Buddhism explains this well. A concept is just a concept and it exists in conceptual minds, and they'll all be different.
Take 'me' for example.
My Mother would think of me as a 'little tyke; a naughty boy'
Mrs FoBW would think of me as 'handsome, rugged, and a fantastic lover' (well she...
The reality is that we've less chance of dying a violent death than ever before. Society is better than it used to be, not worse. World super powers aren't fighting each other, and even in our wars we're not facing any thing remotely similar to causality rates like we've had in the past...
Statistically, we've never had it so good. Do you know that our chances of dying a violent death are the smallest in all of history? That's a fact.
Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence | Video on TED.com
Your perception just differs from the reality of the situation.
There is no such thing as 'free will' anyway. Have a look to neuroscience to see what it says regarding the subject of 'free will'.
I mean all our choices stem from our brain structure/states and experiences, and we have neither control of our genetic heritage nor our experiences.
We may...
A couple of weeks ago I was visited by two lovely JW ladies and they pointed out to me on my doorstep that the World was in a sorry state of affairs; I can't remember what they actually said, but they definitely mentioned 'wars'.
I think they were pointing out that we live in turbulent times...
Thanks guys, my post was a little tongue in cheek; as you may have realised.
It's tough to embrace the pain though; when the sweat is burning your eyes, and your thighs are chaffing, and you're hungry, and you're thighs feel like someone has injected concrete into them, and there's still a long...
I'm currently in marathon training and I've built upto running 30 miles per week (31.4 miles was last weeks total, to be precise), but I'm finding it tough going. Yesterday I did a 12 miler and I was shattered.
Anyway, I found this in the Bible:
Isaiah 40:31
Does this mean that if I...
HH Dalai Lama reckons that everything we do, we do for one of two reasons:
1. To get pleasure.
2. To avoid pain.
So in a sense, we are all motivated by the same thing; we all want to be happy and avoid pain and suffering; everything we do is motivated by that.
The problem is that we...
I never think the word 'illusion' is a good one when it comes to this kinda stuff; it kinda gives the impression that 'nothing is there', but I'm pretty sure something is 'here'. I understand the 'concept of self' - we do not have an inherent self - we're just a mix of stuff that our mind...
Maybe the truth is that everything is impermanent, in a state of flux and subject to change.
That's what the Buddha reckoned.
Did he capture the Truth?
I heard a simple explanation of why there are contradictions on the path.
If a teacher sees someone veering to the right off a path, he'll shout, "Left, left, left", and if a teacher sees someone veering left off a path, he'll shout "Right, right, right".
A driving instructor may tell some...
Read up on the Warrior Gene and how a death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment because it was shown, due to the murderers GENETICS, that he had less free will because of his genetic make up.
This has been tested in a court of law in the US.
Free will is not totally free...
Hmmmm. Then why is it Nobel Science prize winners are usually atheist? In fact there's only a handful of them (about five from memory, that believe in God, and one of them admits he only goes to church for social reasons).
Nobel Science prize winners are smart intelligent guys, I would...
Actually, I wasn't being exactly truthful. It's true I was born in Japan, however I was dragged up in Geordie-land; North East UK, and we have a little language all of our own.
So, I'm a Japanese lookin' Geordie; some folk find that funny; and I just kinda said English wasn't my first...