Tag: spirituality

Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation

jembendell

In a time of metacrisis, disruption and collapse, many of us yearn for deeper spiritual meaning but aren’t attracted to institutional religion. We also sense that growing recognition of humanity’s predicament could prompt a spiritual awakening, at least for some. This means many of us aren’t sure where to turn to find either advice or community, or to invite others together for that. That has been my situation. Personally, I have benefitted from Buddhist and Daoist philosophy and practice, nature-based Indigenous wisdom, and mystic strands of Christianity, as I shared in a ‘Buddha At The Gas Pump’ interview and now integrate into my music. I now want to go deeper and further with others. In the New Year, we launch the Metacrisis Mentors programme, where we will draw upon a variety of wisdom traditions to explore, in challenging times: what is mine to do and how am I to be? 

In January, we will announce more about the programme, which will be open to all members of the Metacrisis Meetings initiative. One of the key texts will be Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation by Reverend Stephen G. Wright. A former palliative nurse, academic, and ordained inter-faith minister, Dr. Wright has cultivated decades of wisdom at the intersection of caregiving, contemplation, and mystical inquiry. His voice is deeply rooted in the lived experience of guiding seekers and spiritual nomads — those who feel estranged from dogma but still feel the call of the sacred.

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Science has not proven there is no free will – almost the contrary

jembendell

This essay is the first in a series on aspects of free will and consciousness, and the implications for how we live in a metacrisis that, understandably, challenges our assumptions, beliefs and emotions. In this essay, I show how the increasingly popularised view that science has disproved relative free will is actually neither true nor scientific. I then explore other forms of knowledge on the matter. Thanks, Jem (PS: this is not written by AI ;-).

Science has not proven there is no free will – almost the contrary. 

In the last few years, you might have casually seen a few science magazines, or heard the commentary of a YouTuber or Tiktoker, and assumed that many people now think that science has proven there is no free will. If you have more than a passing interest, you might have noticed new books, from major publishers, which claim the matter is concluded – there is no free will and we can be grateful for it. A widely-quoted author on the topic, Robert Sapolsky states, “we are nothing more or less than cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control.”[1] Possible reasons and implications of an increase in the volume of arguments against free will is something I’ll explore in the second essay in this series on free will, consciousness and philosophy in an era of ‘metacrisis’ and societal collapse. In my book Breaking Together, I advance a freedom-based response to the predicament of humanity as an alternative to the various strands of either panicked authoritarianism or numbed disengagement. Therefore, the matter of whether freedom exists at all is rather important. In the book I included a brief discussion of the nature and existence of free will [2]. That was before the uptick in content claiming that our thoughts, feelings and actions were predetermined since the moment of the big bang (which is not a flippant summary of ‘determinism’). In response, with a series of essays, I will go deeper into the sciences, philosophy and social sciences on the matter. That is because this is not a mere intellectual and unending discussion; rather, it has very real ramifications for whether powerful people will accelerate the damage to humanity and the environment – and how we might organise ourselves for better outcomes.

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Free Your Mind… from your Mind

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“Our most intimate relationship is the one we have with our own minds. I was in a very dark place for a long time. Then one day I realised a simple thing. When I believed my own thoughts, I suffered. When I didn’t believe them, I didn’t suffer. Everything changed for me that day.”
– Byron Katie

“Make a list of [your] darkest, most aggravating, shameful beliefs – the poisonous, top secret, horrible judgements we reveal to no one – then choose the greatest shame of all and apply the four questions and turnaround”

1.Is it true?
2.Can you be absolutely sure that it’s true?
3.How do you react when you think that thought?
4.Who would you be without that thought?

“[Then] invert the original thought and give three examples of why this “turnaround” is as true as, or truer than, the original belief.

“According to Katie, any painful thought subjected to this inquiry loses its power to hurt us, since most of what foes on between our ears is a pack of lies.”

I did it, it helped.

All quotes excerpted from Mark Matousek’s book pg 127/8

More on him at http://www.markmatousek.com/