sitting monkey

Mindsight

David — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:00:57 +0000

Author Daniel Siegel talks about education and self-reflexive awareness training in school, at a ted talk three months ago.

Generation distraction

David — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:32:10 +0000

my next blog post should be live on onecity later today, about a recent study released showing greatly increased media usage by kids under-18 in America.

A year to live

David — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:11:34 +0000

my plan for 2010 is to visualize that i’m dying, and that i have only one year left to live. this is a contemplative exercise, and an opportunity for me to work with fear more directly.

i may journal on this blog from time to time about it.

i’m not really dying. don’t worry. this is just an exercise, which i described first here:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/onecity/2010/01/a-year-to-live.html

i’ll take care of myself in this process, and only engage with it insofar as it feels like a spiritual practice and growth process. if you’d like to be involved in this with me though please let me know. i’m inviting you to involve yourself if you’d like; if you think it would be valuable to you too. we could make it a group practice and compare notes, or i can just tell you more about how it unfolds.

happy new year

David — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:11:22 +0000

i’m still writing semi-regularly for one city. i posted something for new years here:

Another cycle begins

and some earlier posts:

Holiday spirit and pie

Every Buddhist household needs one

Medical Marijuana and Tantra

Enlightenment without retreat?

Letterman. Mitterand. What about your guru?

Finding a job, sitting in the woods

Envisioning a Dzong

Buddhism and Battlestar

hey, let’s party

David — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:49:54 +0000

this lousy world

David — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:41:32 +0000

from an Omega Institute program. She’s referring to a well quoted Shantideva passage, to cover your feet in leather instead of covering the whole world in leather. She has such a charming way of saying things.

would you sleep with your guru?

David — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:51:30 +0000

i just posted a short note about sex and dharma on the Interdependence Project and BeliefNet’s OneCity blog.

yes, this means i’m contributing to rupert murdoch’s empire…

Iaido

David — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:31:36 +0000

Iaido is the way of drawing the sword, in the Japanese contemplative warrior tradition.

The Asian Art Museum just posted a youtube video explaining and demonstrating the art form. Really beautiful short description.

UPDATED: with corrected Romaji. Thanks!

the art of meditation

David — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:08:36 +0000

as taught briefly by alan watts

aggression

David — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:37:39 +0000

From: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21 August 2009

Misperceptions about the Acceptability and Attractiveness of Aggression

by Joseph Vandello, Sean Ransom, Vanessa Hettinger, and Kevin Askew University of South Florida and Tulane University Medical Center

Abstract:
Norms about aggression may be perpetuated in part by the belief that aggression is more expected or socially desirable than it really is. This paper explores the accuracy of people’s beliefs about the acceptability of aggression by examining men’s perceptions of descriptive (what their peers do) and injunctive norms (what their peers approve of or desire). Study 1 found that men (but not women) overestimated the aggressiveness of their peers. Study 2 demonstrated that men (but not women) overestimated peer approval of aggression and disapproval when an affront was not responded to aggressively. Study 3 found that men overestimate how attractive aggression is to women. Study 4 found that greater perceived discrepancies in aggression between self and peers was related to lower self-esteem, a weaker gender identification, and greater feelings of social marginalization, suggesting that men’s misperceptions about aggression norms have negative consequences for self-perceptions.