A journal about consciousness, buddhism, cosmology and entheogens.

Everything we do matters. I’ve given this a lot of thought lately. It may seem like a strong statement, but it is not meant in a rigid kind of way. Nevertheless, the more I contemplate it, the more it rings true to me. Every single thing we do in our life, every moment, it all matters. Now obviously killing someone is different than throwing garbage on the street. But even the simple stuff like going for a walk or cooking dinner, or reading the news matters. What do I mean by matters? I mean that it all adds up, all of our actions have an effect on our state of mind now and in the future.

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Alberto, a reader of my website posted a very thought provoking comment. I really appreciated it and thought that I would form a new post with my comments. Alberto asks the question on my about page: if love is the basis of our existence, then why is mother nature and evolution full of suffering and violence? Thank you very much for such a great question!

Looking at it from the physical perspective I can see that in the beginning of our universe out of matter came life, and as we became more complex creatures, we developed complex emotions that helped us to survive. The complex emotions that helped our ancestors survive in the savanna and jungle are those of fear, desire and love. The monkey that sat on the ground enjoying the beautiful sunrise without worries got eaten by the tiger, and the monkey that was scared for his life, filled with sexual desire and loved his children desperately, this is our great great great … grand parent. So why do we love, because it help keep our children alive. It’s no fluke that babies are so darn cute! That is why there exists fear, desire, jealousy, even hatred - they served a purpose in the unfolding of our physical beings. Our powerful brains overrun with thoughts also evolved for the same reason - to help us survive better. But these emotions which were once gifts of survival are now the cause of our greatest suffering. 

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I came across this list made by Stefan Sagmeister, a Scandinavian artist. There is a simple, honest common sense to his list. It is very pithy and straight forward and is not overly altruistic. I have learned a number of these already, and still have yet to fully grasp a few others.

• Helping other people helps me.
• Having guts always works out for me.
• Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
• Starting a charity is surprisingly easy.
• Being not truthful works against me.
• Everything I do always comes back to me.
• Assuming is stifling.
• [Addictive] drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
• Over time I get used to everything and start taking for granted.
• Money does not make me happy.
• Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
• Keeping a diary supports personal development.
• Trying to look good limits my life.
• Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
• Worrying solves nothing.
• Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
• Actually doing the things I set out to do increases my overall satisfaction.
• Everybody thinks they are right.
• Low expectations are a good strategy.
• Whatever I want to explore professionally, its best to try it out for myself first.
• Everybody who is honest is interesting. 

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This is now one of my favorite albums. It really is a hidden treasure. Hauntingly beautiful melodies and so much heart. I highly recommend it. It is available on emusic.com as well as iTunes.

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By Dakpo Tashi Namgyal

This is a powerful, pithy book on mahamudra. The teachings are direct, and while the traditional four levels of mahamudra are covered, I prefer the preceding chapters where a fresh, lucid, almost personal account of the nature of mind is given. It seems as if this was written as one-on-one personal advice from an enlightened master to a student on solitary retreat, which in a way it perhaps was meant to be.

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This collection of articles on consciousness, physics and reality is one of the best I have ever come across: TWN Reference. The person who put together the index is practicing Indigenous Weather Modification in New Zealand. Now that is interesting. 

Here are some article highlights:

• Alternative Cosmologies and Altered States - Stanislav Grof
• Interview withPribram Karl
• Consciousness and the New Physics
• Universe as a Hologram, The - Michael Talbot
• Reality and Consciousness (From Science to God) - Peter Russell

I hope you may enjoy this hidden treasure.

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A strange buddha mandala I discovered under a temple in Shikoku, Japan

When I was  young, I recall being reprimanded for taking apart my aunt’s toaster—I just wanted to understand how it worked. Now I find myself attempting to do the same thing with reality itself. How is it all put together, what is it’s nature, how does it work?

I’ve never been that interested in a philosophical approach because I think one could easily get lost in a spiral of thoughts. I’m more interested in an experiential approach supported by a healthy skepticism. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that this search in intertwined with a spiritual journey. And the more the journey continues I realize that the spiritual journey of self transformation is actually the most important thing. Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder: what is it all about. 

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I recently came across the unique Canadian NGO called One Sky. They are practicing international environmental conservation and sustainable development with an integral approach. As someone who is very interested in integral philosophy it is exciting to see it put in action.

The integral movement is a fast growing community of people who are taking the integral philosophies of Sri Aurobindo, Ken Wilber and others and putting this inclusive world view into action in the world. In brief, integral theory takes the position that every tradition from spiritual to cultural to scientific has a slice of the truth. Using a four quadrant model with different levels in each quadrant, each truth has it’s place and relationship with the whole.

One Sky is using this-in my opinion, brilliant-model as the central part of their work. Rather than the traditional approach which often focuses on a narrow field such as conservation, development, or social issues, their work is taking all aspects and all perspectives into account when creating a new program.

An example of the four perspectives in an integral conservation and development project are:

•       Rainforest conservation activities based on environmental science
•       External community needs such as health care and teacher training
•       The shared internal cultural values of the community, respecting tradition
•       The internal personal and spiritual experiences of everyone involved

They have a project quite close to Cusco, so hopefully one day I can go and visit. They have an interesting video highlighting their philosophy and their project in peru. Here is their website: http://onesky.ca

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I wonder if it is possible to unite these two vast ways of understanding our world, our consciousness and reality itself. To explore this question I will look at the views of mind from the western scientific and the eastern spiritual perspectives. After reviewing philosophers and scientists working in this intersection, I’ll share my own thoughts on the unity of spirit and science.

The general scientific view on consciousness is that it is a product of billions of years of evolution resulting in us—homo sapiens—the pinnacle of higher thought on this planet. Our bodies and brains have been shaped by millions of years of environmental factors; beginning with single celled amoebas that are attracted to food and escape danger and ending with all of nature’s beautiful complexity, including our unique frontal lobes.

In the field of neuroscience, the theory of consciousness generally put forward is that consciousness as we experience it arises from the complex interactions of neurons (and now other cells) in the brain: the brain is a computer. This view of consciousness is a materialistic bottom up approach where this simple equation might suffice:

energy <-> particles <-> molecules <-> cells <-> brain <-> consciousness

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I’d like to take the liberty to define a new psychological disorder: ITAD: Information & Technology Addition Disorder. If this condition doesn’t exist in modern psychology, I believe that maybe it should. Yes, it would just be another-perhaps useless-label on what is just a stream of consciousness; Nevertheless, for myself, I feel it would be helpful to have a label to highlight a condition that I see myself often falling into.

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As my experience of déjà vu increases, I realize that perhaps it is not the mental aberration I once thought it was. It might just be a glimpse into the true nature of reality: that time is not finite—it is illusory. Fundamentally time does not exist, it is a construct of our collective minds. The nature of reality is a unity existing in a multi dimensional perfection. In this original state, there is no time, all things exist simultaneously: past present and future. When we see the same thing from a lower perspective of reality, it looks like time exists and is solid. Déjà vu is a brief glimpse—a glitch in the matrix—when we see time’s non-linear quality. 

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This might be obvious for some, but for me this has been a revelation. How we are in our live, on a moment to moment basis is the essential thing. This is who we really are. What we do in our life is less important that how we are.

monks taking a break from practice at the Maha Bodhi temple in India

An example of what I mean: I am an environmental activist doing good work in the world, but on a day to day basis we are hard on ourselves and treat others with disrespect, frustration and sometimes anger. Because we are so focused on protecting the environment and see that as the most important thing, eventually we burn out or become jaded. The alternative is to do environmental conservation work and at the same time realize that how we are matters, we are more relaxed, caring, gentle, and ironically because of our authentic approach we might even be more effective, but that is not the point.

At the end of our life, we are a cumulative product of how we have been, not what we did. What we did is simply a thought, a memory, whereas how we have been is the moment to moment accumulation of habitual tendencies—or karma—that creates who we are in this present moment.

I believe what we do is still important, I’m not advocating being a compassionate bank robber. I’m simply noticing the need for moving away from doing towards being.

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I think it might be helpful to the community at large to have one place where you can go to get information about all the various shamans and ayahuasca retreats around the world. This could be sort of a wikipedia type one-stop-shopping for info about shamans and retreats.

Each retreat center and/or shaman would have their own page. Like a wiki, anyone can contribute to that page (as long as it stays civil) and at the bottom, people are welcome to post comments, have discussion, and even rate their experience (ie. value, authenticity, comfort, personal care, etc). These pages could be categorized by country, location, style, etc. And the site could include other types of authentic shamanic retreats such as san pedro, peyote, mushrooms, etc. [click to continue…]

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The idea is quite simple: Canadian Liberals, NDPs, Greens - get over your differences and form an alliance in order to defeat the conservatives in the next election. Liberals: your glory days are over, you need need this more than anybody else. NDP: even with all your excellent policies, will you ever be able to form a government? Greens: even if you finally win that one seat, your voice will be much larger as part of the government.

Rather than mixing red, orange and green and get the Canadian Brown Party, get creative. Perhaps parties could retain their unique flavour and still be part of an official alliance. The new alliance could be called something like the New Canadian Party and you’d have the Canadian Party Liberal, Canadian Party NDP and Canadian Party Green. Riding candidates could be strategically allocated based on candidate popularity and previous voting numbers. CP-Liberals would run 52% of the candidates, CP-NDP would run 36% and the CP-Greens 12%. 

With this kind of cooperation, the new party is surely to win the next election. And the Greens and NDP finally get to form part of the Canadian government. The only problem is the parties’ instinct for self preservation and pride, especially the NDP. But after this latest loss, I hope they will be able to get past their differences and get it right.

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