Meditation Strengthens Focus

This practice of meditation itself sharpens your mind and improves your memory, qualities that are certainly useful beyond spiritual practice, whether in business, engineering, raising a family, or being a teacher, doctor, or lawyer. This practice also helps on a daily basis with anger. When you get irritated, you can concentrate on the nature of the anger itself and thereby undermine its force. Another benefit of such mental training emerges from the close connection between body and mind. ...

 Locke's Philosophical Criticism Destroyed the Institution...

We must note two aspects of Locke’s method of analysis. One is that it was primarily a method of criticism, a method which by means of analysis subjected to critical scrutiny the many complex ideas which prevail in a society, and which because of their abstruse nature, cause confusion and misunderstanding. Locke proposed that all such ideas be analyzed into their simple components and examined critically so that the degree of their validity might be determined. The other aspect for us to no...

 Locke Rejected Innate Ideas as a Defense of Arbitrary Aut...

The first target against which he directed his criticism was the doctrine of innate ideas. Since Locke s position was that all knowledge is derived ultimately from experience, it was altogether natural that he should repudiate this Platonic doctrine; but there was another reason for his determination to discredit it. The doctrine of innate ideas had become a weapon for the defense of arbitrary authority, of superstition, and of ridiculous theories. Men in authority argued that their actions w...

 Contaminated with Purity

Hui-neng's position was that a man with an empty consciousness was no better than "a block of wood or a lump of stone." He insisted that the whole idea of purifying the mind was irrelevant and confusing, because "our own nature is fundamentally clear and pure." In other words, there is no analogy between consciousness or mind and a mirror that can be wiped. The true mind is "no-mind" ( wu-hsin ), which is to say that it is not to be regarded as an object of thought or action, as if it were a ...

 Thought Terminating Cliche

Another trick in the cult leader's language toolkit is the thought-terminating cliche. These are sayings that end uncomfortable conversations or trains of thoughts. "It is what it is." "Everything happens for a reason." "Let's agree to disagree." They shut down argument and critical thinking, which is why they're so handy to authoritarians who don't like to be questioned. Charles Manson countered any rational objections to his ravings by saying, "No sense makes sense." Try arguing with that. ...

 Communities That Can't Grow Through Biological Reproduction

There's a membership problem. Haqr society is like the Shakers--the community can't grow by the usual primate strategy--biological reproduction is right out--so its continuation depends on the faithful going out and bringing in new recruits from the general population. Yes, we're saying it out loud: Haqrs recruit. Haqrs are intrinsically subversive to the young. Haqrs are conscious role models for haqr glory. If that weren't enough, haqrs actively seek to conver the imaginative and the credul...

 Thought Experiment: Living Every Human Life

Imagine living, in order of birth, through the life of every human being who has ever lived.1 Your first life begins about three hundred thousand years ago in Africa.2 After living that life and dying, you travel back in time and are reincarnated as the second-ever person, born slightly later than the first. Once that second person dies, you are reincarnated as the third person, then the fourth, and so on. One hundred billion lives later,3 you become the youngest person alive today. Your “l...

 The Absurdity of Religious Prohibitions

I find these singular precepts opposed to nature and contrary to reason: they needs must multiply the number of crimes and continually annoy the old workman, who has made everything without the help of head, hands, or tools, who exists everywhere and is to be seen nowhere; who endures to-day and to-morrow and is never a day the older; who commands and is never obeyed; who can prevent and does not do so. These precepts are contrary to nature because they presuppose that a thinking, feeling, fr...

 Philosophy Does Not Inflame Passion as Religion Does

Besides, we must not be apprehensive that any philosophical opinion will ever harm the religion of a country. Though our demonstrations clash directly with our mysteries, that is nothing to the purpose, for the latter are not less revered upon that account by our Christian philosophers, who know very well that the objects of reason and those of faith are of a very different nature. Philosophers will never form a religious sect, the reason of which is, their writings are not calculated for the...

 Mythology Prepared Minds for the Idea of Jesus as Son of God

It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; th...