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Martin LeFevre - Meditations - Latest News [Page 5]

The Peace Beyond Nation-States

Monday, 1 January 2024, 12:11 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

It’s rare for someone of high political position in any nation to tell it like it is about the international system. However Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s minister of foreign affairs, comes closer to telling the truth about the world (dis)order ... More >>

Christmas 2023: Crucifying Christ Again

Monday, 1 January 2024, 12:09 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Before the pandemic I initiated a series of dialogues with a group of Trappist monks at New Clairvaux Abbey, twenty minutes north of town. The abbot, Father Paul Mark, graciously invited me into the cloistered area, and attended all six of the talks. ... More >>

A Psychiatrist’s Mishmash Posing As Psychological Insight

Friday, 22 December 2023, 12:19 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

The underlying, unexamined premises of Western psychology are contributing to confusion and alienation in postmodern people everywhere. An essay in Psychology Today, entitled “Making Effective Choices in the Timeless Present Moment,” epitomizes the parlous ... More >>

Moments Of Timeless Peace Surpass Lifetimes Of Time-Bound Thought

Monday, 18 December 2023, 1:21 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

It’s a cloudy but bright Sunday morning. An inconsiderate neighbor on the street in back is playing country music in his house so loud you can hear the lyrics. The infernal noise stops, and a pervasive quietness is instantly palpable. It’s so ... More >>

The Interfaith And Multi-Faith Movement Is A Dead End

Monday, 11 December 2023, 10:19 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

There are two meanings to the word ‘faith.’ The first pertains to belief systems and gives primacy to organized religion; the second pertains to trust and confidence, and gives primacy to those essential qualities within and between individuals. Belief ... More >>

The Crooked Line From 9/11 To Israel’s War On Gaza

Monday, 4 December 2023, 10:19 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Speaking of unregenerate war criminals after Kissinger’s death, if journalists could be tried for crimes against humanity, Thomas Friedman would top the list. He coined the phrase “war of choice” against Iraq in 2003, and was an indefatigable ... More >>

Cop28 And Man’s War On The Earth

Friday, 1 December 2023, 10:36 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

The Cop climate conferences have become a farce. This year the host nation, the United Arab Emirates, chose an oil company executive, Sultan Al Jaber, to preside over Cop28. And surprise surprise, he’s been lobbying delegates from around the ... More >>

Two Kinds Of Consciousness

Monday, 27 November 2023, 2:49 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Autumn comes late and lasts long in northern California, but the leaves are dropping in droves now. Brown leaves are stacked on rocks in the stream, some jutting straight up and looking like little stupas. At the apex of the afternoon, an intense stillness ... More >>

One Thought At A Time

Friday, 24 November 2023, 11:33 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

A writer recovering from a traumatic brain injury writes: “It’s strange not remembering the moment that changed my life, that altered my work and vocation, that disrupted the me-ness of me. ” What on earth does “the me-ness of me” mean? ... More >>

The Real And Present Danger Of AI

Wednesday, 22 November 2023, 10:42 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

In the end, as in the beginning of new cultures or technologies, philosophy matters most. The philosophical conflict in the murky world of AI development, over the so-called doomers versus the ‘accelerationists’/commercializers, has spilled out onto the ... More >>

Humankind’s Place In The Universe And Lack Of Fit On Earth

Monday, 20 November 2023, 11:01 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

The first step in meditation is to end the observer. Sitting beside the stream in town on a magnificent autumn afternoon, a meditative state deepened after the observer/self dissolved in attentiveness. The continuity of thought ended, and with it psychological ... More >>

What Will “The New Form Of Religion” Look Like?

Friday, 17 November 2023, 10:05 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Invited to Russia on business as the Soviet Union was collapsing at the beginning of 1990, I was surprised, in the avowedly atheistic USSR, by a question that Russians asked me everywhere I went: “Are you religious?” I gave a terse, truthful response: ... More >>

Is Knowledge Destructive To Discovery?

Friday, 10 November 2023, 12:16 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Fall is in full leaf in northern California. The sun illuminates the yellow leaves of a tree just upstream, but at first I have no eyes for the beauty that surrounds me. It takes 20 minutes of remaining with the turmoil within for one to simply be ... More >>

Where Did Man Go Wrong, Revised

Friday, 3 November 2023, 11:48 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Where did man go wrong? The question sounds almost as anachronistic as asking about original sin. It’s a right question though, even essential toward understanding what the hell is going on in the world. Why? Because core insights into the causes ... More >>

Technology Has Not Advanced Human Civilization

Wednesday, 1 November 2023, 11:46 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

At times like these, one returns to first principles, or reverts to absurd worldviews. Our views of human nature, nature, and the universe form the core premises of how we see the world. With few exceptions they are unexamined. False humility is worse ... More >>

Fluidity Of Thought Is A Far Cry From Flowering Of Insight

Wednesday, 25 October 2023, 12:54 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Why is it that even as Artificial Intelligence (which should be called Artificial Thought) is overtaking human thought in speed, knowledge and efficiency, many thinkers are still upholding the notion that we are creatures of thought? There’s an obvious ... More >>

Time Is Elastic, But Timelessness Is Fantastic

Friday, 20 October 2023, 11:15 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

As Einstein proved, time is elastic, slowing down as the speed of light is approached. Given that’s true of physical time, how much more elastic and illusory is psychological time? With sufficient unpremeditated attention, the observer ends. Then, in observing ... More >>

Slaughter And War Spew From Time And Memory

Friday, 13 October 2023, 11:48 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Overhanging the gorge are great angular outcroppings of volcanic rock—solid and sharp-edged protrusions from some long-ago eruption of Lassen or some other volcano in the area. In many places, the sheer sides of the gorge have huge slabs balanced ... More >>

The Universe Is In A State Of Meditation. Why Aren’t Human Beings?

Friday, 6 October 2023, 12:38 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

The potential in the human brain for higher states of awareness is awakened with the realization that consciousness is not extrinsic but intrinsic to nature and the cosmos. Given that’s true however, what is the relationship between the consciousness ... More >>

The Same Old Human Rights Council?

Thursday, 5 October 2023, 12:34 pm | Martin LeFevre - Meditations

In light of Russia’s bid to rejoin the Human Rights Council on October 10th, Scoop is republishing “The New Human Rights Council,” by Martin LeFevre, from March 20th, 2006. It is even more relevant today. As absurd as Russia’s all-out diplomatic ... More >>

   

 
 
 
 
 

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