Many of us have loved and lost an animal companion. It is truly one of life’s most harrowing ordeals. When we have especially close relationships with our pets, they are members of our family, often as loved as human members. Their passing creates a void we know can never be filled. Immediately after the passing...
Following on my June update about The Dalai Lama’s Cat movie (http://davidmichie.com/blog/2015/06/27/ exciting-news-the-dalai-lamas-cat-movie/) I am very happy to let everyone know that a screenplay has now been delivered – and it is terrific! You can probably imagine the trepidation a novelist feels handing over work to a screenplay writer to turn into a movie script:...
Most of us can remember a few words that were spoken to us at a pivotal moment in our life which had a powerful impact. The person saying the words may – or may not – have been important to us. But whatever they communicated struck us with such compelling clarity that it made...
Having moved from the Renaissance idea of mind as soul, through the materialist notion of mind as brain, Western scientists are now deepening their understanding of mind as a flow of energy, capable of consciousness and cognition. This explanation shares certain elements of the previous paradigms, while dealing with their more evident flaws. Like Descartes’s...
When we visit Africa, we feel like we’ve come home. The feeling may strike us in a myriad different ways. And not everyone experiences it as strongly. But over the years I’ve watched even the most sophisticated urbanites melt after a few days absorbing the unique energy of Africa. Africa is a whole continent, with...
I’m delighted to share this article I contributed to Bare Essentials magazine. Thank you, Alistair Swartz, for the gorgeous African wildlife photos! To read the article go to: http://bareessentialsmagazine.uberflip.com/i/563639-bare-essentials-issue-39/86
The most obvious problem with claiming that mind and brain are the same is the lack of an explanation as to how consciousness can arise from matter. In the past, some scientists adopted the denial strategy, saying that mind and consciousness didn’t actually exist. The American behaviourist B.F. Skinner went as far as to say...
We’re just back from Mindful Safari in Africa, and I’ve had a lot of messages from people wanting to know how it went. I’m very pleased to be sharing a few photo highlights here. This year’s Mindful Safari was held at Clive’s Camp and Xidulu – private game lodges on the Makalali Reserve, which borders...
René Descartes, sometimes referred to as the father of modern philosophy, summed up his famous views on how mind and body are separate in his book Discourse on the Method, published in 1637. In it, he explained the reasoning behind his seminal dictum ‘I think therefore I am’: “From this I knew I was a...
I wrote ‘Enlightenment to Go’ to help share the wisdom of Shantideva, an amazing Buddhist sage who composed the world’s first self-help book, back in the eighth century. If you really want to understand the essence of Tibetan Buddhism, there is no better source than Shantideva – who the Dalai Lama, and many other...