I’ve had several comments, both for and against Freud’s theory.

Adam feels he’s gained a great deal from studying Freud:

I will forever be grateful to Freud for the insight that he gave me, that I was unable to find no where else. Through reading ‘Two Short Accounts of Psychoanalysis’ I was able to understand and resolve and neurotic fear that had baffled and confused me throughout most of my life.

Meanwhile, L.Klein is critical:

Freud invented a system, with no foundation, that allows for confabulation all kinds of needs, wants and desires. What I find most pernicious are the assertions that accidents, random events, and other unanticipated outcomes are somehow desired. What a fruitful mechanism for blame and false responsibility!

And Beth uses one of Freud’s commonly accepted tenets to explain behavior:

Not to sound like Freud, but it seems to me that Charles Swann was projecting his desires and feelings onto Odette. He made her into the woman he dreamed of instead of seeing her for who she really was. Good old transference…

Google Wave may be in invite-only preview and still lack important features, but early adopters ARE using it--and we want to hear about it. Tell us about how you use Wave on a day-to-day basis, and your use case just might get included in The Complete Guide to Google Wave, the first book about Wave.

My co-author Adam and I are updating the book to replace theoretical, potential uses for Wave with real-world case studies of actual humans putting Google Wave to good use. We need your help. If you're waving regularly, please tell us about it, and we may include your story in the book.

there's a trend today of searching for hidden messages in ancient texts and works of art, and there are in fact a lot of then from the european medieval period, what's not really a surprise, since an unconventional idea could make you the star of the burning-man festival of the dark ages (as poor Giordano Bruno felt literally in the flesh).

apologies if that is not news for most of you, but here is a very interesting Michelangelo hidden tip, from his most famous Sistine Chapel panel, depicting Adam and the mighty FSM...

more information at Wikipedia, but the humor zine Cracked says it best:

While some might dismiss this as a coincidence, experts suggest that it would be harder to explain that this was not Michelangelo's intention. Even complex components within the brain, such as the cerebellum, optic chiasm and pituitary gland can all be found in the picture. As for that sassy green sash running down the pons/spinal column/dude-holding-God-up, it follows the path of the vertebral artery perfectly.

On the last Asian Meter update, Adam asked about the dynamics that underlie the small number of bylines that The Big Three set aside to Asian writers.

So, why do you think that is? Is it just blatant racism, or are there other factors? How many Asian writers have submitted material/applied for positions at The Big Three? How do they source their writers and material?

I responded separately that I believe this pattern to be a case of institutional racism, rather than blatant racism (such as an informal policy or a consciously implemented prejudice). This question is explored in more detail on an old post at Dharma Folk.

The second part of the question speaks to the submission processwe know the output, but what about the input? This question has been asked several times before and is worth revisiting. Below Ive provided a similar comment that Ashin Sopaka left a long while ago.

[Image of the Banff Springs Hotel by Steph & Adam.]

Neuro Talk: Tap In, The Experts Weigh In

Short (1 to 2 min. each) interview clips in modules on major topics including brain scans, religion, neurolaw, cosmetic psychopharmacology, meditation, coma, and more from attendees at a neuroethics conference in Banff, Alberta. Non-resizable and unsharable custom video player, but great content.

 I'm gonna steal a play from my friend Adam's blog, Home Brew Dharma, as I thought it would be cool to see what people searched for to find this blog. So, here are the last 5 days of search word(s) used in search engines, and the number beside it is the number of times that search was used.. I'm going bold in red the really weird ones and add a comment or two.

"flower sermon" dharma talk
"the body in the body?,budhism
anal fatties (What the fuck does this mean?)
anal yoga
asian chipmunk
bams tattoos
belly button tattoo
bill harris buddhism
blogger buddhism
boeddha tattoo
brit hume    2
brit hume against buddhist
brit hume buddhism  42
brit hume buddhist
buddha encouragement
buddha tattoo    4
buddha tattoo motive    2
buddhism
buddhism and swear words  (Well, I guess I can't argue with this one.)

It is an old saying -
"They blame you for being silent,
They blame you when you talk too much
And when you talk too little."
Whatever you do, they blame you.
The world always finds
A way to praise and a way to blame.
It always has and it always will.

~Buddha

 (Sorry for the long load times....no, I'm not really sorry, but it sounded good right?)

Seeing the discussion ongoing recently about Buddhism and Christianity, I thought I would re-post this piece I wrote about a year ago.

Today, I had a nice conversation with a good friend of mine, who happens to be a fairly conservative 'born again' Christian. He is a good man, kind, intelligent and loves to talk philosophy and religion with me at lunch some days. Today, the topic was literalism, to which his view point was the Christian bible needs to taken literal if the true word of God is to be known. I argued that many of the biblical stories, much like many Buddhist stories are metaphors for deeper meanings and messages. Metaphors, sometimes, are an easier way to convey a point rather than speaking in a direct manner.

Seeing the discussion ongoing recently about Buddhism and Christianity, I thought I would re-post this piece I wrote about a year ago.

Today, I had a nice conversation with a good friend of mine, who happens to be a fairly conservative 'born again' Christian. He is a good man, kind, intelligent and loves to talk philosophy and religion with me at lunch some days. Today, the topic was literalism, to which his view point was the Christian bible needs to taken literal if the true word of God is to be known. I argued that many of the biblical stories, much like many Buddhist stories are metaphors for deeper meanings and messages. Metaphors, sometimes, are an easier way to convey a point rather than speaking in a direct manner.