A few excerpts of articles with no commentary today:
- A hunger for depth Shirley Lancaster — The Guardian — John Main believed the daily discipline of meditation could reunite us with the deeper layer of our essential being and the divine source beyond the sacred text or ritual. Only in silence can we hear “the still small voice within”. Only by moving beyond the busy ego-mind are we open to the experiential knowledge of the desert monks. The experience of not simply knowing facts but coming to know our deepest self, as we are shaped by our encounter with the deeper reality of the divine or God within. — The relationship between conscious and unconscious, explored by psychoanalysis, may speak more meaningfully to us of this journey in depth. But Main insisted meditation is a path open to everyone. And the health benefits of mindfulness as a therapeutic technique may be its greatest appeal. Regular meditation has been shown to lower blood pressure and reduce stress; doctors prescribe it to alleviate depression. — Turning inward to uncover a less fragmented self seems good for us. Spiritual traditions say the journey is intimately connected with realising our authentic selves and full potential. Meditation demands dedication and perseverance said Main: but a hunger for depth is where we start. read the rest
- My First Act of Free Will | — Wired.com — <>Of course, this debate isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. Some scientists continue to search for the neural correlates of freedom, and even argue that our will is simply an evolved elaboration of circuits that exist in fruit flies. Others insist, pace Laplace, that physics and neuroscience are slowly whittling away the illusion and, at some point in the future, we’ll finally realize that we’re about as free as a video game character. All I know is that all the sophistry doesn’t really matter. We’ll continue to believe we pick Cheerios for the simple reason that we want to eat Cheerios; I feel like the cause of myself, even if I “know” that I have many other causes, from my genetic inheritance to the marketing team at General Mills. William James, as usual, said it best. After struggling through a dark depression, James came to the following conclusion… read the rest
- Receipts Containing BPA Could Be Harmful to Your Health — AOL — Cash-register receipts from many fast-food outlets, groceries, pharmacies, big-box stores and U.S. post offices contain high levels of the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A.
Everything matters 