1. Precision Change - A great personal development podcast + blog, that I think shines as a beacon of personal development sanity.
2. Susan Piver - A heartfelt writer and teacher whose posts I really enjoy.
3. Good Experience - A blog on “good experience” by the author of Bit Literacy, Mark Hurst.
4. The New Man - A great men’s issues podcast produced by my hommie Casey Capshaw
5. Speaking of Faith - One of the absolute best podcasts/audio shows out there today. They focus on, “religion, meaning, ethics, and ideas.”
6. TWiT - Why I spend nearly 2 hours a week listening to a bunch of tech geeks is beyond me :::wink, wink::: but it’s something about Leo Laporte’s voice.
7. Accelerating Intelligence News - Though not exactly a blog, this aggregated feed of top news related to the accelerating developments in science and technology is phenomenal.

Note to nominees/awardees: When you read this post, here is what you are invited to do:

1. Add the logo of the award to your blog
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

Thanks and keep on blogging brilliant stuff!

There’s no way to grasp what is always happening, because as soon as you do you’re unable to open your hand fast enough to receive the next gift of god. So, how to grasp something with your hands always open, this is the paradox of prayer. - Father Thomas Keating

An amazing video where Father Thomas Keating explains the dynamic between the universal and personal dimensions of reality…

Props to the Global Oneness Project for the video.

1. Start-up companies are hard work, rarely succeed, and are almost always a labor of love (or of intense greed). Fortunately ours fell on the side of the former.
2. Though it’s not the mere purpose of a start-up, on of the by-products of participating in one is that you’ll learn way more about operating a business then you could ever learn in business school or by working for someone else. The start-up environment demands that you familiarize yourself with pretty much every aspect of the business, and as a result you will know way more then you want to about how to start, fund, and run a business.
3. Conscious business practices, and values motivated from worldcentric and above stages of human development are absolutely critical in the business world. They may not always be successful, but we have an obligation as conscious entrepreneurs to make them so, if we can.
4. The companies values should be aligned at the highest levels of the organization. Without that shared understanding from investors, the decision makers, and ideally throughout the organization it will be nearly impossible to cohere and act quickly enough to respond to market conditions.

In any case, I learned a great deal with helping start Falling Fruit, and was extremely disappointed that we didn’t succeed. It will probably take a long time to integrate all of the different learnings, and deal with the pain of something failing that I cared so deeply about, but in the end I have a feeling that will have been well worth it.

On another note, Buddhist Geeks will continue on, but in a new form. Ryan and I owned BGeeks, outside of Falling Fruit, and so when FF went down, BGeeks did not go with it! It’s new home is on the Personal Life Media network. The same great dialogues we’ve been having on BGeeks for the past year and a half will continue over there, and we are so thrilled to be able to keep doing it.

As for myself, I’m heading on a much-needed meditation retreat next week. I’m spending 9-days at the Insight Meditation Society w/ my partner Emily, sitting with Jack Kornfield & Co. and then walking through the woods over to the long-term retreat facility, The Forest Refuge, to spend another 2 weeks deepening in the practice.

And if you have any questions/comments about Falling Fruit or Buddhist Geeks, shoot me an e-mail at: vince [at] buddhistgeeks [dot] com

I found this video on the IEET Cyborg Buddha Project, which is run by James Hughes, Mike LaTorra, and George Dvorsky. This is an awesome site, with some fantastic folks who are running it. Here is a little info about the project in case you’re interested:

The three of us are launching the IEET Cyborg Buddha Project to combine our efforts and promote discussion of the impact that neuroscience and emerging neurotechnologies will have on happiness, spirituality, cognitive liberty, moral behavior and the exploration of meditational and ecstatic states of mind.

I’m drooling…

Daniel Ingram’s step-son, Ian Blakely was kind enough to create a sweet logo for the Dharma Overground community. If you dig he’s work you might send him a message, as he has just started doing a little freelance work. You can contact him at sinikdesign [at] yahoo [dot] com. Thanks Ian!

As someone with a strong Buddhist background as well as a degree in neuroscience, I find it challenging when yogis see science as simply a means to ‘validate’ existing belief systems and practices. Scientific inquiry has the potential to shed light on both positive AND negative (deluded, harmful, useless) aspects of spiritual practice.

Obviously scientists can be arrogant about their approach to ‘truth’, but so can contemplatives. I find that, having been deeply immersed in both worlds, each has the ability to inform the other in ways that are potentially profound but also often uncomfortable.

While Dr. Wallace speaks to this mutually-beneficial relationship between contemplative practice and science, the overall flavor of the interview is one of ‘What can Buddhism do for science?’. I would really love to hear someone ask the counter-question; ‘What can science do for Buddhism’ (beyond providing cultural validation). Also, it would be good to hear from both scientists and yogis on *each* of these questions - or even better, those rare folks with a foot in both realms.

Here was my response to their great response, which I thought would make sense to re-post here:

I think your point is valid, and the questions you bring up are good. As a minor point of contention, I would say our questions weren’t so much geared toward asking what can Buddhism do for science, but rather what can a more clear scientific understanding of the implications of contemplative practice (as are taught in the Buddhist tradition) do for society. At least this was more of what I had in mind when I wrote the questions.

Also, you are quite right that some of the rigor, and unique approach, of the scientific method could help shine light on some of the belief systems, and practices, that are found in the Buddhist tradition (and vice versa of course). Indeed Alan discusses this at length in his writing.

One thing that comes to mind was an article I red recently by Stephen LaBerge entitled, “Lucid Dreaming and the Yoga of the Dream State” where he shows that certain beliefs from the Tibetan dream yoga tradition (ex. men should sleep on their right sides, and women on their left to induce lucidity) end up being partially right and partially wrong. His research found that for both men and women lying on the right side does help induce lucidity more often (due to some unique changes that happen physiologically by lying on the right side) but that there is no increase for women (or men) by lying on the left side. Turns out, when it’s put to the test, that part of that was just not true. My sense is that by subjecting many of these techniques and rationals for doing things a certain way, science will be able to verify/validate, and debunk many of the claims. They will also, as you hinted to in your comment, be able to discover even better ways of doing things. Listen to our earlier conversation with Neuroscientist Daniel Rizzuto, Neuroscience and The Enlightenment Machine for an example of one such thought-experiment. It’s very exciting indeed!

Reframe America seeks to reframe public discourse through the generation of innovative, broadly appealing, socially and environmentally responsible, perspectives on subjects of national concern. By emphasizing intriguing and refreshing perspectives on the same old issues and by changing the terms of debate, we hope to reframe cultural and political discourse and the meaning of America.

I first heard about Theo several years ago, when my boss at the time Ken Wilber remarked at how brilliant one of his comments was on the old Integral Naked forums. I very rarely heard these kind of compliments from Ken, who is himself one of the most brilliant minds I’d ever met. Once I got to know Theo, it became obvious why his comment stood out. He is one of the most voracious readers and learners I’ve ever met. How somebody can read that much, and from such a variety of different fields of knowledge, I will probably never know. Not only that but the guy is a very solid writer as well as an engaged meditator, having spent many years practicing and reflecting on the importance of spiritual development, and his writing certainly reflects that. So it is with great excitement that I learned he was going to begin blogging, and now that he has started it looks like he’s going to be pretty prolific.

Here’s an excerpt from one of his first posts, Evolution in the Spirit of Democracy, that should give you some feel for his writing:

Democracy ultimately confronts us with the construction and dissolution of our dreams. Through the democratic process, we stand at the center of possibility emerging. We choose an end. Paint space with the color of our dreams. Give shape to vision. Create fields of consciousness. Then animate creation through a simple show of hands. But after all is said and done, the ends are never certain when they are always subject to a vote. Worlds are built and destroyed in the field of democratic dreams. To watch this play with equanimity, as an actor in the grand drama of human evolution, is both beautiful and awe inspiring. This is the vantage of the Bodhisattva politician and the master statesman. From this vista, in the fray of political battle but not of it, the creation and destruction of the world is witnessed. To stand here is to be one with what Hegel referred to as the spirit of history, ever reaching outward in multiplying spirals of awareness. Consciousness awake to its own evolution. A hall of mirrors animating itself. This too is the Philosopher’s Dream.

The interview is actually quite good, and it provides a lot of clarity into Falling Fruit’s mission and vision, and why we are trying to be part of the “conscious business” movement. A question and answer from the interview on the relationship between Buddhism and Business:

You mentioned another show at Falling Fruit called Buddhist Geeks, and I know you practice Vipassana meditation. Please tell us more about Buddhism and business. Do you think that it’s possible to reconcile a Buddhist philosophy with a mentality of career success and wealth-building?

I do practice Vipassana, and the teacher in my tradition, S.N. Goenka, was a businessman before becoming a Vipassana teacher. He too wrestled with the greed and corruption in the business world, and anyone who takes Buddhist teachings seriously will have to come to their own integration.

Personally, I don’t see any inherent contradiction between career success and insight into the fundamental nature of life, if you understand the purpose of business, which I believe is to serve human needs. Now keeping that in mind, we all have a need for food, and if you habitually overeat, then you are not truly meeting your needs for nourishment and health. A certain amount of wealth will feed your own needs — happiness studies in the US have shown that after about $36,000 in income, a person is no more happy if they make more money. However, it’s hard to fund a new venture without a stockpile of extra cash! Falling Fruit was started in large part because two of our friends had access to trust funds, which helped kick off the project. The purpose of large amounts of accumulated wealth is not to overstuff yourself with luxury, but to feed new things — new businesses, new projects, and yes, to feed people too, via philanthropy and the creation of new jobs!

Plus the definition of career success seems to be changing. A lot of young people are being raised by parents who have accumulated all they ever wanted and yet are obviously unfulfilled. We don’t want to go through their suffering, so we are looking to have our cake and eat it too, to make a good living AND to live out our passions AND have 2 months off a year to meditate and do personal development AND to serve the world in the highest ways we can possibly imagine. Nothing else feels like “success” anymore.

Rock on Duff!

Diana is one of the younger insight teachers, a Gen Xer all the way, and she shares some very interesting perspectives from that vantage point during this discussion. Check them out here:

1. What Happens to the Dharma when the Boomers Die Out?
2. Marketing Mindfulness to the Youth