Google Personal Growth Series: Mindsight: The New Science of

I think Google should be president

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Just a month after starting four years ago, I was better able to respond appropriately (and cheerfully!?) to particular situations. Thank you for reading my comment.

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...a cow metaphor that some Buddhist teachers came up with (cow is mind, stake is meditative focus, grass over there is impetus to wander). My friend was passing on what he learned from his lessons from a Zen temple as well as his subsequent experience.

I'd be willing to forward it to you and answer questions if you would like to take meditation on for yourself. In case you are wondering, it is a concentration meditation, focusing on breathing.

If someone is interested in a 400-word guide on how to meditate for beginners, I will be glad to send it to you. I have been following its advice for the past four years, spending 15-25 minutes a day. In my case, my sense of well-being has increased quite a lot, and negative emotion has become far less strong in my inner life.

Four years ago my friend wrote me this guide, after I asked him via e-mail for instructions on how to meditate. The guide is very nice in restating...

Great lecture that is very optimistic about the ability of the mind to change, the importance of relationships and the power of meditation.

I feel like I've heard many of my own ideas reiterated in not even a very different form than my own thought in this fantastic lecture. But I will suggest that ultimately what he is calling mindfulness or mindsight, and which I entirely agree is the critical issue of strengethening the mind - of intellect - is a philosophical issue of introspection and critically relies on a proper epistemology. Taking the time out of your day to introspect, to be self-aware should not be "time out of the day"

It should be the consistent norm established by a certain epistemological method. Using a term that I once thought was completely bogus of Ayn Rand's but is entirely the topic of this lecture .. "psycho-epistemology" or man's mental habit of being aware is indeed a habit he can and should be developed constantly. I'm leaving out the critical SOCIAL correlation Daniel correctly pointed out which was NOT a part of Ayn's (expressed) ideas. Times up, Sorry for partially abusing the comment system =)

So basically, mental health is a process of definition. Ayn Rand said the same thing, used the same terms (Integration, differentiation) relating mathematics and epistemology, and died after she had just begun to meander into neuroscience. The social/empathetic aspect is highly stressed, but it remains the same core idea of Ayn's that man's humanity (social, and individual) is his capacity for reason. His capacity to integrate, to empathize. And most crucial to grasp, his free will.