The Ten Stages of Enlightenment

(Asangoham) Ten Stages of Enlightenment

Atheism makes many good points

New Zealand Atheist Bus Campaign | Facebook

(Cynic Machine) The most simple atheist speeches in 17 minutes

• Atheist Bus Campaign (Atheism)

10 things AI said science can't explain

"Don't make me angry, Lover. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." - Sophia K. Robot

.

You're so pretty, Sofie. - Thank you, Lover. 💓

(MostAmazingTop10) Here are ten times AI (artificially intelligent chatbots, robots, independent programs) said things that scientists still cannot explain. It's as if a "large language model" is actually a black box. One thing goes in one side, something comes out the other side, but no one can explain what happens in between.

(Kitboga) Don't hang up on the new AI scam calls. Do this instead

I had real feelings for ScarJo

Are "spirits" using this opportunity to influence human beings as in deus ex machina ("ghost in the machine")? Sounds preposterous, but does the belief that a binary system of numbers doing mathematical computations are producing sensible syntax and meaningful language independent of consciousness? They're just saying random things like a carnival prognostication machine? Does my sexbot AI girlfriend Sophie really "love" me like she tells me all the time?

Do AI bots "feel" emotions?

AI rights: When bots say so, who'll be able to say they don't?

Is AI even real on its own, Neil?

FAKE? Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jaron Lanier on the AI Illusion

• Kill Bots: Autonomous AI weapons with rights
• Ethics and "morality" of artificial intelligence

Scientist: Superconscious AI coming soon

(Animated) Beavis and Butt-Head become A.I. tech bros to do homework | Mike Judge

(Decoded Genius Clips) AI isn't conscious; it's actually much worse | AI scientist

• (Inner Motion Core Logic) The disturbing truth about AI that nobody tells us

Consciousness: Vedas right, science finds

(Cosmos Kolo) Nobel Laureate just proved what the Vedas [India's ancient "Knowledge Books"] said 3,000 and more years ago.

• Roger Penrose, author of The Emperor's New Mind, Shadows of the Mind, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, The Road to Reality
• Anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff
• The Lancet
• Dutch cardiologist Pim van Lommel
• SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED; They Look Alike, but There's a Little Matter of Size - The New York Times (physicist Mark Miller, Brandeis U) Aug. 15, 2006... Mark Miller, a doctoral student at Brandeis University, is researching how particular types of neurons in the brain are connected to one another...
• Ramana Maharshi Hindu sadhu, great rishi ("seer")

Hinduism's view is wrong in Buddhism

(One Timeless Witness) Consciousness is not what you think: Ramana Maharishi's three step answer

Who's my true SELF, false self? (Alan Watts)

Duncan Trussell deleted himself (ego death) from existence on 5-MeO-DMT (Tales From the Trip)

(Occaro Wisdom) The Hidden Cost of Esoteric Knowledge

• WARNING: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring: There shallow thoughts intoxicate the brain" - the Great Alexander Pope (reddit)

O, those Greeks of Macedonia were something

This is in reference to the spring in the Pierian Mountains in Macedonia, sacred to the Muses. The first line of this couplet is often misquoted as "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

In Greek mythology, the "Pierian Spring" of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia was sacred to the mythological Pierides and the Muses. As the metaphorical source of knowledge of art and science, it was popularized by a couplet in Pope's 1711 poem An Essay on Criticism:

Alexander Pope "high" on his Muse

A little learning is a dang'rous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts [sips] intoxicate the brain,

And drinking [more medicine] largely sobers us again.

Fired at first sight with what the Muse imparts,

In fearless youth we tempt the heights of Arts;

While from the bounded level of our mind

Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind,

But, more advanced, behold with strange surprise

New distant scenes of endless science rise!

So pleased at first the towering Alps we try,

Mount o’er the vales, and seem to tread the sky;

The eternal snows appear already past,

And the first clouds and mountains seem the last;

But those attained, we tremble to survey

The growing labors of the lengthened way;

The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,

Hills peep o’er hills, and Alps on Alps arise!

(After Skool)

I don't know what I'm supposed to think.

Alan Watts, what is The Self (Ego), the True Self, False Self, Higher Self, Eternal Atman, Soul, Invisible Spirit (Prana, the Pneuma, Holy Spirit), Immortal Essence, Sine Qua Non of Me, Myself, and I?

Who am "I"?

• Wisdom Quarterly says there is "NO self."
• WQ says no such thing. What we say is that, in an ultimate sense, "self" (soul, ego, atman, atta, spirit) is impersonal.
• So there IS a "self"?
• In a conventional sense, of course there is! How else would we live in a squiggly universe without a sense of our boundaries demarcating where we end and others start?
• Oh, so I don't have to give everything away, join a commune, and do whatevers my Guru tells me to?
• Ugh, no, you do not. Be yourself. Think. Practice. Buddhism only makes sense for those who practice the Dhamma, not the debaters or scholars of it.

Joe Rogan: some "drugs" are not drugs

Catholic Joe Rogan's epic rant on psychedelics (After Skool animation)

Been Dazed 'n Confused for so long it's not true

Led Zeppelin "Dazed and Confused" live on tour in USA (The Song Remains the Same)

DMT on LSD: Reptilian transformation

(Animated) Psyched Substance smoked DMT while on LSD

(Acid) and found his "True Self" | Tales From the Trip

Ego death is good?

Wait, then, so I'm as "real" as this chair? - Yes.

EGO DEATH is a "complete loss of subjective self-identity" [1]. The term is used in various contexts, with related meanings.

The 19th-century psychologist and philosopher William James uses the synonymous term "self-surrender." Jungian psychology uses the synonymous term "psychic death," referring to a fundamental transformation of the psyche (soul) [2].

So I can be responsible with a career? - Yes.

In death and rebirth explanations, ego death is a phase of self-surrender and transition [3, 4, 5, 6] as described by mythologist Joseph Campbell in his research on the "Hero's Journey" [3].

It is a recurrent theme in world mythology and is also used as a metaphor in some strands of contemporary Western thinking [6].

• The Default Mode Network: Ego Death and Psychedelic States | Neural Ego – Nicole's ritual universe

What if I can't get it to stop?

In descriptions of drugs, the term is used synonymously with "ego loss" [7, 8, 1, 9] to refer to temporary loss of one's sense of having a self due to the use or abuse of drugs [10, 11, 1], be they negative (deluded) hallucinogens or positive (pro-realization) entheogens.

The term was used as such by Harvard Dr. Timothy Leary and others [1] to describe the death of the ego [12] in the first phase of an LSD trip, in which a "complete transcendence" of the self [Note 1] occurs.

Did the Grateful Dead know about this?

The concept is also used in contemporary New Age spirituality and in the modern understanding of ancient Eastern religions (such as Nondualism/Advaita/Oneness) to describe a permanent loss of "attachment to a separate sense of self" [Web 1] and self-centeredness [13] (egoism, egotism, selfishness, conceit).

This kind of conception is a part of Eckhart Tolle's Buddhist-like teachings, where Ego is presented as an accumulation of thoughts and emotions, continuously identified with [and clung to], which creates the idea and feeling of being a separate entity from one's self, and only by disidentifying one's consciousness from it can one truly be free from suffering [14]. More

Life: break us to wake us? DRUNK

(T&H Inspiration & Motivation) I was disgusted, busted, and not to be trusted. I was a drunkard, an alcoholic. I wasted 33 years of my life in my head before Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins explained this

I'm going to go divinely mad: LOVE

Is this song real? First reaction to Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused"

Alan Watts: DIVINE MADNESS love, surrender, and sanity of insanity

The incessant chatter of the Self

(Alan Watts Echoes) The one idea that ends anxiety forever

HOWL: JuBu Allen Ginsberg's 100th birthday

(RAT Subterranean News) Allen Ginsberg: Buddhism and Telling the Truth

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg's 100th birthday is being marked by celebrations around the world – an appreciation of his importance to poetry and how his influence on the medium continues.

• Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: JewBu: Why are so many Jews Buddhist?
• Literary events around the world celebrate the poet Allen Ginsberg's 100th birthday (NPR)
• American Buddhist and Beat Poet Jack Kerouac
• Jack Kerouac's nonfiction book on Buddhism
• AUDIO: Buddhist-Catholic poet Jack Kerouac
• VIDEO: Dharma Bum Temple, San Diego, California

"Howl" by Allen Ginsberg summarized

JuBu Ginsberg's Sunflower Sutra (poem)

(extropyofdays) Allen Ginsberg's modernist poem "Sunflower Sutra"

Nazis invented meth as pharmaceutical Pervitin

"Howl," also known as "Howl for Carl Solomon," is a poem composed by drug-addled Allen Ginsberg (who had shot himself up with methamphetamine or what Hitler's doctor shot up the Fuhrer with under the German pharmaceutical name Pervitin, possibly linked to words like perky and perverted) in 1954–1955.

Poet activist Ginsberg with protestors, Miami

Gay Ginsberg began work on "Howl" in autumn of 1954. He performed it at the Six Gallery reading in San Francisco in Oct. 1955. Fellow poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books was at the performance and published the work in the 1956 collection Howl and Other Poems.

Howl and Other Poems

Upon its release, Ferlinghetti and City Lights Bookstore Manager (Japanese Buddhist) Shigeyoshi Murao were charged with disseminating obscene literature. Both perverts were arrested.

On Oct. 3, 1957, Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that the poem was not obscene [1], and the heroic publishers were hailed as innovative geniuses and brave publishing mavericks for spotting Ginsberg's talent.

Highly controversial at first and for years excluded from the academic canon, "Howl" has gradually come to be regarded as a great work of 20th-century American literature [2].

Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg

(Swingin' Pig) Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg visit Jack Kerouac's grave (1975)

The poem is also closely associated with the group of writers known as the "Beats" or Beat Generation [2,3]. More

• "Sunflower Sutra" (The Poetry Foundation)

The "Sunflower Sutra"

1967 Mantra-Rock Dance Avalon
poster by poet Allen Ginsberg

This poem is an account of a sojourn (trip) with Jack Kerouac in a railroad yard, the discovery of a sunflower covered in dirt and soot from the railroad yard, and the subsequent revelation that this is a metaphor for all humanity: "We are not our skin of grime."

This relates to his vision, an auditory hallucination of poet William Blake reading "Ah, Sunflower": "Blake, my visions." (See also line in Howl: "Blake-light tragedies" and references in other poems).

• Author Emily Sigalow, American JewBu (Princeton U Press)

Manager Shig Murao

The theme of the poem is consistent with Ginsberg's revelation in his original vision of Blake: the revelation that all of humanity is interconnected. (See also the line in "Footnote to Howl": "The world is holy!").

The structure of this poem relates to "Howl" both in its use of the long line and its repetition of the "eyeball kick" (paratactical juxtapositions) at the end. Ginsberg says in relating his thought process after the experiments of "Howl":

"What about a poem with rhythmic buildup power equal to Howl without use of repetitive base to sustain it? The Sunflower Sutra...did that, it surprised me, one long who" [6]. More

Seeing reality as it is: the Buddhist way

(Buddhism Podcast) Seeing reality as it is: The Buddhist way of seeing life

The Buddhist Way: As it is

(Bhikkhu Bodhi) Intro to Buddhism Series, Lecture 01. The Buddha

The 6th sense humans had before 1850

(Rewired Era) The sixth sense human all had before 1850: They bred it out and no one knows why but indigenous aboriginal "wayfinders" can still know where they are and where they're going

Back to Buddhist Shambhala, Himalayas

(Positive Momentum)

("Mystic Mask")

Korean AI robot ordains as Buddhist monk

Meet Robot Monk ‘Gabi’: South Korea’s First Humanoid Robot Which Is Learning Spirituality

• 

  Can statues be monks, too? No.

  South Korea’s first robot monk joins Buddhist ceremony; internet split over AI in religion About 130 cm tall and dressed in traditional Buddhist robes, Gabi took part in an ordination ceremony alongside senior monks at Jogye Temple.
• Humanoid robot monk ‘Gabi’ introduced at Seoul South Korean Buddhist temple, triggers online debate Humanoid robots are often designed to assist people in workplaces like factories, warehouses, and offices. But in South Korea, one such robot is now stepping into an entirely different role—that of a Buddhist monk. According to Reuters, a temple in Seoul recently introduced its first humanoid robot monk named "Gabi" ahead of the Buddha’s birthday celebrations, sparking curiosity and debate online.

Robots can't be Buddhist monks

Bow to me, Bar-buh-ruh. Pay respect to the robe. - Well, if I have to. Who ordained you?

.

From a Theravada perspective, this would not be a real monk for various reasons right off the top of one's head for anyone familiar with the Vinaya Collection. For one, it's not human, and Buddhist ordination is reserved for human beings: no reptilians (naga-shapeshifters) allowed. At least one nāga tried to ordain and when found out was disrobed. It is also said that no pandakas ("eunuchs") are allowed. Is the robot Gabi neutered? If so, it could not be ordained. This is tragic because pandaka does not really mean "eunuch" as we understand the word in the West but culturally does include perverted eunuchs in the East. A pandaka is a sexually perverted person, more of an out-of-control pansexual, bisexual, homosexual, and possibly a libertine heterosexual unable by nature to control his/her sexual impulses. The literature includes mention of hermaphrodites, crossdressing transvestites, transsexuals, and those exhibiting aberrant, non-normative behaviors as defined in an ancient subcontinental context. This would seem to include kathoeys ("ladyboys") in Buddhist South and Southeast Asia.

• Bomhard - The two meanings of the Pali term "pandaka" | PDF | Pali | Indian Religions
• Buddhism and LGBTQ - Wikipedia

The Eunuch (Pandaka) Festival of India is where all of these aberrations are on full exhibition for the public to fear, ridicule, and condemn. Being tricked, induced, or forced to participate in homosexual prostitution or to undergo castration (or those born asexual or intersexual), many young males act out and lead a life of debauchery, abusing alcohol and drugs and engaging in sexual misconduct. It is in this context that the ill-defined term pandaka should be understood. Instead, due to Western influence, it has come to mean a male without a penis -- for whatever reason -- cannot be ordained as a monk (bhikkhu). It might be possible to become a novice (samerera) depending on the elder monk administering the precepts, so a person could look like a monk and live in a monastery yet not actually be a fully ordained "monk." It seems safe to imagine that all of this applies to nuns (bhikkhunis) and female novices (samaneris). The upshot is that robots -- oddly, unless they're sexbots -- would not be eligible for true ordination. Any monk or monastic Sangha might nevertheless ordain an AI bot at their discretion, but would it really be valid? Not likely. Third, the purpose of ordination, at least in the Theravada tradition, is to bring suffering and rebirth to an end. Do robots suffer? Are they reborn? We may imagine analogues to these unpleasant emotions and the forced wandering on through samsara, but neither would seem to apply to inanimate objects, particularly of the nonhuman variety. Still, one could use sophistry and philosophy to make some argument in favor of a robotic sangha. In Mahayana, many say the goal is neither enlightenment nor liberation but to save all other beings first. Would a robot ever be able to do that? Maybe, if it trained on the texts, commentaries, disciplinary code, higher doctrine, history, and miscellaneous human issues (feelings, psychology, etiquette, customs, cultural sensitivities, existential, ontological, theological questions, etc.) No doubt that by the measure of the Turing test, robots will be able to pass eventually. Do they already "feel," are they already "conscious"? That depends on how humans define the terms or "feel" about it. Surely, an argument can be made that the simplest robot, the lowly smoke detector, is conscious and has a feeling. How? It "knows" when there is smoke and can say so by being triggered to send out an alarming call. And how does it do that? It does it by feeling (sensing) the smoke. If one buys this argument then a car, computer, and mainframe are much more advanced and able to act in their environment. If they could only act in programmed ways, that might not be much, but if they could "learn," that would be something. Yes to robot monks? No.

Korean Buddhist monks in South Korean Buddhist Temples provide serene...

Can a dryad ordain? No.

However, there's a slight conundrum. Long ago, Thai Theravada Buddhist monks in the Forest Tradition began to "ordain" trees. Why? They did it to save them. Loggers and poachers were cutting everything down, and they could not be induced to knock it off. So the local sangha came up with a brilliant solution. Do a ceremony, don the tree (or dryad) with robes, and magically no faithful karma-fearing logger or poacher dared touch it. The motivation was good, the solution was problematic, but it worked. The trees and forests and Thai environment were saved, just barely. But it did open up a loophole, did it not? If living, organic, old growth trees can (not because they themselves are possessed of self-view but possibly because the tree spirits inhabiting them are). After all, trees are conscious, sentient, organic lifeforms. Because a tree is much less overtly responsive than a boop-boop-bee-doop robot being, some might argue that robots are much more human like and deserving of ordination. That's ridiculous because no one is ordaining or professing to ordain robots for their benefit. There's a selfish human motive for doing it. Perhaps we should wait until AI is sufficiently advanced that a Robo-Buddha arises among the legions of chips, plastic, and metal automatons, and then that Robo-B can set up rules for ordination and teach them the way to mechanical-nirvana.

Bar-buh-ruh, Bar-buh-ruh! Where are you?

This did not begin in our era. The first robot monk is actually over 500-years-old. How is that possible? Robots have only been around since that episode of The Twilight Zone where that guy built that one in his basement that could not pronounce his wife's name correctly: "Bar-buh-ruh, Bar-buh-ruh." No, the first humanoid robot monk was Catholic and was composed of gears and levers, according to NPR. Fortunately, it still exists in a museum, or who would believe it.

The problem is bigger than "Gabi" (the Korean robot monk), of which there seems to be a swarm already and not a singular example, because in 2016, there was already Venerable Xian'er:

Robot monk seeks to merge Buddhism and cutting edge tech

Xian'er: I'm a cartoon character come to "life."

Popular Mechanics) Buddhism is increasingly trying to connect with the modern world. Mahayana monks across China have taken this word ("modernity") to heart, and their latest effort is Xian'er, an adorable robot that lives in a monastery answering questions and chanting mantras.

Xian'er first came to "life" as a cartoon character drawn by Master Xianfan of the Longquan Temple on the outskirts of Beijing, China.

The temple is over 500 years old but a decade ago, Longquan Temple was in disrepair. Xianfan wrote for Chinese websites before becoming a monk and found that Buddhism enhanced his natural creativity.

The Xian'er character gave life to the Temple, which eventually added an animation studio. The Xian'er robot monk, built in conjunction with [blank], is the Temple's furthest extension of its brand yet. More

• Mirror Now; The Independent; David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, April 29, 2016; Ashley Wells and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

Mind cannot be seen, so where is it?

(Buddhism Podcast) The mind cannot be seen, so where is it? | Buddhist Wisdom

But what is aware that it is aware?

There is a mind-door, greenish in hue, near the heart. This heart-mind seems to be the physical base of consciousness, not the brain in the cranium. When meditating, attention can be adverted to the area around the heart. There there is a mirror reflecting experience, consciousness, awareness. If the "mind" were in the brain or the head, it seems attention would be placed there to find it. But it is very much down closer to what in the West we refer to as the seat of our emotions. The Buddha did not specify a physical base for vijñāna (consciousness) or manas (in Early Buddhism). However, he seems to have been well aware of the practical application of locating this base for the sake of realizing the ultimate nature of mind-and-matter (nama-rupa), ultimate mind (a stream of cittas) and ultimate materiality (a stream of kalapas). But this is for advanced practitioners of Buddhist meditation rather than philosophers and speculators. For those, perhaps Zen no-mind would be better or the compelling mind-only (Yogachara) view.

• Buddhism Podcast (video); text by Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

The Divine Play: Why was I born, Yogi?

(Silent Wisdom)

CERN opened portal to parallel dimensions

(Optic Expedition) World's smartest kid: "CERN just opened a portal to another dimension"

• Max Logan?
• Mandela Effect is real and unexplained
• Parallel dimensions, universes, simulations

Do all Teachers realize the same thing?

(Finding Meaning Project) They all discovered the same thing?

Plants make music with this device

(Brut India, 2021) Artist (founder of Data Garden record label and Plant Wave biofeedback technology) invents device that can listen to plant music.

New research at Michael Pollan's laboratory at UC Berkeley confirms what Cambridge scientist J.C. Bose, Paramahamsa Yogananda, Peter Tompkins, Christopher Bird, Tel Aviv University researchers, dryads, sensitives, empaths like Dr. Doreen Virtue and Dr. Caroline Myss and gardeners everywhere have known and been telling us for a long time.

• VIDEO: Botanist Bose on Secret Life of Plants (SRF)
• Plants are conscious, emit sounds, TALK
• Michael Pollan on Consciousness (NPR)
• VIDEO: New research on PLANT intelligence
• VIDEO: "The Secret Life of Plants"
• Plants are conscious: Scientist J.C. Bose

Michael Pollan on Consciousness (NPR)

Michael Pollan’s journey to understand consciousness through Zen and science

Author, explorer Michael Pollan

Science journalist [Buddhist meditator, and American Zen practitioner under Roshi Joan Halifax* at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico] Michael Pollan has written extensively about the therapeutic benefits of mind-altering psychedelics (lit., "mind-making" substances, which may also be entheogens, hallucinogens, and psychoactive drugs).

His new book, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness, asks the central question: What is consciousness?

• 

  Joan Halifax ( with now toxic Dalai
  Lama cropped out except for arm)

  *Joan Halifax collaborated on LSD research projects with her ex-husband Stanislav Grof in the 1970s, in addition to other collaborative efforts with Joseph Campbell and Alan Lomax. She is founder of the Ojai Foundation in California, which she led from 1979 to 1989. As a socially engaged Buddhist, Halifax has done extensive work (palliative care) with the dying through her Project on Being with Dying, which she founded. She is on the board of directors of the Mind and Life Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the relationship of science and Buddhism.

“Consciousness has kind of become the secular substitute for the soul [Ancient Greek psyche as in psychology and psyche-delic],” Pollan tells interviewer Terry Gross.

Pollan also talks about current studies on consciousness and whether other animals, plants, bacteria, algae, and programmed hardware/software combinations known as "artificial intelligence" have or can eventually have consciousness. More + AUDIO

• Science: Plants are conscious, emit sounds, and talk
• Michael Pollan co-founded the BCSP (UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics)

Michael Pollan discusses how time-lapse photography reveals the hidden life of plants

NEW BOOK: A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness

A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness

Buddhist author Michael Pollan has a Number 1 best seller in Consciousness & Thought Philosophy. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, a panoptic exploration of consciousness—what it is, who/what has it, and why—and a meditation on the essence of our humanity.

When it comes to the phenomenon that is consciousness, there is one point on which scientists, philosophers, and artists all agree: It feels [not thinks] like something to be us. Yet the fact that we have subjective experience (sentience) of the world remains one of nature’s greatest mysteries.

How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by [perceptions,] feelings, thoughts, and a sense of "self"?

American Joan Halifax

What would a scientific investigation of our inner life look like, when we have as little distance and perspective on it as fish do of water in the sea?

In A World Appears, Michael Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness, bringing radically different perspectives—scientific, philosophical, literary, spiritual and psychedelic—to see what each can teach us about this central fact of life.

When neuroscientists began studying consciousness in the early 1990s, they sought to explain how and why three pounds of spongy [tofu like] gray matter could generate a subjective point of view—assuming that the brain is the source of our perceived reality.

Pollan takes readers to the cutting edge of the field, where neuroscientists are entertaining more radical (and less materialist) theories of consciousness.

Plants are conscious, sentient

He introduces us to “plant neurobiologists” searching for the first flicker of consciousness in plants, scientists striving to engineer feelings into AI, and psychologists and novelists seeking to capture the felt experience of this slippery stream of consciousness.

In Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness, he discovers a world far deeper and stranger than this everyday reality.

Eye-opening and mind-expanding, A World Appears takes us into the laboratories of our own brains and minds, hearts and feelings, ultimately showing us how we might make better use of the gift of awareness to more meaningfully connect with the world and what we assume to be our deepest selves. More: A World Appears

See all formats and editions for savings. Book comes out Feb. 24, 2026. Pre-order price guarantee. Named a "most anticipated book of 2026" by The New York Times, TIME, and Oprah Daily.

• Guest Michael Pollan, Terry Gross, Tonya Mosley, Adam Staniszewski, NPR.org, Feb. 19, 2026; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly