The Evolution of Sport

2,200 years ago, we humans gathered for "competitions" between gladiators.

Today, we gather for baseball and football.

No doubt, an improvement (notice the absence of metal swords and tigers).

Perhaps in another 2,200 years, we will express our violent energies this way:

Some of us have already begun to take this approach...

Discover Dynamic Meditation

Enjoy the World Series!

Love.

A Gift from Existence

There is a dull weariness.
A dim, faraway, somewhat weak voice
(call him The Employer)
implores me to write.

Write what?

Briefly, an angry fire flashes in my eyes.

Within the donut-shaped torpidity
surrounding my midsection
a heat arises;
makes its way to the surface,
melting the lethargy.

A few trips to the thesaurus
bring life to my sleepy synapses.

He Who Needs Approval starts yapping:

"Is it ready to post?  You see, forcing yourself
to work works!  Maybe I'm alright after all..."

He recedes.  A calm descends.

Outside, a motor idles,
adding a mechanical soundtrack
to the morning-sun-lit greenery
which surrounds me.
A bird's chirp can barely be heard
amidst the auto-growling.

Now The Judge has his say:

"This is boring.  You did your first
awareness poem in 1990.  No one
will care to read this drivel."

The Facilitator believes him.

And yet The Employer has me on deadline.

To post or not to post?

The Facilitator must make the call:
the buck stops here.

A neighbor's voice wafts through
the aural field.

The Literary Encourager chimes in:
"The play Our Town was as folksy
and bucolic as this morning's writing...."

A pause, as a cloud of awareness
fills the body-mind-Being.

---------------------

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A gift from Existence.  Ah, This.

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As Coleman Barks put it, in the book "Unseen Rain:"

"When the approaching presence calls out,
[Rumi] says, the first word spoken will coincide exactly
with the last word of his last poem.  For Rumi,
poetry is what he does in the meantime,
a song-and-dance until the greater reality he loves arrives: 
a melting tear-gift eye-piece to look through,
while it and the scene and the eye dissolve."

Three minutes of real...

Space.  The final frontier.

Tick.  Tick.

Little tick.  Sway.

Finger boop.

Chuckle.

I wonder if this is for public view?

I almost missed that thought.

Hmm....

Finger boop.

Again.

Again.

There's my roomie...

Looking mean.

Looking at the electricity meter...

Putting silver tape on it.

Well, not that mean.

Finger boop.

What does....snip.

Thumb boop.

Finger boop.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Who says I'm not aware?

Again.

Shoulder muscle pinch.

Finger boop.

There's my other roomie.

"Yeah," he says, in a kind voice.

Finger boop.

Publish.  NOW!

Yes sir!

4% of the world's pop. owns 33% of the cars

I hate to be a downer, but I am compelled to bring up another inconvenient truth.

In the interest of identifying one of the root causes of "U.S. - Other" hostilities, I turn to the subject of resource distribution and usage.  A statistic:

* Americans, while making up only four percent of the world's population, operated one third of its automobiles. [1]

Ignoring the ideological and religious disagreements which lead to conflict, we can make a simple economic statement:

If there were 100 people in a village made up of citizens from all over the world, and there were 100 cars, let's suppose four (4) of the people (the only Americans in town) owned 33 of the autos.  And they didn't like to share them.  That would mean the other 96 people would have to compete for the ownership and usage of 67 cars. 

I can only speak for myself but I imagine, if I were a non-American villager, I would be a bit peeved with the situation.

(Why am I 'supposing' in this story?  This is actually how it is...)

Picture this scene:  I am walking home from the grocery store, carrying hemp bags heavy with ramen noodles, cans of refried beans, and bags of rice, arms tiring, body soaking wet from the near-constant rain (our hypothetical village is in the Northwest of the U.S.A.), and feeling a little sorry for myself.  I pass one of the four mansions in town:  a humungous colonial with 18 bedrooms and two four-car garages, with their massive doors open.  There are three guys polishing three of the seven parked cars, while the eighth car is backing out, ready to set off for destinations unknown. 

I continue moving, passing old ladies, unemployed 20-somethings, and men and women from all walks of life.  I also see others driving their autos.

I come upon a modest house with a car parked in front, a 'for-sale' sign in the window.  For this middle class auto owner, it became a choice between doctors' bills and driving to and from work.  There are four or five people circling the vehicle, like sharks circling a bloody carcass. 

One middle classer's fortunes rise a bit, so she buys a car.  Another's fortunes sink, so he sells.  The 96 scurry around for economic crumbs, like a flock of pigeons running after not-nearly-enough crusts of stale bread. 

Across the street, seated in his plush leather chair in an office adjoining his nine-car garage, mansion-owner number two (of four) phones his stock broker to see how his multi-million dollar portfolio is doing.

And people wonder why demonstrators are occupying Wall Street...

'Faction' for thought...

[1] http://articles.cnn.com/1999-10-12/us/9910_12_population.cosumption_1_global-population-worlds-scientists?_s=PM:US

Diamond Poem

Unbounded sky. Vast

beyond words. Sunlight, darkness

your blessed children.

Jesus, Buddha, the Hasid

Masters spoke to the human family of these spaces.

Our family. The world’s peoples.

Connections are created: by blood and marriage, love

and fate, spirit and soul. The persons intermix, Stu, Mary, Sally,

grands and great-grands, siblings, offspring, old ones and youngsters.

Within this web resides Lee. One woman among millions whose passion

for life expresses through theater, sculpture, a grounded caring for those around

her: dropping everything for a loved one in need. Lee racing to the

emergency room, steady, supportive, loving; re-

turning home tired, ready to receive nourishment. Now, her passion

renewed, off into the fray, her heart leading the way.

The Masters know heartfulness

dotted across the earth by us will re-create the

godliness of which they spoke.

A godliness so

vast that to speak of it is

to miss it. No sky.

Off-Planet Species, Part I of IV

There is an interesting, somewhat disarming video on YouTube which reproduces a series of mainstream media reports of recent mass UFO sightings.

Video of Mainstream Media Reports of UFO Sightings

The information contained in the video is not news to Dr. Steven Greer and the Disclosure Project.  They have been compiling eyewitness testimony from citizens, and government and military personnel for years.

Disclosure Project Website

I think it is time to re-frame the issue of "first contact."  I think it is very simple to equate our first meeting with an alien (or off-planet) race to first meetings which have been occurring for centuries "on-planet."

Consider:  1,200 years ago it was impossible to cross the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.   Red people (Native Americans), white people (Europeans), and yellow people (Japanese) lived among themselves, each with their own distinctive facial features, skin color, eating patterns, clothing design choices, physiques, languages, and other cultural attributes. 

It is certainly the case that when Europeans first came into contact with Native Americans, there was the sense that the other group was "alien" to them.  To cut to the chase, I would argue that, after dealing with the surface attributes, the fundamental issues were these (from the point of view of the Europeans):  1) are the Native Americans stronger than us or weaker than us?, 2) will we be building a friendly relationship or an adversarial relationship?, 3) do the Native Americans have something we want or need?, and 4) do we have something the Native Americans want or need?

There have been enough meetings of cultures on planet earth for us to get, as a species, that the superficial stuff (skin color, tuning of musical instruments, etc) is merely window dressing.  To be certain, there are plenty of ways in which we can spend our time exploring and celebrating our differences. 

But the core issues are the most imperative:  friend or foe?  Potential dominator or dominated?  Trade potential?

I would argue that there is very little difference between the distance of an ocean separating two cultures, and the distance of a galaxy.  Life is life.  Intelligence is intelligence. There is not much difference between a red skin / white skin meeting, and a slimy skin / white skin meeting; or a slanted eye / oval eye meeting and a big, bald, green head / average-sized, hair-covered white head meeting.

** End of Part I **

On rag-dolls and zombies...

 "Please: No violent video games."

A simple request of a sixth grade computer class in which I was the substitute teacher.

Of course, this becomes "the line in the sand."  Thoughts race through the students' minds:  "How much can we get away with -- our guy being a new substitute and all." "Dude -- how do you pronounce your name?"  Never mind that I've already veered away from the optional lesson plan which would involve actual teaching and learning.

First there are the sports games. While they provide a comparatively healthy outlet for pent-up energy, they are violent.  (Wouldn't you call twenty two big men crashing into each other with all their might violent?)  Given the options, the lesser of available evils.

Then there is the otherwise-bright girl who decides to pull up a game which involves throwing rubber balls at a "rag-doll-person," who appears to be injured by the pelting.  Certainly violent, but at least she's firing rubber bullets.  I could relate to this girl. The peer pressure is intense -- fit in or else...

What about the on-screen bicycle rider, careening down a set of stairs, body parts and blood flying. Is this a violent video game?  The students I asked did not think so.  After all, the only person getting hurt is the bike rider himself.

And of course the zombie games: first person shooters with blood and gore everywhere.  The 12-year-old's analysis:  "The zombies start out dead, so it's not really violent."  I kid you not.

To be fair, one student spent five minutes on a web site which creates opportunities for students from 130 countries to work together on projects which make a meaningful contribution to the health and welfare of the planet.  A drop of sanity in a sea of lunacy.

My classroom was being dowsed with violence. Energies from parents, teachers, and friends who are not getting what they want, and who would rather fight with each other than sit down and discuss their differences like grown human beings. Discuss, collaborate, and share the resources we have available to all of us.

Think of the paradise on earth we could co-create if we took all of the resources we employ to beat each other up, and instead used them for the things we all need to live a beautiful and rich life.

I will not be silent any longer. I will speak common sense until my last breath. There is just too much at stake to do otherwise.

Links to the Music of Prahas

Hello, Readers,

I thought you might enjoy hearing a bit of my music.

1) Sky (a lovely three-minute music video)

2) Samples of my theatre music in video format (running time:  two minutes)

3) Haiku for Piano (Piano poems which sound like George Winston at a meditation retreat.)

4) A Trapeze Artist’s Nightmare (a two-minute theatre music video)

5) It’s a Dream! (a four-minute avant garde music video)

I’d love to read your feedback!

Sport and Peacefulness

I just came home from a morning of sport.  Playing, not watching.  A warm-up session for a team sport, which is a competition, involving among other things guile and deception, the struggle to gain and control territory, and the final goal of defeating your opponent (all with a playful spirit, of course).

Aside from being good for the physical body (apparently the lymph system gets stimulated, which helps remove toxins from your system) sport is pleasant; it gets me associating with others; it gets me out in the sunshine.

But as I left the grid iron, the question arose:  does sport support peacefulness?  Certainly it took me out of my head, and moved some rather stale energy.  But is putting juice into an arena which by definition pits one person against another helping to increase the sum total of peace in the world?

Compare to this:  giving a healing massage to another person.  Or this:  sitting silently on a park bench, beside a friend, holding hands, feeling a cool breeze on your skin.

Of the tens of thousands of ways one can spend their time, why compete when one can melt?

Here's why: to get what I need, plus a little bit more.  It is true.  But is that where I stop competing?  Or do I push for more?

I notice myself greeted with choices each moment.  I notice myself addressing them: with brain, with heart (with luck, with Being).  I notice I know not what to do.

And then, with forever limited information, I choose.

Love-filled, precision-guided lightning bolts

Why does my mind

steeped in soot 

cause me to cry out,

"War!  War!  Rage against the vile winds

which rip through the virgin, green fields,

stripping them of their succulent fruit,"

when I know,

from a higher place inside,

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, 

begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ...

"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, 

adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. ..." *

Where is the Aiki response?

The love-filled, precision-guided lightning bolt

which re-directs and diffuses the in-bound hatred,

leaving only a cool, calm evening bathed 

in the light of a crimson sunset.

* Quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Triage: Dr. James Orbinski

A review of the documentary, "Triage:  Dr. James Orbinski's Humanitarian Dilemma," 2007, on NetFlix now.

Dr. James Orbinski worked with Doctors Without Borders for many years, eventually ending up as their president.  He treated hundreds of people in Somalia, Rwanda (during the genocide), and elsewhere.

This man -- this clear-eyed, kind, intelligent man -- knocked my socks off with his combination of softness; caring; controlled, focused rage; courage; and stamina.  He kept showing up in the most hellish, needful places on earth.

There are many ways to be of service.  There are those who look at the enormous, rickety machine we call the world, and study it for years, looking for the one bolt that, if turned, would effect the most positive change.  The one gear box that, were it to be replaced, would increase the performance of the machine ten-fold. 

This is not Dr. Orbinski's approach.  He looks at the globe, finds the area seething with the most human suffering, grabs his black bag, and dives in head first, bandaging, suturing, injecting, amputating, balming.  Every few hours, covered in blood from head to toe, he pauses, lifts his head up, takes a breath and a sip of water, only to plunge back into the melange of guts and gore.

Below I quote a few passages from the documentary which, dare I allow my authoritarian side to speak, ought to be required viewing for every human being on earth.  You may also like to read the doctor's book -- "An Imperfect Offering:  Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century."

*******************

"To be politically neutral, you have to be the most political of animals.

"Everything depends on information, and trying to be as clear as possible about who you are, what it is you are trying to accomplish, what risks you are NOT prepared to take, and so on."

*******************

A professor interviewed in the film:

"When the battle is raging, NGOs (non-government organizations) simply cannot function.

"[You need security.]

"You need the military, but if you are identified with the military, you lose that independence which is absolutely crucial to actually serve populations on all sides of a conflict.  How do you walk that fine line?"

*******************

"The genocide (in Rwanda) was a collective act.  What made it possible, what made that final political crime possible, was the absence, the erasure, of seeing the other.  Of knowing, of feeling, of being with the other.  And when that's removed, then politics
can become genocidal."

*******************

A Rwandan woman with children:

"People would say, 'Everyone that went this way died.'  People would say, 'Everyone that went that way were killed.'  And I said, 'My God, what can I do?'  I was all mixed up because I was scared.  I didn't have any money to support my kids.  My youngest was only a month old and I was still too weak to do anything.  So I was panic-stricken."

(This family managed to get into the hospital compound.  At night they would sneak into Dr. Orbinski's room and sleep in the closet.  He never objected -- rather, he became friends with them.  Many years later, when he returned for a visit, the woman told him about her stealth.  She said, "we snuck in every night and you never knew."  He replied with a smile, "I knew.")

*******************

[This next is an accurate paraphrase]

"I was operating on a woman in Rwanda.  She was macheted.  I pulled a piece of skin with my forceps -- it hurt her.  She touched my arm.  I looked up from her abdomen, and looked into her eyes....

"She had had both of her ears cut off.  And both of her breasts cut off.  And both of her Achilles tendons sliced.  And she had a pattern of cuts etched into both of her cheeks and her forehead -- a delicate pattern -- someone had taken his time doing this.  And there was dried semen between her legs.

[Long pause]  "And suddenly I was no longer a dispassionate doctor, a skilled technician.  Her humanity flooded into me.  I turned away and vomited."

*******************

(About a girl not leaving her nearly-dead mother in the midst of corpses and shit and blood):

"I don't think it's heroic -- I think it's decent."

*******************

"The very existence of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) is predicated on the refusal to accept the unacceptable, and that by definition means being free, and using your liberty in a very particular way.  And trying to stay out of the established corridors of power...which doesn't mean you don't walk through them...but it means you don't become them."

*******************

Being free.  And using your liberty in a very particular way.

My experience of this simple statement is enormously complex; rife with dozens of conflicting thoughts and feelings and emotions and sensations.  Dr. Orbinski must certainly have shared a few of them.  And yet, he found a way to get up and go on.  He found his way to serve.  This fearless surgeon inspires me to continue on.

Aikido at it's finest

Aikido at it's finest (click here to read article)

A paradox -- please help me see...

Two seemingly contradictory phrases

meant to guide one's living:

* Love.  Simple.  Evaporate each moment.

* Protect your queen.

Do we need both?  If so, how to

reconcile the paradox?

Love.

My serious (fun) blog

For more articles by yours truly, see
My serious fun blog

Baggage

I was surfing an online dating site today when I came across a woman who claimed to have no baggage in her life.


At first, I felt envious.  Like, "Wow, this person really has it together.  My life has lots of loose ends."  Boo hoo.


A moment passed.  Then this thought passed through my noggin:  "If you don't have any baggage in your life, you just aren't trying hard enough."

Luke and Darth

Last night, I descended into partisanship.  During those hours, there were good guys and bad guys; folks in white hats and black hats.

Of course, I was in a white hat.  I knew what was right; what was wrong.  That feels really good, for a change.

And -- I wanted to beat the black hats into submission.

In the calm light of morning, I feel the hangover from the violence.  I feel the dregs of the beliefs -- I'm still not convinced I am wrong.

But a wisp of disidentification is returning.  I am not the body.  I am not the mind.  I am not the emotions.  I am the witnessing consciousness, which wears no hat, judges not, chooses no sides.  It simply watches; mirrors all that passes before it.

The dark and the light reside inside of me.  

Remember.

Robin Williams, The Muse, and Elmer Fudd

Robin Williams, on Inside the Actors Studio, is talking about Elmer Fudd (remember him from the Bugs Bunny cartoons?).  He suggests Elmer could do great in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

Mr. Williams stands up.  There is a brief pause.  My brain is trying to catch up, searching for images of Elmer Fudd, plodding through the memory banks for snippets of the play mentioned,  wondering how in the world the two fit together...

And in the blink of an eye, Mr. Williams' technique, craft and timing kick in and the line ("Stella...!") simply flows out of him, sounding just like, well, Elmer Fudd.  Hilarious.

The inspiration comes, forms into an idea, and the master-artist's tool (in this case, the actor's body-mind) is so refined it responds and expresses without hesitation.

Robin Williams -- master comic, actor and improviser.  (If you haven't seen the Inside the Actors Studio interview, go to youtube.  It is classic.  You won't stop laughing for an hour.)

Boulders on the Path

"Living on this earth has never been easy. The Buddha famously taught that 'life is suffering,' and that the way out was to get enlightened. That alone was challenging.

But the Buddha lived 2500 years ago... before email, cell phones, airplanes, television, computers, global terrorism, environmental disasters, economic recessions, and the expectation that you be a 'peak performer,' a 'super-mom' or just plain 'super.'

Now it's a whole new story — not only do we suffer, get sick, and die, like other humans throughout history—but we're doing so in a world that's seriously out of whack. We face stresses and demands—despite our amazing comforts and opportunities—that the Buddha never dreamed of, beyond our age-old human condition."

BeyondAwakening.com

I find the above statement to be a clear and cogent overview of the challenges spiritual people face in today's world. I would at this time like to add a few sentences, and it is likely I will come back to this set of thoughts at a later date.

While it is true that in the United States, life expectancy jumped from 47 to 77 in just over 100 years, we are immersed in a set of environmental bio-chemical and bio-electrical toxins too numerous to list at this juncture. Each one of them individually sets up a road block on whatever spiritual path we choose to follow. Taken together, it is as if we are hiking up a trail strewn with boulders of all shapes, sizes and colors.

With any luck, over the next few weeks, I will have a chance to focus on one boulder at a time, and perhaps offer a few suggestions as to how to dissolve or go around it.

Peace and good health be with you.

Untitled Poem I

Do little.
Allow the beyond
to have its way with you.

Disappearing,
only the precious
lingers.

The Pineal Gland and Bipolar

I had a teacher who once said, "We are all responsible for the dots we connect in our heads." What does this mean?

To me it means that the universe is an infinitely complex and mysterious place. One person could have a brain so large and intelligent that it could contain all of the thoughts and all of the data ever generated by humankind, and still, that person would possess just a drop of water siphoned out of the great ocean of Existence.

Once in possession of all of this data, one may be tempted to form strings of thoughts. To connect data points in order to lead to the formulation of theories to explain things: the weather patterns, the allocation of resources on the planet, the behavior of presidents and paupers, sinners and saints.

My teacher, I believe, was pointing to the notion that stringing dots together may not be as Truth-Enhancing as it looks to be.

At great risk of feeding the intellectual, dot-connecting fire, I offer a necklace of data points, strung together by one of the many portions of my brain. I offer this necklace as an intellectual meeting of the material and the metaphysical, where perhaps the conflicting views of bipolar disorder can meet and interact in a peaceful way.

The focal point of this meeting is the pineal gland. This gland is a small reddish-gray structure that sits near the center of the brain. Western science has shown it is very likely that the pineal gland's activities influence the course of bipolar disease. Both lithium and depakote (valproic acid) have been shown to effect the gland and its workings. Both of these drugs are used to treat bipolar. It is also known that the pineal is light sensitive: its production of melatonin is regulated by the presence or absence of light.

In an article entitled, "The Morning Battleground: Why Bipolar Kids Can't Get Up and Get Going," by Janice Papolos and Demitri F. Papolos, M.D., (on the web at http://www.bipolarchild.com/Newsletters/0410.html, as of March 9, 2011), the doctors write:
"All vertebrates possess a pineal gland, and in certain reptiles and birds the gland is situated close enough to the top of the skull to monitor the intensity of sunlight. This "third eye" appears to help animals adjust to changes in the day-light cycles of the yearly seasons. Seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes thought the human pineal to be the seat of the rational soul..."

Manly P. Hall, a theosopher extrordinaire, has penned a work entitled, "The Pineal Gland: The Eye of God."

Here is this little gland, effecting behavior and circadian rhythms through a known biochemical process, and simultaneously referred to as an "eye" and as the seat of the soul. Perhaps the overlap of the physical and the metaphysical can be found within the many occurrences of one word: light.

Light suppresses the activity of the pineal gland, stopping the production of melatonin. Phototherapy (the application of light) is used to treat bipolars and others with sleep disorders. Dawn simulators are used for the same.

Light comes in many frequencies and wavelengths, not just spanning the visible palette of the rainbow, but moving beyond, into the ultraviolet and infrared spectra. (How far into the violets and reds does the seeing of the pineal go? What does television, that chaotic source of light we all know and love, do to the gland in question?)

Light equals energy. Solar cells translate light into electricity. Photosynthesis in plants translates light into chemical energy. When light passes through a car windshield, it slows down, becoming heat energy. Light equals energy, and one form of energy is chi, which martial artists learn to cultivate and preserve and direct. There are those -- the breatharians -- who say (with certain proof to back their claims) that they live solely on water and sunlight, and have done so for years.

Ah, the mysteries of life.

Perhaps the pineal gland is a key player in the dance of light, no matter what form it takes. Perhaps the "psychotic episodes" which some bipolars experience are in fact "precocious expansions of the eye of God." Perhaps the difficulty that arises during such events has to do with the inability to process, integrate, and ground the varieties of light with which the pineal is being bombarded. Perhaps the person in question is simply a radio receiver which cannot tune to one station, and is receiving cacophonous content from many different signals.

Perhaps in some (not all) cases, the unusual life choices made by folks diagnosed with bipolar are being chosen by a person with (and thank Godliness for the gift) an extremely sensitive pineal gland, an "eye of God" open to, and looking for, the Master's wisdom and guidance, even while the spectrum of light is clouded over by the noise of extraneous, non-godly sources of electromagnetic radiation too numerous to list.

Bodhidharma, a great sage of old, spent nine years of his life, day in and day out, sitting in a cave staring at a wall. This was his chosen meditation technique. He was so single-pointed he actually tore off his eye lids to keep from falling asleep. Eventually he became enlightened. What they leave out of the story is what was running through his head during year seven. Or what his sister was saying about him in the village market, as she bought the bread which she left for him at the entrance to his humble abode.

In our world, if he repeated his year-seven thoughts to a therapist, he would be locked up. A great mystic, a light in this dark world, would be lost. And his sister's pain would be seen as collateral damage resulting from bipolar illness.

I repeat: to me the universe is an infinitely complex and mysterious place. One person could have a brain so large and intelligent that it could contain all of the thoughts and all of the data ever generated by humankind, and still, that person would possess just a drop of water siphoned out of the great ocean of Existence.

I'm prepared to keep to "don't know" mind a little longer, uncomfortable though it may be. Are you?

Bipolar disorder involves periods of elevated

or irritable mood (mania), alternating with

periods of depression. The "mood swings"

between mania and depression can be very

abrupt. Symptoms: The manic phase may last

from days to...

Causes - Symptoms - Tests - Treatment -

Prognosis - Complications

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001924/

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Serotonin, Endorphins and Sex

There is sex. There is bi-polar disorder. There is porn. There is the mystical notion that we are energetic beings, at times filled with juice, and at times running on empty. There is happiness and sadness, love and hate. There is bio-electricity (chi energy) and bio-chemistry (including brain chemistry).

And there is little ole' me, sitting in the midst of this East-meets-West melange of information, trying to make sense of it all.

The other day I stumbled upon a good-feeling porn-addition site called Candeo.com. (I am not a porn addict: I am interested in the explosion of porn in our society from an intellectual point of view.) The doctors there write that porn and other unhealthy sexual activities (i.e., phone sex with strangers) increase serotonin in the brain, thus producing a natural high to which the porn user gets addicted. This is why, they say, it is so difficult to break the porn habit.

Serotonin... serotonin... Wait, I've heard that term. I Google it:

"An indoleamine neurotransmitter, 5-hydroxytryptamine, that is involved in depression, appetite, etc., and is crucial in maintaining a sense of well-being, security, etc." [1]

My memory kicks in. Depression results from, in part, low serotonin levels. In fact, many anti-depressants (God bless psycho-pharmacology) work by raising the serotonin level in the blood (and by implication, the brain, although technically, there is no way of measuring the actual amount of serotonin in the brain at any given time [2]).

Suddenly, a paradox pops into my mind: there are two methods for increasing serotonin in the brain. One (taking anti-depressants such as Prozac) is judged as responsibly taking care of one's psychological disease. The other (watching porn) is judged as being addicted to a bad thing.

Of course, there are all kinds of moral, ethical, religious, and feminist objections to porn. And, I would argue, there are all kinds of economic, multi-national corporate, and medical objections to taking Prozac. To further complicate things, depression is a complex illness.

But the fact remains: in at least one important way, at the brain chemistry level, both watching porn and taking Prozac has the same effect. The level of serotonin increases.

Suddenly, a new question comes to mind: are there other activities which raise serotonin levels? It turns out there are many studies which show that meditation does so. [3] Acupuncture boosts serotonin levels throughout the body. As a result, it's often used to treat mood issues such as anxiety or depression and to elevate energy levels throughout the body. [4]

There are also many studies which show that qigong (an ancient Chinese form of exercise) increases serotonin and endorphin levels. [5] The following is quoted from a study entitled, "Influences of Wujijinggong on Blood Serotonin and Beta-endorphin Concentrations:"

"The purpose of this study is to measure the endocrine responses caused by 'wujijinggong' training, which is one kind of health-qigong. Blood sample were taken three times, right before and after the qigong training and 30 minutes later. In the trained group the concentrations of noradrenaline, serotonin and beta-endorphin increased significantly. On the other hand, in the untrained group the measured hormone concentrations did not show any significant change. These results suggest that wujijinggong might have an effect on both physical conditions and mentality in the trained." [6]

Meditation, acupuncture, and qigong are all activities which are known to increase the amount of chi energy in the body-mind-Being (within the Eastern world-view). Given this fact, it seems reasonable to postulate a direct correlation between the amount of chi energy and the amount of serotonin in the body at any given moment.

Put another way, the hypothesis is this: consciousness (chi) effects biochemistry.

There is evidence to support this hypothesis. Norman Cousins offered a case study which showed that laughter helped cure Anklyosing Spondylitis, a collagen illness that attacks the connective tissues of the body. [7] There has also been research which shows that psychotherapy (an activity which effects both the emotional and energetic states of being) effects biochemistry. [8]

Winding back around to serotonin, I offer another piece of data to consider: the neurotransmitter is produced in the pineal gland. This gland has long been associated with all things spiritual.

Upon further research, I find a couple of articles which provide a long list of things one can do to boost serotonin and endorphin levels. They include:

* laugh more (echoing back to Mr. Cousins);
* take in the sunlight;
* make love;
* get a massage;
* take St. John's Wort and 5-HTP;
* exercise (the "runner's high" is caused by the release of endorphins);
* eat healthy, high carb meals;
* eat chocolate (good quality, high cacao-content is best);
* eat pineapple, banana, nuts and plums (these foods naturally contain serotonin);
* take B vitamins, folic acid, and vitamin C (they help the neurotransmitters work);
* eat spicy foods like chili peppers. [9]

In conclusion, let us thank the brain chemists for discovering the importance of serotonin and endorphins. And -- let us take advantage of all of the natural ways to increase the levels of these vital neurotransmitters.

Have a blissful day!

*******************************

Citations

(All web cites valid as of March 2, 2011)

[1] Serotonin

[2] Cannot measure serotonin in brain

[3] Meditation and serotonin

[4] Acupuncture and serotonin There are many studies which provide evidence for this statement.  The title of one study:  "Acupuncture Stimulates the Release of Serotonin, but Not Dopamine, in the Rat Nucleus Accumbens"

[5] "Endorphins are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters. They ... resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce ...a feeling of well-being."  Cite for definition

[6] QiGong

[7] Norman Cousins

[8] Psychotherapy effects biochemistry

[9] Things which increase serotonin and endorphin levels

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Beyond Information

In a world awash with data, please remember:  there is something immensely valuable beyond information.  A beautiful, divine silence exists beyond the mind-stuff.

There is a miraculous, subtle force in play which moves us gently toward this silence.  This is the story of how this force worked on me.

In my twenties, I was steeped in the intellectual world.  I was reading spiritual texts, but they did not penetrate.  When I turned twenty nine, I moved to a suburb of the city in which I was living.  This move lessoned to a large degree the noise and distraction to which I was subjected.  In astrological terms, I was in my Saturn return, so the miraculous force had the stars on its side.

One night, at a dinner party, I exchanged a few words with a new acquaintance.  She mentioned she spent six months in the U.S. and six months in India.  I didn't think much of it.

A few weeks later, I was standing in line at a cafe, and I caught sight of a group of four people laughing and enjoying.  Upon looking more closely, I noticed the woman I had met at the dinner party.  I was wearing a tee-shirt with the logo of a theatre company with which I had worked.  My acquaintance said, "I didn't know you worked in theatre.  This man is a world-renowned theatre artist from Germany."  Introductions were made, and I sat down with them to have a coffee.

Two minutes later, I was crying my eyes out.

I have no recollection of what transpired between the introduction and the crying.  However, I do remember, after I finally calmed down, the German artist saying, "You are ready."

There is an ancient saying.  The student does not find the Master; the Master finds the student.  In this case, the Master used one of his disciples to find me.

A few weeks later, I was immersed in a Zen Theatre course, which combined theatre exercises with meditation techniques.

Shortly thereafter, I became the disciple of an enlightened Master, and began to learn the methods which helped me to have a glimpse of that which lies beyond the spoken word, beyond the zippy thoughts, beyond the emotions, and beyond the sensations of the physical body.

It only took one glimpse of this peace, this silence, this blissfulness, to know that in the end, this is all I need.

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