If you take pleasure in consciousness, you take pleasure in suffering.

Results indicate smartphone involvement (a compulsive pattern of use and cognitive preoccupation with one’s smartphone) to be significantly associated with lower trait mindfulness.

Interestingly, time spent on the phone did not correlate with decreased mindfulness when controlling for compulsion.

Meet the people, the hoarders, not as bearers of mental illness but as differently-abled bodies that might have special sensory access to the call of things.

Women overestimated the facial femininity that men prefer in a partner and men overestimated the facial masculinity that women prefer in a partner.

These results indicate misperception of opposite-sex facial preferences and that mistaken perceptions may contribute to dissatisfaction with [one’s] own appearance.

The more people used Facebook at one time point, the worse they felt the next time we text-messaged them; the more they used Facebook over two-weeks, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time.

On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it.

What is the abode of wealth?
What drags a person around?

When one’s ferverous nature has been laid down…

The hefty steel speaker we hooked
over the passenger seat window.

There are three kinds of genies: Genies to whom you can safely say, “I wish for you to do what I should wish for”; genies for which no wish is safe; and genies that aren’t very powerful or intelligent.

Do not speak to the ghost [your ghost]
resting outside your head.
He is not real,
he is not real,
he is really [your ghost]

Throw me into a cloud o lord
with those awkward hands of yours…

There are, bhikkhus, these three kinds of intoxication.

Siddhattha’s delicate upbringing.

They formerly had the desire to attain perfection, but when they attained perfection the corresponding desire faded away.

The Venerable Ānanda explains to the Brahmin Uṇṇābha how the right kind of desire leads to the end of desire.

With craving his companion, a man
wanders on a long, long time.

What can cause a monk to be reborn?

I say that this person is like the warrior who is killed and finished off by his foes. Some people are like that.

Some warriors, like some monks, are killed or injured in battle, while others emerge victorious.

You know how it goes. You love something dearly…

But those who have abandoned craving…

The three cravings and what it’s like to be beyond their grasp.

Sustained by that care, nourished by it, that sapling would attain to growth, increase, and expansion. So too, when one dwells contemplating gratification in things that can fetter, craving increases.

Illustrated with the simile of a sapling.

If, bhikkhus, there is lust for contact…

The Buddha defines the four kinds of “food” or “nutriment”, which include edible food, contact, intention, and consciousness, showing how they lead to suffering according to dependent origination.

The Buddha spoke of two kinds of desire: desire that arises from ignorance and delusion which is called taṇhā—craving—and desire that arises from wisdom and intelligence, which is called kusala-chanda

Adapted from a Dhamma talk of Ajahn Jayasāro, this article explains the role that skilful desires (chanda) and the four right exertions (sammappadhāna) play in a practitioner’s development.

Mendicants, there are these three searches. What three? The search for sensual pleasures, the search for continued existence, and the search for a holy life.

Effort is needed, but can be excessive, unreflectively mindless, unaware of gradually developed results, or misdirected. Contentment can be misunderstood to imply that skilful desire has no role in practice, and lead to passivity

Possessions, honor, and popularity are brutal, bitter, and harsh.

Even someone who would not lie for the sake of their mother could do so when corrupted by material possessions.

… he sank and melted down and wasn’t able to stay still. It’s like when ghee or oil is poured onto sand: it sinks and melts down, and can’t remain

A god from the Pure Abodes visits the Buddha and complains about how busy he is.

By what is the world afflicted?
By what is it enveloped?

The world is burning with desire.

Aśvaghoṣa twice refers to a story in which the ṛṣi Vyāsa was kicked by a prostitute…

But beauty wasn’t enough.

[Hunter-gatherers] considered themselves affluent and enjoyed a degree of affluence as a result of that. Yet we seem to be trapped in this cycle of ever pursuing more and greater growth, greater wealth, greater anything. It seems that our aspirations now grow endlessly.

A conversation on how consumerism is making us unhappy and what a different culture might look like.

Cynthia wasn’t just any old mannequin from New York. This wasn’t even her first social event. By the time Jeanne’s mother-in-law met her, she had already attended balls, graced the front pages of magazines and appeared in Hollywood movies. Cynthia was a celebrity.

Though I was frequently seen it was rarely a
positive experience.