Why do we complain? [Perfection is the enemy of the good.] Theoretical physicist Ajahn Brahm explains the dangers of cultivating a fault-finding mind and the benefits of praise and looking for the positive.
Ajahn encourages us to put our energy into positive things. Outlook is everything. If we have a choice what to look for, praise will pay off much more than complaints.
Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon: buddhistsocietywa. Recorded at Dhammaloka Buddhist Centre, Perth, Western Australia.
Buddhist Society of Western Australia’s teaching's page: bswa.org/teachings. To find the full playlist visit: buddhistsocietywa, or click on 'Playlists' in the top menu bar.
Copyright Buddhist Society of Western Australia bswa.org
Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
What if there were an Eightfold Path of Science? There is now, thanks to Dr. Radin. Can yoga and meditation unleash our inherent supernormal mental powers, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, invisibility, and precognition?
Is it really possible to
perceive another person's thoughts and intentions?
influence objects with our minds?
envision future events?
And is it possible that some of the superpowers described in ancient legends, science fiction, and comic books are actually REAL, and patiently waiting for us behind the scenes?
Are we now poised for an evolutionary trigger to pull the switch and release our full potentials?
Chief Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) Dean Radin is the best-selling author of The Conscious Universe. He presents persuasive new experimental evidence for the existence of such phenomena.
He takes us on a thrilling scientific journey and challenges outdated assumptions that these abilities are mere superstition.
Focusing on Patanjali's mysterious Yoga Sutras -- 2,000-year-old meditation practices believed to release our extraordinary powers -- Dr. Radin offers powerful evidence confirming that sometimes fact is much stranger, spookier, and more wonderful than the wildest fiction. More
There is practice of trance (deep concentration) to become an adept capable of real magic, as Dr. Dean Radin, Ph.D.explains in his book Real Magic, and there is the mental masturbation of endless talking, theorizing, and conjecturing, positing strategies and conceptual frameworks for how it might work when the wheel has already been invented, the actions already taken and verified, the path known and walked by amateurs and adepts. But still the thinkers need to get their head around how magic could work, so we have videos like this for those. In Buddhism, "magic" is known as abhinna ("higher knowledge") and iddhis (siddhis). One would be wise to first get one's virtue in order, by a supernormal attainment of insight, before dabbling in the dangerous playground that is PSI and psychic feats.
Dr. Radin has spent the last 40 years conducting controlled experiments that demonstrate that thoughts are things, that we can sense others' intentions and emotions from a distance, that intuition is more powerful than we thought, and that we can tap into the power of intention (think The Secret, only on a more realistic and scientific level).
These dormant powers can help us to lead more interesting and fulfilling lives.
Beginning with a brief history of magic over the centuries (what was called magic 2,000 years ago is turning out to be scientific fact today), a review of the scientific evidence for magic, a series of simple but effective magical techniques (the key is mental focus, something elite athletes [and meditators] know a lot about), Dr. Radin then offers a vision of a scientifically-informed magic and explains why magic will play a key role in frontiers of science.
Dean Radin; Formscapes, 10/23/23; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
TEAM S (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Olivia Rodrigo Anti-Swiftie; Scandalous Media; Chris Carter ("Breakfast with the Beatles, KLOS, 9/3/23, Flo & Eddie, "Keep It Warm," last.fm)
Nazi Barbie has been on top thanks mostly to the hoopla with the Eras[e your mind] Tour, the new movie about it [to hypnotize everyone who couldn't afford tickets to be put under live].
But her hit song has been shoved aside, like "Karma" was, by young Latinx superstar Olivia Rodrigo.
Meanwhile, Queen B (Beyonce) is doing her level best to top Taylor's tour take in with an even bigger and more profitable tour. QB just finished a run in LA this weekend with less mesmerism but more talent on display. The schadenfreude about it all is that O-Rod beat Tay-Tay with a song about Taylor Swift, who's a: "bloodsucker, fame f*cker, bleeding [Olivia] dry like a goddamn vampire."
When did you first realize you were going EVIL, Taylor? - It's not easy to stay on top, WQ.
.
Did O-Rod write "Vampire" about T-Swift? (Uh, duh)
(Scandalous Media) July 20, 2023: After a huge fallout following the royalties' drama...Olivia Rodrigo seems to take a dig at her former heroine and pop idol, Taylor Swift, in her new song "VAMPIRE"! #taylorswift #oliviarodrigo #vampire [It's Britney Spears v. Christina Aguilera all over again! Oh you, Hollywood music business, always being all business!]
A Buddhist prayer for Taylor Swift
Beauty AND talent? Even Ed Sheeran couldn't manage that! T-Swift is more looks than songs
Hey, schadenfreude's bad karma, like, essentially the opposite of sending someone metta(loving-kindness). So let us pray for Taylor Swift:
"May Taylor be well.
May Taylor be happy.
May Taylor be free.
May she look after herself with joy and ease.
May no harm come to her.
May no problems come to her.
May she have a good, happy, and prosperous present."
The Buddha was right. We feel better already. Olivia is smart. She won't let Nazi BarbieThe Devil Ms. Tay-Tay Swift get her down. Oli's bloodied but unbowed.
The inspiring story of Irish busker Allie Sherlock
(DW Euromaxx) Aug. 26, 2023: DUBLIN Ambitious, talented, and a rising star at just 18, Irish Allie Sherlock is one of Ireland’s most successful street musicians. Her renditions of songs by the likes of Ed Sheeran, Amy Winehouse, or Adele have not only given goosebumps to passersby, but have also captivated millions of fans on YouTube. DW visits Allie on Dublin's Grafton Street and follow her home to Cork County, Ireland, where she also works on original songs and talks about the tragic circumstances that music has helped her through, like the time she came to Hollywood, Los Angeles to be on ['orrible] Ellen's TV show.
(The-N) A hippie teen wants permission to go away with her hippie boyfriend, a graduate doesn't get a job but just sits around the house, a wife spends too much, and a hardworking all-American father (a cross between FAT Fred Flintstone, Ralphie Kramden, Archie Bunker, Homer Simpson, and Peter Griffin) has to put up with it. Welcome to reality. The series premiere of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home on#TheN (teamsmallwoods). #WaitTillYourFatherGetsHome#HannaBarbera#CartoonNetwork
LYRICS: Locked inside my bedroom/ Looking at the pictures up on the wall/ I need a little elbow room/ I need space man that ain't all/ Get home first thing you know/ My folks jump on my case/ Get a job take the dishes out/ Put the trash back in its place/ Someday when I'm a man/ I'm gonna put them in their place/ 'Cause my old man's a fatso/ He's got a potbelly for a mouth/ Baby my old man's a fatso/ But you know he owns this house// Yeah locked inside the classroom/ Staring at the dots up on the wall/ My teachers all are retards/ I need out baby that ain't all/ I don't care about textbooks/ Or the Jews that discovered Spain/ I gotta gotta gotta leave this town/ I'll take the bus I'll catch a plane/ 'Cause my old man's a fatso/ He's got a bathtub for a mouth/ Baby my old man's a fatso/ But you know he owns this house// Yeah 2-3-4 cruisin' on the highway/ It feels so good to see open space/ I don't feel like a prisoner/ I don't feel like a basket case/ I turn the radio up to 10/ And you know I've found my place/ Yep get a job put the dishes out/ Put the trash back in its place/ Now that I'm a man/ I'm gonna put them in their place/ 'Cause my old man's a fatso/ He's got a bathtub for a mouth/ Baby my old man's a fatso/ But you know he owns this house
Parents, mindfully raise your children.
Growing up is not easy. I imagine it's that way for everyone. A boy's relationship with his dad is particularly difficult. A man who chooses to drink is going to be terrible at parenting but defended by society as "doing the best he can." Really, Dad, that's the best?
Indeed, the blessing of being a parent is a great thing, full of merit (particularly good karma). The Sigalovada Sutra spells out the dharma or duties, social obligations, of parents to their children. Children, in turn, have obligations.
My dad is passed, and we didn't get along growing up. Of course, I loved him and have no doubt he loved me. But like? Not so much. We butted heads, we fought, we argued. He taught me not to drink by drinking.
He also taught me to ruminate, worry, fear, dislike, judge, and many other bad qualities. Born into the world, I take responsibility for my karma, my actions, my habits, and the things I picked up. Where is he now, I wonder, for his karma, his actions, his deeds.
There are fruits and resultants (ripening), the phala and vipakaof KARMA (deeds). And for human beings it's a mixed bag, a collection of blended deeds.
There are those unwelcome results of acts motivated or accompanied by "greed, hatred, and delusion," which refers to the range of craving (passion), aversion (and fear), and ignorance (wrong view) of all kinds.
There are also the welcome ones, and the motivations there are "nongreed, nonhatred, nondelusion" in all of their positive expressions -- letting go, generosity, giving, sharing, providing for ourselves and others; loving kindness, forbearance/forgiveness (khanti), compassion, courageousness (non-fear, non-cowardice); wisdom, understanding, right view, direct knowledge, faith (confidence, conviction), certainty, knowing-and-seeing.
In the end, after years of not getting along, I apologized to my father. Whatever wrong he did, I certainly had no right to assert myself and bruise his ego.
Oh, I see. "What comes around goes around," and that's karma. ("Like begets like").
.
Karma and Rebirth (Appleton)
I figured that if patricide, killing one's father, is practically the worst thing one can do in life -- grouped with killing an arhat (enlightened person), injuring a buddha, causing a schism in the monastic sangha, claiming false attainments, and matricide (the heinous deeds with immediate result in the very next rebirth) -- fighting with him had to be pretty bad. We had gotten into it. I had had it with his drunken bloviating and posturing.
No one came to my defense afterward. I was universally condemned, as if no one had ever noticed how he had been riding me. It made me feel so misunderstood. The purpose of life is to tolerate more and more nonsense for your dad or father figure or other authority figures? Heck no. Some people won't put up with it.
But our karma (our choice of deeds) can't be blamed on another. That another person does what he or she does, is that person's business. We have to mind ourselves. No one will mind us. No one can.
What a world to live in, where one cannot say the emperor has no clothes or ask, What's that 800 lb. gorilla doing in the room? I said, I asked it, I stood up for myself. You'd think he would have been proud of me, since he's the one who pushed it on so many occasions. But, no. He was a drunk, intoxicated much of the time. One cannot expect too many insights or self-reflection from such people.
Even if he hadn't been, and he wasn't always (there was time before he became one), he was still a jerk, a fatso, a presumptuous man who thought himself deserving of much respect. I didn't think so. And those who cannot demand respect attempt to command it, insist on it. Heck no. I wasn't going to have it.
Yay! Hooray! Ride the wave rather than fight it!
Fortunately, before he passed, I apologized. What a literal weight it lifted off my shoulders. I didn't know I was carrying it around. Surely, we use the phrase figuratively, but I felt the weight lift. It shocked me. I got to grow. Who knows how he took it.
He thanked me for apologizing and said Buddhism must be a good thing if it brought me to this realization. So maybe he took it well, taking no responsibility for provoking and instigating things. He constantly had to prove himself, and now I have to; it's the gift that keeps on giving.
Raising kids must be a terrible weight, a terrible responsibility. My dad not only made me not want to drink but also not want to become a father. Why would I be able to do it any better? Sure, I may know better (and that's a big may) but what better resources, what better habits do I have than he?
No relationship is good where there's fighting, bickering, recriminations, and such. It would have been better not to be under all the stressors an unfair society put on us as a family and as individuals. But we didn't have it the worst. Others have it plenty worse. It's hard to imagine.
The author of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, really said it about family (Family | Shmoop). I could have written the play Other Desert Cities, which tells the story of a family with a terrible secret about one of the sons.
The whole family lives under the pall of something that happened long ago, but it turns out the parents know and were never in the dark. Only the children were deceived and the author, in finding out, didn't like it. So she wrote the play, a true story about a real California family. I wanted to take my family and shout, This is us! The end. Stop reading.
Non-violent communication (NVC) is a great way to be
Why this is not good writing
Dad, get your own religion. Don't mooch mine.
Modern writing is all about relatable anecdotes. Rule 1: "Show, don't tell." No one cares about conclusions; everyone wants the real-life story to assume and decide for themselves. That's why all news stories and political speeches now begin with a personal anecdote.
Pres. Reagan (groomed in Hollywood to be the best speech reader ever) found this out. So rather than spout off statistics or other objective data nobody cares about, he realized one story about one Black welfare mom and he could destroy the country's social safety net for the Republicans' fiscal conservatives.
An anecdote is meant to suck us in and make us care, make it personal, get our investment. Then we'll keep reading or watching, turning the pages. That's why novels are more popular than textbooks. One we have to read, the other we choose to. We've been baited, and now we can't get enough.
What could I say about my dad, really? What am I, an open confessional? Dad is here, aren't you, Pops? He's in the breeze, he's in the trees, he's in my heart and memory. Are you a "fatso" like Harry Boyle? I love you, Apa (our family's version of "Papa").
Look, I can sit on my fat @ss, too.
Anecdote, anecdote, hmmm. My dad used to hide his Playboy magazines in an accessible drawer. Whenever I looked at them, I had to make sure to put them back exactly as I found them. For if he figured out that their hiding place had been found out, he'd move them. And then access would be gone. NO, DON'T SAY THAT!!! Don't air out the family's dirty laundry! What are you, a family traitor?!
No, I'm not a traitor. Okay, this one time I drank a beer and was a little woozy. My bad cousin put me up to it. He was sleeping over and dropped something. My dad came into the room asking what all the commotion was. Of course, there was no commotion. But being the Big Man that he [thought] he was, he had to get up in my face, I suppose showing off for my cousin, to show us who the Big Man is. I had had it. I was right up in his face. But being woozy, it was a little hard to stand straight. So he figured out that I had imbibed. NO, DON'T SAY THAT EITHER!!! What, do you want to make this family sound like a bunch of drunks? No, we weren't all drunks. In fact, I'm surprised anyone drank after seeing him screw up his and our lives with beer, booze (red wine), and spirits. O, those spirits! The worst. It's like they pack demons/genies into corked bottles.
One time we were visiting a family friend in San Francisco, and the whole family was in the kitchen. I answered back, and he hit me. I was going to floor him. I was shocked and outraged. But not being a drunk, not being a hothead, I contained myself so as to spare the other family, our hosts, from seeing just what kind of family we were. NO, WHAT ARE YOU CRAZY? DON'T TELL THAT STORY!!! What? He was a drinker who drank and lying liar who lies -- and saying so is the crime?
In Mahayana Buddhism, a branch of Brahminism/Hinduism more than anything the historical Buddha taught, they added rules to the Five Precepts: Do not broadcast the faults or misdeeds of the Buddhist assembly. (And we have the Western rule never to speak ill of the dead, but I said these things while he was living). Which is good for cult behavior. A Zen priest or Chan monk can do anything, and no one is to say anything about to the outside world or else that whistleblower is the problem. Great, what an additional rule to add to what the Buddha laid down as guidelines for living toward liberation.
Who are the "worthy ones" worthy of honor? The arhats
Ha, you think that's bad. My dad...
What's the worst thing my dad ever did to me? One time, we were eating dinner as a family, mandated, all at the table. Maybe there was a prayer; I don't remember. I used to like to clank my knife and fork against the plate while eating, because that's what I saw done on TV sitcoms when the family sat down for a meal of sharing and witty repartee. Well, my dad came unhinged and shouted for it to stop. We had to eat not only in silence but in noiselessness, too. My mom made the mistake of tell him to calm down, and he blew up. He shouted, What do you want me to do?! Get on all fours and let him [you can imagine, and if you can't imagine, you're lucky]" at which time he jumped onto the floor, got on all fours, and pointed -- all while we were right there eating, looking at my long-suffering mother, The Enabler, aghast and embarrassed for her and him.
I'm reminded now. It was so bad at home that my cousin and I had a weekly contest going, "Who's dad is the bigger a-hole this week?" We would call each other on Sundays to review. He'd tell me the worst thing his dad had done, and I'd tell him what mine had done. I didn't always win, but when I did, I knew I had by the stunned silence. My cousin couldn't compete with that. The other fathers we knew were nowhere near as bad as ours, and these were men, peers, who all knew each other. To think how many times I won that contest, sheesh. The drunken outbursts, the patriarchal BS, the religious hypocrisy...it was a good upbringing if "good" were defined as "all the examples of how not to be."
It might not be the worst, that would be drinking alcohol and intending for me to drink it when I got old enough, but it sure was the most upsetting. He calls my masculinity into question. Then, when I'm walking home with two girls, in middle school, and they're coming onto me and talking about what they're going to do to me when I walk them home. And my eyes, and not only my eyes, are bulging, we hear a honk. We ignore it. The honking grows more insistent. Finally, I turn around and it's him in the street with my brother in the passenger's seat. He's honking to give me a ride when I'm perfectly fine to walk, as I do daily, and for the first time to walk these vixens home as they tease and tantalize me all along the way.
I run over to tell him, "Thanks but I don't need a ride, I'm good" and all he says is, "Get in!" "I said I don't need a ride. I'll walk. I'm good." "Get the H in this car or I'll..." and d'ya think he let me go over to the girls and explain? No. H no. I had to be driven away, leaving them scratching their heads. Do you think they were in any kind of mood to hear an explanation later? No. H no. It never came up. They assumed I wussed out and got into the car of my own accord. Ah, what might have been. Could anyone imagine how different my life might have been?
OMG, THAT'S THE WORST STORY!!! And it's not even bad. It makes him seem like the responsible parent. Hah, I think he was simply trying to frustrate my plans and cover his own behind. My brother had gotten in trouble -- a minor foretaste of the trouble he would get in in a few years -- and my dad had to pick him up, so naturally why let me walk home and enjoy myself in the company of two beauties. And then to have the nerve in the future to call my masculinity into question again. What a [fatso]!
The reason for this article, on this glorious Father's Day, is to say, we don't all love our dads all the time. That's not to say we hate them. We disobey. A child has to individuate at some time. There's no point in carrying on the family-chain of raise, rinse, repeat -- doing the same thing our parents did to us. Break away. Stand on your own. If you want to be like them, you know how. It's the default option. If you want to be your own person, get out of line, out of step, and be a baa-baa black sheep. Then you'll have a chance at being a success that was not modeled for you. Awaken.
Ryan Trahan (YT); BBC Future; Microsoft; Kelly Ani, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
I survived the world's quietest room (-9 decibels)
(Ryan Trahan)
21,843,300 views. Oct. 18, 2021. What is the world's quietest room? It used to be this one, but they recently made a quieter one. It's time to defeat Dr. Phil to get him to adopt me. Lots of crazy things go through a person's head in a peaceful environment.
Microsoft has built a chamber so quiet that one can hear the grind of one's own bones – and it’s helping to fine-tune the next-generation of electronic goods.
If LeSalle Munroe stands still for a few moments in his “office,” something unsettling can happen: He can hear the blood rushing around his body and his eyes squelch as they move in his skull.
While many people work in places filled with the tip-tap of keyboards, the hubbub of chatter from colleagues, and a constant hum of computers, Munroe is surrounded by almost total silence.
His office is the quietest place on the planet. [There might be quieter places in the planet, deep in caves and caverns, or those isolation chambers in Altered States.]
Isolation chambers alter states
The specially constructed chamber is hidden in the depths of Building 87 at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, where the firm’s hardware laboratories are based.
Products like the Surface computers, Xbox, and Hololens have all been developed here. Microsoft’s engineers built the room – known as an anechoic chamber – to help them test new equipment.
That includes sound muffling equipment that in 2015 set the official world record for silence when the background noise level inside was measured at an ear-straining -20.6 decibels. [Google has gotten it even lower. By comparison, a library is about 40 decibels, more than 60 decibels louder.] More
If only they were meditators, they could last longer
Yes, yes, more silence!
Imagine a Zen monk, a forest dwelling Theravada Buddhist wandering ascetic (an original shaman or shramana), lost in his or her object of meditation, fully absorbed (jhana-fied) in the bliss of stillness. With that as one's goal or abode, hours in an anechoic chamber could be bliss. That would be the place to get tested, the way UCLA has MARC or its Mindful Awareness Research Center to test people in Buddhist meditative states.
Kathleen and Bree lead an upcoming workshop & retreat
This is a 90-minute practice of ecstatic release, dance, yoga, self-inquiry, catharsis, music, movement, vocal release, and various somatic techniques with Yogini Bree VanZutphen.
The class is designed to take elusive concepts and process them through our physical bodies.
This class addresses the physical, emotional, mental, energetic, and spiritual layers of our being. It's a deep dive to play to understand internal alignment and discuss how to translate the practice into our daily lives.
The purpose of this practice is to cultivate a deeper relationship with self and as a result a deeper relationship with the world around us. Please bring pen and paper or a journal to class.
Crystal singing bowls created an excellent sound bath at a recent Kinship workshop.
Bree VanZutphen (founder of Clarity & Calm) is a yoga and meditation teacher, reiki practitioner, breathwork facilitator, creator, and dancer.
She set off on a healing journey after a former life as a dancer. It was then that she found yoga, which helped heal her body, mind, and spirit.
After years of practicing yoga and meditation, she discovered active breathwork. This served as a catalyst to help her start to process the repressed emotional energy that still lived in her body.
Now she combines somatic (bodily) techniques in all of her teachings and is passionate about addressing the physical, mental, emotional, energetic, and spiritual aspects of Self in everything she facilitates.
The intention at the core of her classes is to hold space for participants to deprogram their bodies and minds, freeing them from conditioning put upon us by our upbringing, society, and the collective (un)consciousness that inhibits the unique essence of each individual.
She values freedom, authenticity, truth, conscious choice, community, and connection to the Self and the divine above all else.
Bree VanZutphen teaches workshops online and at studios throughout Los Angeles. All of her programs help facilitate connection to truth and deep remembering. She leads several healing retreats locally and internationally every year that combine deep self-inquiry, connection with community, tapping back into the sacredness of nature.
Her greatest passion is helping others come home to themselves and recognize the magnificence they already possess.
Unearth and integrate hidden aspects of self through a combination of techniques, such as mindfulness, subconscious reprogramming, emotional release work, mindset, and movement. More
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