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Quantum state may be a real thing. At the very heart of quantum mechanics lies a monster waiting to consume unwary minds. This monster goes by the name The Nature of Reality™. The greatest of physicists have taken one look into its mouth, saw the size of its teeth, and were consumed. Niels Bohr denied the existence of the monster after he nonchalantly (and very quietly) exited the monster's lair muttering "shut up and calculate.

" Einstein caught a glimpse of the teeth and fainted. He was reportedly rescued by Erwin Schrödinger at great personal risk, but neither really recovered from their encounter with the beast. The upshot is that we had a group of physicists and philosophers who didn't believe that quantum mechanics represents reality but that it was all we could see of some deeper, more fundamental theory. To one extent or another, these two groups are still around and still generate a fair amount of heat when they are in proximity to each other. This has left us with more refined arguments to settle. Who You Really Are. Okay, this post is the last thrust in our trip down the proverbial rabbit-hole, which so far has looked at what the ego is, and how the late Douglas Harding can help us answer that big, big question — who are you, really?

This is part one of a two-part post. I had no idea what I was getting into. Back in October, I arrived at an island retreat called Hollyhock, to take what I thought was a five-day course on Buddhism. I didn’t know we would spend those days in uninterrupted mindfulness, without speaking, and that we’d spend about six to eight hours a day in formal meditation. After the initial welcome at the main hall, our teacher led my group up the path to our meditation hut in the forest.

On the way there, he stopped us and told us to look up. “Please be aware,” he said, as we all stared silently, “that you are seeing.” He repeated himself. His comment echoed again in my head a moment later, and I realized what he meant. Sitting lessons A day later I would. And thoughts! 40 Belief-Shaking Remarks From a Ruthless Nonconformist.

If there’s one thing Friedrich Nietzsche did well, it’s obliterate feel-good beliefs people have about themselves. He has been criticized for being a misanthrope, a subvert, a cynic and a pessimist, but I think these assessments are off the mark. I believe he only wanted human beings to be more honest with themselves. He did have a remarkable gift for aphorism — he once declared, “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”

A hundred years after his death, Nietzsche retains his disturbing talent for turning a person’s worldview upside-down with one jarring remark. Even today his words remain controversial. They hit nerves. Here are 40 unsympathetic statements from the man himself. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. More of Nietzsche’s genius here. Have a lot on your mind? Should We Have Compassion for Killers? Last week, convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was released from prison by the Scottish government, on “compassionate grounds.” He is dying of cancer and has less than three months to live. Initial reactions were strong, but deeply divided. Here are just some of the millions of opinions that flew back and forth on Twitter, in the hours that followed: I hope his plane falls from the sky like the 283 people 20 years ago. ~ Tony Callaghan Lockerbie ….

I hope everyone in SCOTLAND gets cancer. ~ John Wright Lots of anger about Lockerbie bomber release. Why did they release that bloodthirsty killer MEGRAHI? So Megrahi is released. Oh Scotland, may I remind you that Muslims have no concept of compassion and mercy. Mind is changed on Megrahi, [Scottish Justice secretary] MacAskill made good points…. Totally and utterly shocking that #megrahi – mass murderer – is now FREE!!

“Where’s the justice” is a good question. I contend that there is none to be found here. Killing Megrahi? How to Make Mindfulness a Habit With Only a Tiny Commitment. When you sit back and reminisce about your life, it’s almost a given that the most enjoyable and memorable moments are the ones in which you were completely present. Do you look back with fondness all the times you spent thinking about work while you drove home, or pondered dinner while you wheeled down the frozen aisle? Unfortunately most of life passes that way for most of us. We’re in one place doing one thing, thinking of things we aren’t doing and places we aren’t at. The bottom line of almost all self-help, spiritual, or religious literature is that our ability to be happy is determined by our ability to stay in the present moment.

The Buddhists, the Toltecs, the Bible, Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Emerson, Thoreau — anyone at all who is known for having found a path to consistent, recurring joy — cites staying present as the essential teaching. Only when we’re present do we see beauty, enjoy gratitude, and experience happiness. We all know this already. Baby steps seem to be in order. How to Not Cry Over Spilled Milk. Recently I knocked from my fridgetop an adorable little bottle of Spanish balsamic vinegar my mom brought from Barcelona. I was feeling especially grounded that day and somehow, before it even struck the floor, I was over it. On a different day I might have sworn and fretted about it, cursed myself as I picked up its pieces, felt bad about wrecking a thoughtful gift from my mom, and pondered my chronic failure to keep my belongings organized and in good condition.

One thought may have led to another until I decided I was in too bad a mood to write than night, watched nature shows and ate Ben & Jerry’s, and went to bed disappointed with myself. Sour moods are like that — infectious and self-sustaining — and they’re born in the moments when we feel resigned, disappointed or incompetent. Normally, when something breaks like that, there’s a rather strong reaction. It doesn’t feel good. Loss is an emotion all of its own. But obviously you got over them at some point. So how do we skip it? The Most Important Thing I Ever Learned. If you read Raptitude you’ll see me talk a lot about moments.

By the end of this post you’ll understand why I use that word so much. I grew up thinking the word moment referred to specific instants in time, usually where some significant event occurred. There were historic moments, life-changing moments, poignant moments, tense moments, touching moments, Kodak moments. They were events to be remembered, reminisced about, or photographed. Whatever they were, they held you captive. Everything else seemed to drop away, and you just watched. They seemed to be isolated from the normal, linear course of time. As for the rest of life, it just seemed to be the normal, steady current of ‘stuff.’ When I was twenty, desperately leafing through some forgotten self-help book, I came across a peculiar line. Life unfolds only in moments. Nobody has ever experienced anything that wasn’t a moment in action. Well, not really. I remember parts of my fifth birthday, I think. Try this: The Decapitation of Douglas Harding.

Douglas Harding was a modern-day English philosopher who made a remarkable discovery about human nature, and developed a simple and ingenious method for guiding others to see it for themselves. This post is the third post in a series about his method. [Post one] [Post two] Though an architect by trade, Douglas Harding was strongly drawn to philosophy, and his primary interest was answering the simple question of who he really was. Was he a really only a six-foot bag of meat, animated by some mysterious biological energy? Or was he what the religious and spiritual masters said he was: pure, empty consciousness, undivided from the rest of the universe? He wasn’t about to take anyone’s word for it. While thinking about the principle of relativity, he realized that his identity depended on his distance from the observer.

He recognized that it worked the other way too. It was also undeniable that he needed all of those layers to survive. A Self-Portrait Like No Other Roger Fry's self-portrait. How I Found the Secret to Happiness While Totally Naked. Hidden somewhere in a pile of my own bad prose and abandoned bucket lists, in a tattered grocery bag in my storage room, lies the secret to happiness and peace. It’s scrawled on a fifty-cent note of Canadian Tire Money, in dark purple Jiffy marker. Just four potent words, but they triggered a flood of insights into my life, and started me on the long and winding road to happiness. The night I wrote those words down, I was in trouble. I was marching down a career path that made me nauseous to think about, I had no friends nearby, no passions, no ambitions, no confidence. I had lost, by that time, any real belief in a bright future. The optimism I’d carried so easily through grade school was a distant memory, by then as alien as photos from someone else’s life.

I was also totally naked. When you’re depressed you don’t want to leave the shower. One night, when I didn’t even need to, I took a shower. I had a routine for this. Defeated, I stood on the mat and let the cold air flood over me.