Another book I absolutely must read but don’t have time: Michael S. A. Graziano’s Consciousness and the Social Brain (2013, Oxford Univ. Press) I scanned the summary page that encapsulates his theory of consciousness: I will reproduce the text here: SPECULATIVE EVOLUTIONARY TIMELINE OF CONSCIOUSNESS The theory at a glance: from selective signal enhancement to consciousness. About… Read More Consciousness and the Social Brain
Dennis Banks, co-founder of the American Indian Movement, has also taken part in the protests against the Dakota pipeline. Banks also was part of the 1973 Wounded Knee standoff: DENNIS BANKS: What’s happening here is equally as important, because of the stand that you’re ready to make. When they threaten the environment, they’re threatening you. We are… Read More Dennis Banks: We Are the Environment
In North Dakota, more than a thousand indigenous activists from different tribes have converged at the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp, where protesters are blocking construction of the proposed $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. Protesters say the pipeline would threaten to contaminate the Missouri River, which provides water not only for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe,… Read More LaDuke: Enbridge Has No Right to Destroy Our Future
Lakota riders from the Rosebud, Standing Rock and Lower Brule Reservations stood against a police line in a peaceful demonstration this month as part of a traditional ceremony to introduce horses. Credit Daniella Zalcman By Jack Healy / NYTimes NEAR CANNON BALL, N.D. — Horseback riders, their faces streaked in yellow and black paint, led the procession… Read More Occupying the Prairie: Tensions Rise as Tribes Move to Block a Pipeline
from Warrior Publications Thousands join protest camp as supporters are holding a rally in Washington D.C. on Wednesday outside of Army Corps hearing. Growing in number and spirit, the Standing Rock Sioux protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline is swiftly gaining strength ahead of a federal hearing on the controversial project. Support has spread across the country, and thousands have descended on… Read More Gov Orders Police to Cut Water Supply to Native Americans as Pipeline Protesters Skyrocket
Richard Rohr is a Franciscan Monk who teaches the Roman Catholic mystical tradition from a non-dualist perspective, incorporating many Buddhist and eastern ideas and practices. He’s one of the few Catholic teachers I draw from. I am not a deist, so I apply references to “God” to “spiritual practice.” Tuesday, August 23, 2016 How do we live the contradictions? Live them—not just endure… Read More Paradox: Mystery Is Endless Knowability
I finally hit on what it is that I’ve been seeking in my Buddhist practice that is so missing in the usual sanghas of Buddhism-as-religion: avant-garde Buddhism. I have called it by many names: post-buddhism, x-post-non Buddhism. But “avant-garde’ finally hit the nail on the head. My greatest inspirations in the dharma have been avant-garde artists… Read More Avant-Garde Buddhism
