Tag: Meditations
Back to Basics: Good and Evil
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFevre
One of the best studies of good and evil by an American writer is Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd.” If you haven’t...
Thought Is a Single Stream
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
It’s near dusk, and the parkland seems to be full of Cooper’s hawks. At one point on the path, a large,...
The Unmet Sorrow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Here we are again, 65 years and tens of thousands of nuclear weapons later, commemorating the dropping of the atomic bombs...
What Is Human Freedom?
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
A few friends and I have been asking: Are there choices in life, but is the chooser an illusion? If so,...
Creative Destruction and Man’s Destructiveness
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
The American media, even the progressive media, are promoting the idea that most of the life on Earth has been wiped...
Knowledge, Truth, and Growth
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
The branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge, especially with reference to its limits and validity, is called epistemology....
The Urgency of Psychological Revolution
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
The foundational philosophical investigation to which I devoted my youth flowed from this question: Why are humans generating increasing disorder and...
July 4th, 2010— Dunghills From Diamonds?
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
This weekend Americans are celebrating the 4th of July, the date that commemorates the birth of the United States 234 years...
Where There’s Will, There’s No Way
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
A neuroscientist named Benjamin Libet made a remarkable discovery at the University of California, San Francisco in the mid-1980’s. Placing electrodes...
The Observer In an Infinite Regress
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Is the brain capable of observing without an observer? What is the observer? What part does it play in the division,...
Beyond the Matrix
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Set to the lyrics from Willy Wonka’s “A world of pure imagination,” the business ad invites participants into a brave new...
May Tibet Never Be Forgotten
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
The Dalai Lama has said that he may not reincarnate again, and if he does, it will not be in Tibet....
The Scientific and Religious Minds
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Though the rain didn’t begin until mid-morning, by mid-afternoon the park that runs through town felt like a wild place. A...
The Dark Night of Man’s Soul
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
After some strong insights and strange events with a friend, I go to the parkland for a sitting and walk. The...
Technology Is No Mystery
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
In America at least, we are still in the ‘new toy’ phase of high technology. Every new gadget that comes out...
Barack Lets Bashir Walk
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, has been...
Another Kind of Consciousness
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
It’s near dusk, and the parkland seems to be full of Cooper’s hawks. At one point on the path, a large,...
A Growing Tide of Anger, or Compassion
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Sometimes, fewer than a thousand words are better than a picture, or a video. For example, the image of a San...
The Light of Insight
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
A recent conversation with a Buddhist teacher from India turned to the Buddha’s illumination. “The
Buddha,” he said, “was attacked by Mara,...
The Intrinsic Intent of the Universe
Featured Columnist – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
As I see it, human consciousness is an unexplained contradiction in the infinitely dynamic order of the universe. Consciousness is not...
Meditation, Illumination, and Revolution
Contributor – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
The shirtsleeve weather of the previous few days suddenly shifted last night. Rain fell in the valley and snow fell in...
The Emergence of Intelligence
Contributor – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Fog enshrouds the town as I enter the mountain community from the valley below. With a few hundred meters more of...
Killer Whales and Killer Apes
Contributor – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
Orcas (“Killer Whales”) are probably the smartest animals on earth other than humans (“Killer Apes”). A caged and exploited member of...
Wellsprings of Insight
Contributor – Meditations
Martin LeFerve
After a couple of beers at the local brewery, my atheist friend made the oft-heard claim that Jesus never existed. When...
