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Martin LeFevre - Meditations - Latest News [Page 28]
Meditations: Breakthrough Beyond “Modern Humans”
Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 4:51 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
In the science fiction classic “2001, A Space Odyssey,” HAL, the all too human-like computer, malfunctions and becomes evil. It begs for the life of its higher functions as the sole surviving astronaut is erasing them. It’s a metaphor for the growing ... More >>
Meditations (Politics): War on the Human Spirit
Friday, 15 July 2005, 12:45 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
“The purpose of terrorism,” intoned Tony Blair without a scintilla of self-awareness the day after the bombings in London, is to put despair and anger and hatred in people’s hearts.” That’s also your metaphysical mission Mr. Blair, and surely there's a special ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Vultures at Gleneagles
Friday, 1 July 2005, 4:21 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
What do war, poverty, and climate change have in common? Nothing, if Tony Blair has his way at Gleneagles. And because of that disconnect, failure by the Group of Eight (the richest countries in the world) to adequately address the most pressing concerns ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Making a Friend of Thought
Thursday, 30 June 2005, 3:43 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The mind, as the word is usually used, means the movement of thought in the brain. But there is another meaning to the word mind--a quality of awareness and attention that transcends and silences the mind-as-thought. Can the Mind in this sense be predominant, ... More >>
Meditations (Politics): Et tu, EU?
Tuesday, 21 June 2005, 10:13 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Rather than becoming a ‘counterweight’ to American domination, Europe is reverting to form, and bickering along lines of national identity. Only the Bush Administration is pleased about the “deep crisis” of the European Union, as the outgoing head of ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: The Devil is Man-made
Friday, 17 June 2005, 1:01 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
“The greatest triumph of the devil in the modern age is convincing people he doesn’t exist.” I don’t remember the author of that memorable quote, but it encapsulates my problem with New Agers, sophisticated secularists, and run-of-the-mill rationalists. More >>
Martin LeFevre: Awakening to the Sacred
Wednesday, 15 June 2005, 3:43 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The human brain is the only brain on this planet that has the capacity to be consciously aware of the sacred. Not the self-projected sacredness of churches and texts, but something totally beyond thought. The fact is, however, we are heading in the opposite ... More >>
Meditations (Politics): Iraq Comes to My Backyard
Thursday, 9 June 2005, 4:48 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s a sunny afternoon, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. A golden light streams into my study as I make some notes. Suddenly I hear tires squealing on the street in back, followed immediately by the sound of metal scraping metal. An instant later ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: Dig Your Own Well Daily
Tuesday, 31 May 2005, 1:00 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
To the pride and shame of Californians, “The Great Central Valley” is often described as the “most productive agricultural region in the world.” The pride is obvious, but the shame has to do with the fact that the Valley is being “developed” at an ... More >>
Meditations (Spirituality): The Retreat Industry
Thursday, 26 May 2005, 2:46 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
A veritable retreat and spiritual guidance industry has sprung up in the last decade in the West. Apart from the ethical questions of turning spirituality into business (a practice as old as both), there is the question: To what degree are all these ... More >>
Meditations: Two Kinds of Learning
Friday, 20 May 2005, 3:26 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
I’ve never been one for Zen koans. They’ve always seemed to me to be trick questions designed to produce insights that simple, undivided observation can engender. But here’s a kind of koan: What is learning when it is based on unlearning? More >>
Meditations: Is There Such a Thing as True Hope?
Thursday, 12 May 2005, 12:35 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
I saw a bumper sticker that read, “I feel so much better now that I’ve given up hope.” Hope is usually considered a desirable quality, but it is often a harmful condition, setting up pain when its flip side, despair, inevitably ensues. More >>
Meditations: Breakthroughs in Human Consciousness
Wednesday, 4 May 2005, 12:54 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The line between proto-humans, humans, and human beings is a nebulous one, but I see three stages in our random evolutionary path to a mature species. Three very different orders of consciousness characterize these stages. We're somewhere in the ... More >>
Martin LeFevre: A Persistent Meditative State
Thursday, 28 April 2005, 11:32 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Two mallards, a multi-colored male and a rather plain brown female (except for a dazzling blue chevron on her wings) drifted downstream. They were completely at home and at one with each other, communicating through subtle movements where to go and ... More >>
Meditations (Spirituality): The Last Pope?
Friday, 22 April 2005, 1:31 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
So now we (the ‘we’ in this case is most problematic) have a new pope whose diffident exterior masks a doctrinaire interior. The Catholic Church could have embraced worldwide ecumenism. Instead it is, in Pope Benedict XVI, reasserting its medieval claim to ... More >>
Meditations: Think Globally and Act Globally
Thursday, 21 April 2005, 11:50 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
One of the side effects of globalization is a reaction that is really a flip side to it: localism. Many well-intentioned people, in the North and South, take an attitude of ‘local solutions to local problems.’ However the entire strategy of emphasizing ... More >>
Martin LeFevre Meditations: An Inquiry into Evil
Friday, 15 April 2005, 12:03 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
I finally finished Romeo Dallaire’s book, “Shake Hands with the Devil,” about the Rwandan genocide. Often I could only read a few pages at a time. The horror of it, and the relentless spiritual and philosophical questions it implicitly raises, have ... More >>
Meditations: Why Think in Terms of Nations?
Thursday, 24 March 2005, 12:22 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
What will happen if the Bush Doctrine bears its logical fruit and there is a nuclear war? Not by terrorists, but through old-fashioned state vs. state conflict escalating out of control. Is there any way to prepare for such a catastrophe? More >>
Martin LeFevre: A Stark Contrast
Wednesday, 16 March 2005, 2:41 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The verdant slopes beyond the gorge are adorned with thousands of brilliant orange poppies and deep blue lupines. The swollen creek is over a hundred meters directly below. It wends its way around dark volcanic rocks that look as if they just hardened ... More >>
Authentic Dialogue is the Music of Meaning
Wednesday, 9 March 2005, 12:43 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Dialogue is a word that has been rendered almost meaningless by having so many meanings to so many people. Politicians have appropriated the word and nearly destroyed its usefulness. But there is a deeper meaning to dialogue, having to do with shared exploration ... More >>
