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Mandala: Memory Palace, Inception and Simulated Worlds
by Robert Lamb | February 7, 2012
A world simulated in the mind, where fortresses of bone rise above a sea of blood. Where a pantheon of wrathful and serene deities assemble in precise arrangement. Where multi-limbed beings dance, cyclopean architecture looms high and a mountain bridges Earth to the cosmos.
That’s the rich world of the Mandala (Sanskrit for “circle”), an artistic visualization tool that allows Tibetan Buddhism ‘s most advanced psychonauts to enter heightened states of meditation. It’s essentially an imagined palace, not unlike the dreamscape architects in the sci-fi film “Inception,” or the famed “memory palace” mnemonic device that emerged in ancient Rome.
Listener Anne Marie recommended this site and once Rachel and I got a look at a picture, we could see why. Located in northern Thailand, Wat Rong Khun is unlike any other Buddhist temple. You walk over a white bridge to the main building surrounded on either side by a massive sculpture of grasping hands. [...]
The title of the image is, “Note At A Buddhist Monastery”:
This same kind of notice could be issued to pigeons, rats, mice…
How to get rid of pigeons (including the most dramatic way I’ve ever seen)
The only problem…
Depressed in the West: Cultural Neuroscience Chimes In
by Robert Lamb | October 27, 2009
Grasping: Buddhism has decried it as the source of all human suffering for millennia while the West built an entire culture around it. We want more money. We want more life. We live our self-centered lives with the demon of impermanence breathing down our neck. The idea that we might feel better if we forgot about ourselves for a little bit should seem like a no-brainer.
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