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Love, Life, Meaning, Zen, and Science, by Norm Bearrentine

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Response to Sam Harris’ Podcast with Robert Sapolsky

August 16, 2017 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

There are black people who hate white people, there are white people who hate black people, and both got their hatred through the same mechanisms: biology and culture—no one has free will. No one is ultimately to blame for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2017 Tagged With: emotions, free will, happiness, hatred, meditation, rationality, Robert Sapolsky, Sam Harris

Review of Sam Harris’s “Waking Up,” Chapter 1

August 25, 2014 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

To put Sam’s intentions in my terms, he wants people to learn to access experiences most people’s brains are capable of, but that aren’t widely promoted in western culture. He thinks this will be good for them, and for anyone … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2014 Tagged With: consciousness, Dogen, Lao Tsu, LSD, MDMA, meditation, mystical, religion, Sam Harris, spiritual, Zen

Further Exploration: Shifting Attention Away From the Verbal

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 05-21-07: Yesterday I talked about one of the ways that meditation can improve understanding of our brains—by giving us another perspective on their operations—but there are many other insights … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: attention, brain, consciousness, meditation, peace, perception, verbal activity, word processing

Changing Perspective: Meditation, Intention, and Control

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 05-20-07: Each of these visual illusions, which I mentioned yesterday, besides being entertaining, includes a lesson on perception that can begin to broaden our ideas about "reality." We can become more … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: attention, brain, control, environment, intentions, meditation, mental activity, perception, perspective, visual illusion

Love, Love, Love: The Need and Evolution

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted on 05-16-07: At some point I'll talk about the importance of daily routines, but for now I'll just note that I read something every morning to remind me of the nature of reality as I understand it. These … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: Amma, brain, Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist, David Harp, decisions, Hindu, hormone, meditation, neurotransmitter, science, suffering, thoughts, Tricycle

Be Here Now; The Complexity of the Present Moment

March 4, 2008 by Norm Bearrentine Leave a Comment

Originally posted 05-10-07: One of the first books I ever read on meditation was Be Here Now, in the early 70's. Since then I've seen many references to staying in the present moment, paying attention, mindfulness, etc. but … [Read more...]

Filed Under: 2008 Tagged With: attention, brain, complexity, consciousness, meditation, perception

What This Site Is About

When I realized that the idea of god was a joke, I thought that was the end of the story. Later I found that Christianity had shaped my values, and while some were worth keeping, many had lost their foundation—the meaning of life, for example. Something similar happened when I realized that the idea of free will was a joke, and I’ve spent the decades since both those realizations discovering and editing what Julia Galef calls the “orphan beliefs” they left behind. It’s a tricky business, and this blog has been a chronicle of my efforts to puzzle it all out, including reviews of related books. I hope you find it helpful.

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