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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Earth Day - The Dalai Lama on the Environment
On April 20th, the Dalai Lama spoke at the University of Michigan on the direct connection between sustainability and spirituality. Watch the video here (wmv file).
Happy Earth Day!
Here is the story from The University Record.
Happy Earth Day!
Here is the story from The University Record.
The 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet sees a direct connection between sustainability and spirituality.
He tells the story of the king of Shakya, who was born at the foot of a tree, achieved spiritual enlightenment under a tree and eventually died under a tree. From then on monks were trained to nurture trees and see it as a virtuous act.
"Whenever I speak, I always refer to the environment," the Dalai Lama said, during a press conference Friday at Rackham. He delivered a special Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability April 20 at Crisler Arena, during a weekend full of appearances in the Ann Arbor area.
Best known as an outspoken advocate for human rights and global peace, the Dalai Lama turned his wide-ranging intellect to the topic of environmental preservation. The Wege Lecture, sponsored by the Office of the President and the Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) at the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE), coincideed with Earth Day activities.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner and Buddhist leader last visited Ann Arbor in 1994.
Born to a peasant family in 1935, Tenzin Gyatso was recognized at the age of 2 as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, and began his monastic education at age 6. In 1950 the Dalai Lama, at age 15, assumed full political power in Tibet as head of state and government, and attempted to negotiate a peaceful solution to conflicts with Mao Zedong and other Chinese leaders. Nine years later, after the Chinese quelled a Tibetan civilian uprising, the Dalai Lama fled to Northern India, where he established the Tibetan government-in-exile.
"Preservation of Tibetan culture is helpful to bring more human value to the people of China," the Dalai Lama says Friday at Rackham. Since that time he has worked for the restoration of the rights and independence of Tibetan people and for the preservation of their culture.
During the news conference, the Dalai Lama condemned ongoing violence and protests against the Olympic Games, set to begin Aug. 8 in China.
"I am not against the Olympic Games," he said. "From the beginning I have expressed concern about individuals, human rights, religious freedom, in this case in the Republic of China. I'm fully committed to democracy."
Members of the press asked about the viability of Tibet as a people and a culture.
"There is a real danger in Tibet that the community could die out," he said, adding that a cultural oppression is taking place. "Preservation of Tibetan culture is helpful to bring more human value to the people of China."
Speaking directly to students, he said they play an integral role in defining history.
"You are the people who are really shaping the new century," he said. "We need realistic views, holistic views ... accordingly good, right behavior."
Noting Pope Benedict XVI was visiting the United States at the same time, the Dalai Lama said their messages are intertwined.
"Compassion for humans," he said. "We have the same potential to help humanity."
On a lighter note, speaking for a group of Buddhism students, one reporter asked, "How does one achieve enlightenment?"
After a hearty laugh, the Dalai Lama replied, "Oooh, that's not easy."
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Monday, April 21, 2008
Glenn Greenwald Speaks about the Media
Amy Goodman, of Democracy NOW!, speaks with blogger and Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald about the ABC debate last week and the problems with mainstream media and politics.
via videosift.com
For the most part, I agree with Greenwald on this topic. For whatever reason, the "liberal media" really likes to bring down progressive candidates -- not on the issues but on stupid tabloid crap.
What happened to actual, unbiased journalism?
via videosift.com
For the most part, I agree with Greenwald on this topic. For whatever reason, the "liberal media" really likes to bring down progressive candidates -- not on the issues but on stupid tabloid crap.
What happened to actual, unbiased journalism?
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Satire: Democratic Race ‘Too Mean,’ Say Swift Boat Veterans
Andy Borowitz on the campaign trail.
Democratic Race "Too Mean," Say Swift Boat Veterans
Giving Swiftboating a Bad Name, Group Fears
The Democratic race for President has descended to “a level of meanness and acrimony that is damaging to American politics,” the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said today.
The Swift Boat group, which became famous in 2004 for attacking Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, said that they were speaking out because “the current Democratic contest is giving swiftboating a bad name.”
“We have increasingly heard pundits accusing Clinton and Obama of swiftboating each other,” said Swift Boat Veteran Tracy Klugian. “This hurts the reputation of swiftboating.”
Mr. Klugian was quick to draw a distinction between what Sens. Clinton and Obama are doing and swiftboating, which he called “a noble profession.”
“When you try to destroy a member of another party, that’s swiftboating,” said Mr. Klugian. “When you do it to a member of your own party, that’s cannibalism.”
He said that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would soon air ads attacking both Democratic candidates for sullying the reputation of swiftboating.
“Tear each other up if you want to, but don’t take swiftboating down with you,” he said. “That’s just unfair.”
The Swift Boat Veterans’ statement came on the heels of a similar statement by the Weather Underground, a ‘60’s radical group that has been tied to both the Obama and Clinton camps over the past week.
“We denounce and reject both candidates,” said the Weather Underground, who has seen its approval ratings plummet in recent days.
Elsewhere, CNN’s Larry King said he would continue his series on polygamy, saying that he was uniquely qualified to discuss people who had more than five wives.
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"On Deep History and the Brain" by Daniel Lord Smail
The New York Times reviewed On Deep History and the Brain, by Daniel Lord Smail, back in March and I somehow missed it. So here is that review.
The book looks at the evolution of the brain -- and therefore consciousness -- as an ongoing series of efforts to modify our brain chemistry. Hmmm . . . .
After the review, I want to offer another angle on the topic from Christopher Green at Advances in the History of Psychology.
The review:
I don't find too much to disagree with here, although I would caution against seeing this as the ONLY mode of human psychological evolution.
Here is Green's response:
What do you think? Seems like -- in this view -- we are abdicating our own consciousness in favor of brain-numbing autotropic methods and devices. It's hard to argue with that assertion on culture-wide basis, but there are many other people trying to expand our consciousness beyond the merely recreational.
The book looks at the evolution of the brain -- and therefore consciousness -- as an ongoing series of efforts to modify our brain chemistry. Hmmm . . . .
After the review, I want to offer another angle on the topic from Christopher Green at Advances in the History of Psychology.
The review:
Why do horses snort? Sometimes, at the approach of a stranger or the appearance of a plane high above the pasture, a horse will widen its eyes, flare its nostrils and send a stuttering column of air out into the world. On other occasions, horses have been known to snort for no reason besides their own boredom. By suddenly creating a sound, the slack-minded horse elicits an automatic “startle response” — flooding its brain with chemicals, delivering a jolt of excitement and relieving, at least for a moment, the monotony of a long day in an empty field. The horse has in effect fooled its own nervous system — and benefited from the self-deceit.If horses can alter their own brain chemistries at will (and have good reasons to do so), what about human beings? In “On Deep History and the Brain,” Daniel Lord Smail suggests that human history can be understood as a long, unbroken sequence of snorts and sighs and other self-modifications of our mental states. We want to alter our own moods and feelings, and the rise of man from hunter-gatherer and farmer to office worker and video-game adept is the story of the ever proliferating devices — from coffee and tobacco to religious rites and romance novels — we’ve acquired to do so. Humans, Smail writes, have invented “a dizzying array of practices that stimulate the production and circulation of our own chemical messengers,” and those devices have become more plentiful with time. We make our own history, albeit with neurotransmitters not of our choosing.
Historians by and large take biology and the deep past for granted: natural selection endowed our ancestors with their impressive bodies and brains, and then got out of the way. These days, it’s chiefly nonhistorians like Jared Diamond and Tim Flannery who seek to trace the long arc of the species and write macrohistory in a scientific key. Smail, who teaches medieval history at Harvard, would like his peers to join their company. If historians have become accustomed to studying midwives and peasants, the marginal and often illiterate members of recent societies, why shouldn’t they extend their curiosity to the most peripheral human subjects of all — the prehistoric? Even today, Smail laments, the curriculum is shaped by the prejudice that history began only when our ancestors started to write or to farm or to think of themselves as actors in a grand pageant of historical change. The presumption is curiously convenient. In the schema of “sacred history,” history began with the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden — that is, in Asia, a few thousand years before Christ. In the modern schema, history begins in much the same place, at much the same time. “The sacred was deftly translated into a secular key,” Smail writes, as “the Garden of Eden became the irrigated fields of Mesopotamia and the creation of man was reconfigured as the rise of civilization.”
Taking Paleolithic man seriously, Smail argues, requires us to understand that history and biology always shape each other — there is no ascent from the tyranny of brute instinct to the freedoms of civilization. Some evolutionary theorists stress that cultural innovation allows human beings to overcome the blind stumblings of natural selection: we deliberately solve a problem and pass on that solution to our descendants, who improve on it in turn. Smail takes a different tack. The imperfect copying of past behavior and small, often unconscious preferences can push a society in a new direction, even without anyone aiming toward a particular goal. It’s possible, for instance, that early men decided to make sharper spear points with the intent of drawing more blood from their prey; Smail would rather suppose that these spear points were created by accident, and then spread because the hunters who used them proved to be better hunters, even if they didn’t know why. Cultural evolution can be rapid and it can help human beings adapt to their environment, but it needn’t be intended or progressive.
Nor can culture be disentangled from biology. Our very synapses are shaped by experience and education from before birth to the time of death. The brain of a monk does not resemble the brain of a soldier or a taxicab driver. An impulse to swoon in distress or erupt in anger may be innate, but Victorian women were quicker to faint at the sight of blood and Southern men are faster to react to slights than women or men in many other places. These predispositions can be passed on from generation to generation without any alteration in anyone’s genes, and yet they are readily seen as aspects of our nature. In a way, they are. “Culture is wired in the brain,” Smail writes, and “cultural practices can have profound neurophysiological consequences.”
But what practices? Ever since the invention of agriculture, Smail claims, we have seen “an ever greater concentration of mood-altering mechanisms.” Some of these mechanisms Smail refers to as “teletropic”: they work primarily to affect the moods of others, stimulating a wash of neurochemicals at a distance. A baby cries and arouses its mother’s instinct to care; a priest intones a Mass and relieves parishioners of stress hormones. The modern era, however, belongs to what Smail calls “autotropic” devices, devices that alter our own moods. In modern Europe, coffee from the Arabian peninsula became a stimulant to “mind, body, conversation and creativity” for the rich and the mercantile. The cultivation of sugar on Caribbean slave plantations made cheap rum freely available, further inebriating the working classes. Individuals became ever more expert at changing their own chemistry, sometimes just for the pleasure of modulating one set of sensations into another. But ingesting substances was only the beginning. The same era saw the rise of novels and erotica, shopping and salons. Books are also autotropic devices, regulating attention and mood; indeed, in the 18th century, their impact was often likened to a fever, jeopardizing readers’ purchase on reality and their physical strength. In the age of Enlightenment, man overthrew kings and subjected himself to mild and intermittently pleasurable addictions.
Of course, there was more to the Enlightenment than that. It’s not clear how a neurohistorian of the future would treat attitudes and beliefs alongside cravings and moods. Nor does Smail directly address the larger implications of what has been called “the psychoactive revolution.” What happens when we learn not just how to alter our moods but also to identify the chemical and electrical constituents of our experiences while we are having them? Is there a price to pay when we make the care of the brain a pre-eminent virtue? Three decades ago, in his influential study “Tastes of Paradise,” Wolfgang Schivelbusch argued that “the brain is the part of the human body of greatest concern to bourgeois civilization.” Coffee and tobacco, which spread through Europe in the 17th century, helped this reorientation, Schivelbusch said: “Coffee functioned positively, arousing and nourishing the brain. Tobacco functioned negatively, calming the rest of the body ... as was necessary for mental, i.e., sedentary, activity.”
Smail focuses more attention on the “pursuit of psychotropy” than on its consequences. Still, an intelligent disquiet runs through these pages. As we “grow numb to the mechanisms that stimulate our moods and feelings on a daily basis,” we ceaselessly shift from one device to another. The prospects for human foresight and self-knowledge would seem dim. In the 1860s, Walter Pater wrote that “art comes to you proposing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.” Has art become superfluous? Smail suggests we are all the choreographers of our own chemical dance, enjoying the “spikes” and “dips” as they follow one another, and simply for their own sake.
I don't find too much to disagree with here, although I would caution against seeing this as the ONLY mode of human psychological evolution.
Here is Green's response:
Is History Really About Altering Our Neurochemistry?
Is it possible that most historical events, from the most innocuous yawn to the fiercest war, have been about little more than relieving us of boredom by slightly jarring our brain chemistry? In a nutshell, that seems to be the thrust of Alexander Star’s review of Daniel Lord Smail’s book On Deep History and the Brain. The review was published in the March 16 edition of the New York Times. Alexander places Smail, a Harvard medievalist, in league with “nonhistorians like Jared Diamond and Tim Flannery who seek to trace the long arc of the species and write macrohistory in a scientific key.”
According to Smail, humans have invented “a dizzying array of practices that stimulate the production and circulation of our own chemical messengers.” These are said to include not just obvious stimulants such as coffee and tobacco, but virtually any emotionally-laden practice, from religious rites to romance novels. Alexander opens the review with the striking claim that this urge gives our brain a periodic charge is not limited to humans, but that even the spontaneously snort of a horse is an attempt to elicit “an automatic ’startle response’ — flooding its brain with chemicals, delivering a jolt of excitement and relieving, at least for a moment, the monotony of a long day in an empty field.”
The comparison to animals is no accident, for what underlies Smail’s startling conclusions [is his book an example of his theory?] is a natural selectionist view of history. But the selection at issue is not entirely biological, but behavioral as well. Alexander writes:
The imperfect copying of past behavior and small, often unconscious preferences can push a society in a new direction, even without anyone aiming toward a particular goal. It’s possible, for instance, that early men decided to make sharper spear points with the intent of drawing more blood from their prey; Smail would rather suppose that these spear points were created by accident, and then spread because the hunters who used them proved to be better hunters, even if they didn’t know why. Cultural evolution can be rapid and it can help human beings adapt to their environment, but it needn’t be intended or progressive.
The relation of this claim to the theory of “organic selection,” first proposed by developmental psychologist James Mark Baldwin in 1896 (now better known as the “Baldwin Effect”) is apparent to the historian of psychology.
Alexander continues,
Ever since the invention of agriculture, Smail claims, we have seen “an ever greater concentration of mood-altering mechanisms.” Some of these mechanisms Smail refers to as “teletropic”: they work primarily to affect the moods of others, stimulating a wash of neurochemicals at a distance. A baby cries and arouses its mother’s instinct to care; a priest intones a Mass and relieves parishioners of stress hormones. The modern era, however, belongs to what Smail calls “autotropic” devices, devices that alter our own moods. In modern Europe, coffee from the Arabian peninsula became a stimulant to “mind, body, conversation and creativity” for the rich and the mercantile. The cultivation of sugar on Caribbean slave plantations made cheap rum freely available, further inebriating the working classes. Individuals became ever more expert at changing their own chemistry, sometimes just for the pleasure of modulating one set of sensations into another. But ingesting substances was only the beginning. The same era saw the rise of novels and erotica, shopping and salons. Books are also autotropic devices, regulating attention and mood; indeed, in the 18th century, their impact was often likened to a fever, jeopardizing readers’ purchase on reality and their physical strength. In the age of Enlightenment, man overthrew kings and subjected himself to mild and intermittently pleasurable addictions.
What do you think? Seems like -- in this view -- we are abdicating our own consciousness in favor of brain-numbing autotropic methods and devices. It's hard to argue with that assertion on culture-wide basis, but there are many other people trying to expand our consciousness beyond the merely recreational.
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Bill Maher Defends Elitism
Bill Maher's "New Rules."
If you think the Democrats are going to take away your bible, you’re an idiot. If you think they’re going to take away your gun, you’re an armed idiot. And if you think they’re going to take away your gun and give it to a Mexican to kill your god, you’re Bill O’Reilly.
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Music Review: Stanley Jordan - State of Nature
Stanley Jordan is an amazing musician -- Blog Critics reviews his newest album.
Read the rest.
Here is Jordan doing his thing.
Stanley Jordan plays "Autumn Leaves"
Stanley Jordan is one of the slickest jazz guitarists around. His expansion of the touch technique has made him legendary in jazz circles. Jordan’s method allows him to play melody and chords at the same time, creating a cascade of sound. His new album uses this cascade of sound to create a set of songs relating to a theme very close to his heart: Mother Earth.State of Nature will be released on April 22 (Earth Day), with no coincidences ever intended. Jordan’s album carries a theme of native beauty, as each song picks up on a different part of nature and draws on the visual aspects of music to epitomize his concepts.
“Part of the reason I made this album were revelations I discovered in my journey to try to become a better person,” Jordan states. He goes on to elaborate, adding that the idea of taking care of the environment never seems to render human action. “What is it about humans that makes us so intelligent and yet so unwise?”
This thought process would prove to be the underpinning for State of Nature, as the guitar genius weaved the structures for several songs with notions of ecological issues, global warming, and the corrosion of nature. The music celebrates life while also exploring our part in the changing climate and the “state of nature.”
Read the rest.
Here is Jordan doing his thing.
Stanley Jordan plays "Autumn Leaves"
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Satire: New Chemical Weapon 'Ennui Gas' Induces Listlessness, Dissatisfaction With Life
The Onion reports on a new chemical weapon.
New Chemical Weapon 'Ennui Gas' Induces Listlessness, Dissatisfaction With Life
WASHINGTON—Calling it the most effective tool to date in the War on Terror, the Pentagon announced Monday that it had developed a new chemical weapon called "ennui gas," a nerve agent that overwhelms its victims with sudden philosophical distress over the meaningless tedium of human life and a sinking sense that everything they have ever accomplished ultimately amounts to dust.
A group of test subjects in an Afghan cave contemplate the banality of modern terror.
"When the enemy inhales the gas, he will immediately retreat to his bedroom, lock the door, stare at the ceiling, pick idly at his fingernails, and muse upon the similarities between fingernails and the fragility of life," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. "While he broods over the futility of memory extinguished and the plaintive whisper of existence unhaunted by all but nothingness, that is when we strike."
"Given the enemy's state of mind, he will probably not even care," Gates added.
Recently disclosed Pentagon documents indicate that the gas has a dissemination radius of four to eight miles, and that neither protective masks nor a positive outlook on life can prevent infection. Symptoms include uncontrollable sighing, repeated utterances of the phrase "What's the use?" a confusion and bitterness regarding one's place in the universe, and an increased proclivity to listen to Lou Reed records.
If one's skin comes into contact with the agent, the physical effects are more severe. These include a sudden numbing of the very soul, a feeling that one is being crushed under the weight of the emptiness all around him, and mild eye irritation.
"Seeing life through the watery lens of pain and hopelessness will significantly weaken the enemy," Gates said.
More than half of those exposed to ennui gas will suffer some permanent effects, including the tendency to view their existence not as a rich tapestry woven by memory and experience, but as one transitory life's insignificant brushstroke on the canvas of eternity.
The Pentagon has reportedly been developing the ennui gas for five years, working alongside a team comprising molecular chemist Dr. Sigmund Falstaff, chemical warfare expert Dr. Adrian T. Heinzig, and Dave Eggers. Though they discovered early on that chloroethanol mixed with nitric acid produces an intense disinterest in action, society, and the world in general, it took three years to re-create the indescribable longing condemned to remain unsatisfied. This vague sense of existential angst was finally produced by synthesizing potassium sulfide with phosphorus trichloronate.
According to the Pentagon, lower-grade ennui gas was tested as a crowd-dispersal agent in Islamabad, Pakistan last year. Police reported that within five minutes of releasing the toxin, the rioters abandoned their protest and began penning lamenting odes to various species of bird.
"I am nothing," said Sayid Al Nazer, one of those who was exposed to the gas. "We are nothing."
Though critics allege that the gas violates the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention treaty, the U.S. claims the substance is legal because it is not physically harmful. The military assured Amnesty International and other human-rights groups that ennui gas causes no pain, save for the pain of realizing that one has wasted his life.
As proof, Pentagon representative Byron Christie voluntarily inhaled a small amount of ennui gas at a private press conference last week.
"Because ennui gas is a nonpersistent substance, it is highly probable that its victims will someday feel whole again," said Christie, suddenly furrowing his brow and gripping his temples. "Then again, no one is truly whole, are they? We are all just pieces of flesh and bone masquerading as life, and the world will go on without me, my absence unnoticed, death as futile as life. Pain hath no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower."
Christie then lay down behind the podium and told members of the press to leave, repeatedly stating that there is no point to it all.
Pentagon officials still refuse to comment on rumors that they are close to completing an experimental mutagen that would transform its victims' DNA into that of television star Kelsey Grammer.
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Sunday, April 20, 2008
Link Dump: Sex on the Web
There have been a few interesting posts of late on the topics of sex and sexuality.
First up, an article that appeared in Medical News Today: Study Of Sex, Gender, And Reproduction. Here are the brief take-home points from this interesting study into men's sexual behavior and feelings.
The focus groups involved 50 men divided into three groups based on their age (18-24 years, 25-45 years and 46 and older). Below are some examples of the different experiences reported by the men:Janssen and his colleagues at the Kinsey Institute have been working for more than 10 years on a theoretical model that focuses on sexual excitation and sexual inhibition. They refer to this as the dual control model of sexual response. It holds that separate and relatively independent activating and suppressing sexual systems exist within the central nervous system and that the balance between these two systems determines a person's sexual response in any particular situation. Janssen relates this to the gas and break pedals in a vehicle -- both can influence a car's behavior (you can slow down by letting go of the gas or by pressing the brake) but they do so in different ways.
- Some factors, such as depression or a risk of being caught having sex, were reported by some men as inhibiting sex, while other men found that they can enhance their desire and arousal.
- An erection is not the main cue for men to know they are sexually aroused. Most of the men responded that they can experience erections without feeling aroused or interested, leading researchers to suggest that erections are not good criteria for determining sexual arousal in men.
- Many men found it difficult to distinguish between sexual desire and sexual arousal, a distinction prominent in most sexual response models used by researchers and clinicians.
- The changes in the quality of older men's erections had a direct effect on their sexual encounters, including, for some, a shifting focus to the partner and her sexual enjoyment. Older men also consistently mentioned that as they aged, they became more careful and particular in choosing sexual partners.
- The sexual history of women also mattered to the men -- but differently for different age groups. Sexually experienced women were considered more threatening by younger men, who had concerns about "measuring up," but such women were considered more arousing for older men.
Alrighty then.
Dr. Laura Berman on...Tantric Sex -- I've never heard of Dr. Berman, but she has a big site full of advice on sexuality, intimacy, and relationships.
It takes the average man between five and ten minutes to reach orgasm, with a refractory period that can last from five minutes to several days. The average woman’s time-to-orgasm is a half hour, with little or no recovery period.
We are living in two different time zones.
Fortunately, there are many ways to bridge this gap, without becoming a time traveler or resigning yourself to a life of unshared orgasms.
One of these is the practice of tantric sex. Tantrism is based, in part, on the belief that our sexuality is a well of energy, capable of transforming all who tap into it. By giving in to our most primal sexual desires, and also remaining in control of them, we are able to learn new things about ourselves, increase spiritual awareness, and intensify the sexual experience.
Sounds good (in a Western New Age kind of way), so read the rest.
And speaking of ecstatic sex. . . . Ecstatic Sex - Beginning Stages: Initial Steps For Moving Away From Junk Food Sex from Suite 101.
Believe it or not, the hot and steamy initial sexual encounters promoted throughout society today, are more frequently than not, junk food sex experiences. Though they can be exciting and stimulating, they are nearly always full of unspoken motivations (outlined in the article titled Sex for All the Wrong Reasons) that ultimately lead to a state of dissatisfaction, let down, and even hurt and anger.
The only remedy for this is one people rarely consider before engaging in their first sexual encounter. They need to want an ecstatic sex experience over a junk food one. If they are into ecstatic sex they need to be honest right away about their expectations regarding becoming physical together. Then the initial reasons for engaging in sex together will include:
- Desiring a playful encounter
- Looking for a healing of the heart (or emotions)
- Longing for a healing of the body
- Seeking to validate each other in a conscious way
Each of these motivations need some careful dialogue and consideration between the two individuals before they initiate sexual activity. And, ultimately it makes no difference whether the couple has sex relatively close to meeting each other or waits a long period of time before doing so. Timing is not the issue here, being conscious is.
Each reason above requires a different sexual approach to ensure each partner will feel safe, cherished, loved, and respected afterwards, even if they still don't know each other very well (click on the link for each reason to learn more).
More importantly, from the very beginning hot steamy passions will need to be set aside then to allow for the process of open dialogue regarding what the initial sexual encounter will be about. Since ecstatic sex requires intimacy taking this approach automatically opens the doors to ecstatic sex. If each partner keeps this in mind they will gladly avoid heated passion that zips them right through the junk food sex drive by window for yet another shallow and superficial sexual meal.
Read the rest of this article and learn how to have more meaningful and intimate sexual encounters with the person you love.
Check out these How To Use Your Hand for Your Man’s Pleasure tips and tricks from Patricia Holden. Seems like fun . . . .
And why can't sex be fun? Rather than having sex for all the wrong reasons, we can open up to fun that can lead to greater heights of passion and intimacy. Initiating a Playful Sex Episode: Opening the Doors to Ecstatic Sex offers a look at this idea.
Ecstatic sex can include many aspects such as:
- love,
- intimacy,
- healing,
- play
Within this list play is perhaps the most essential, since it opens the door to the other three. Though it may seem paradoxical (since ultimately play is a spontaneous experience), for an initial playful encounter to work best certain ground rules need to be established.
Make Sure The Agreement is to Have Ecstatic Vs. Junk Food Sex
As this series of articles has clearly outlined, the purpose of the sexual encounter is primarily one of laying the foundation for the ecstatic sex that is to come. Both partners need to agree that they value ecstatic sex over junk food sex. An example of how to initiate a conversation on this can be read at this article.
Understand What Playful Sex Looks and Feels Like
Playful sex is ultimately:
- fun,
- spontaneous,
- childlike,
- lighhearted,
- and joyful.
One of the reasons children actively involve themselves in play is precisely because they experience these qualities so readily inside themselves. For those who are immediately concerned that playful sex doesn't seem very "hot and steamy" they need to remember that play can include everything the imagination can conceive of with a few distinctions.
Read more. Play is spontaneous and open, not goal-directed -- sounds good.
Finally, for millennia, people have thought that foods can be aphrodisiacs; here is one take on that -- Foods of Love: Aphrodisiac Foods that Improve Your Sex Life.
An aphrodisiac food is one that is believed to stimulate the sex drive and improve sexual performance. Aphrodisiac foods have been used as far back as the Greeks and the Romans to increase sexual powers.
An aphrodisiac food can be suggestive, rather than cause a physical sexual reaction. In fact, many believe that some aphrodisiac foods increase and stimulate sexual desire and performance by the suggestive nature of the food and the ritual surrounding the food presentation.
In using food aphrodisiac the effect is not usually instant (rapid effect may be cause by smell or certain chemicals), so in order to obtain the benefit of it is aphrodisiac it is better to include them in daily diet.
Among the foods on the list: chocolate, chili peppers, red wine, and honey.
Please use this information wisely and often.
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Dharma Quote: No Enemy
This was the Ocean of Dharma quote a couple of days ago. I've been been meaning to post it before but hadn't gotten around to it.
Chogyam Trungpa's ideas on warriorship have had a huge influence on my conception of growth and self exploration. In all forms of inner exploration, it is crucial to adopt the mind of the warrior as Rinpoche teaches in Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, one of my favorite dharma books.
NO ENEMY
For the Shambhala warrior, the actual, basic notion of victory is not so much that you have one-upped your enemy and therefore you are victorious. Rather, no enemy exists at all; therefore, there is victory. This is the idea of unconditional warriorship and unconditional victory. In connection with this, the concept of sacredness is that fearlessness is carried into everyday life situations, even brushing your teeth. So fearlessness occurs all over the place, all the time. Fearlessness here is also unconditional. In this way, fearlessness becomes cheerful and very light. There's no need for cowardice or fear at all, or any moments of doubt. Actually what we're talking about is doubtlessness, we could say, rather than fearlessness. There's no doubt. There are no second thoughts. Everything is a complete warrior's world. So here victory is not having to deal with an enemy at all. It is the notion of no enemy. The whole world is a friend.
From OCEAN OF DHARMA: The Everyday Wisdom of Chogyam Trungpa. 365 Teachings on Living Life with Courage and Compassion. Number 119. [Unpublished excerpt from Talk Five of Warriorship in the Three Yanas. August 1978, Rocky Mountain Dharma Center.]
Here is a related quote on being a warrior that I have always liked.
TO EXPERIENCE FEARLESSNESS, IT IS NECESSARY TO EXPERIENCE FEARThe essence of cowardice is to not acknowledge the reality of fear. Fear takes many forms. We are afraid of death, we are afraid that we can't handle the demands of our life, and there is abrupt fear, or panic, when new situations occur. Fear is expressed as restlessness: how we move, how we talk, how we chew our nails, how we sometimes put our hands in our pockets uselessly. We have to realize our fear and reconcile ourselves with fear. However, acknowledging fear is not a cause for depression. Because we possess such fear, we can potentially experience fearlessness.
FROM Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior Book and Card Set.
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Feynman - The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Richard Feynman was one of my favorite people -- I admired his free spirit and intellectual curiosity. This is a good lo0k at the man and his life.
Pieces of this film have been posted in various places, including here -- but this is the whole thing in one embed. Enjoy!
via videosift.com
Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American physicist known for expanding the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and particle theory. For his work on quantum electrodynamics, Feynman was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, together with Julian Schwinger and Shin-Ichiro Tomonaga; he developed a widely-used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams.
He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a member of the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. In addition to his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with pioneering the field of quantum computing,[2] and introducing the concept of nanotechnology (creation of devices at the molecular scale).[3] He held the Richard Chace Tolman professorship in theoretical physics at Caltech.
Feynman was a keen popularizer of physics in both his books and lectures, notably a 1959 talk on top-down nanotechnology called There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, and The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman is also known for his semi-autobiographical books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, and through books about him, such as Tuva or Bust! He was also known as a prankster, juggler, a proud amateur painter, and a bongo player. Richard Feynman was regarded as an eccentric and a free spirit. He liked to pursue multiple seemingly independent paths, such as biology, art, percussion, Maya hieroglyphs, and lock picking.
Richard Feynman's interest in biology was more than casual. He was a friend of Esther Lederberg, the geneticist and microbiologist who developed replica plating and discovered bacteriophage lambda (though often others received credit for her work). It is not surprising that both these engaging people should be friends, as they also shared other scientists as friends. These included physicists in nuclear research who for moral reasons switched to genetics (such as Leo Szilard, Guido Pontecorvo, Aaron Novick, and Carl Sagan). [4]
Freeman Dyson once wrote that Feynman was "half-genius, half-buffoon", but later revised this to "all-genius, all-buffoon".[5] During his lifetime and after his death, Feynman became one of the most publicly known scientists in the world.
Pieces of this film have been posted in various places, including here -- but this is the whole thing in one embed. Enjoy!
via videosift.com
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