It has now become clear that Biden has no plans in place to retrieve the remaining US civilians and Afghan workers and civilians who are still stuck in Afghanistan. What a horrendous turn of events. What a lame president he has become. Is he scared? Is he demented? Does he really expect to remain the president after all this? God forbid that Trump might get back in there after all but it's a real possibility folks. All the biblical prophecies concerning the downfall of America are coming to pass. All the prophecies concerning the middle east are coming to pass. I think we're really in a world of shit here with no end in sight. Time to leave the planet if only I could!

In a quiet room, we can find stillness. And in that stillness, we can contemplate our own mind.

What we often find is that the mind is very restless. It wants to take care of a thousand things, because it's feeling some uncertainty and fear. It wants to fix problems, take care of all the undone things, figure out if everything is going to be OK. It wants to get all of our needs met, from survival needs to meaning, connection and love.

The mind is restless, wanting to fix everything, get everything it needs.

What if we could allow our minds to rest, settling into the full sufficiency of itself just as it is?

We would need nothing in each moment, other than what's required for physical survival. That doesn't mean we do nothing (though we could!) beyond our needs, there might be a wholehearted desire to do some good for ourselves or others, but it doesnt have to come from fear.

There's a settledness, a peace, that can come with this kind of practice.

Theres a feeling that we are enough. That everything we need is already contained in us.

It's a lifetime practice.

Here's how I recommend starting:

1. Sit in a quiet spot. Elevate your hips above your knees with a cushion, to give yourself more stability and comfort. Sit in an upright but relaxed posture. Eyes can be closed or slightly open with a soft downward gaze.
2. Find stillness. Stay in this spot for at least 5-10 minutes, longer over time if you like. It doesn't have to be long, but when you feel restless, stay for a little longer to practice with this restlessness.
3. Rest in direct experience. Let your attention turn to the sensations of your body, the sensations of the present moment. These sensations are direct experience of the world. Rest your mind in this open awareness of direct experience, without needing to do anything but witness them.
4. Observe the mind. Your mind will want to turn away from this direct experience. That's because it feels unsettled. It wants to get its needs met, or fix problems or deal with uncertainties or fear. That's OK! Watch the mind do its thing. What is it trying to fix? Notice the underlying fear or desire as the mind tries to do its thing.
5. Appreciate the luminous quality of the mind. The mind is like an energy, trying to do its best to survive. It is unaware that it already is brilliant, abundant, enough. It is luminous and beautiful. We can start to appreciate these delightful qualities of the mind. This takes curiosity, appreciation, and lots of practice. Keep practicing.

Go and sit, practice, and let me know what you find!

Credit: Leo Babauta - Zen Habits

The news reports about the ever escalating conflicts in the Middle East are staggeringly frightening! The land of Israel is surrounded by enemies that are bent on the total destruction of the land of Israel and its people. Even if you don't believe in the biblical prophesys about the Israeli people, you have to admit that the current state of affairs is having and will have global impact on us all. I don't promote religion which is man made, but I do promote the Word of God and biblical prophesy. All you have to do is open your eyes to see the implications of the ongoing conflicts. Russia and China are main players in this real life game of Thrones and I fear that we will be drawn into the midst of the carnage even more than we already are. There is no single solution here.

When people see a toothbrush, a car, a tree -- any individual object -- their brain automatically associates it with other things it naturally occurs with, allowing humans to build context for their surroundings and set expectations for the world.

By using machine-learning and brain imaging, researchers measured the extent of the "co-occurrence" phenomenon and identified the brain region involved. The findings appear in Nature Communications.

"When we see a refrigerator, we think we're just looking at a refrigerator, but in our mind, we're also calling up all the other things in a kitchen that we associate with a refrigerator," said corresponding author Mick Bonner, a Johns Hopkins University cognitive scientist. "This is the first time anyone has quantified this and identified the brain region where it happens."

In a two-part study, Bonner and co-author, Russell Epstein, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, used a database with thousands of scenic photos with every object labeled. There were pictures of household scenes, city life, nature -- and the pictures had labels for every mug, car, tree, etc. To quantify object co-occurrences, or how often certain objects appeared with others, they created a statistical model and algorithm that demonstrated the likelihood of seeing a pen if you saw a keyboard, or seeing a boat if you saw a dishwasher.

With these contextual associations quantified, the researchers next attempted to map the brain region that handles the links.

While subjects were having their brain activity monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, the team showed them pictures of individual objects and looked for evidence of a region whose responses tracked this co-occurrence information. The spot they identified was a region in the visual cortex commonly associated with the processing of spatial scenes.

"When you look at a plane, this region signals sky and clouds and all the other things,quot; Bonner said. "This region of the brain long thought to process the spatial environment is also coding information about what things go together in the world."

Researchers have long-known that people are slower to recognize objects out of context. The team believes this is the first large-scale experiment to quantify the associations between objects in the visual environment as well as the first insight into how this visual context is represented in the brain.

"We show in a fine-grained way that the brain actually seems to represent this rich statistical information," Bonner said.

Copied From: Science Daily
Source: Johns Hopkins University

I wanted to take a moment to provide my thoughts about this blog, as well as the developer. This blog started out on a small scale and has turned out to be a full fledged blog with many bells and whistles. There have been many trials and errors but the developer (Terry) persevered and it has now evolved into what it is today. Another purpose for this post is to experience first hand how to post an article on someone else's blog. You have to admit that is not the usual way a blog site is run. Just another reason to give this a try. This last part is aimed at Terry himself...I wonder if the Latest Topics list in the right hand panel could be set up as a drop down list? I believe that it would make the panel seem "tighter" and prevent the need to scroll down to see what else is in the panel. Keep in mind this is an opinion and may not even be possible as I don't have the coding skills needed to determine the viability of doing so. Congratulations on a great looking blog.