leads to suffering/uneasiness (dukkha) in one way or another.
Suffering is caused by craving. This is often expressed as a deluded clinging to a certain sense of existence, to selfhood, or to the things or phenomena that we consider the cause of happiness or unhappiness. Craving also has its negative aspect, i.e. one craves that a certain state of affairs not exist.
Suffering ends when craving ends. This is achieved by eliminating delusion, thereby reaching a liberated state of Enlightenment (bodhi);
Reaching this liberated state is achieved by following the path laid out by the Buddha.
