Turning Points!

When asked, "what is the primary impulse in human beings?" His Holiness The Dalai Lama replied, "we care". We don't have to cultivate it. It's already there. Caring is our deepest, most fundamental attribute. We turn towards each other through caring. When we stop caring we turn away or against each other. This is also the essence of all the great religious traditions. To remind us of our true nature. We are sentient beings, who care.

Sneakers!

Is it just me, or does the whole Wikileaks saga look like the 1992 movie, "Sneakers"? Julian Assange could easily pass for the sophisticated hacker played by Ben Kingsley. "Just imagine, Marty" he says to his old hacker friend played by Robert Redford, "how different the world would be if there were no secrets!" In the end the "good guys" win, with a little coercion from the CIA. Art imitates art!

Terracotta Warriors

Viewing objects from the time of Qin Shihuang (259-210 BCE) at the Art Gallery of NSW over the weekend I was reminded that the lessons of history are forever repeated. At the end of the exhibition hangs a quote from the Han Dynasty poet and statesman Jia Yi (201-169 BCE) about the Qin empire:
"Qin, beginning with an insignificant amount of territory, reached the power of a great state and for a hundred years made all the other great lords pay homage to it. Yet after it had become master of the whole empire...its ruler died by the hands of men...why? Because it had failed to rule with humanity and righteousness and to realize that the power to attack and the power to retain what one had thereby won, are not the same".
Iraq, anybody?

The Search for Consciousness!

We spent a week-long silent meditation retreat with Alan Wallace (author of about 30 books, including "Mind in the Balance" and "The Attention Revolution") and 50 of our closest friends in the Blue Mountains recently. It's amazing what you hear when you stop talking! I discovered that the only way to truly know what consciousness is, is from the inside of your own mind. All the neurological correlates are only poor imitations of what's really going on between your ears!