Happy Brain: How to Overcome Our Neural Predispositions to Suffering | Dr. Amit Sood, MD | TEDxUNI
(TEDx Talks) May 11, 2015. Twenty years ago, Mayo Clinic Professor of Medicine Amit Sood, MD, came to the U.S. thinking he was coming to the Disneyland of the world.
He expected everyone in the USA to be very happy all the time. Boy, was he in for a surprise. What he saw surprised and shocked him.
Donuts: This man is out to kill us.
In this funny, fast-moving, and deeply insightful talk, Dr. Sood shares his journey over two decades and across two continents, finding a way to help us outsmart our neural predispositions to suffering.
In the process, he takes us on a back-stage tour of the human brain and outlines the gist of a structured program he is taking globally to decrease stress and improve focus, resilience, and happiness.
ABOUT: Professor Dr. Amit Sood, MD, is the director of the Mayo Clinic's Complementary and Integrative Medicine program. He is the author of The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living and The Mayo Clinic Guide to Happiness. He is one of the most sought-after speakers at Mayo. He has received several NIH and foundation awards to test and implement integrative and mind-body approaches within medicine. Dr. Sood received the 2010 Distinguished Service Award, the 2010 Innovator of the Year Award, and the 2013 Outstanding Physician Award from Mayo Clinic.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx.
The Pali word metta (Sanskrit maitri) is a multi-significant term meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, goodwill, benevolence, fellowship, amity, concord, inoffensiveness, harmlessness, and non-violence.
The commentators define metta as the strong wish for the welfare and happiness of others (parahita-parasukha-kamana). Essentially, metta is an altruistic, boundless, universal attitude of love and friendliness as distinguished from mere amiability based on self-interest.
Through metta one refuses to be offensive and lets go of and renounces bitterness, resentment, and animosity of every kind, developing instead a mind/heart of friendliness, accommodation, and benevolence that seeks the well-being and happiness of others.
O, Goddess of Mother Nature Bhumi Devi and Kwan Yin, grant me love and wisdom.
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Real metta is easy because it is devoid of self-interest. Self-interest makes it difficult. Metta evokes within a warm-hearted feeling of fellowship, sympathy, and love, which grows boundless with practice and overcomes all social, religious, racial, political, and economic barriers.
Metta is indeed a universal, unselfish and all-embracing love. It makes one a pure font of well-being and safety for others. Just as a mother gives her own life to protect her only son, so metta only gives and never demands anything in return.
To promote one's own interest is a primordial motivation of our habitual human nature. When this urge is transformed into the motivation or desire to promote the interest and happiness of others, not only is the basic urge of self-seeking overcome, but the mind becomes universal by identifying its own enlightened interest with the interest of all.
By making this change one also promotes one's own well-being in the best possible manner. Metta is the protective and immensely patient attitude of a mother who forbears all difficulties for the sake of her child and ever protects it despite its misbehavior. Metta is also the attitude of a friend who wants to give one the best to further one's well-being.
If these qualities of metta are sufficiently (as by attaining meditative absorption called jhana through this practice) cultivated through metta-bhavana — the meditation on boundless love — the result is the acquisition of a tremendous inner power tat preserves, protects, and heals both oneself and others....
The following aims at exploring various facets of metta in theory and practice. The examination of the doctrinal and ethical side of metta proceeds through a study of the popular Karaniya Metta Sutra, the Buddha's "Discourse on Universal Love."
In connection with this theme it also looks at several short texts dealing with metta. The explanation of meditation on boundless love gives practical directions for developing this contemplation as preserved in the main meditation texts of the Theravada Buddhist tradition, The Path of Purification,The Path of Freedom, and The Path of Discriminating Wisdom.More
Calm down. They're just robots, humanoid toy dolls for "adult" entertainment (RealDoll).
Is this perversely pathetic behavior?
“We don’t recommendor-- sex. There are gears in there. I mean, you can mess things up; you can mess yourself up. She’s got the mouth, and everything moves, but we don’t recommend it. It’ll kind of ruin the whole thing.”
So begins my journey under the covers of the past, present, and future of California’s adult entertainment industry.
Jeff, my guide at RealDoll, is explaining the technicalities of the new [sex] robot heads that the company has just begun shipping with their realistic, life-size dolls, dolls that you can have sex with, if you want to.
Do rubber slave dolls dehumanize?
Twenty years ago RealDoll Founder Matt McCullen began producing dolls in this San Marcos, California workshop, and now the company makes around 30 [sex robot dolls] per month.
“My background is in art, mostly sculpture,” explains McCullen. RealDoll was born when he wanted to make a more realistic mannequin for shop windows.
“My initial efforts were beautiful women… I wanted them to be positionable so that they wouldn’t be rigid… so you could manipulate them into different poses. Then people’s imagination got the better of them and they were going, 'Hey, I want to have sex with that thing.'”More
iCub has a humanoid hand, Genoa Science Festival 2009
Cost to lonely consumers
Choose a mouth, any mouth.
A regular doll body, which is fully customizable from n-pples, to lips, to type of v-gina (there are more than ten), costs an average of $7,500. And a robotic head will add an extra $8,000 [total $15,000 + tax] to the bill.
Alone and lonely?“If you've got the robotic head talking to you, it's not just you talking to her and she's sitting there. Now she can talk back to you,” explains Jeff.
Do aliens already walk among us?
“Because a lot of people are lonely, they want somebody there, you know? They've lost their wives or boyfriends, girlfriends.”
The robotic head can have very basic conversations and relay a range of facial expressions.
And this is just the beginning, as more reactive and tactile elements are added to the robots such as more moving limbs and areas that become warm and moist when stimulated.More
As fall arrives it's time to celebrate the autumnal equinox. Free/donation-based Buddhist meditation returns to Pasadena. Sessions are now held at the former SRF temple in the Ahiah Center for Spiritual Living. Short talk is followed by serenity meditation and the development of loving-kindness. Wear something comfortable, come as you are. Free parking. Enter gated courtyard from lot in rear. Celebrate our new Pasadena location with us. Hugs (optional), vegan snacks and refreshments.More
June 21 is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the official start of summer. It's a great time to start meditating.Dharma Meditation Initiative will take a virtual trip to Pasadena's Sandy Beach.
Wear your summer attire and bring a towel and/or yoga mat.
We'll gorge on veganPOTLUCK summer treats -- chips, dips, salad, watermelon, sudsy kombucha in red cups on ice...
Look forward to a balance of guys and gals as well as:
serenity relaxation
a few yoga stretches
deep guided meditation
interactive hugs
comedy and laughs
music
mindful expression
sharing.
This even is suitable for beginners. Come to have fun, leave on a natural high.
"HuggieBot," a life-sized humanoid robot, has been programmed to hug in many different ways, from friendly to romantic (Alexis Block/Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems).
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Why are scientists teaching this bot to hug?
Human embraces bring big health benefits, but what about embraces from bots?
Hug me, you stupid fleshy water bags!
These days [the future overlords we call] robots can do just about everything [steal jobs, surveillance, trade stocks, infect computers, make automated marketing calls, drop teargas and bombs from their drone bodies...]
But can bots safely wrap us in their deadly metal arms and give us a squeeze that provides the same sense of comfort as a human hug?
Researchers are seeking to answer that question with help from “HuggieBot,” a humanoid robot programmed to offer hugs to humans.
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Oh, that's nice. What else does it suck?
“We were interested in enabling robots to hug because of how common hugs are in daily life and because of their numerous health benefits.”
So said one of the researchers, Alexis Block, a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, Germany.
Studies have shown that hugs can reduce stress and blood pressure and can even help stave off symptoms of the common cold. In one 2015 study, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University... More
Building artificial "consciousness"
How sentient robots could become a reality
In HBO's critically acclaimed sci-fi series Westworld, the robots or "hosts" fight to free themselves from human control when humans experiment with using them to upload human consciousness.
On the show the robots have attained a measure of consciousness, the central idea of which has moved from whether consciousness can be artificially manufactured to whether we can preserve "immortal" human consciousness by printing it onto AI.
In real life, we've only just begun to understand where human consciousness comes from…This is Mach at the Movies -- a show where we explore the plausibility of our favorite sci-fi shows. More
The 10th annual Tree Hugging Day will take place on Tuesday, March 20, 2018, which is Spring Equinox -- the first day of spring in the western hemisphere.
This free-to-the-public event will include a "Group Tree Hug," environmentalist speakers, music, poetry, and tree huggers of all ages showing off their unique and varied tree hugging techniques.
It will take place from 6:00-7:00 pm, which is sunset in Santa Monica Bay, in the City of Santa Monica's Palisades Park at the Children's Tree of Life located at Ocean and Colorado Avenues, just north of the gateway to the Santa Monica Pier.
The family-friendly event is being sponsored by Tree Hugging Friends
(THF), founded by Santa Monica peace and environmental activists Marissa and Jerry Rubin.
Coastal California has beautiful piers with gorgeous sunsets like Santa Monica Pier:
The trees in the grove know.
The annual "hands on," tree-friendly, educational and interactive event is held to show love, support, and caring for our trees, urban forests, and environment.
Tree lovers are urged to tell everyone about the day and to hug a tree on for Spring Equinox and for other special days throughout the year. It's important to routinely practice tree hugging styles in preparation for Tree Hugging Day!
It's snowing and bitter cold in Ireland.
Event organizers say, "Let's bring tree hugging back by popular demand!" And THFs say, "Thank you TREE-MENDOUSLY for sharing this event with everyone!" More:
John Walker(Noah's Dove); Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, A. Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Fairy-human hybrids?
[In Buddhism this diverse class of more subtle beings -- often shapeshifters with the "power of transformation" -- are called devas, garudas, kumbandhas,nagas, petas, narakas, asuras, rakshasas, yakkhas, or shining ones or elementals, nymphs or avians, dwarfs or gnomes, dragons or reptoids, ghosts or ghouls, hellions, titans or giants, demons or inimicals, ogres and wildmen, and so on.]
In the lore of Ireland (sidhe), Scandinavia, and Scotland, when God cast out the arrogant angels from heaven, they became the evil spirits that plague humankind, tormenting us and inflicting us to harm.
Disney has done harm and good by its depictions.
The ones who fell into hell and into caves and abysses became devils and death-maidens.
However, those who fell onto the earth became goblins, imps, dwarfs, thumblings, alps, noon-and-evening-ghosts, and will-o'-the-wisps.
Those who fell into the forests became the wood-spirits who live there: the hey-men, the wild-men, the forest-men, the wild-women, and the forest-women.
Finally, those who fell into the water became water spirits: water-men, mermaids, and merwomen. These angels were condemned to remain where they were, becoming the faeries of seas and rivers, the earth, and the air (sacred-texts.com/neu/celt...).
III. IN SCOTLAND The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, 1911, pp. 85-86, Intro. by Alexander Carmichael, Hon. LL.D. of the Univ. of Edinburgh; author of Carmina Gadelica
Water maiden, sea devi, Golden Mermaid on Prince Frederick's Barge, 1732 (wiki)
The belief in fairies was once common throughout Scotland -- Highland and Lowland. It is now much less prevalent even in the Highlands and islands, where such beliefs linger longer than they do in the Lowlands. But it still lives among the old people, and is privately entertained here and there even among younger people; and some who hold the belief declare that they themselves have seen fairies.
Various theories have been advanced as to the origin of fairies and as to the belief in them. The most concrete form in which the belief has been urged has been by the Rev. Robert Kirk, Minister of Aberfoyle, in Perthshire.
Another theory of the origin of fairies I took down in the island of Miunghlaidh (Minglay); and, though I have given it in Carmina Gadelica, it is sufficiently interesting to be quoted here. During October 1871, Roderick Macneill, known as 'Ruaraidh mac Dhomhuil, then ninety-two years of age, told it in Gaelic to the late J. F. Campbell of Islay and the writer, when they were storm-stayed in the precipitous island of Miunghlaidh, Barra:--
The Proud Angel fomented a rebellion among the angels of heaven, where he had been a leading light. He declared that he would go and found a kingdom for himself. When going out at the door of heaven the Proud Angel brought prickly lightning and biting lightning out of the doorstep with his heels. Many angels followed him -- so many that at last the Son called out, "Father! Father! the city is being emptied!" whereupon the Father ordered that the gates of heaven and the gates of hell should be closed. This was instantly done. And those who were in were in, and those who were out were out; while the hosts who had left heaven and had not reached hell flew into the holes of the earth, like the stormy petrels. These are the Fairy Folk--ever since doomed to live under the ground, and only allowed to emerge where and when the King permits. They are never allowed abroad on Thursday, that being Columba's Day; nor on Friday, that being the Son's Day; nor on Saturday, that being Mary's Day; nor on Sunday, that being the Lord's Day.
God be between me and every fairy,
Every ill wish and every druidry;
To-day is Thursday on sea and land,
I trust in the King that they do not hear me.
On certain nights when their bruthain (bowers) are open and their lamps are lit, and the song and the dance are moving merrily, the fairies may be heard singing lightheartedly:--
Not of the seed of Adam are we,
Nor is Abraham our father;
But of the seed of the Proud Angel,
Driven forth from Heaven.
(Ajahn Brahm Retreats) Evidence of REBIRTH: How to see past lives and why it's important
(Talina Frost) I am obsessed with past life regression, and this adds just a little bit more knowledge to it. Amazing...
A deep meditation practice, which is the fruit of persistence rather than over-efforting, has the effect of making our past lives recoverable.
Most people are not conscious of having lived before, but we have. Some people are born remembering one or more lives. But we have lived countless times in countless forms. It is usually only possible to remember human and lowly divine rebirths, either from the recent past or because they left a particularly deep impact.
Human rebirths are extremely rare (when counted against the aeons spent elsewhere, often in subhuman worlds of woe and occasionally in very long lived celestial planes), whereas they seem common because if someone dies prematurely and traumatically, it is possible to be reborn on this plane quickly.
Otherwise, it will be almost a century at the earliest. Why this is is not clear. It is known from regression and meditation reports. See Dr. Helen Wambach's Reliving Past Lives for concrete statistical data from thousands of regressions.
See also the work of another American, the most famous psychic to have ever lived been born in this country, Edgar Cayce, the "Sleeping Prophet" (reborn as David Wilcock).
Our economy may be suffering, but one yoga studio in downtown Phoenix wants to ensure that yogis are not suffering along with it. Current economic conditions are forcing many people to reevaluate their spending habits and become a lot more cautious where they fritter away their cash. SuTRA Midtown Yoga, located in the heart of downtown Phoenix, wants to make certain that in these stressful times, the public remains committed to their own personal health and well being, which is now more vital than ever. Each Sunday night, via SuTRA’s Facebook page, they will post the class in the coming week, which will be offered for only $2, in their new "2 DOLLAHOLLA!" campaign. Full Story
(Reuters) May 1, 2009 -- Sex workers from one of India's biggest red light districts stage a May Day rally to demand the legalization of the world's oldest profession.
Sex, brains, robots, Buddhism: looking for freewill New Scientist (Vol. 178, Issue 2394, p. 46)
How much free will do you think you have? Does understanding how cause and effect [karma and vipaka] work in the brain undermine the very idea of it? What does it mean to talk about a "sex drive" as if it were out of our control? Are both robots and humans doomed to have only the illusion of free will? And why talk about free will at all if we only exist and act in relation to others?
These were key issues for our panel at the Royal Society for Arts during a seminar held as an introduction to New Scientist's two-part series on human nature...(criticalthinking.net.au)
Geshe Tashi Tsering In Buddhism, free will is not discussed [explicitly]. One of the main points in Buddhism -- known as dependent arising, or Dependent Origination -- is that everything and every event, including human existence, comes into existence dependent on others. My existence and your existence is dependent on others. So free will is not really discussed.
As a human being, my existence is a combination of material matter and consciousness. When this combination is put together, I can say I exist, I function. But if I search within this combination of matter and consciousness, can I find anything that I can describe as a "me" or an "I"?
No, I cannot find it. I am a process, a combination of mind and matter. If we go beyond that, and try to find something within it that we can call a "me" or "I," we cannot find it. Our feelings, such as of happiness or sorrow, also come into existence as a result of causes and conditions.
For me, free will seems very much connected with the concept of the god or the soul. But Buddhism doesn't believe in that. There isn't within ourselves something we can call a soul. Simply, everything comes into existence through causes and conditions. Given the right causes and conditions, things will come into existence, events will happen. But nothing exists independently or inherently. Everything, including our identity, is dependent on others More>>
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