Chariots of copper and silver
Prows of silver and steel –
Thresh the foam, –
Plough up the roots of the thornback.
Currents of the heath
And boundless ruts of ebb tide,
Swirl in circles toward the east,
Toward the pillars of the forest, –
Toward the trunks of the pier,
Its edge struck by whirlwinds of light.
(Translated by Holly Tannen)
Image courtesy of www.pixabay.com
Stephen and Robert discuss the idea of the Middle Way both within Buddhism and beyond it.
MWS Podcast 51: Stephen Batchelor and Robert M Ellis as audio only:
Download audio: MWS_Podcast_51_Batchelor_Ellis
The science writer Michael Brooks holds a PhD in quantum physics and as well as authoring several popular science books including, The Secret Anarchy of Science, the bestselling 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense and At the Edge of Uncertainty, he’s also written the novel Entanglement. In addition, he’s a journalist and broadcaster. He regularly writes for the Guardian, he’s a former feature editor of the New Scientist magazine and writes a weekly column for the New Statesman. Michael is here to talk to us about the state and role of science today, how one goes about doing good science, some pitfalls to avoid and what the future may hold for this fascinating field of human endeavour.
MWS Podcast 50: Michael Brooks as audio only:
Download audio: MWS_Podcast_50_Michael_Brooks
Parables have become a useful way for me to illustrate the dilemmas I experience. I wrote this one on a Facebook post recently, which Robert spotted and suggested I reproduce here.
Once upon a time, there was an old woman who had 10 children, 40 grandchildren and 150 great-grandchildren.
The old woman had spent her life caring: first for her younger siblings, next for her own children and then for her grandparents and parents. When her children had children she knitted for them and baked them cakes. When her great-grandchildren arrived she sang them songs and told them stories.
Then one day a Holy Man arrived in her village. “I am here to speak of love,” he said.
“Oh, I know all about love,” laughed the old woman, “I have loved all my life. Loved until my bones ached and my eyes had no more tears.”
“The love I speak has no bounds, is self-sacrificing and eternal,” preached the Holy Man, “Love beyond your imagination.”
“Yes! We must be talking about the same thing,” insisted the old woman, “The love where your heart bursts, where you give love every waking moment, love until you fear you have no more left to give but the next day there is always more to go round.”
The Holy Man shook his head and exclaimed “Woman! Have you no shame? I am not talking about your mortal , second rate love which is tainted with selfishness and dubious motivations. I am here to tell you about a greater being with a greater love than you can ever know!”
The old woman gave the Holy Man a nice cup of tea, a fat slice of cake, whistled him a tune and sent him on his way.
Dan Siegel, author of ‘Mindsight’, here offers a scientifically precise take on integration, and on the kind of view of the mind that is needed to make sense of integration. This is well worth a view if you are interested in understanding the working of integration more clearly. We’re not just talking vague psychobabble here, but something that can be understood quite precisely both in terms of brains and in terms of experience. There is also an interesting transcribed interview with him here.