But that's what I mean. They believed in ataraxia and yet no word or tradition of practice --- Something is not adding up here
The reason why I'm interested is that I, like a few others in this forum, feel like I benefit most from a no-frills practice of meditation. Without apellations to cultural rationalizations foreign to me or superstitions or ritual.
then do whatever you want to. the greeks harvested a sacrament from the ergot infected rye, regardless of how sick it made them, they were onto LSD before any one I always have great respect for that aspect of their culture, and sheds light into their shadows...
LOL! Greek psychadelics! Yeah, but the guys I refer to were atheists --- Epicurus, Sextus Empiricus, etc. My questions is: If formal practice were so important in the lives of men and women, how is it not culturally universal?
Most cultures have developed their own systems of meditation, or practices that many of us would recognise as meditation. It does of course, depend on how rigidly one would define it. Though "Eastern" meditation practices are not without no-frills meditation. Zazen, for example
As I understand it, there isn't anything BUT consciousness. Given that the material universe is 14+ billion years old, wouldn't that be the minimum age of consciousness? I guess ameobas have some sort of awareness, but the human level of awareness must have evolved over eons, don't you think? When did man become aware enough to look inside himself? I guess a better question is when did man become unaware enough to quit looking inside himself?
I like your way of thinking. I was referring to human consciousness, and we can use the universe as a metaphor to explain the brain's evolution. The human brain expanded (neocortex) tremendously between 300-100,000 years ago until it reached roughly the modern size. But the brain is fatty tissue and science can't dig up or scan ancient, decomposed brains. So we can't figure out what actually happened within the brain. But this is what likely happened. Through interaction and expansion across every continent, human beings/brains started interacting and adapting to a lot of change. Their brains must have grown and expanded accordingly to meet higher demands, and further, through interaction, the various brain modules/regions started interacting more and more. Barriers were broken down within the brain as the people expanded and crossed sea and mountain barriers, increasing their populations, breaking technological barriers and so forth. So you see why I like the universe metaphor. First there was expansion, then there was a big bang inside the brain around 50,000 years ago. The so-called great leap forward. We've never stopped expanding and our brains never stop evolving. Now infants come pre-wired for language. That obviously wasn't possible 50,000 years ago at the dawn of language. I see the Internet as an ever-expanding consciousness that ties us all together, and since we created this web (and everything else human-made), and since all our creations are ultimately borne from our minds, I believe our brains now are at another threshold of consciousness. Unification or total destruction. Stress and depression (caused by long-term fight or flight) cause isolation and cell death within regions of the brain (especially the hippocampus - emotional brain). On the other hand, the only way to unify a living universe/earth/nuclear family/brain is through love and compassion. Brain scans of meditators show how compassion meditation creates stunning interaction and "happy" activity within the brain itself. That's why your statement about "when did man become unaware enough to quit looking inside himself?" is true and pretty terrifying. In the history of man, this is the time when we need to become more aware of what we're doing. And compassion is unifying love in action. Compassion holds the key to happiness and human survival.
