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Dreams & Life
Dreams. They come, they don't make much sense, and they go. We only remember the strongest of dreams, and even those we tend to forget after days, weeks, or months.
Life. Much more linear. Things are solid, obey physical rules, very un-dream like. We don't wake up from life and find ourselves in a dream - we wake up from dreams and find ourselves in life.
Until we die, of course.
Death - the end of life. We don't know what happens to us after death. Some of us pretend we do, but no one really knows for sure.
Yet, what if after death, our consciousness continues, and we're able to be reborn and have other lives?
Would our current lives be forgotten as easily as our dreams?
And if so, does this mean our lives are as trivial as dreams, or does it mean that our dreams have meaning, the same as our lives?
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Posted by
banana, on 14 Nov, 2008
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Awareness River
Buddhists meditate. Why? First of all, to become more aware.
You have to be aware of your own mind and thoughts before you can properly analyze them - analyzing being the second goal of Buddhist meditation.
Not being aware is like being dragged down a river with your eyes closed. (Water metaphors are very useful lately).
You know you're going somewhere - you can feel it. But you don't know where you are. You keep bumping into things. Sometimes the water is calm and things don't seem so bad. But you also can't see the rocks ahead and so bang into them with the full force that the river carries you with.
Being aware means you can see the contents of your mind. In our river example, it's like being pulled along in the river with your eyes open. You're still in the river - but now you can see what's going on. You can see where you are going. You can see upcoming obstacles and try to avoid them. When you're very skillful, you actually can. Better still, you can navigate your way around the river and choose where you want to go to a certain degree.
But you're still in the river! It might not be too bad if you have some control over your situation. But eventually, you go where the river takes you, and that's that.
So next you analyze your surroundings. You can only do this when your eyes are open (when you're aware). You can't inspect your surroundings with closed eyes. It's like a blind man looking for the exit in a maze.
You analyze - see where you have been, see where you might be going, and then look around - you see the river banks. You wonder if perhaps you might not need to be in this river at all - so you try to get out - and you can! Now you're out of the river. Great! Now what? Now you can do anything you like. Go for a walk. Build a hut. Sunbathe. The choice is yours now. You can even jump back into the river if you like - it's no problem anymore.
But jump back in and close your eyes again - how will you be able to get out again?
We have to be aware of our minds because that's where everything happens. Things don't happen 'out there', they happen in our minds. Things we think affect things we do. The way we perceive situations and objects affects how we react to them. How we react and what we do affects the sort of treatment we receive, which can then cause a sort of loop and affect the way we think - we become sort of stuck, like in a river. But we're not really stuck - we always have a choice. We can look at our minds, see what's going on in there, and change it if necessary to something else. This will affect what we do differently, and we'll get a different result. We've changed course in the river.
Looking deeper into our minds, we may discover much more. That we ourselves don't exist. That our river doesn't exist. That nothing does. Yet here we are. It's not a paradox. It's the way things are. There's either something, or there's nothing, and there is very obviously something. But in what way does that something exist? Nothing's there. And yet here we are.
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Posted by
banana, on 22 Aug, 2007
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Being Free
Having a free attitude is good, but without discipline is a bit like a ship lost in the ocean. Sure, it's great to be on a ship floating around at random - what could be a better definition of freedom? But the problem is that you don't know where the ship is going to end up. If you're in nice, tropical waters, you probably don't care too much. But without some direction or control, you could just as easily be swept in a storm or pirate ridden seas, or even run aground. You just have no idea.
Having a controlled, disciplined mind doesn't mean the end of freedom or the end of fun. As long as the control isn't excessive, it ensures your future fun, by giving you the means to steer clear of problems and danger, and keep you on course for fun waters.
The tricky part is in knowing how much discipline and control to apply, as well as reminding yourself why it's necessary. Once you've run aground, it's very hard to get unstuck, so anything you can do to keep on sailing is worthwhile.
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Posted by
banana, on 21 Aug, 2007
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Viewing Time
If scientists can peer at the early universe through telescopes, since the speed of light is so slow compared to where the big bang happened - then does that mean that our galaxy got to where it is where the scientists are able to do this at speeds faster than the speed of light?
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Posted by
banana, on 20 Aug, 2007
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No Time
If there is no time, then what's the rush in reporting it?
http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/in-no-time?
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Posted by
banana, on 29 Jul, 2007
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Non Conformist
When everyone wants to be non-conformist, and shows their non-conformity in exactly the same way - what does it mean? Have they achieved their objective?
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Posted by
banana, on 2 Jul, 2007
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Hi
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Posted by
banana, on 2 Jul, 2007
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Living in America
Living in America is a bit like living in a huge mansion with servants. A chef cooks you the finest foods, the maid changes your silk sheets and massages your feet . . . but you can never escape the feeling the butler keeps kicking the shit out of the gardener every day. As you lay your weary head on your soft pillow, you just can't quite be bothered to check if it's true or not . . .
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Posted by
banana, on 2 Jul, 2007
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Belief Box
Some people these days are in a frenzy, thinking that those people who believe in creationism are somehow ruining the world for the rest of us.
In some limited ways, they may be correct - people with beliefs which don't follow facts who are also in a position of power can indeed pass policies which are detrimental to the rest of society. For example, religious persons who believe in abstinence and promote policies for young people to follow, in the face of evidence showing that these policies don't work - obviously, this results in more diseases and unwanted pregnacies, which the rest of society are then forced to deal with.
But on the other hand - does it really matter? Considering we hold a bunch of other beliefs which we are not willing to give up, and may end up destoying ourselves in the process - who really cares about some crazy people with religious beliefs?
For example - perhaps the world is warming, and perhaps we're the cause of it. So we change some dumb lightbulbs in our houses, but are unwilling to give up our monsterous cars and we complain about the price of gas - lugging our fat asses around is so much more important than, you know, the existance of life on earth.
Enlarging the view further, the universe looks all set to end eventually anyway, so what's the big fuss about some crazy people causing some inconviences right now?
Finally, moving to the extreme, if we are more than just biological matter, as spiritual people believe, but atheists do not, then the beliefs we hold while on earth are boxed beliefs, in that we tend to only have beliefs within the framework in which we believe ourselves to wholly exist within, but if more exists outside of that framework, then the beliefs we hold inside of it are not as crucial and important as we think they are.
For example - we live on a planet, and have various beliefs about it. Any threats to that planet, such as religious crazy persons, we take very seriously. However, we also live in a universe - if we could travel to other planets and encounter other intelligent races which different beliefs than us, then it wouldn't matter so much what some nutcases on our planet thought. If something bad happened, we'd just go to another planet, encounter another set of beliefs, find some good stuff, and perhaps another set of different beliefs we didn't like.
Living in a universe, not confined to one planet, we'd not worry so much about individual planets, but more about threats to the universe, and take them very seriously.
But what if there were infinite universes, and we could travel between them?
Then whatever happens in one particular universe is not as important as it was before, because there are so many others we could go to.
Your beliefs about the reality in which you inhabit form a sort of box. You live in that box. If your beliefs about reality are very large, then your box is very large, and you'd act in a certain way. If your beliefs are very small, then your box - your world - is very small, and you'd act quite another way.
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Posted by
banana, on 1 Jun, 2007
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Alcohol Craziness
One of the reasons people give for not drinking alcohol is that they don't want to 'lose their minds'.
Which is a bit odd, because it's not exactly like strictly sober people make the best decisions.
If you look closely at non-drinkers - are they making more rational decisions than non-drinkers? Are their lives, as a group overall, vastly improved over that of the non-drinkers?
If you look carefully at a large group of non-drinkers, whose chosen religion begins with a capital 'M', are they regularly making more informed decisions than those who drink?
Obviously there is no one-to-one correlation between sober vs drinking people, as there are enough examples of poor decisions made by drinkers vs reasonably clear headed mostly sober populations - but put to the test, drinking doesn't increase the odds of one making poor decisions overall, unless one exclusively makes those decisions while drunk - but even then, the decisions a drunk person makes in one culture can be much wiser or much less damaging than those made by a culture or group which doesn't drink at all.
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Posted by
banana, on 29 Mar, 2007
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Mostly Minimum
"The only way small businesses in America can survive is by having a plentiful supply of cheap labor. Without businesses, there would be no jobs at all. Therefore we must help small businesses as much as we can. This is why I propose to eliminate the minimum wage and re-introduce slavery. This will encourage small business growth and ensure jobs for everyone."
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Posted by
banana, on 27 Jan, 2007
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Speech
"Having committed to a course of action, I must now keep doing what Cheney has said, least I appear to be wrong and my frat buddies laugh at me."
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Posted by
banana, on 24 Jan, 2007
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Mindless Desires to Reach Unknown Destinations
Buddhists want to reach enlightenment. That’s great, but when you ask them what enlightenment is, they don’t really seem to know.
This is similar to Christians who say they want to go to heaven, but have never really thought about what heaven is like. It’s just something that someone told them was good and that they should go there, but they never really gave the subject much more thought than that.
It’s like being told that France is really pretty, and then deciding to save up to go without really thinking about what it might really be like there, or why they really might want to go at all.
You just want to go because someone told you it was nice and that you should go!
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Posted by
banana, on 23 Feb, 2007
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Defense by Gun
The gun owners vs. gun control group are very interesting. Gun advocates insist they need guns for self protection, while gun control people say that they will be the victim of random violence if everyone has a gun and someone gets into a bad mood.
There are a lot of good arguments on both sides, but the gun control group does seem to have the upper-hand with the statistics.
Despite how the quality of your life is lowered by always wondering if the person next to you or your neighbor has a gun on them, and having to carefully watch them in case they get angry and pull out said gun (is this why Americans are often so nervous around people, or not?), apparently the average person is more likely to be killed by a police officer or in some other random way than by a neighbor with a gun in a bad mood. One psychologist even suggests that worrying about such things is a form of projection – one can’t consciously accept that they themselves want to murder their neighbors, so instead project their unaccepted feelings and rage onto an object instead – i.e., a gun. That makes sense. It would still be better if there were no guns, because then such a person’s rage would be projected onto a knife or big stick or fists, which tend to be much less lethal.
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Posted by
banana, on 7 Feb, 2007
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Day Off
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Posted by
banana, on 16 Dec, 2006
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Freedom Isn't Free
Americas plan to free the world - and then impose a freedom tax on it. Freedom isn't free after all - someone has to pay for it - and if you are free, you need to be paying the tax to those who keep you free - the Americans!
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Posted by
banana, on 8 Jan, 2007
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Religious Battle
Atheists and religious persons should have a battle to the death. It makes sense really. If atheists really so strongly believe in natural selection, then by wiping out all the religious people in the world, natural selection works, the world is a better place, and there are no more crazy people spreading crazy religious ideas. If the religious people manage to wipe out all of the atheists, then God obviously wanted them to win. And hey, no problem with condemning atheists souls to hell, because they don’t have any! Brilliant!
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Posted by
banana, on 7 Jan, 2007
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Spiritual Travel Agent
Imagine being a spirit, floating around in some kind of very nice spirit realm in which all of your desires are easily filled, where your fellow spirit beings are rather lovely and cheerful, and where you can take any sort of form you like, where time is meaningless, where you can create any environment, and where old age, sickness and death don’t exist.
Now imagine that you want a nice vacation somewhere – to try out some new experiences. How would you do it? Imagine new scenes, and they appear? Or perhaps you could visit a spiritual travel agent – one who paces you into first hand into various planes and dimensions, where you must abide by the rules of those various planes or dimensions in order to truly grasp and feel the experiences of them. On top of that, they slap on a healthy dose of amnesia of your true existence, so you can further truly experiences the places where you’re going.
Imagine that one such holiday is a lovely destination called ‘Earth’, and you can chose to inhabit any one of millions of life forms, or even static life forms, for as long as you like. For a simple, relaxing holiday, you might choose to be a tree for 100 years or so. Not much to do but stand around swaying nicely in the breeze. Or perhaps be a lizard, laying in the sun all day. Or perhaps you fancy a more complex role, becoming a human, and playing the role of a doctor, homeless person, or average person.
Upon the physical death of your creature, you’re returned to your spirit realm, nice and unharmed, with all the memories of your experiences from your travels.
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Posted by
banana, on 22 Dec, 2006
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Evolution of Religion
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Posted by
banana, on 9 Dec, 2006
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Religion and Guns
Religion doesn't kill people. Religion has never caused war, death, or anything else. Like guns, people kill people. The problem is and always has been with people, and the quality and contents of their minds. If someone has some mental issue, and religion isn't available to blame, something else will be. The object of blame is not the cause - the cause is the disturbed individual. We need to look past these objects of blame and address the root cause, because destroying the objects of blame will never, ever, fix the first cause. We will happily destroy religion, guns, violent video games, drugs, or whatever, and people will still kill, but something else will be blamed instead, leading us into a never ending frenzy of trying to erradicate these things which keep seeming to be the reasons for the killing or whatever other bad behavior we want to get rid of.
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Posted by
banana, on 9 Dec, 2006
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