I Speak of Dreams

Meditation and addiction

A worthy subject for exploration

Attention is an Emotion

This is from an interview with Dr. Donald Nathanson -- go read the whole thing

Attention Deficit Disorder is treated with medications that alter emotions, even  though everybody thinks it’s treating something cognitive. It isn’t.  What it’s doing is making more interest available to the child.

School of Prayer

What do people do when they pray?   Is it just reciting words, or is it something else?  The Carmelite Monastery of Indiana has reached out from the convent to provide assistance:

The School of Prayer.

Carmelites are a contemplative order, meaning their purpose is to pray, and pray unceasingly.

Digital Blessings

I can't tell if this is a parody or not. Tibetan Buddhists, who believe in the efficacy of mani wheels, have made it possible for computers to generate merit (there's another version of the digital prayer wheel). Buddhists also have prayer flags, which are covered in this book on flag blessings. At least one Christian church as a digital prayer chain, and there is a World Prayer Team.

Training the Mind

"What we found is that the trained mind, or brain, is physically different from the untrained one....What we found is that the longtime practitioners [of meditation] showed brain activation on a scale we have never seen before" --Richard Davidson

(thanks Ennis)

Salt on Complaining

I often find that the better things are the more comfortable people are complaining. The danger is when people don't complain directly to you.

Plenty of people complain. They don't intend for you to solve their problems. They don't want to hear themselves talk. It is, actually, a form of prayer. If anything, you should complain with them.

And lets not forget that sometimes complaining is fun. For some. Granted it is not fun to listen to, but I suggest that you are paid to listen to complaints.

I have been complaining about me to me. I have been complaining about a lot of things to a lot of people. I'm tired of my complaining, and then

SHAZAM!

Salt gives me a new way to look at complaints. He's writing for persons in the God business--clerics of all stripes--but it applies to anyone, really.

Update: while I was waiting for this to post, I called on Cobb. Well my goodness he raised complaining to a new level, but I guess he forgot his hangnails.

A Dad is Grateful

There are some folks I don't visit often enough. Duck Off and Fly does the gratitudes. Thanks for the reminder. Here's another. ; here's Ame Pema Chodron on tonglen

Wake Up! Breathe! Give Thanks!

Mindfulness Quote

We need to think of our attention as something we must train just as we train our fingers to play the piano or violin. We don't just practice when we are performing, we practice intensely in between performances.

Gregg Krech
Director, ToDo Institute "Life is a Matter of Attention"
author of Naikan: Gratitude, Grace and the Power of Self-Reflection
Japanese Art of Self-Reflection

Everything Meditation

So you are a little interested in meditation--you've heard it is good for you--but you aren't sure what to do or what it is.

Enter the Everyting Meditation Book, which is a guide to all the different forms of meditation globally--in a fairly balanced and accessible package.

It's from Adams Communications.

Atheism Unelectable

Ronald Reagan's son answers a few questions....(Makes you think of Poppy and G.W., doesn't it? Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON Published: June 27, 2004)
Now that the country is awash in Reagan nostalgia, some observers are predicting that you will enter politics. Would you like to be president of the United States? I would be unelectable. I'm an atheist. As we all know, that is something people won't accept. [snip]
So you sometimes practice Buddhism? I don't claim anything. But my sympathies would be in that direction. I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion. [snip]
How do you account for all the glowing obituaries of [your father]? I think it was a relief for Americans to look at pictures of something besides men on leashes. If you are going to call yourself a Christian -- and I don't -- then you have to ask yourself a fundamental question, and that is: Whom would Jesus torture? Whom would Jesus drag around on a dog's leash? How can Christians tolerate it?
It is unconscionable. It has put our young men and women who are over there, fighting a war that they should not have been asked to fight -- it has put them in greater danger.
[snip]