The Glass Buddha Project: Technology + Mindfulness = Awesome
The Glass Buddha Project: Technology + Mindfulness = Awesome |
- The Glass Buddha Project: Technology + Mindfulness = Awesome
- The Glass Buddha Project: Technology + Mindfulness = Awesome
- 5 Tips to Make Friends as an Adult (by Acting Like a 5 Year Old)
- Enlightenment….
- Early Morning Meditation Inspiration - 6/18/2013
- The “magic ratio” of appreciation
- Pop Buddhism
- Living in a brainwashed culture of urgency
| The Glass Buddha Project: Technology + Mindfulness = Awesome Posted: 18 Jun 2013 01:00 PM PDT I'm fascinated by technology and committed to exploring ways to teach meditation more effectively. I want to use technology to reach as many people as possible in our global village, so that we can spread the benefits of mindfulness and compassion. An amazing opportunity has come up. I won a competition and was selected by Google to explore the potential of Google Glass, the new wearable computing gizmo with a head-mounted display, voice recognition, and audio and visual recording capabilities. This could be an amazing tool for teaching.
I also intend to explore the potential for developing an app that would help people to set spiritual goals for themselves (like being kinder to others), and then deliver short messages during the day to remind them of those goals ("Remember to stay in touch with your heart"). The amazing thing about Glass is that you don't need to reach into your pocket, unlock your phone, and then stare at a screen when a message like that comes in. The message is just there, hovering in space at the edge of your vision. You don't need to disconnect from the world to see it. I don't want to get ahead of myself, though. Developing such an app is whole project in itself. For now I need to experiment with the technology so that I can understand its strengths and limitations. Winning the competition was great. I'm one of just a couple of thousand people worldwide who will be able to explore Glass. But Google still wants me to pay $ 1500 (plus tax, which makes it $ 1633). And I simply don't have that amount of money. So I'm crowdfunding! I need to raise $ 1633, and so I've created a fundraising project on Indiegogo, called The Glass Buddha Project. There are generous rewards for different levels of donation. Check out The Glass Buddha Project on Indiegogo, and please support me in this project. Read More @ Source |
| The Glass Buddha Project: Technology + Mindfulness = Awesome Posted: 18 Jun 2013 01:00 PM PDT I'm fascinated by technology and committed to exploring ways to teach meditation more effectively. I want to use technology to reach as many people as possible in our global village, so that we can spread the benefits of mindfulness and compassion. An amazing opportunity has come up. I won a competition and was selected by Google to explore the potential of Google Glass, the new wearable computing gizmo with a head-mounted display, voice recognition, and audio and visual recording capabilities. This could be an amazing tool for teaching.
I also intend to explore the potential for developing an app that would help people to set spiritual goals for themselves (like being kinder to others), and then deliver short messages during the day to remind them of those goals ("Remember to stay in touch with your heart"). The amazing thing about Glass is that you don't need to reach into your pocket, unlock your phone, and then stare at a screen when a message like that comes in. The message is just there, hovering in space at the edge of your vision. You don't need to disconnect from the world to see it. I don't want to get ahead of myself, though. Developing such an app is whole project in itself. For now I need to experiment with the technology so that I can understand its strengths and limitations. Winning the competition was great. I'm one of just a couple of thousand people worldwide who will be able to explore Glass. But Google still wants me to pay $ 1500 (plus tax, which makes it $ 1633). And I simply don't have that amount of money. So I'm crowdfunding! I need to raise $ 1633, and so I've created a fundraising project on Indiegogo, called The Glass Buddha Project. There are generous rewards for different levels of donation. Check out The Glass Buddha Project on Indiegogo, and please support me in this project. Read More @ Source |
| 5 Tips to Make Friends as an Adult (by Acting Like a 5 Year Old) Posted: 18 Jun 2013 09:00 AM PDT  After all, many adults have all the friends they need or want, right? People get married, have kids and have little time for others outside their family. Doesn't that make it harder to meet new people after a certain age? Well, yes and no. Depending on your geographic location, yes, many people "settle down" after a certain age. But not everyone. And while it may take a little more time to "warm up" a new friend as an adult, it can certainly be done. Read more »  Read More @ Source |
| Posted: 18 Jun 2013 08:00 AM PDT
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| Early Morning Meditation Inspiration - 6/18/2013 Posted: 18 Jun 2013 07:00 AM PDT  "Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again." ~Thich Nhat Hanh      Read More @ Source |
| The “magic ratio” of appreciation Posted: 17 Jun 2013 11:00 PM PDT
I remember one time my wife saying, just after I'd made a critical comment, that I criticized her a lot, which surprised me, because I didn't think I did. I asked her as gently as I could when the last time was that I'd said something critical, and she couldn't remember. I asked if it was within the last two weeks. No, it was longer ago than that. The last month? She was pretty sure it was longer ago than that. So this is indicative of the way that the mind latches on to critical comments — a topic I've mentioned before. Criticisms sting, and they stick in the mind. They're hard to forget. And on the flip-side of this, it's a reminder that we need to be very careful about the quality of our communication if we don't want to create a sense that we're nagging. When critical or negative communications outweigh appreciative or positive ones, a relationship can become severely strained and distorted. It can become hard for people to have any appreciation for their partner, and neutral or positive statements ("Why don't we eat out tonight?") are interpreted as being critical ("Are you saying you don't like my cooking!"). Merely balancing a negative comment with a positive one doesn't work. According to John Gottman, Professor Emeritus of psychology at the University of Washington, the magic ratio is 5 to 1. Yes, in order to have a healthy, mutually appreciative relationship, there has to be around five positive interactions for every negative one! This is the mathematics of marriage. How accurate is Gottman predicting the success of relationships? In one study 700 newly-married couples were videotaped while being interviewed for 15 minutes. Simply by counting the ratio of positive to negative interactions that took place during that quarter of an hour, Gottman and his associates were able to predict — with 94% accuracy — which couples would divorce. Interacting positively goes well beyond verbal communication, however. It includes behaviors such as touching affectionately, smiling, laughing, making friendly eye contact, showing non-verbally that you're listening to a conversation, etc. And negative interactions can similarly be non-verbal. Some of the most damaging are indications of contempt, such as eye-rolling. The presence of contempt in a relationship, you may or may not be surprised to hear, is the single best predictor of divorce. Couples can have many different styles of communication: some are volatile and prone to explosive outbursts, while at the other extreme some are conflict-avoiding, where the partners retreat into separate rooms until their emotions simmer down. Neither of these, Gottman has found, are necessarily problems for the long-term stability of a relationship, as long as the 5:1 ratio is maintained. As long as there are five times as many positive interactions between partners as negative ones, the relationship is likely to be stable in the long term. Critical communications are not necessarily bad! They can help keep a relationship healthy, and help us to grow. The Buddha once said that not criticizing someone who really needed to be criticized was akin to destroying them. But it's clear that there has to be a healthy basis of appreciation and affection in a relationship for it to succeed. There are many ways of showing appreciation and affection, including showing interest by making eye contact and by engaging in conversations (rather than grunting as you read your email), holding hands, saying "I love you," hugging, etc., doing little things for your partner. But one thing I've been working on for a while is that when I find a negative thought about my wife cropping up (and it's often something as mundane as not liking the way she's stacked things in the dishwasher, I'll switch to consciously rejoicing in her good qualities and reminding myself of my underlying affection for her. So it might go like this. I hear myself thinking "Sheesh. This isn't the most efficient way to arrange the cups! Doesn't she realize that if you turn all the handles this way … wait a minute. I'm being critical." And then I'll articulate positive comments, saying to myself that I love her, that she's a wonderful mother, that she does way more housework than I do, that she's very patient, that she has a great sense of humor, etc. That's five positive thoughts right there, to balance up the negative one. I'd suggest you try this approach of cultivating a stream of positive thoughts when you notice a negative one. If you can't immediately think of five, that's OK. You can repeat the same ones. You can even say the same thought five times. The important thing is that you flood the mind with appreciative thoughts, and bring the ratio of positive to negative closer to five to one. I'm not suggesting it's enough just to think positive thoughts. We need to show affection in our body language, in the things we do, in what we say and in how we say it. But there are more opportunities to think than there are to speak or act, and cultivating appreciative thoughts makes it easier to speak or act in ways that show love and kindness. Gottman's ratio, as far as I'm aware, hasn't been applied in the context of friendships, work relationships, or parental relationships, but I'd be surprised if the same principle didn't apply. So you can try being aware of the positive to negative balance in many kinds of relationships, and see if you can drive the balance toward the positive. Read More @ Source |
| Posted: 17 Jun 2013 10:00 PM PDT It is hard to lump up the goings on of modern Buddhism with one concise word. I decided to use "pop Buddhism" as a catchall term. Alongside of this, there is an implied contrast which is not "unpopular Buddhism" but more like esoteric Buddhism. Such Buddhism is for a certain type of person (in the Buddha's discourses these persons are called arya). It is mystical in its orientation insofar as almost all of the Buddha's discourses are of an anagogical nature referring to the transcendent or unconditioned world which is beyond the reach and range of the temporal. Everyone who becomes interested in Buddhism for the first time begins as a pop Spiritual Consciousness Spirituality. They have a few ideas about what they believe Buddhism teaches, for example, compassion, being a vegetarian, or doing meditation. The other dimension to this is not everyone stays a pop Spiritual Consciousness Spirituality. Some have a nose for the esoteric who are thus able to leave the pop Spiritual Consciousness Spirituality world in a year or so. They are not uncomfortable with the Buddha's anagogical discourses which point beyond our temporal world. Regrettably, others never leave the fold of pop Buddhism. Pop Buddhism, in a word, is not Buddhism. Measured against the Buddha's discourses pop Buddhism's interpretation of what the Buddha taught is too materialistic and to a lesser extent, behavior oriented. Pop Buddhism is like Ellis Island in the old days when immigration to the U.S. was at its highest point. It acted as a point of transition. Not one new immigrant knew what life was actually like in the U.S. All, pretty much, had pie-in-the-sky dreams of America. Much of it was wrong. When these immigrants actually entered the U.S., they saw an America not of their dreams but one, nevertheless, that offered immense possibility unlike in their native country. Pop Spiritual Consciousness Spiritualitys are, figuratively speaking, still on Ellis Island. Most will not get off. |
| Living in a brainwashed culture of urgency Posted: 17 Jun 2013 03:00 PM PDT
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Noah Shachtman, Wired: Chade-Meng Tan is perched on a chair, his lanky body folded into a half-lotus position. "Close your eyes," he says. His voice is a hypnotic baritone, slow and rhythmic, seductive and gentle. "Allow your attention to rest on your breath: The in-breath, the out-breath, and the spaces in between." We feel our lungs fill and release. As we focus on the smallest details of our respiration, other thoughts—of work, of family, of money—begin to recede, leaving us alone with the rise and fall of our chests. For thousands of years, these techniques have helped put practitioners into meditative states…
Appreciation of others' good qualities improves our lives and makes us happier. But it's great for them, too, and it can also save our intimate relationships.
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., PsychCentral: Whether you like it or not companies know exactly how to get in your brain and control what you're paying attention to. Everything today is about tricking our brains into a state of urgency. Think about how the news is delivered, "Breaking News." Or how about how your phones is configured, everything plays to a sound or blinking light that tells our brain, this is something we need to pay attention to right now. Applications have become increasingly popular because they give you up-to-the-minute update alerts on whatever you want from news, to sports scores, to the newest Groupon or sale…| You are subscribed to email updates from BuddhaRocks ☸ To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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