Dead bodies everywhere, one survivor

British national survives Air India plane crash, condition unknown

New CCTV footage shows Air India crash as British survivor shares shocking escape story

(ABC News) June 12, 2025: The Civil Hospital in Ahmedabad, India, confirmed to ABC News that Ramesh Vishwaskumar, one passenger [in seat 11A] on the downed Air India flight, is alive and hospitalized there.

• Air India Flight 171 (Boeing 787)
• BREAKING: Air India plane crashes after takeoff with hundreds on board

Korn "Dead Bodies Everywhere"

• (ABC News) British national survives Air India plane crash, condition unknown; Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Need to calm down? Try psycho-biotics

Just Calm from Just Thrive (justthrivehealth.com); Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What is Just Calm? Just Calm is more than a supplement, it's a secret weapon in the battle against occasional anxiety and stress. It's a specially formulated blend, pairing B vitamins with the unique "psychobiotic" probiotic strain B. Longum 1714™.

This groundbreaking product is clinically proven in multiple human clinical trials to lower stress and support better mood, sleep, focus, and emotional health. Here are 5 reasons why people in the know choose Just Calm to take control:

1. Wave goodbye to occasional anxiety
2. Get deep, revitalizing sleep
3. Ditch the jitters and unlock calm energy
4. Lift the fog and find the focus
5. Improves mood... justthrivehealth.com

What about nutrition for meditation?

I set rolling the Wheel of the Dharma

In a famous story from the time of the Buddha, there were Buddhist wandering ascetics (monastics) living in one area who could not make progress in their meditation. So they went to visit the Buddha to ask him about this. He perceived that their problem was nutritional. He advised them to take the eight kinds of foods (based on the ancient Indian, presumably Ayurvedic, system of flavors) in their diet. The locals, hearing this they prepared for them a diet rich in variety -- hard and soft, salty and sweet, pungent, astringent, and so on. (See, e.g., The Six Flavors of Ancient India). By doing so, they got all the micronutrients (trace minerals, good fats, vitamins or macronutrients, and calories they needed, and their meditation practices miraculously improved. We are mind and body, mentality and materiality (nama-rupa), not just one or the other.

• Indian Food Habits in Ancient Times | Medium

I feel great and energetic.

And maybe a serenity meditation (samatha) practice would become possible. The first thing to do in any meditation is not "concentrate" or focus. It is to let go. We reduce our attention to the here-and-now (rather than the then-and-maybe).

There's that famous saying, "Most of the bad things in my life never happened." It means of all the things we worry and stress about, MOST of them never happen. So rather than living in worry and the future, let's live in the present moment where everything is all right.

We can look around and see that everything is fine. It's the future where the problems might be. It's the past where they were, but right here right now is fine. It's safe to meditate...if only we could meditate.

Who knew MOST of the neurons in the body might not be in the brain? They have been found all along the gut lining and the heart. No one talks to us about those. So the best way to get the "head" in order is to get the gut healthy, both short and long intestines, stomach, digestion, absorption. Stop ruining the lining with gluten, and start absorbing nutrients and supplements (from criticalhealthnews.com).

I'm tired of meditating! What else ya got?

Mindset, 8/18/22; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Neuroscientists: Never lack willpower again!

Walk to enlightenment

(Mindset) Neuroscientists and Stanford Health Psychologist Dr. Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D., teaches what influences us to procrastinate or why we fail to resist temptation. We can learn small interventions that can have large, positive outcomes. And we don't need to cross our legs in full lotus to achieve it. It's an internal effort of "surfing the urge" and riding out rough emotions, intrusive thoughts, and the craving at the root of habits we no longer want to want.

Speaker: Dr. Kelly McGonigal. Special thanks to Talks at Google for this amazing talk. talksatgoogle Signal To Noise (CC-BY) by Scott Buckley is under a Creative Commons (cc-by) license Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: 🕰️ Mystery Music (No Copyright) - "Si...".

We can walk the Path rather than just sitting.

Fair Use and Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, commenting, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. 1) This video has no negative impact on the original works. 2) This video is also for teaching purposes. 3) It is transformative in nature. 4) I only used bits and pieces of the videos to get point across where necessary. All footage is licensed from Storyblocks, and the video was fully edited by Mindset.

Sleepless nights gone in less than 3 minutes

Couldn't I just meditate myself back to calm? - Yes, but that would take effort and practice.

Punk rock for sleepless stress (Kryad Music) Avenged Sevenfold "Game Over" (Life is a But a Dream)

Say goodbye to sleepless nights in less than 3 minutes • Cures for anxiety disorders, depression

(Soft Calm Music) Streamed live on May 20, 2023. Sleeping music for deep sleep. Say goodbye to sleepless nights. Video made by Soft Calm Music.

📜 How was the day? Today is here to create new tunes, new sounds. Music is indispensable in life. If this music helps make others happy or forget about worries, the makers are happy. Listen to relax, meditate, study, read, get a massage, take a spa treatment, or sleep.

This music is ideal to allay anxiety, stress, and insomnia because it facilitates relaxation and helps get rid of bad vibrations.

It's completely free. A like or subscription motivates the constant creation of such useful music. Follow: • @softcalmmusic. Always have happy and beautiful days. © Copyright: ‣ Contact: hello@beemedia.art ‣ Animation created by Soft Calm Music ‣ Footage and images under license (envato, storyblocks, istock, stock.adobe...) ‣ All right reserved. Published by Soft Calm Music ♪

How to Maintain Presence with Eckhart Tolle

How to maintain Presence among unconscious people

(Eckhart Tolle, May 31, 2022) Eckhart Tolle points out that being in the company of unconscious people will (at least for now) be more common than it is not. He offers methods for both maintaining and intensifying Presence when disturbed by others, whether it’s a beloved family member or a complete stranger.

To find greater fulfillment in life, subscribe at bit.ly/EckhartYT. Want to watch and hear more of Eckhart Tolle's teachings? Become a member today and join a growing YouTube community at bit.ly/ETmembership. Find this short preview video helpful? Want more peace of mind or bring more Presence into daily life, work, and other areas of life? Join Eckhart Tolle now, an online community, and get access to his new in-depth teachings every month, practical Q&A sessions, and member-only discounts on online programs. Enjoy a FREE 10-DAY TRIAL to Eckhart Tolle Now: members.eckharttolle.com/10-d...

"Enlightenment Guaranteed" (Zen comedy)

FestivalMedia; Ananda (Dharma Meditation Initiative), Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Watch the 20 anniversary screening in Beverly Hills at BuddhaFest LA, June 1, 2019.

Selfish Sex and Inflated Egos: I'm pretty sure you came. Night! - I'm pretty sure I didn't.

Your move (bizarro.com).

Enlightenment Guaranteed is a 2000 German film (Erleuchtung garantiert) directed by Doris Dörrie about two brothers on a spiritual quest.

Uwe and Gustav travel to Buddhist Japan to sort out the mess of their lives. Their plan is to visit the Sojiji Zen Monastery in Monzen, near Tokyo.

On the way, in a rather literal Buddhist moment, they lose their belongings. When they finally make it to the Buddhist monastery, they find that even there, Buddhist enlightenment can be elusive.

 

It's easy to say FTW. It's hard to get out.

The first of four lessons the Buddha called the Four Noble Truths ("noble" because they are ennobling = enlightening) is that "Life is disappointing."

At the beginning of the film, we see the troubled lives of the two brothers. Each is experiencing a mid-life crisis of sorts that will ultimately bring the brothers closer together.

With four young children, Uwe and his wife Petra have their plates full. Lacking compassion for each other's burdens, they constantly bicker.

After a stressful morning of playing with the children (and waking their infant daughter, who had kept Petra up most of the night), Uwe is a jerk to his wife.

While he is at work as a real estate agent, Petra packs up and moves out. Uwe cries when he finds the goodbye note.

Bring a book for the trip.

Meanwhile, Gustav is suffering troubles of his own. Unlike his brother, who is the type to smoke a cigarette after going jogging, Gustav is a Zen Buddhist enthusiast.

His burdens are internal: He is afraid of making mistakes. He is afraid of fear itself. He has been planning a trip to a Zen monastery to find himself.

Uwe, in a great state of distress and drunk, asks his brother to accompany him. After much hesitation, Gustav buys his brother a ticket and the adventure really begins.

This film is almost a sequel to Men..., Dörrie's landmark film starring the same actors (as different characters), with a similar existential storyline. More Now available on DVD (festivalmedia.org)

Disappointment: addicted to SEX (cartoon)

Access To Insight based on misleading Ven. Thanissaro translations; Seth MacFarlane, Family Guy; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Crystal Quintero, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

WARNING: Graphic references to sex and violence in Family Guy's take on American culture!

If sex is the "best thing," and let's just for the sake of argument say it is, then what does that say about sensuality and samsara that it (sex) is disappointing? It is disappointing, just like all of the things we try to use to find fulfillment, satisfaction, satiation, and solace in this world without end called samsara.

But there is an end, a cessation of suffering, an end to suffering, an incomprehensible nirvana. Why would we ever seek it out unless we first realized that nothing here ever does satisfy us and leave us fulfilled?

Cristina sings that famous sexy old song, "Is That All There Is?"

 

"Disappointment" is one definition of the unsatisfactory (unfulfilling) nature of sex and all sensual pursuits. But no single English word adequately captures the full range and subtlety of the crucial Buddhist term dukkha.

Many translations are proposed ("ill," "unsatisfactoriness," "woe," "suffering," etc.) Each explains part of it while failing to suggest other crucial parts.

There is value in not letting ourselves get too comfortable with any single translation, because the entire thrust of Buddhist practice is the broadening and deepening our understanding of dukkha until its roots are exposed and eliminated once and for all.

One helpful rule of thumb is that as soon as we think we've found the single best translation for the word, let's think again. No matter how we describe it, dukkha is always broader, subtler, and more unsatisfactory than that.
 
The Buddha's definition

"Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are dukkha; meeting with the unloved is dukkha; being separated from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In brief, the Five Aggregates clung to as a self are dukkha." — SN 56.11
 
Sariputra's elaboration

[Ven. Sariputra:] "What now, friends, is the noble truth of suffering (disappointment)? Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are suffering; meeting with the unloved is suffering; being separated from the loved is suffering; not getting what is wanted is suffering. In short, the Five Aggregates clung to as a self are suffering.

"And what is birth? Whatever rebirth, taking rebirth, descent, again coming-to-be, coming-forth, appearance of aggregates, and acquisition of [sense] bases of various [kinds of] beings in this or that world of beings [in any of the countless worlds in the 31 Planes of Existence], that is called birth.

"And what is aging? Whatever aging, decrepitude, brokenness, graying, wrinkling, decline of life-force, weakening of the faculties of the various beings in this or that world of beings, that is called aging.

"And what is death? Whatever dying, deceasing, passing away, breaking up, disappearance, death, completion of time, break up of the aggregates, casting off of the body, interruption in the life faculty of the various beings in this or that world of beings, that is called death.

"And what is sorrow? Whatever sorrow, sorrowing, sadness, inward sorrow, inward sadness of anyone suffering from misfortune, touched by a painful thing, that is called sorrow.

"And what is lamentation? Whatever crying, grieving, lamenting, weeping, wailing, misery of anyone suffering from misfortune, touched by a painful thing, that is called lamentation."

And what is pain? Whatever is experienced as bodily pain, bodily discomfort, pain or discomfort born of bodily contact, that is called pain.

"And what is distress? Whatever is experienced as mental pain, mental discomfort, pain or discomfort born of mental contact, that is called distress.

"And what is despair? Whatever despair, despondency, desperation of anyone suffering from misfortune, touched by a painful thing, that is called despair."

And what is the suffering of being connected to the unloved? There is the case where undesirable, unpleasing, unattractive sights, sounds, aromas, flavors, or tactile sensations occur to one; or one has connection, contact, relationship, interaction with those who wish one ill, who wish for one's harm, who wish for one's discomfort, who wish one no security from the yoke. This is called the suffering of being connected to the unloved.

"And what is the suffering of being separated from the loved? There is the case where desirable, pleasing, attractive sights, sounds, aromas, flavors, or tactile sensations do not occur to one; or one has no connection, no contact, no relationship, no interaction with those who wish one well, who wish for one's benefit, who wish for one's comfort, who wish one security from the yoke, nor with one's mother, father, brother, sister, friends, companions, or relatives. This is called the suffering of being separated from the loved.

"And what is the stress of not getting what is wanted? In beings subject to rebirth, the wish arises, 'O, may we not be subject to rebirth, and may rebirth not come to us.' But this [freedom from rebirth] is not to be achieved by wanting. This is the suffering of not getting what is wanted.

"In beings subject to aging... illness... death... sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair, the wish arises, 'O, may we not be subject to aging... illness... death... sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair, and may aging... illness... death... sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair not come to us.' But this is not to be achieved by wanting. This is the stress of not getting what is wanted. — MN 141
 
A contemporary definition

We're not bunnies. We're human

Dukkha is: disturbance, irritation, dejection, worry, despair, fear, dread, anguish, anxiety; vulnerability, injury, inability, inferiority; sickness, aging, decay of body and faculties, senility; pain/pleasure; excitement/boredom; deprivation/excess; desire/frustration, suppression; longing/aimlessness; hope/hopelessness; effort, activity, striving/repression; loss, want, insufficiency/satiety; love/lovelessness, friendlessness; dislike, aversion/attraction; parenthood/childlessness; submission/rebellion; decision/indecisiveness, vacillation, uncertainty.

— Francis Story in Suffering, in Vol. II of The Three Basic Facts of Existence (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, BPS.lk)

Problem-Solution

The Buddha said, "Formerly as now, it is only dukkha I describe and the cessation of dukkha." — SN 22.86

 
Three kinds of dukkha

Date my three daughters, Siddhartha!

"There are these three forms of suffering, my friend: the suffering of pain, the suffering of fabrication (formations), and the suffering of change. These are the three forms of suffering."...

[Jambukhadika the Wanderer:] "What is the path, what is the practice for the full comprehension of these forms of suffering?"
 

"Precisely this ennobling Eightfold Path, my friend: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. This is the path, this is the practice for the full comprehension of these forms of suffering." — SN 38.14

• What is the First Ennobling Truth?

Depression leads to HEDONISM (Kid Cudi)

Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Complex News

(KidCudiVEVO) Depressed Kid Cudi sings the hit "Pursuit Of Happiness" featuring MGMT

What does "hedonism" mean? - It means escapist indulgence in sensuality with clinging.

(Complex News) On Tuesday night, Kid Cudi posted on Facebook that he has checked himself into "rehab for depression and suicidal urges." He told fans that "anxiety and depression have ruled my life for as long as I can remember and I never leave the house because of it...I don't trust anyone because of it and I'm tired of being held back in my life. I deserve to have peace. I deserve to be happy and smiling." (See crisistextline.org).

F#@king sh*t, life sucks! I'm miserable!

What is depression? It is an ongoing sadness/low out of proportion with external circumstances, sometimes accompanied by anxiety, sometimes with listlessness. What is hedonism? It is holding PLEASURE as the highest good, the goal of life, the best way to spend our energy.

There is path and not-path to freedom-and-happiness.

The Buddha explained that most humans (and devas/"angels") know nothing better, higher, more gratifying than the gratification of the senses. Knowing no better gratification, the goal becomes more and more pleasure -- clinging.

The inevitable and inescapable result? Apart from the short lived good times, disappointment (dukkha).

So on account of dukkha, things being disappointing, we seek something sure to disappoint. An illustration is given of a man with a terrible itch, a kind of psoriasis with open, oozing sores who will -- on account of that unbearable suffering -- stick his arm into the flames and called the cauterization "relief."

One pain displaces the other or puts it into false-perspective, maybe the way cutting (self-mutilation) does.

(Steve Aoki) Hedonism? "Pursuit of Happiness" (Project X version)

Kid Cudi is suffering from major depression and has been for years. But Kid Cudi wrote and performed one of greatest odes to hedonism ever, the lynch pin of the sexy teen movie "Project X."

(Complex News) Kanye West replies to Kid Cudi

Alone even in a crowd of "friends" (Ziggy)

How would a depressed person write a song titled "Pursuit of Happiness"? Who else would? It is on account of our psychological and physical pain that we seek ESCAPE.

But escape is not to be found through the sense pleasure. That is a mouse trap that leads back here, a kind of prison exit that actually leads to a worse part of the prison.

Pleasure is good, pleasure is great. Get pleasure. But escapism -- using pleasure in an attempt to ease the pain -- is SURE to be disappointing. It can't be otherwise.

What did the Buddha say? The universal characteristics of existence, here as in countless other worlds living beings are reborn in on account of "the continued wandering on" that is samsara are:

1. impermanence (instability, things hurtling toward destruction)
2. disappointment (unsatisfactoriness, lack of fulfillment)
3. impersonality (not self, emptiness).

Help! I don't see any way out but death.

What, then, is the solution? The Buddha showed the way to the END OF ALL SUFFERING, release, freedom, deliverance, emancipation, real escape. That is nirvana. What is the way, the path-of-practice, that leads to nirvana?

If hedonism -- the indulgence of the senses -- were the way, the Buddha would have practiced that and advocated it. If extreme penitence/asceticism were the way, he would have practiced and advocated that. The Buddha, the "Awakened One," did NOT practice or advocate these; Prince Siddhartha did, and he could not "awaken" until he realized both extremes were wrong.

The Buddha, which is who Siddhartha became at the fulfillment of his spiritual quest, advocated THE MIDDLE WAY that avoids two extremes, the path of sensuality (hedonism) and the path of self-mortification (self-torture). What is the "Middle Way," the "Path," the majjhima magga? There is "purification by wisdom [insight] of what is path and what is not-path" (one of the Seven Stages of Purification).

(Zeitgeist) Dr. Mate starts at Minute 31:15, "Zeitgeist 3: Moving Forward"

Now poor Kid Cudi, raised in a society that stressed and traumatized him early on (later leading very predictably to these woeful psychological states, as Dr. Gabor Mate explains so well in the movie "Zeitgeist 3") and then told that sensual pleasure/hedonism was the way  to satisfaction, the way out of these feelings. It's a lie. The world/our society lies to us. Hollywood, rappers, and TV lie to us, all the time. 

Why's the Buddha always smiling?

The historical Buddha Gautama often emphasized that he only really taught two things, suffering/pain (dukkha) and "the end of all suffering" (nirvana), bondage and freedom.

• VIDEO: Dr. Gabor Maté on ADHD, Bullying, and the Destruction of American Childhood 

What is drug addiction? (video)

Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Dr. Gabor Mate; AgainstTheStream.org; Being Charlie

Canadian addiction specialist Dr. Gabor Maté, author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, talks about the root causes of addiction and how to deal with them ("Medicine").

Against the Stream: Buddhist Meditation Society is all about addiction recovery.

Rob "Meathead" Reiner and his son, Nick, explore modern American drug addiction and rehab in "Being Charlie." In theaters May 6, 2016

 

Annual Recovery Conference

Registration now open. Conference will be held at Against the Stream and Refuge Recovery Centers in Los Angeles (4300 Melrose Avenue, 90029) to introduce Guiding Principles, new literature, podcasting...There will be opportunities for collaboration, meditation, education, and fun. Join Noah Levine and others. Attendance limited to 150. Runs from June 24-26, 2016 Registration

  

Why addiction and how to overcome it

Dr. Mate appeared in the best installment of "Zeitgeist" to explain

who becomes addicted and why: Zeitgeist: Moving Forward

Porn and the Contemplative Life

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Christian Joel J. Miller (Patheos.com)

...There are perhaps several reasons for [Web porn and the contemplative life not mixing], but Alain de Botton offers one in The Wall Street Journal worth considering.

 

Certain kinds of [character-building] suffering are beneficial, even necessary for human flourishing, he says, particularly struggling through periods of anxiety and boredom.

 

Porn diverts us from those struggles. “Our anxious moods are genuine but confused signals that something is amiss,” he says, “and so they need to be listened to and patiently interpreted -- which is unlikely to happen when we have to hand one of the most powerful tools of distraction ever invented.”

 

Sex and the single (opensourcejokes.com)

To combat boredom with this overpowering distraction is equally harmful because “pornography weakens our tolerance for the kind of boredom which is vital to give our minds the space in which good ideas can emerge....”

 

In both cases, we are unable to attend to [our spiritual center], to give it the necessary time and attention because our faculties are otherwise employed.

 

(TED TV) Alain de Botton’s "Atheism 2.0"

An unoccupied mind is essential for serious contemplation. Times of quiet reflection allow the mind to gather up its loose strands of thought and put them in order and even at times offer them as prayer. Resorting to pornography deprives the mind this opportunity.

 

Testosterone makes the man

Interestingly de Botton, who is an atheist, says only religion seems to fully understand this diversionary aspect of sex. In our liberated time, “Only religions still take sex very seriously,” he says, adding:

In so far as religions warn us against sex, it is out of an active awareness of the charms and power of desire. They wouldn’t think that sex was quite so bad, if they didn’t appreciate that it could be quite so wonderful -- and if they weren’t brave enough to admit that this necessarily means that it will also get in the way of some rather important and precious things...

A mind consumed with pornographic images cannot pray [contemplate, meditate, reflect, recollect the good, hear the still small voice of conscience...]. I think de Botton is very helpful in showing why. In some sense it’s a question of focus and capacity. More

BUDDHIST COMMENTARY

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Geek Love: the sexiest Comic Con 2012 cosplay geek burlesque outfits (tgdaily.com)

  

Saint Stewie says...

But what would or could replace sex? Maybe shame can. Or guilt, or confusion, or self-loathing?

  

Sex is fine. Self-expression is natural. "Sexual misconduct" is the problem. 

 

And most broadly this can be defined -- not as the ten partners the Buddha said to avoid if one wished to accrue merit or beneficial karma while steering clear of demerit and dreadful karma -- avoiding harm. 

  

Whom might we harm? We might harm ourselves, our partner, our family, our partner's family, our spouse, our partner's spouse, our community, our partner's community, our society, our partner's society. Indeed, many might be harmed. We should weigh that potential harm and avoid it just as we would not wish to be harmed by another's carelessness and would wish that that person had avoided harming us.

 

This is not as simplistic as the golden rule because we are not the standard. Looking at the Big Picture -- this lifespan and lives beyond, this reputation and our future character, habits now and tendencies to come -- will give us pause. "Y.O.L.O." and a previous generations' "Live fast, die young" mottos are very misleading.

 

Everything we do actually makes sense; that is not to say that it is something that should be done. It may be better to be left undone. In this way we have sex and maintain ourselves profitably. Consensual sex, free of exploitation or deception, may seem or may be hard to come by, but it is possible, and it is joyous to breathe a sign of relief that we are blameless even as we live and live it up.

 

If we aren't sure what is appropriate, we find out. We ask. We study. We explore. "Our mind is like a parachute; it only works when it's opened." Similarly, it is wise and compassionate to look before we leap. And if we don't have a parachute, "Don't leap yet" is the best advice.

• Buddhist solution to lust, love-torture, crushes
• Strippers of the Sci Fi convention
• How to Think More About Sex (Picador) is Alain de Botton's new self-help book at his Website theschooloflife.com

To the brain, pain of rejection really hurts

What is "suffering" other than the phantom of our cognitive interpretations? Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. It is brought on by our response to circumstances.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) – The pain of rejection is more than just a figure of speech. The regions of the brain that respond to physical pain overlap with those that react to social rejection, according to a new study that used brain imaging on people involved in romantic breakups.

"These results give new meaning to the idea that rejection 'hurts,'" wrote psychology professor Ethan Kross of the University of Michigan and his colleagues. Their findings are reported in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Co-author Edward Smith of Columbia University explained that the research shows that psychological or social events can affect regions of the brain that scientists thought were dedicated to physical pain.

In a way, we're saying "it's not a metaphor," Smith said in a telephone interview.

The study involved 40 volunteers who went through an unwanted romantic break-up in the previous six months and who said thinking about the break-up caused them to feel intensely rejected.

Functional MRI's were used to study their brains in four situations: When viewing a photo of the ex-partner and thinking about the break-up; when viewing a photo of a friend and thinking of a positive experience with that person; when a device placed on their arm produced a gentle, comforting warmth, and when that device became hot enough to cause pain, though not physical damage.

The two negative situations -- thinking about the loss of a partner and the burn -- caused response in the overlapping parts of the brain, the study found.

Previous studies had not shown a relationship between physical and emotional pain, but those had used a less dramatic event, such as simply being told someone doesn't like you, Smith said.

In this case, the volunteers were people who had actually been rejected and were still feeling it, he said.

There is evidence that emotional stress, such as the loss of a loved one, can affect people physically, and Smith said studies like this may help researchers devise ways to aid people who are sensitive to loss or rejection.

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