--- In meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Morgen
<editor@...> wrote:
>
> "Infinite Night"
>
> Druglords, crooked cops and thieves,
> preyin' on the poor and on the weak,
> boys with rifles in their hands,
> far too young to understand,
>
> When it's more than you can bear
> let the silence fill the air
> get a glimpse of the holy light
> Well the sun is just a star,
> it reminds you of where we are,
> just a little part of the infinite night
>
> Rich holding on to what they got
> keep them far away
> from those who have not
> oceans rise and the fires rage on
> too much loss and nothing won
>
> When it's more than you can bear
> let the silence fill the air
> get a glimpse of the holy light
> Well the sun is just a star,
> it reminds you of where we are,
> just a little part of the infinite night,
> infinite night
>
> [instrumental]
>
> Oh looking down from up above
> how we live and how we love
> how many days are yet to come
>
> When it's more than you can bear
> let the silence fill the air
> get a glimpse of the holy light
> Well the sun is just a star,
> it reminds us of where we are,
> just a little part of the infinite night,
> infinite night,
> infinite night …
> _____
>
> by Carrie Rodriguez, from her CD
> "She Ain't Me" (2008)
>
Yo Sri Bruceji,
Thanks for the turn on. Quite a trip!
I checked Carrie out on http://pandora.com
(where you can program your own "radio
station") and she has quite a heavenly voice to
go with her cosmic lyrics and music. Reminds me
of the Cocteau Twins who use their own language to
create a transcendent vibration.
I always enjoy finding something new that lets the
flow of consciousness go towards (shall we call
it) the "Holy", and her music does that for me.
Similarly, like Papajeff and Sri Era, I am quite a
fan of the inner sound techniques that Sant Mat
and Prem Rawat teach. They both point within to a
way that stills the inner chatter, and dissolves the
cork that keeps in chaos and confusion. This lets
the disharmony be ejected, thus allowing the celestial
harmonics of the universe to unveil the divine
symphony that is sounding here, there and everywhere,
above and below, in front and behind, within and without
all and everything. Sri Rodriguez's voice and lyrics,
for me, at least in this "now", clear the static in a
similar fashion. Much appreciated hit off the cosmic
spliff!
Peace and blessings,
Bob

From MSNBC
Could inner zombie be controlling your brain?
Evidence suggests self-aware part of our brains
isn't always in charge
By Carl Zimmer

updated 4:15 p.m. ET, Tues., Sept. 16, 2008
If you had to sum up the past 40 years of
research on the mind, you could do worse than
to call it the Rise of the Zombies.
We like to see ourselves as being completely
conscious of our thought processes, of how we
feel, of the decisions we make and our reasons for
making them. When we act, it is our conscious
selves doing the acting. But starting in the late 1960s, psychologists
and neurologists began to
find evidence that our self-aware part is not
always in charge. Researchers discovered that we
are deeply influenced by perceptions,
thoughts, feelings, and desires about which we
have no awareness. Their research raised the
disturbing possibility that much of what we
think and do is thought and done by an unconscious part of the brain —
an inner zombie.

Some of the earliest evidence for this zombie
came from studies of people who had suffered brain
injuries. In 1970 British psychologists
Elizabeth Warrington and Lawrence Weiskrantz
showed a series of words to
a group of people with amnesia, who promptly
forgot the list. A few minutes later Warrington
and Weiskrantz showed them the first three
letters of each of the words they had just seen
and forgotten and asked the amnesiacs to add
some additional letters to make a word. Any word
would do. The amnesiacs consistently chose
the words they had seen and forgotten; the inner
zombie, somewhere beyond awareness, retained
memories of the words.
Our inner zombies may also be able to control
our bodies. In 1988 a woman known as "patient D. F."
suffered carbon monoxide poisoning
and lost the ability to recognize objects and
shapes. Her eyes were still relaying information
to her brain, but the connections between
regions of her brain had been damaged so that
she was no longer aware of what was before her.
Scientists at the University of Western Ontario set
a card on a table in front of D. F. and
then held up a disk with a slot
in it. They asked D. F. to hold the card at
the same angle as the slot. She couldn't. But
when asked to put the card in the slot as if she
were mailing a letter, she immediately — and
unknowingly — turned the card to the correct
angle and slipped it in. These days a number
of powerful new tools can scrutinize the inner
zombies in healthy brains. Earlier this year,
a team of University of Copenhagen researchers
reported rendering 11 healthy people temporarily
blind by focusing a beam of magnetism at the
back of the subjects' heads. This interfered
with the activity of neurons in a region called
the visual cortex. For a few minutes the neurons
were deactivated, and the subjects reported
that they couldn't see anything.
At the start of the experiment, the subjects —
who could see at this point — sat in front of
three lights, each with a button below it.
When the center light went on, they had to reach
out their hand and press the button next to it.
In some trials, the scientists switched off
the center light just as the subjects began
reaching, and turned on a different one. The
subjects therefore had to shift their hand movement
to press the correct button. Less than a tenth
of a second after the light switched, though, the
scientists zapped the subjects, instantly
blinding them. With so little time between
the switch of lights and the zap, the subjects still
thought the center light was on. Yet a
significant number of them moved
their hand away from the center button and
shifted it to the correct one. Their inner
zombie didn't need any awareness in order to perceive
the change and alter the command it
sent to the hand. In the Danish experiment,
the subjects were at least aware of their
goal, even if they didn't know how they were
achieving it. Other experiments show that our
unconscious mind can fully act like a
conscious self. Take a recent experiment in
which French and English scientists had volunteers
play a simple game while undergoing a brain
scan. The subjects held a handgrip while watching
a computer screen. They were told to squeeze
the handgrip whenever they saw a picture of
money on the screen. The more they squeezed,
the more money they would win. Some pictures
stayed on the screen long enough to be identified.
Others raced by. Regardless, the image of a
British pound caused the volunteers to squeeze
harder than they did at the sight of a penny, even
when it appeared so quickly that they
were not consciously aware of what
kind of money they were seeing. The brain scans
allowed the researchers to compare unconscious
with conscious responses and showed that a
reward-judging region of the brain, the ventral
palladium, became active in both cases.
Mounting evidence of our inner zombie at
work has led some scientiststo downplay
the importance of our aware selves. Earlier
this year in Time magazine, Harvard psychologist
Steven Pinker declared that "the
intuitive feeling we have that there's an
executive `I' that sits in a control room of
our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and
pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion."
But don't give up on consciousness just yet.
A small but growing number of re¬searchers are
challenging some of the more extreme
arguments supporting the primacy of the
inner zombie.
"Although these studies are fas¬cinating
and important," writes Matthew Lieberman,
a social psychologist at UCLA, "they ultimately
fall short of supporting the assumptions
that are seeping into our collective
understanding of the mind." While our inner
zombies may be able to do some information processing,
there are other kinds of processing that
they cannot do. Studies have shown that people
can unconsciously prime their minds to perform better
on memory tests, essentially training for
a test without explicitly being aware of it.
To explore the limits of such priming,
University of Kentucky psychologist Nathan
DeWall and his colleagues recently conducted a study
to see if consciousness is important in
completing logic puzzles. One group of volunteers
first arranged words having to do with logic and
reasoning into sentences; another group
arranged neutral words into sentences. Then
the scientists had the volunteers complete
fragments of words. The fragments could be
completed with a logic-related word or one
not related to logic. (For example, correct
answers for L_G_ _ included
LOGIC and LIGHT.) Finally, DeWall tested the
subjects on actual logic puzzles.
Although the volunteers who had been primed
with logic words tended to choose logic-related
terms in the word-completion task, priming didn't
help them with the puzzles. The zombies failed.
On the other hand, explicitly instructing people
to think about logic-related ideas,
tapping into their conscious mind, did make
them perform better on logic tests.
Brain scans also provide ammunition to beat
back the zombies. If our inner zombie really
is in charge, then we would expect to see some
distinct patterns of brain activity when we
performed a task. If we did something unconsciously,
only the "zombie network" of regions would
be detected. If we did the same thing consciously,
the zombie network would light up, but this
time along with the few other regions of the
brain that give us a feeling of awareness.
Lieberman and his colleagues have been running
experiments whose results don't fit those
zombie brain patterns. To map conscious and
unconscious processing of information, Lieberman
used a classic psychology experiment in which
subjects learn arbitrary rules about
stringing letters together, known as an artificial
grammar. People can learn these rules consciously
(by being told, for example, that v always
follows t). They can also learn artificial
grammar unconsciously by looking at a lot of
"words" that follow the rules. Later, when
psychologists show them strings of letters,
they can tell the researchers whether or not
they are valid, without being able to say
what the rules are.
Lieberman showed his subjects an artificial
grammar that incorporated two types of rules,
one that could be learned consciously and another
that tended to be picked up only unconsciously.
Then, as he scanned their brains, the subjects
were shown another set of letter strings and
had to judge whether their grammar was valid.
One region of the brain became active when
the subjects identified conscious rules, while a
different region became active for the unconscious
rules. The two regions followed an inverse
relationship: When one was more active, the
other was less so. The conscious brain took
its own, distinctive path. Lieberman got similar
results when he showed a group of subjects
pictures of other people's faces while the
researchers scanned their brains. In some
trials Lieberman had his subjects choose two words to
describe each face's expression, forcing
them to consciously reflect on the emotions
they saw. In other trials, subjects chose a name for
each face, but no attention was drawn to its emotion.
The brain activity in the two groups was
strikingly different. When people merely chose
a name for an angry face, the amygdala region of the
brain became very active. The amygdala plays a
central role in how we respond unconsciously to
emotional situations. Among the volunteers who
used words to describe the faces—consciously
reflecting on the emotions they saw—the amygdalas
remained quiet. But an entirely
different region, called the right ventrolateral
prefrontal cortex, became active. This area is
energetic during reflection, reasoning, and
self-control. The inner zombies of the subjects
who focused consciously on the faces' emotions
were silenced. Such studies don't mean that our
inner zombie doesn't exist. A number of networks
in our brain process information without troubling
our awareness. But we shouldn't be so captivated
by this insight that we think of our conscious
self as nothing but a passive moviegoer in the
theater of the mind. It may be that our conscious
and unconscious minds are parallel systems, each
specialized for handling different kinds of tasks.
Perhaps our inner zombies play the same role
as the address books on our computers. We can
memorize people's addresses and phone numbers,
but it takes effort, and we're prone to recall
them incorrectly or forget them. Computers store
them automatically, leaving us free to
spend our time thinking about more interesting
things. The zombie mind may take over simple,
repetitive tasks from our conscious mind, leaving
the latter free to focus on the kinds of thought
we do best with self-awareness. As Lieberman says,
"The zombielike processes may be
taken offline when more reflective processes are
brought online." So we may have a mind that is
capable of free will and awareness after
all — it just needs a little help from its
friendly neighborhood zombie.
© 2008 Discover Magazine
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are
making such material available in our efforts
to advance understanding of environmental,
political, human rights, economic, democracy,
scientific, spiritual, and social justice issues,
etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use'
of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information
for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use',
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner

Thanks, Bob. Pardon the top post,
but the article is long. It is interesting
that the term "zombie" (walking
dead) was chosen.

In spiritual or theistic terms, this
"inner knowing" would be regarded
as holy - as in Holy Spirit or
Paraclete (one who walks beside).

In the most religious sense, a
passage of scripture from the
Book of Proverbs in the OT
comes to mind:

"Lean not upon your own
understanding. Acknowledge
me in all your ways and I will
direct your path."

In the Mystic Heart Meditation
this "inner knowing" is referred
to as a "wisdom whisper from
the heart" or an experience of
pure intuitive consciousness.

The premise is that we have
been so socialized to consider
our conscious, rational, linear
process as THE way to know
that we have forgotten or lost
touch with our intuitive capacity -
and meditation (silencing the
inner chatter) is a means to
tapping into this inner knowing -
or what I interpret Ramana Maharshi
to have meant when he referred
to the I-I.

Just some early coffee-induced  thought
bubbles from the waking zombie.



--- In meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com, medit8ionsociety
<no_reply@...>
wrote:
>
> From MSNBC
> Could inner zombie be controlling your brain?
> Evidence suggests self-aware part of our brains
> isn't always in charge
> By Carl Zimmer
>
> updated 4:15 p.m. ET, Tues., Sept. 16, 2008
> If you had to sum up the past 40 years of
> research on the mind, you could do worse than
> to call it the Rise of the Zombies.
> We like to see ourselves as being completely
> conscious of our thought processes, of how we
> feel, of the decisions we make and our reasons for
> making them. When we act, it is our conscious
> selves doing the acting. But starting in the late 1960s, psychologists
> and neurologists began to
> find evidence that our self-aware part is not
> always in charge. Researchers discovered that we
> are deeply influenced by perceptions,
> thoughts, feelings, and desires about which we
> have no awareness. Their research raised the
> disturbing possibility that much of what we
> think and do is thought and done by an unconscious part of the brain —
> an inner zombie.
>
> Some of the earliest evidence for this zombie
> came from studies of people who had suffered brain
> injuries. In 1970 British psychologists
> Elizabeth Warrington and Lawrence Weiskrantz
> showed a series of words to
> a group of people with amnesia, who promptly
> forgot the list. A few minutes later Warrington
> and Weiskrantz showed them the first three
> letters of each of the words they had just seen
> and forgotten and asked the amnesiacs to add
> some additional letters to make a word. Any word
> would do. The amnesiacs consistently chose
> the words they had seen and forgotten; the inner
> zombie, somewhere beyond awareness, retained
> memories of the words.
> Our inner zombies may also be able to control
> our bodies. In 1988 a woman known as "patient D. F."
> suffered carbon monoxide poisoning
> and lost the ability to recognize objects and
> shapes. Her eyes were still relaying information
> to her brain, but the connections between
> regions of her brain had been damaged so that
> she was no longer aware of what was before her.
> Scientists at the University of Western Ontario set
> a card on a table in front of D. F. and
> then held up a disk with a slot
> in it. They asked D. F. to hold the card at
> the same angle as the slot. She couldn't. But
> when asked to put the card in the slot as if she
> were mailing a letter, she immediately — and
> unknowingly — turned the card to the correct
> angle and slipped it in. These days a number
> of powerful new tools can scrutinize the inner
> zombies in healthy brains. Earlier this year,
> a team of University of Copenhagen researchers
> reported rendering 11 healthy people temporarily
> blind by focusing a beam of magnetism at the
> back of the subjects' heads. This interfered
> with the activity of neurons in a region called
> the visual cortex. For a few minutes the neurons
> were deactivated, and the subjects reported
> that they couldn't see anything.
> At the start of the experiment, the subjects —
> who could see at this point — sat in front of
> three lights, each with a button below it.
> When the center light went on, they had to reach
> out their hand and press the button next to it.
> In some trials, the scientists switched off
> the center light just as the subjects began
> reaching, and turned on a different one. The
> subjects therefore had to shift their hand movement
> to press the correct button. Less than a tenth
> of a second after the light switched, though, the
> scientists zapped the subjects, instantly
> blinding them. With so little time between
> the switch of lights and the zap, the subjects still
> thought the center light was on. Yet a
> significant number of them moved
> their hand away from the center button and
> shifted it to the correct one. Their inner
> zombie didn't need any awareness in order to perceive
> the change and alter the command it
> sent to the hand. In the Danish experiment,
> the subjects were at least aware of their
> goal, even if they didn't know how they were
> achieving it. Other experiments show that our
> unconscious mind can fully act like a
> conscious self. Take a recent experiment in
> which French and English scientists had volunteers
> play a simple game while undergoing a brain
> scan. The subjects held a handgrip while watching
> a computer screen. They were told to squeeze
> the handgrip whenever they saw a picture of
> money on the screen. The more they squeezed,
> the more money they would win. Some pictures
> stayed on the screen long enough to be identified.
> Others raced by. Regardless, the image of a
> British pound caused the volunteers to squeeze
> harder than they did at the sight of a penny, even
> when it appeared so quickly that they
> were not consciously aware of what
> kind of money they were seeing. The brain scans
> allowed the researchers to compare unconscious
> with conscious responses and showed that a
> reward-judging region of the brain, the ventral
> palladium, became active in both cases.
> Mounting evidence of our inner zombie at
> work has led some scientiststo downplay
> the importance of our aware selves. Earlier
> this year in Time magazine, Harvard psychologist
> Steven Pinker declared that "the
> intuitive feeling we have that there's an
> executive `I' that sits in a control room of
> our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and
> pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion."
> But don't give up on consciousness just yet.
> A small but growing number of re¬searchers are
> challenging some of the more extreme
> arguments supporting the primacy of the
> inner zombie.
> "Although these studies are fas¬cinating
> and important," writes Matthew Lieberman,
> a social psychologist at UCLA, "they ultimately
> fall short of supporting the assumptions
> that are seeping into our collective
> understanding of the mind." While our inner
> zombies may be able to do some information processing,
> there are other kinds of processing that
> they cannot do. Studies have shown that people
> can unconsciously prime their minds to perform better
> on memory tests, essentially training for
> a test without explicitly being aware of it.
> To explore the limits of such priming,
> University of Kentucky psychologist Nathan
> DeWall and his colleagues recently conducted a study
> to see if consciousness is important in
> completing logic puzzles. One group of volunteers
> first arranged words having to do with logic and
> reasoning into sentences; another group
> arranged neutral words into sentences. Then
> the scientists had the volunteers complete
> fragments of words. The fragments could be
> completed with a logic-related word or one
> not related to logic. (For example, correct
> answers for L_G_ _ included
> LOGIC and LIGHT.) Finally, DeWall tested the
> subjects on actual logic puzzles.
> Although the volunteers who had been primed
> with logic words tended to choose logic-related
> terms in the word-completion task, priming didn't
> help them with the puzzles. The zombies failed.
> On the other hand, explicitly instructing people
> to think about logic-related ideas,
> tapping into their conscious mind, did make
> them perform better on logic tests.
> Brain scans also provide ammunition to beat
> back the zombies. If our inner zombie really
> is in charge, then we would expect to see some
> distinct patterns of brain activity when we
> performed a task. If we did something unconsciously,
> only the "zombie network" of regions would
> be detected. If we did the same thing consciously,
> the zombie network would light up, but this
> time along with the few other regions of the
> brain that give us a feeling of awareness.
> Lieberman and his colleagues have been running
> experiments whose results don't fit those
> zombie brain patterns. To map conscious and
> unconscious processing of information, Lieberman
> used a classic psychology experiment in which
> subjects learn arbitrary rules about
> stringing letters together, known as an artificial
> grammar. People can learn these rules consciously
> (by being told, for example, that v always
> follows t). They can also learn artificial
> grammar unconsciously by looking at a lot of
> "words" that follow the rules. Later, when
> psychologists show them strings of letters,
> they can tell the researchers whether or not
> they are valid, without being able to say
> what the rules are.
> Lieberman showed his subjects an artificial
> grammar that incorporated two types of rules,
> one that could be learned consciously and another
> that tended to be picked up only unconsciously.
> Then, as he scanned their brains, the subjects
> were shown another set of letter strings and
> had to judge whether their grammar was valid.
> One region of the brain became active when
> the subjects identified conscious rules, while a
> different region became active for the unconscious
> rules. The two regions followed an inverse
> relationship: When one was more active, the
> other was less so. The conscious brain took
> its own, distinctive path. Lieberman got similar
> results when he showed a group of subjects
> pictures of other people's faces while the
> researchers scanned their brains. In some
> trials Lieberman had his subjects choose two words to
> describe each face's expression, forcing
> them to consciously reflect on the emotions
> they saw. In other trials, subjects chose a name for
> each face, but no attention was drawn to its emotion.
> The brain activity in the two groups was
> strikingly different. When people merely chose
> a name for an angry face, the amygdala region of the
> brain became very active. The amygdala plays a
> central role in how we respond unconsciously to
> emotional situations. Among the volunteers who
> used words to describe the faces—consciously
> reflecting on the emotions they saw—the amygdalas
> remained quiet. But an entirely
> different region, called the right ventrolateral
> prefrontal cortex, became active. This area is
> energetic during reflection, reasoning, and
> self-control. The inner zombies of the subjects
> who focused consciously on the faces' emotions
> were silenced. Such studies don't mean that our
> inner zombie doesn't exist. A number of networks
> in our brain process information without troubling
> our awareness. But we shouldn't be so captivated
> by this insight that we think of our conscious
> self as nothing but a passive moviegoer in the
> theater of the mind. It may be that our conscious
> and unconscious minds are parallel systems, each
> specialized for handling different kinds of tasks.
> Perhaps our inner zombies play the same role
> as the address books on our computers. We can
> memorize people's addresses and phone numbers,
> but it takes effort, and we're prone to recall
> them incorrectly or forget them. Computers store
> them automatically, leaving us free to
> spend our time thinking about more interesting
> things. The zombie mind may take over simple,
> repetitive tasks from our conscious mind, leaving
> the latter free to focus on the kinds of thought
> we do best with self-awareness. As Lieberman says,
> "The zombielike processes may be
> taken offline when more reflective processes are
> brought online." So we may have a mind that is
> capable of free will and awareness after
> all — it just needs a little help from its
> friendly neighborhood zombie.
> © 2008 Discover Magazine
> FAIR USE NOTICE
> This site contains copyrighted material the
> use of which has not always been specifically
> authorized by the copyright owner. We are
> making such material available in our efforts
> to advance understanding of environmental,
> political, human rights, economic, democracy,
> scientific, spiritual, and social justice issues,
> etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use'
> of any such copyrighted material as provided
> for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
> In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
> the material on this site is distributed
> without profit to those who have expressed a
> prior interest in receiving the included information
> for research and educational purposes. For more
> information go to:
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
> If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
> site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use',
> you must obtain permission from the copyright owner
>

No posts of advertisements or anything similar!
This forum is not intended to be a vehicle
for selling things. Our newest member, like
all new members, is on "Moderation" and the
post they wanted to have today listed will not
happen. They have not given us an email address
to privately let them know of the policy, which
was posted a few months ago, and as I don't know
of any other way to contact them I'm doing
it here and now.
As is obvious, this request to not "use" this
forum is again being shared. And I think
St Martha would sort of say, "It's a good thing"
So, thanks for letting this opportunity to
take the focus off of business to occur and to remind
anyone who doesn't know that we are here to share
meditation methods, experiences, and ways to
help consciousness evolve, not for material gain.
Peace and blessings,
Bob

Bob,
Recently I asked for people who are interested in donating, stuff to Afgani
children.  This was not a solicitation for money.  I'm looking everywhere and
asking all my friends.  I will be in Afganistan with the Afgan National Army for
about a year, toys and coloring books go along way with winning trust! a hell of
a lot more than bullets do.  I asked this forum because I figured you folks
might want to help.  I'm not asking for much and I am not expecting much.  I
hope I have not over stepped any bounds.
Thanks
Sean


--- On Fri, 9/19/08, medit8ionsociety <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> From: medit8ionsociety <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Meditation Society of America] Reminder About What NOT To Post
> To: meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Friday, September 19, 2008, 8:16 AM
> No posts of advertisements or anything similar!
> This forum is not intended to be a vehicle
> for selling things. Our newest member, like
> all new members, is on "Moderation" and the
> post they wanted to have today listed will not
> happen. They have not given us an email address
> to privately let them know of the policy, which
> was posted a few months ago, and as I don't know
> of any other way to contact them I'm doing
> it here and now.
> As is obvious, this request to not "use" this
> forum is again being shared. And I think
> St Martha would sort of say, "It's a good
> thing"
> So, thanks for letting this opportunity to
> take the focus off of business to occur and to remind
> anyone who doesn't know that we are here to share
> meditation methods, experiences, and ways to
> help consciousness evolve, not for material gain.
> Peace and blessings,
> Bob

--- In meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com, sean tremblay
<bethjams9@...> wrote:
>
> Bob,
> Recently I asked for people who are interested in donating, stuff to
Afgani children.  This was not a solicitation for money.  I'm looking
everywhere and asking all my friends.  I will be in Afganistan with
the Afgan National Army for about a year, toys and coloring books go
along way with winning trust! a hell of a lot more than bullets do.  I
asked this forum because I figured you folks might want to help.  I'm
not asking for much and I am not expecting much.  I hope I have not
over stepped any bounds.
> Thanks
> Sean
>
Yo Sean
What you are doing is a totally different thing and seems
to be quite a righteous one. The new member has just
explained in an email to me that he had
an intention to do a survey with the intention
of finding what kind of meditations people
wanted and then "make" these meditations (I think
CD's or something similar) and then "...be paid for
the work and study that's gone into making
these meditations". I do believe that his intentions
are innocent and so he is not banned, as were all the
others who have tried to use this forum for
business of some kind. But we are specifically
dedicated to the free exchange of meditation
techniques and concepts and are not here to
help someone start a meditation business
venture. Anyway, I hope you will feel free to
further let us know how to go about donating
to help the Afgani children. If you are involved,
I know that compassion and selfless service will
be part of this project and thus I feel that
this is a fitting thing for us to help publicize.
I wish you well with your new endeavor.
Peace and blessings,
Bob

Thanks Bob,
More info to follow.


--- On Fri, 9/19/08, medit8ionsociety <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> From: medit8ionsociety <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: Re: [Meditation Society of America] Reminder About What NOT To Post
> To: meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Friday, September 19, 2008, 10:48 PM
> --- In meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com, sean
> tremblay
> <bethjams9@...> wrote:
> >
> > Bob,
> > Recently I asked for people who are interested in
> donating, stuff to
> Afgani children.  This was not a solicitation for money.
> I'm looking
> everywhere and asking all my friends.  I will be in
> Afganistan with
> the Afgan National Army for about a year, toys and coloring
> books go
> along way with winning trust! a hell of a lot more than
> bullets do.  I
> asked this forum because I figured you folks might want to
> help.  I'm
> not asking for much and I am not expecting much.  I hope I
> have not
> over stepped any bounds.
> > Thanks
> > Sean
> >
> Yo Sean
> What you are doing is a totally different thing and seems
> to be quite a righteous one. The new member has just
> explained in an email to me that he had
> an intention to do a survey with the intention
> of finding what kind of meditations people
> wanted and then "make" these meditations (I think
> CD's or something similar) and then "...be paid
> for
> the work and study that's gone into making
> these meditations". I do believe that his intentions
> are innocent and so he is not banned, as were all the
> others who have tried to use this forum for
> business of some kind. But we are specifically
> dedicated to the free exchange of meditation
> techniques and concepts and are not here to
> help someone start a meditation business
> venture. Anyway, I hope you will feel free to
> further let us know how to go about donating
> to help the Afgani children. If you are involved,
> I know that compassion and selfless service will
> be part of this project and thus I feel that
> this is a fitting thing for us to help publicize.
> I wish you well with your new endeavor.
> Peace and blessings,
> Bob

A very enjoyable hour long bio
-- highly recommended.

<http://rumireturning.com/>

"The divine scales weigh human actions not only by
the measures of the prayer recited and Mantras
chanted, not only by the measures of candles lit,
lights waved, bells rung and books read, but let me
tell you clearly that the divine scales measure man
by the quality of the feelings harboured in the
heart, by the very words with which you speak and
address your neighbours and by each and every simple
action of yours in your dealings with all those
amongst whom Providence has decreed that you live
your life." - Swami Chidananda

For some, this may be semi-interesting or more:
http://tinyurl.com/3egnb6
This URL will take you to an article that
describes Nobel-winning physicist Frank Wilczek's
concept that reality at its most basic level
is best described as the interplay of energy
fields in "empty" space. In his new book,
The Lightness of Being, Wilczek sets forth the
concept that at its most basic level, our universe
exists as a vibrant energy field he calls "the Grid.
This interview with him provides meditative fuel
for dealing with the understanding of what is
mass, light, energy and the unified field, the "Matrix",
that is our universe and reality. Enjoy!

TO MY OLD BROWN EARTH*
*
To my old brown earth
And to my old blue sky
I'll now give these last few molecules of "I."

And you who sing,
And you who stand nearby,
I do charge you not to cry.

Guard well our human chain,
Watch well you keep it strong,
As long as sun will shine.

And this our home,
Keep pure and sweet and green,
For now I'm yours
And you are also mine.
_____

Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1958)
(c) 1964 (renewed) by Stormking Music Inc.

We are all capable of the extraordinary
savant skills displayed by people with autism
according to Professor Allan Snyder, speaking
at the Royal Society today. Snyder argues that
it is our inbuilt expectations of the world that
stop us from using them.

Prof Snyder spoke on the savant syndrome and his
efforts to 'turn on' autistic savant skills in
people who don't have autism at a discussion
meeting jointly organised by the Royal Society
and the British Academy. Snyder is director of
the Centre for the Mind at the University of
Sydney, Australia.

The savant syndrome is a rare condition in which
people with autism or other mental disabilities
have extraordinary skills that stand in stark
contrast to their overall handicap. Savant skills
are typically confined to five areas: art, music,
calendar calculating, mathematics and spatial
skills and these skills are accompanied by an
exceptional ability to recall meaningless detail.
In autistic savants these skills appear
spontaneously at a young age.

Prof Snyder has been able to artificially induce
savant skills in people who do not have autism
using the inhibiting influence of low frequency
repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation
(rTMS) to turn off that part of the brain which
controls all our inbuilt expectations.

"To do this," says Snyder, "we direct magnetic
pulses into the brain, to a specific site called
the left anterior temporal lobe, which is near to
the left ear. This site has been implicated in
individuals who suddenly display autistic savant
skills after injury or fronto-temporal lobe
dementia." The magnetic pulses are applied over
the left anterior temporal lobe for 15 minutes
using directed, low frequency rTMS."

During one study conducted by Prof Snyder and
his colleagues participants were asked to perform
a specific task, before, during, immediately after,
and 45 minutes after rTMS treatment, with tasks
including drawing a dog, horse or face from memory
in one minute, or proofreading a document.

The result was a major change in the drawing
ability in four out of the 11 participants, two
of these participants also showed a noticeable
improvement in their ability to recognise duplicated
words in the proofreading task. Their abilities
returned to normal within about an hour.

In a similar study, ten out of twelve participants
had an improved ability after the rTMS treatment
to accurately guess a large number of objects in
one and half seconds, an ability which faded after
the treatment.

At the discussion meeting Snyder spoke about
these innate skills, and discussed why it is
that savant skills are usually suppressed.

"Normally we are aware of the whole and not the
parts that make it up. These attributes of
objects are inhibited in normal brains" says Snyder.

"Savants have access to the less processed
information, before it is packaged into holistic
concepts and labels. Autistic savants tend to
see a more literal, less filtered view of the world."

1. The Royal Society is an independent academy
promoting the natural and applied sciences.
Founded in 1660, the Society has three roles,
as the UK academy of science, as a learned
Society, and as a funding agency. It responds
to individual demand with selection by merit,
not by field. As we prepare for our 350th anniversary
in 2010, we are working to achieve five strategic
priorities, to:

- Invest in future scientific leaders and in
innovation
- Influence policymaking with the best scientific
advice
- Invigorate science and mathematics education
- Increase access to the best science internationally
- Inspire an interest in the joy, wonder and excitement
of scientific discovery

2. The Centre for the Mind is part of the University
of Sydney. http://www.centreforthemind.com

3. Professor Allan Snyder received the Marconi
International Prize, in New York City in December 2001.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and
the recipient of its 2001 Clifford Paterson Prize.
Allan holds the 150th Anniversary Chair of Science
and the Mind at the University of Sydney. He was
a Guggenheim Fellow at Yale University's School of
Medicine and a Royal Society Research Fellow at
the Physiology Laboratories of Cambridge University.
He is a graduate of Harvard University, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and University College London.

His discussion focussed on published work from
the papers indicated below as well as new work
on reducing false memories and on prejudice.
Snyder, A.W., Mulcahy, E., Taylor, J.L., Mitchell,
D.J., Sachdev, P., & Gandevia, S.C. (2003).
Savant-like skills exposed in normal people by
suppressing the left front-temporal lobe. Journal
of Integrative Neuroscience, 2, 149-158. Snyder,
A., Bahramali, H., Hawker, T., & Mitchell, D.J. (2006).
Savant-like numerosity skills revealed in normal
people by magnetic pulses. Perception, 35, 837-845.

The Royal Society

FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are
making such material available in our efforts
to advance understanding of environmental,
political, human rights, economic, democracy,
scientific, spiritual, and social justice issues,
etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use'
of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information
for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use',
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner

Religious emotions and believes have often
been linked to a capacity to deal with pain,
as those images of Philippine men being willingly
crucified during religious festivals so well
demonstrate. But although changes in pain
sensitivity during a religious experience are well
documented, the exact psychological or/and
neurological reasons of the phenomenon are
unclear and, as such, have now become the aim of an
investigation by a group of scientists, philosophers
and psychologists from the University of Oxford.
The research, to be published in the next edition
of the journal Pain1, reveals, for the first
time, that religion-associated pain resistance is
linked to the activation of the brain right
ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), an
area associated with both cognitive down-regulation
of pain and reassessment of the emotional
meaning of an experience – for example by giving
a neutral or even positive meaning to a noxious
experience, and so making it much easier to cope
with. The research contributes for a better
understanding of pain coping mechanisms, and,
consequently, can put us closer to new and better
therapies for pain, but also might help to
comprehend how cultural influences, such as
religion, can affect the development and use
of the different parts of the brain. And it
does give an extra meaning to the saying "faith
helps through life's pains"…
It is known that the brain can control the way
we feel about pain – the more we fear it, for
example, the more unbearable it does seem - or
even our unconscious perception of it as shown
by the often very high pain threshold of chronic
patients. To understand how this is achieved
is of major importance if we consider the
devastating effects of chronic pain, not only to
patients' quality of life, but also as an
economic burden to society. In an attempt to
find the link between brain and pain control,
Katja Wiech, Miguel Farias, Irene Tracey and
colleagues from the departments of Anaesthetics,
Clinical Neurology, Theology, Ethics and
Philosophy at the University of Oxford and
the Psychology and Religion Research Group at
the University of Cambridge decided to look into a
widely reported but poorly understood phenomenon -
alterations of pain perception observed during
intense religious experiences.
For that, the researchers used 12 practicing
Catholics and 12 non-religious voluntaries,
submitting both groups to an electrical
shock, during which they were shown either
a religious or a non-religious image, and
while registering their brain activity. After
this the subjects were asked to record the
intensity of the pain felt during the pulse,
as well as their like/dislike for each of the images.
The pictures chosen – a painting of the Virgin
Mary called ``Vergine annunciate" by Sassoferrato
and ``Lady with an Ermine" by Leonardo da Vinci
as the non-religious control – were
aesthetically very similar.
Interestingly, it was found that the religious
group reported much less pain if watching the
Virgin Mary during the electrical stimulus, despite
the fact that both groups had, previously, been
shown to have similar pain sensitivity. When
commenting on the images, the Catholic subjects,
as expected, expressed a higher liking for the
Virgin Mary, while the non-religious group preferred
the da Vinci's print and even had
negative feelings towards the Virgin. These
observations support the idea that the changes
in pain perception were linked to the religious
content of the Virgin image, and not the result
of a preference towards an image, since the
non-religious group had no pain scores' changes
while watching its preferred da Vinci's image.
Further supporting the hypothesis, when the
voluntaries' brains were analysed during the
experiment by functional MRI – which registers
blood oxygen variations in the central nervous
system, with the areas of high activity showing
high(er) levels of oxygen –, it revealed high
activation of the right ventrolateral prefrontal
cortex in the religious voluntaries, again, in
the presence of the Virgin. The atheist/agnostic
group, on the other hand, showed no changes in
that area at any moment.
All individuals showed activation of the striatum,
an area linked to pain perception.
VLPFC activation is known to be linked to
reassessment of the emotional evaluation of
experiences, so in this case, the researchers
propose that the religious state, induced
during the experiment with Catholics and
the Virgin image, leads to a reassessment of
the pain, giving it new more positive meaning
and, in this way, diminishing its association with
suffering. This is supported, not only by the
fact that none of the non-religious subjects
registered changes in the pain scoring, but also
by the religious content comments of the
Catholic group when describing their feelings
in front of the image of the Virgin Mary: "… feeling
calmed down and peaceful", ``…taken care of", "…felt
compassion and support".
In conclusion, to Wiech, Farias and colleagues,
and as consequence of an intense devout state
induced by observing the religious image, the
pain of the Catholics seems to be no longer
associated with suffering but, instead,
perfectly bearable and, in other more extreme cases
probably even seen as a blessing, like the
Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) seems
to say in a letter to her daughter:
"Very pleasing to Me, dearest daughter, is
the willing desire to bear every pain and
fatigue, even unto death, for the salvation
of souls, for the more the soul endures, the
more she shows that she loves Me; loving
Me she comes to know more of My truth…"
Wiech, Farias and colleagues' work reveals,
for the first time, the neurological basis
behind altered pain sensitivity during intense
religious experiences. Although their hypothesis
of pain reassessment meaning during religious
experiences needs further investigation to be
confirmed, these results are undoubtedly an
important first step towards a better understanding
of the neural mechanisms associated with pain
control and, as such, in the direction of
better pain coping treatments. And these can
include, not only drugs targeting activation of brain
areas associated with pain resistance, but
even cognitive therapies based on the induction
of similar emotional states to those produced by
religion.
Miguel Farias, a Portuguese researcher and
one of the authors of the research says
"this is an extremely fascinating area and there is no
doubt that the brain and our emotions can
directly affect our physical being. After all,
we all know how stress can damage our health, or, how,
when we are depressed, it is so much easier
to get a cold. But we know much less about
the brain's positive effects, for example, how can we
explain studies that suggest that religious
individuals seem to have longer and healthier lives?
This is what we want to understand in order
to be able to use the knowledge to improve, for
example, the life of pain patients."
A further issue raised by this discovery is
how different environmental experiences – in
this case the experience of faith – can affect the
use and, during childhood probably even the
development of the brain. In fact, neuroscience
has shown that environmental experiences can increase
neuronal connectivity contributing to different
developments within a brain. By showing that
religious feelings are directly linked to a brain
area Wiech and colleagues' experiments raise
interesting issues that no doubt need to be
further investigated.

From Astigam.com

FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are
making such material available in our efforts
to advance understanding of environmental,
political, human rights, economic, democracy,
scientific, spiritual, and social justice issues,
etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use'
of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information
for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use',
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner

Study suggests Israelites may have eaten
hallucinogens, but scholars scoff
MSNBC staff and news service reports
updated 2:48 p.m. ET, Thurs., June. 12, 2008
JERUSALEM - When Moses brought the Ten
Commandments down from Mount Sinai, he may
have been high on a hallucinogenic plant,
according to a new study by an Israeli psychology
professor.
Writing in the British philosophy journal Time
and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew
University said two plants in the Sinai desert
contain the same psychoactive molecules as
those found in plants from which the powerful
Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.
The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet
which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount
Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a
people in an "altered state of awareness," Shanon
hypothesized.
"In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation,
the seeing of light is accompanied by profound
religious and spiritual feelings," Shanon wrote.
"On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing
the light, one is encountering the ground of all
Being ... many identify this power as God."
Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the
affects of the ayahuasca plant, having "partaken
of the ... brew about 160 times in various
locales and contexts."
He said one of the psychoactive plants, harmal,
found in the Sinai and elsewhere in the Middle
East, has long been regarded by Jews in the region
as having magical and curative powers.
Shanon acknowledged that he had "no direct proof
of this interpretation" and said such proof cannot
be expected.
Biblical scholars scoffed at Shanon's suggestion.
Orthodox rabbi Yuval Sherlow told Israel Radio:
"The Bible is trying to convey a very profound
event. We have to fear not for the fate of the
biblical Moses, but for the fate of science."

FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the
use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are
making such material available in our efforts
to advance understanding of environmental,
political, human rights, economic, democracy,
scientific, spiritual, and social justice issues,
etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use'
of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a
prior interest in receiving the included information
for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use',
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner

It's an interesting side note; but it makes no difference to me, the message is
the same regardless of the medium.  beside we do know that certain chemicals do
produce results we also know the opposite to be true.


--- On Wed, 10/1/08, medit8ionsociety <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

> From: medit8ionsociety <no_reply@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [Meditation Society of America] Was Moses high on Mount Sinai?
> To: meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Wednesday, October 1, 2008, 3:58 PM
> Study suggests Israelites may have eaten
> hallucinogens, but scholars scoff
> MSNBC staff and news service reports
> updated 2:48 p.m. ET, Thurs., June. 12, 2008
> JERUSALEM - When Moses brought the Ten
> Commandments down from Mount Sinai, he may
> have been high on a hallucinogenic plant,
> according to a new study by an Israeli psychology
> professor.
> Writing in the British philosophy journal Time
> and Mind, Benny Shanon of Jerusalem's Hebrew
> University said two plants in the Sinai desert
> contain the same psychoactive molecules as
> those found in plants from which the powerful
> Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared.
> The thunder, lightning and blaring of a trumpet
> which the Book of Exodus says emanated from Mount
> Sinai could just have been the imaginings of a
> people in an "altered state of awareness," Shanon
>
> hypothesized.
> "In advanced forms of ayahuasca inebriation,
> the seeing of light is accompanied by profound
> religious and spiritual feelings," Shanon wrote.
> "On such occasions, one often feels that in seeing
> the light, one is encountering the ground of all
> Being ... many identify this power as God."
> Shanon wrote that he was very familiar with the
> affects of the ayahuasca plant, having "partaken
> of the ... brew about 160 times in various
> locales and contexts."
> He said one of the psychoactive plants, harmal,
> found in the Sinai and elsewhere in the Middle
> East, has long been regarded by Jews in the region
> as having magical and curative powers.
> Shanon acknowledged that he had "no direct proof
> of this interpretation" and said such proof cannot
> be expected.
> Biblical scholars scoffed at Shanon's suggestion.
> Orthodox rabbi Yuval Sherlow told Israel Radio:
> "The Bible is trying to convey a very profound
> event. We have to fear not for the fate of the
> biblical Moses, but for the fate of science."
>
> FAIR USE NOTICE
> This site contains copyrighted material the
> use of which has not always been specifically
> authorized by the copyright owner. We are
> making such material available in our efforts
> to advance understanding of environmental,
> political, human rights, economic, democracy,
> scientific, spiritual, and social justice issues,
> etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use'
> of any such copyrighted material as provided
> for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.
> In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107,
> the material on this site is distributed
> without profit to those who have expressed a
> prior interest in receiving the included information
> for research and educational purposes. For more
> information go to:
> http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
> If you wish to use copyrighted material from this
> site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair
> use',
> you must obtain permission from the copyright owner

As Shared By Swami Sivananda:

The obstacles to meditation are only from within.
Sleepiness, passions, confused state of the mind,
Manorajya (building castles in the air) are the
chief obstacles that stand in the way of fixing
the mind on God or Brahman. The five hindrances
to meditation, viz., sense-desire, ill-will,
sloth-torpor, flurry-worry and perplexity should
be removed. For, when these are not removed,
meditation cannot arise. The mind that lusts after
many things through sense-desire is not concentrated
on one object; or being overcome by sense-desire,
it does not enter upon the progress of meditation
in order to put away the sensuous element. The mind
that is harassed by ill-will concerning an object
does not proceed at once. The mind that is overcome
by sloth and torpor is unwieldy. Obsessed by worry
and flurry, it does not repose, but flirts about.
Struck by perplexity, it does not go on the path that
leads to the attainment of meditation and Samadhi.
Obstacles to meditation are thus really from within.
They are not from without. Train the mind properly.

--- In meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com, krishnan sundaram
<krish_cost@...> wrote:
>
> Is it possible to meditate on a non-vegetarian diet ?
> SKrishnan
>
Yo Sri Krishan,
Anything that distracts you from concentrating
on the object of your meditation is not recommended.
The ancient advise is that a non-vegetarian
diet is so hard to digest that your body's efforts
to process meat will distract you and make it
difficult or impossible to focus enough to allow your
concentration to flow into a meditative state. Or,
if you are in a meditative state, the digestion
effort will cause you to end it and focus on
your abdominal distress, thus negating the
possibility of merging with the object of your
meditation (Contemplation). But...there is no
doubt that there are meat-eaters who have attained
and maintained a meditative state. So, does
eating meat cause you to be distracted from
your meditation, or do you "get away with it"?
If so, there is no problem. Similarly, there
is a question of the ethics of eating other
creatures flesh and the Karma that ensues from
this. Will the Karma, or the question itself, be
a distraction for you? If not, there is no
problem. As with all things, if what you are
doing takes your peace away, it is "bad" and
you shouldn't do it. If what you are doing is
giving you peace, it is "good" and it is OK
to do. Personally, I have been a vegetarian for
almost 45 years and have not found this to be
a problem relative to meditation. It is my
inner chatter that causes distraction to me
(and I think everyone) and meditation practice
has enabled it to be silenced enough to bring
me peace. And that is is meat of the matter!
Peace and blessings,
Bob

It doesn't seem to slow down the Tibetans, who are perforce omnivorous
due to the poor soil and high altitudes.

--- In meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com, krishnan sundaram
<krish_cost@...> wrote:
>
> Is it possible to meditate on a non-vegetarian diet ?
> SKrishnan

Last I checked the Himalaya's aint the best place for a garden patch!


--- On Tue, 10/7/08, krishnan sundaram <krish_cost@...> wrote:

> From: krishnan sundaram <krish_cost@...>
> Subject: Re: [Meditation Society of America] Re: meditation
> To: meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com
> Cc: helbertozvi@...
> Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2008, 1:34 AM
> No, it is simple observation. Non-veggies tend to loose
> their tempers quicker and
>  tend to be more restless. The mind feeds on what u eat.
> It is hard enough to meditate even on a veg diet and it will
> be doubly hard when on nonveg. And from my knowledge of
> history, Budha became a veggie after watching the slaughter
> in the Kalinga war and even stopped animal sacrifices.
>
> --- On Tue, 7/10/08, Gwyn Plaine <gplaine@...>
> wrote:
>
> From: Gwyn Plaine <gplaine@...>
> Subject: Re: [Meditation Society of America] Re: meditation
> To: meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, 7 October, 2008, 12:50 AM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Erm, no...  they eat what they eat. It's the whole
> 'middle way' thing. But please, feel free to tell HH
> Dalai Lama 'Y'all ain't a REAL Buddhist,
> bub....'  I do love it when people seem to think that
> they have the editorial rights over someone's life
> dropping the 'supposed', 'ought', and
> 'should' bombs hither and yon...
>
> and the question was can one meditate on a non-veggie diet;
> apparently, you can, based on the Tibetan/Vajrayana
> experience. If a Northern Tribesperson, say for example
> Inuit, became a Buddhist, would you tell him to stop eating
> his diet of seal sinew and whale blubber? The diet is a
> luixury of place of birth, local economy, and the
> nutritional needs of the moneky one rides around in (the
> specific metabolism of one's body - again, back to
> Inuits, where high fibre diets have been found to be pretty
> bad for a system adapted to high protein, high fat and lots
> of Omega 3,6,9, and 11) From dim memory, I seem to remember
> that the general Hyperborean dwellers meditate just fine on
> a diet nearly wholly denuded of vegetation.
>
> If you *want* to go veggie, do so, if you don't, then
> don't. Make sure it suits you and you don't have any
> special nutritional needs (again, a luxury of our collective
> society... medical care) But people doing the 'Thou
> shalt do this thing and no other...' well, take that
> with a sack of salt and see if it makes sense to you...
> Remember
>
> "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who
> said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with
> your own reason and your own common sense."
>
> I've always found that sound advice from Prince
> Gatauma...
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 4:00 PM, krishnan sundaram
> <krish_cost@yahoo. co.in> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Yeah but Budhists are supposed to be vegetarians.
> SKrishnan
>
> --- On Mon, 6/10/08, harley_quin2003 <gplaine@gmail.
> com> wrote:
>
> From: harley_quin2003 <gplaine@gmail. com>
>
> Subject: [Meditation Society of America] Re: meditation
> To: meditationsocietyof america@yahoogro ups.com
> Date: Monday, 6 October, 2008, 7:28 PM
>
>
>
>
>
> It doesn't seem to slow down the Tibetans, who are
> perforce omnivorous
> due to the poor soil and high altitudes.
>
> --- In meditationsocietyof america@yahoogro ups.com,
> krishnan sundaram
>
> <krish_cost@ ...> wrote:
> >
> > Is it possible to meditate on a non-vegetarian diet ?
> > SKrishnan
>
>
>
>
>
> Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Invite them
> now.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>       Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to
> http://messenger.yahoo.com/invite/

Gwyn,
I think you would agree that criticism and preoccupation with other peoples
practices are probably a greater distraction to spiritual growth than a cheese
burger.


--- On Tue, 10/7/08, Gwyn Plaine <gplaine@...> wrote:

> From: Gwyn Plaine <gplaine@...>
> Subject: Re: [Meditation Society of America] Re: meditation
> To: meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2008, 3:52 PM
> The very point. Of course, there are those who say the
> Tibetans are not
> Buddhist at all, but that always reminds me of the worst
> behaviour of
> Christians (c.f. the Phelps clan KNOW, beyond all doubt
> there are the only
> 'True' (tm) Christians...) Basically,  Tibetan
> buddhism is Buddhist in that
> it has the core teachings, but like all Buddhist sects,
> it's gone native...
> same a Forest, same as Zen, same as Chan...
>
> Tibetans, tribes like the Inuit (the only Northern tribe
> whose customs I am
> familiar with), the Masai, the Australian Aboriginals all
> manage to do
> something that looks and sounds so much like meditation it
> can safely be
> called that, on diets consisting nearly wholly of flesh
> (and in the case of
> the Masai, fresh blood too...) The Himalayas are too high,
> the Masai Mara is
> too hot (as is the Great Australian desert) and Arctic is
> too cold for there
> to be any significant vegetable supplementation to diet.
> One size does not
> fit all...
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 8:40 PM, sean tremblay
> <bethjams9@...> wrote:
>
> >   Last I checked the Himalaya's aint the best
> place for a garden patch!
> >
> > --- On Tue, 10/7/08, krishnan sundaram
> <krish_cost@...<krish_cost%40yahoo.co.in>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > From: krishnan sundaram
> <krish_cost@...<krish_cost%40yahoo.co.in>
> > >
> >
> > > Subject: Re: [Meditation Society of America] Re:
> meditation
> > > To:
>
meditationsocietyofamerica@yahoogroups.com<meditationsocietyofamerica%40yahoogro\
ups.com>
> > > Cc: helbertozvi@...
> <helbertozvi%40yahoo.co.uk>
> > > Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2008, 1:34 AM
> >
> > > No, it is simple observation. Non-veggies tend to
> loose
> > > their tempers quicker and
> > >  tend to be more restless. The mind feeds on what
> u eat.
> > > It is hard enough to meditate even on a veg diet
> and it will
> > > be doubly hard when on nonveg. And from my
> knowledge of
> > > history, Budha became a veggie after watching the
> slaughter
> > > in the Kalinga war and even stopped animal
> sacrifices.
> > >
> >
> >

My, you seem awfully defensive. Maybe it's too much roughage.

However, to pander to your minor foot stamping, been there, tried it,
was unimpressed due to a congenitally short gut that really doesn't
like being fed too many leaves. The undigested, fermenting lumps of
composted vegetation really was nasty, windy, and hard on the skin of
sensitive areas. Stuck it out for half a year until the MD told me I
really shouldn't, and a balance, with a slight bias to long string
proteins (animal) would be 'advisable in the extreme'  or I'd have to
take vast mounts of cellulase to even partially gain what I was
losing. As I said, one size does not fit all. Believe me, with the
crap they stick in meat these days, I'd prefer not to HAVE to eat it,
but reducing just makes me sluggish, bad tempered, my mental processes
slow, my entire gastro-intestinal tract and colorectal region behave
like I'm a diseased cow,  and my ribs stand out like Gollum's since
I'm not absorbing food.

As to 'all faiths advice a veg diet for the serious aspirant' (sic)...
well, that's a sweeping statement, and inaccurate. Only Western
Tibetans thrust the idea of no animal protein, the Masai would say you
were mad (unless you're implying their 'faith' is somehow 'not
one'...) Christians don't push it (it's against the words of St Paul)
It's not a feature of any mainstream Judaic sect, nor Islamic although
I recall some Sufis in Turkey adhere. Northern shamen would starve if
they swore off meat. Native Americans have never extolled such a diet
as a virtue.  A short list, but a representative one.

All faiths? I think you overstate the position quite wildly.

The suggestion that it is a requirement is an overstatement, to the
point of falsehood. In many respects it's nothing more than the
tonsure of the Chrisitan, or the side burns and beard of the Hassidic;
something to pin an identity on as a member of a specific spiritual
group... As I stated in the quoted text, cultural adiaphora.

In the end, it's down to the individual.

On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 1:42 PM, krishnan sundaram
<krish_cost@...> wrote:
>
> Hey, why dont you take me on ?
> Give up non-veg for a week and mail me after that.
> All faiths  advice a veg diet for the serious aspirant.
> It is an aid to meditation like so many other aids.
> But if you can do without it, that's just great.
> SKrishnan
>