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Review: Sam Harris “Waking Up”

If there is an intellectual out there who I connect with more than Sam Harris, I haven’t met him. From his books decrying the evil of religion such as in his best-selling The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason to his attempt to place morality in the hands of science with The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, I have cheered him on, nodding in agreement with the vast majority of his claims and laughing at his stinging barbs. With his clear voice, mighty intellect and quick wit, he went from being a neuroscience graduate student that nobody had ever heard of to one of the Four Horseman of the new atheists along with Christopher Hitchens, Dan Dennett, and Richard Dawkins, all seemingly overnight.

But unlike those other three intellectual titans, Harris has always struck me as the least ivory tower of the bunch. Like me he has a passion for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and is a follower of MMA, and as we find out in the very first chapter of his book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion he spent much of his 20’s high on LSD and MDMA. It was these drug experiences that helped send him on search for that ever elusive state of mind called enlightenment.

During his undergraduate years at Stanford, Harris and a friend ingested the drug MDMA, commonly known by its street name Ecstasy. This was in 1987, before the rave scene was popular, so Sam and his friend merely hung out inside a house and sat across from each other on two couches and chatted.  As their conversation went on and the chemicals of the drug began to take hold Sam came to the sudden realization that he loved his friend. A completely selfless love that all Sam could want was for his friend to be happy. The idea of being jealous or envious of his friend’s or anyone else’s success in life seemed like a mental illness. Nor did this love just extend to his friend, but if any complete stranger had walked into the room at the moment, Sam’s love would have extended to that person too. Love he realized, was a state of being, not something we are only supposed to feel towards someone if they had a certain relationship with you. Under the spell of ecstasy he felt sane for the first time in his life.

There was far more happiness available to be experienced in this life than what is commonly known and Sam went in search of how to get it. His travels took him all across Asia to study at the feet of some of world’s best known meditation masters. He would spend two years in retreat, meditating 18 hours a day, before finally, under the guise of the legendary Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, did Sam find what he was after. The direct experience of what we consider the self as an illusion.

“Waking Up” is divided into five chapters, the first chapter deals with the nature of spirituality, how it is conceived differently in the east and west, how a secular person can glean the fruits of spiritual wisdom without having to buy into the dogma of religion. This is an important point that needs to be made to the secular community, just because the Abrahamic religions you have been surrounded by growing up are ridiculous, doesn’t mean that there isn’t some wisdom to be learned from the east. And sure some of the claims of the east are laughable too, but as Harris points out, there is a diamond in the rough, and it is possible to have it in the palm of your hand.

In the next few chapters Sam Harris put on his neuroscientist hat to wonder about some of the mysteries of consciousness. He goes over what is known as the “hard problem of consciousness”, why it is that this hunk of atoms and molecules that is us experiences the world at all in a way that a rock surely doesn’t. He sees this as an enigma that we just can’t solve at the moment. And then moves on to the nature of the self. Through some clever thought experiments Harris wants us to see how our commonplace sense of self doesn’t stand up to closer scrutiny. The main illusion here is that we tend to think of ourselves as “possessing (rather than of merely being) a continuum of experience.”

This an empirical claim says Harris, look closely at your own mind and you will never find a sense of self. And when this absence of self is found, the feeling of being a self a vanishes. The problem is we are too distracted by the noise going on in our minds that we don’t have the contemplative tools to be able to see this clearly. In a very clever analogy he relates this to Galileo having to build his own telescope to look at the stars. If every single one of us had to be able to build our own telescopes, how much would the average person know about astronomy?

But that is exactly what has to happen in order to successfully navigate the mind. We have to build our own tools, the first of which being the ability to concentrate and not get swept away by the tornado of thoughts. For this we need to learn how to meditate. The subject of his next chapter.

Where “Waking Up” may spark the most controversy is not between Christians and atheists, between the religious and the secular, but between the Dharma practitioners themselves. In his chapter “Sudden vs Gradual realization” Harris tackles the age old question of just how to become enlightened. There are two types of paths, one gradual and one sudden. Those who follow the gradual path, such as is outlined in Theravadan buddhism assume that enlightenment is something to be attained, and that to get it you first have to pass by all these intermediate steps and do all sorts of practices. By adopting certain practices, the sense of self slowly diminishes over time. The sudden school of thought is that we are already enlightened, we already don’t have a sense of self and we can have happiness right now, we just need to have it pointed it out to us. The sudden school criticize’s the gradual school by saying the gradual school only reinforces the nature of self by implicitly believing that there is an “I” who is working towards enlightenment. While the gradual school shoots back and says  ‘you dummies don’t you realize your path actually is gradual, you didn’t suddenly become enlightened all at once, you had to train your concentration first and then once you had the no-self pointed out you have to keep training in reinforcing it over and over.’

Harris first outlines his attempts in the tradition of Theravadan buddhism, studying under one of the foremost living masters in the discipline Sayadaw U Pandita. While on retreat  he had many amazing experiences and all together grew happier and more concentrated but the breakthrough to realizing no-self never happened.

Harris would then give the tradition of Avaita Vedanta a chance, where he began to believe that realizing the illusory nature of self was possible in this moment right now. But it wasn’t until he met with the legendary Tibetan Buddhist master Tulku Urgyen Rinpochewhere Sam learned the practice of Dzogchen and finally had his breakthrough. It was with the absolute clarity of Tulku Urgyen’s advice that Harris finally learnt how to cut through the illusion of self…if only for an instance…

Harris has clearly thrown his hat into the sudden awakening school and he has been criticized for this by some of the gradual school folks like Daniel Ingram who point out that Harris had been training for years before receiving Tulku Urgyen’s teaching, and that the amount of ordinary people who ‘pop’ (suddenly become awake) when hearing a Dzogchen master point out the nature of the mind is very small, and those who do usually have had years of meditation training like Harris had. So not sudden at all, but gradual. Harris does admit this, as he knows that even the Tibetan Buddhists go through years of preliminary practices before receiving Dzgochen instruction. Also Harris’s awakening only lasts for a few moments, before he gets caught up in the illusion of self again. Although he says that with more practice, those moments would extend in duration and intensity. One wonders why if as Harris says, who readily admits that he often gets lost in neurotic thought doesn’t practice more if his awakening moments are so blissful? (To watch him in debate though, is to watch someone who appears amazingly focused and phlegmatic)

According to Harris the best way to learn to become enlightened is to learn at the foot of a dzogchen master. Unfortunately his teacher Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche is no longer around, but his sons are. And I can attest they are very good teachers. Long before I had even heard of the father, I picked up his youngest sons book, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness and have found it one of if not the clearest guide on meditation anywhere. In the end, Harris wants you to give meditation a try and run the experiment in your own mind. Will you find the same fruits he did?


 

 

 

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Deconstructing Scientific American’s Anti-Paleo Article

Yesterday science writer Ferris Jabr posted an article on the Scientific American website called How to Really Eat Like a Hunther-Gatherer: Why the Paleo Diet is Half Baked.  Some of his gripes with paleo are accurate, but not unknown to paleo afficiandos and others are simply not well thought out. I’ll go through them here one by one.

 

 

Diet has been an important part of our evolution—as it is for every species—and we have inherited many adaptations from our Paleo predecessors. Understanding how we evolved could, in principle, help us make smarter dietary choices today. But the logic behind the Paleo diet fails in several ways: by making apotheosis of one particular slice of our evolutionary history; by insisting that we are biologically identical to stone age humans; and by denying the benefits of some of our more modern methods of eating.

On his website, Sisson writes that “while the world has changed in innumerable ways in the last 10,000 years (for better and worse), the human genome has changed very little and thus only thrives under similar conditions.” This is simply not true. In fact, this reasoning misconstrues how evolution works. If humans and other organisms could only thrive in circumstances similar to the ones their predecessors lived in, life would not have lasted very long.

 

There is a difference between ‘surviving’ and ‘thriving’. In terms of health and happiness I would not consider the majority of the human race today to be thriving. Obesity is skyrocketing, mental illness is everywhere and even those considered to be of normal psyche’s are far more stressed out than your hunter-gatherer’s – who really do exhibit a remarkable lack of stress and worry.  And while species do need to be able to survive new environments; and while we have evolved slightly since the paleolithic era, our genes have changed no where near as fast as our culture has. If you took a person from 20,000 years ago, gave him a haircut and dressed him in clothes from your local mall he would be indistinguishable from the other shoppers, albeit in better shape. However, that mall and everything inside placed next to a paleolithic village of huts would seem like from another planet. We are simply not adapted to live sedentary lifestyles, indoors and munching on the Western diet.

Even if eating only foods available to hunter–gatherers in the Paleolithic made sense, it would be impossible. As Christina Warinner of the University of Zurich emphasizes in her 2012 TED talk, just about every single species commonly consumed today—whether a fruit, vegetable or animal—is drastically different from its Paleolithic predecessor.

This critique of modern paleo diets is true. Although none of this is new to the paleo community. As Fabr himself writes, people who follow a paleo diet try and mimic the ones of their ancestors as best as we can.

But where Fabr really gets into trouble is when he starts talking about our ancestors and their health. He writes..

 

[ The Paleo Diet ] ignores much of the evidence about our ancestors’ health during their—often brief—individual life spans (even if a minority of our Paleo ancestors made it into their 40s or beyond, many children likely died before age 15

 

Fabr needs to do a little more research into the lifespan of hunter-gatherer’s.  Perhaps he is unaware of this study entitled

Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination that found the modal age of death in extant hunter-gatherer tribes to be 72. While it is true that childhood mortality is much higher (which significantly brings down the mean age of death) in these cultures the reason for their early deaths has nothing to do with diet.  It is believed that somewhere between 15%-50% all young babies died from infanticide. Many other’s during childbirth.  Infant mortality in hunter-gatherer tribes was 30 times higher than in modern society and childhood mortality 100 times higher. The reason for these high rates is the natural dangers of living in the wild and living in a world without modern medicine. Ask yourself, would you have made it out of childhood if you had never seen a doctor?  I know that I had a terrible case of pneumonia at age 2, and whose to say without the help of modern medicine that I would have survived.

We can look at the chart of the actual deaths of members of the Hiwi tribe, the tribe that Jabr references and see exactly what it is that killed them.  Most interesting is the data collected from pre-contact times as that would be the most telling of a natural hunter-gatherer tribe. Although it should also be mentioned that the Hiwi have a higher rate of mortality, especially from warfare as in comparison to other extant hunter-gatherer tribes.

Of the 169 total deaths recorded, here is why they died.

Infectious disease (Malaria, respiratory infection, diarrhea, measles)= 70

War (with each other or Venezuelans) = 33

Infanticide=13

Congenital infant death (birth trauma and other childbirth deaths)=12

Environmental Hazard=7

Human Caused Accident=7

Suicide=3

Organic and pathological conditions (heart problems, cancer, liver problems, “swallowed tongue”) = 1

Nutritional deficiencies (starvation or malnourished)=0

Jabr used the Hiwi as an example of anti-paleo but looking at their mortality rate it looks like a glaring win for those who choose to eat a Paleo Diet.  Only one single Hiwi died from a pathological condition(the most common form of death in the US) and considering that “swallowed tongue” was even considered in the category by the researcher’s that could very well have been the reason for that death. While 0 of the Hiwi tribe died from either nutritional deficiencies or starvation. This means that the diet of the Hiwi was certainly not giving them cancer and heart disease. Where does this leave Jabr’s argument? Basically “Lots of Hiwi died from malaria, therefore you should eat pancakes.”

 

A recent study in The Lancet looked for signs of atherosclerosis—arteries clogged with cholesterol and fats—in more than one hundred ancient mummies from societies of farmers, foragers and hunter–gatherers around the world, including Egypt, Peru, the southwestern U.S and the Aleutian Islands. “A common assumption is that atherosclerosis is predominately lifestyle-related, and that if modern human beings could emulate preindustrial or even preagricultural lifestyles, that atherosclerosis, or least its clinical manifestations, would be avoided,” the researchers wrote. But they found evidence of probable or definite atherosclerosis in 47 of 137 mummies from each of the different geographical regions.

 

Dr. Stephen Guyanet breaks down this study and what we can draw from these conclusions excellently here. Most importantly he writes that developing atherosclerosis does not equate to having a heart attack. Atherosclerosis may just be something that happens as we age and while it is a risk factor for heart attack, numerous studies of non-industrial cultures have shown them to have atherosclerosis and yet have almost zero incidence of heart attack. It should also be noted that only 6 of the mummies came from a hunter-gatherer culture (what an incredible sample size!) and these hunter-gatherer’s were from the artic, and had to adopt a very extreme diet out of necessity with almost no plant food. In other words, these are not your average hunter-gatherer’s- most of whom lived in more moderate climates.

 

And even if heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes were not as common among our predecessors, they still faced numerous threats to their health that modern sanitation and medicine have rendered negligible for people in industrialized nations, such as infestations of parasites and certain lethal bacterial and viral infections.

Actually many of the viruses that humans have fell to over the years came from animals that we were breeding. Hunter-gatherer cultures existed largely without these deadly viruses and hence had no immune system response to them when the white man came and devastated their populations with small pox and other diseases.  Certain hunter-gatherer tribes never even got the common cold. While it is true parasites and bacterial infections were a problem, what does it have to do with modern people eating a diet based on our paleolithic ancestor’s? Absolutely nothing.

 

If we compare the diets of so-called modern hunter-gatherers, however, we see just how difficult it is to find meaningful commonalities and extract useful dietary guidelines from their disparate lives (see infographic). Which hunter–gatherer tribe are we supposed to mimic, exactly? How do we reconcile the Inuit diet—mostly the flesh of sea mammals—with the more varied plant and land animal diet of the Hadza or !Kung? Chucking the many different hunter–gather diets into a blender to come up with some kind of quintessential smoothie is a little ridiculous.

 

Here’s the thing about modern day hunter-gatherer tribes. They have been pushed to the ends of the earth by agriculture societies, and now only exist in the harshest of places. Places where most people have no desire to live. The Hadza and !kung live in sweltering heat of Africa, the Inuit in the freezing cold of the Artic and the Hiwi deep with the jungle of the Amazon where malaria runs amok and all sorts of other things large and small that want to kill you. Yes their diets are extremely different, but that is out of necessity of where they live and what is available to them. The vast majority of our hunter-gatherer ancestors would not have lived in such dramatic conditions and have far more variety and food available to them.

Even as diverse as the diets of the Inuit and the !Kung, they do have some commonalities. Neither of those tribes eats bread, pasta, pizza, cookies, or drink coco-cola. As Jabr himself admits, “The [paleo] diet is largely defined by what they do not do”

 

Meet Grok. According to his online profile, he is a tall, lean, ripped and agile 30-year-old. By every measure, Grok is in superb health: low blood pressure; no inflammation; ideal levels of insulin, glucose, cholesterol and triglycerides. He and his family eat really healthy, too. They gather wild seeds, grasses, and nuts; seasonal vegetables; roots and berries. They hunt and fish their own meat. Between foraging, building sturdy shelters from natural materials, collecting firewood and fending off dangerous predators far larger than himself, Grok’s life is strenuous, perilous and physically demanding. Yet, somehow, he is a stress-free dude who always manages to get enough sleep and finds the time to enjoy moments of tranquility beside gurgling creeks. He is perfectly suited to his environment in every way. He is totally Zen…..

..In contrast to Grok, neither Paleo hunter–gatherers nor our more recent predecessors were sculpted Adonises immune to all disease….Drop Grok into the Hiwi’s midst—or indeed among any modern or ancient hunter–gather society—and he would be a complete aberration. Grok cannot teach us how to live or eat; he never existed

 

Oh really.. Let us check out a few descriptions of hunter-gatherer’s who don’t live in such extreme conditions of the Hiwi. Here is Weston Price’s description of the Torres Straight Islander’s:

It would be difficult to find a more happy and contented people than the primitives in the Torres Straight Islands as they lived without contact with modern civilization.  Indeed, they seem to resent very acutely the modern intrusion. They not only have perfect bodies, but an associated personality and character with a high degree of excellence. One is continually impressed with happiness, peace and health while in their congenial presence (p.187).

 

Or what was said about the people of the Marquesas Islands by the early navigator’s..

The people of the Marquesas Islands were enthusiastically extolled for their beauty and excellence of physical development by the early navigators…They reported the Marquesans as vivacious, happy people…The early navigators were so impressed with the beauty and health of these people that they reported the Marquesas Islands as the Garden of Eden (p.116).

 

While you can find pictures of clearly underfed hunter-gatherer’s living today in extreme conditions of Africa, when we look at pictures of hunter-gatherer’s before they were kicked to the ends of the earth we do find Adonis looking figures. Check out these Australian Aborigines

 

 

Here is another picture…Do you see how well built these guys are? Especially the one on the far left and the far right? This is about as perfect as you can get. And these guys don’t go to the gym or drink protein shakes!

 

 

In case you are thinking it is just the aborigines..it’s not. Here are the Waoroni Indians of Ecuador. Studies on them when they were first discovered showed them to be totally absent of hypertension, heart disease, cancer, anemia, the common cold, polio, pneumonia, small pox, chicken pox, typhus, syphilis, tuberculosis, malaria or serum hepatitis

 

 

Or we can take a look at the Asaro mudmen of Papua New Guinea. Horticulturists who eat similarly to modern day paleo dieter’s. Eating sweet potato’s and fruits from their garden and meat from livestock.

 

Over on twitter, Ferris Jabr proclaimed that he “sees no legitimate reason for prohibiting grains, dairy or legumes”

Well I’m going to give him a few. They aren’t optimally nutritious, and they have immunogenic and allergenic properties in their proteins. They also have higher food palatability and reward which causes you to eat more than you should. Dr. Mattieu Lalonde who got his Ph.D on organic chemistry from Harvard gave a great speach at the Ancestral Health Symposium in 2012 on just why you shouldn’t eat these foods. He is a very smart guy and this is well worth watching. Grains especially don’t come out too well. Legumes fair better and dairy does fine. If you are one of those people who can handle dairy I’m all for it, but many are not. And even Jabr arch-nemesis Mark Sisson says that legumes are ‘ok’. Although people should still be concerned about their phytic acid content, which stops you from absorbing a lot of the nutrients present in legumes. Meaning legumes probably aren’t as nutritious as their content contains. They are also high in lectins which are potentially toxic and can lead to autoimmune problems.

But the answer on grains is clear. If you are looking for the optimal diet, why would you make grains a staple of your diet when they simply aren’t as nutritious as meat and vegetables? Especially grains in their modern form. And the reason they are not as nutritious to our bodies has nothing to do with chance, it is because we did not evolve to eat them over millions of years. These are a relatively new food group to our species. Paleo logic, and it is backed up by nutritional data.

Ferris Jabr says that people like Mark Sisson and other paleo folk don’t understand evolution and science, but I think this post shows that he is the one who has it backwards. After all, Mark Sisson is 60, follows the paleo diet and lifestyle as best he can and has the body of a 20-something UFC fighter.

 

 

Ferris Jabr is a 20-something year old who thinks Mark Sisson’s lifestyle is illogical and has a body similar to Screech.

 

 

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The Surprising Correlation Between Cholesterol and Heart Disease – It’s Not What You Think

There is a lot of confusion about cholesterol levels and human health.

Is your Dr. recommended level of total serum cholesterol under 200 justified?

What would the ideal total cholesterol level be for your health? Here is an interesting graph I came across. It measures cholesterol levels and mortality rates from 164 countries around the world. There are some surprising results. It seems that the *ideal* total cholesterol level is higher than what doctors recommend. By ideal I mean it has the smallest correlation to heart disease and overall mortality.

  • Those with a total cholesterol level of 208 were the least likely to die from heart disease. About 220 deaths per 100,000 people.
  • People with a cholesterol level of 150 accounted for 600 deaths from heart disease per 100,000. Meaning those with total cholesterol level of 150 were nearly 3x as likely to die from heart disease than those with cholesterol levels just over 200.
  • Only when cholesterol levels go above 244 do we find that high cholesterol is worse than having a cholesterol level of 150.
  • The ideal cholesterol level to have for not dying of any reason, not just heart disease is 223. But this is largely to a dramatic decrease in infectious and parasitic diseases.
  • My father recently cut down on red meat, and egg yolks and his total cholesterol dropped from 201 to 165. The popular thinking on this is that he just did a great thing for his heart. Yet according to this graph he just doubled his chance of dying from heart disease!

 

Is this result replicated in other studies? Apparently yes. In a study done by the Japanese they found that patients with total cholesterol levels between 200-219 were the least likely to die. The optimal LDL level was considered between 120-139.  A standard lipid profile you get during a routine check up will tell you that having a LDL level of under 130 and a total cholesterol level of under 200 is ideal, but that doesn’t seem to mesh with this data.

According to these results my fathers total cholesterol drop from 201 to 165 increased his risk of mortality by 72%. And his lowering of his LDL from 138 to 101 increased his rate of mortality 20%.

In Conclusion: These are only a few studies, and I am sure there are probably other studies with different results.  But at the very least one has to wonder whether or not the relationship between cholesterol and heart disease is really as scary as people make it out to be. There in fact have been a plethora of books on the subject lately that argue that relationship between cholesterol and heart disease is a myth. I’ll tell you one thing, my total cholesterol level at my last check up was 212, and I’m definitely not worried about. It may even be ideal.

 

 

 

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Ben Franklin on the Superior Quality of Life of the Indians

Here are some more quotes from Ben Franklin in the happiness, ease and tranquility of Indian life.

 

 

” To those who remained behind, it was often rumored that those who had gone over to the Indians had been “captured.” While some captives were taken, more often the whites took up Indian life without compulsion. As Franklin wrote to Peter Collinson May 9, 1753:

The proneness of human Nature to a life of ease, of freedom from care and labour appear strongly in the heretofore little success that has attended every attempt to civilize our American Indians. . . . They visit us frequently and see the advantages that Arts, Science and compact Society procure us; they are not deficient in natural understanding and yet they have never strewn any inclination to change their manner of life for ours, or to learn any of our Arts.
While Indians did not seem to have much inclination to exchange their culture for the Euro-American, many Euro-Americans appeared more than willing to become Indians at this time:

When an Indian child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and makes one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return. And that this is not natural [only to Indians], but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived awhile among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet within a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of Life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them.
Franklin followed with an example. He had heard of a person who had been “reclaimed” from the Indians and returned to a sizable estate. Tired of the care needed to maintain such a style of life, he had turned it over to his younger brother and, taking only a rifle and a matchcoat, “took his way again to the Wilderness.” Franklin used this story to illustrate his point that “No European who has tasted Savage Life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.” Such societies, wrote Franklin, provided their members with greater opportunities for happiness than European cultures. Continuing, he said:

The Care and Labour of providing for Artificial and fashionable Wants, the sight of so many Rich wallowing in superfluous plenty, whereby so many are kept poor and distress’d for Want, the Insolence of Office . . . the restraints of Custom, all contrive to disgust them with what we call civil Society.”—-http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FFchp5.html

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Benjamin Franklin on the nobility and manners of the so called ‘savage’ Indians.

Benjamin Franklin
Remarks concerning the Savages of North America


Savages we call them, because their Manners differ from ours, which we think the Perfection of Civility. They think the same of theirs.

Perhaps if we could examine the Manners of different Nations with Impartiality, we should find no People so rude as to be without Rules of Politeness, nor any so polite as not to have some Remains of Rudeness

The Indian Men when young are Hunters and Warriors; when old, Counsellors; for all their Government is by Counsel of the Sages; there is no Force there are no Prisons, no Officers to compel Obedience, or inflict Punishment.—Hence they generally study Oratory; the best Speaker having the most Influence. The Indian Women till the Ground, dress the Food, nurse and bring up the Children, & preserve & hand down to Posterity the Memory of public Transactions. These Employments of Men and Women are accounted natural & honorable, Having few artificial Wants, they have abundance of Leisure for Improvement by Conversation. Our laborious Manner of Life compar’d with theirs, they esteem slavish & base; and the Learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous & useless. An Instance of this occurr’d at the Treaty of Lancaster in Pensilvania, anno 1744, between the Government of Virginia and the Six Nations. After the principal Business was settled, the Commissioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians by a Speech, that there was at Williamsburg a College, with a Fund for Educating Indian youth; and that if the Six Nations would send down half a dozen of their young Lads to that College, the Government would take Care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the Learning of the White People. It is one of the Indian Rules of Politeness not to answer a public Proposition the same day that it is made; they think it would be treating it as a light matter, and that they show it Respect by taking time to consider it, as of a Matter important. They therefore deferr’d their Answer till the Day following; when their Speaker began by expressing their deep Sense of the Kindness of the Virginia Government in making them that Offer, for we know, says he, that you highly esteem the kind of Learning taught in those Colleges, and that the Maintenance of our young Men while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinc’d therefore that you mean to do us Good by your Proposal, and we thank you heartily. But you who are wise must know, that different Nations have different Conceptions of Things, and you will therefore not take it amiss if our Ideas of this kind of Education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some Experience of it: Several of our young People were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your Sciences; but when they came back to us they were bad Runners ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer or kill an Enemy, spoke our Language imperfectly, were therefore neither fit for Hunters Warriors, or Counsellors, they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the less oblig’d by your kind Offer tho’ we decline accepting it; and to show our grateful Sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us a Dozen of their Sons, we will take great Care of their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of them.—

Having frequent Occasions to hold public Councils, they have acquired great Order and Decency in conducting them. The old Men sit in the foremost Ranks, the Warriors in the next, and the Women & Children in the hindmost. The Business of the Women is to take exact Notice of what passes, imprint it in their Memories, for they have no Writing, and communicate it to their Children. They are the Records of the Councils, and they preserve Traditions of the Stipulations in Treaties 100 Years back, which when we compare with our Writings we always find exact. He that would speak rises. The rest observe a profound Silence. When he has finish’d and sits down; they leave him 5 or 6 Minutes to recollect, that if he has omitted any thing he intended to say, or has any thing to add, he may rise again and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in common Conversation, is reckon’d highly indecent. How different this is, from the Conduct of a polite British House of Commons where scarce every person without some confusion, that makes the Speaker hoarse in calling to Order and how different from the Mode of Conversation in many polite Companies of Europe, where if you do not deliver your Sentence with great Rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the Impatients Loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffer’d to finish it—

The Politeness of the Savages in Conversation is indeed carried to Excess, since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the Truth of what is asserted in their Presence; By this means they indeed avoid Disputes, but then it becomes difficult to know their Minds, or what Impression you make upon them. The Missionaries who have attempted to convert them to Christianity, all complain of this as one of the great difficulties of their Mission: The Indians hear with Patience the Truths of the Gospel explain’d to them, and give their usual Tokens of Assent & Approbation: You would think they were convinc’d. No such Matter. It is mere Civility. A Suedish Minister, having assembled the Chiefs of the Saquehanah Indians, made a Sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical Facts on which our Religion is founded, such as the Fall of our first Parents by eating an Apple; the Coming of Christ, to repair the Mischief; his Miracles & Suffering, &c. When he had finished, an Indian Orator stood up to thank him. What you have told us, says he, is all very good. It is indeed a bad Thing to eat Apples. It is better to make them all into Cyder. We are much oblig’d by your Kindness in coming so far to tell us these Things which you have heard from your Mothers; in return I will tell you some of those we have heard from ours. In the Beginning our Fathers had only the Flesh of Animals to subsist on, and if their Hunting was unsuccessful, they were starving. Two of our young Hunters having kill’d a Deer, made a Fire in the Woods to broil some Part of it. When they were about to satisfy their Hunger, they beheld a beautiful young Woman descend from the Clouds, and seat herself on that Hill which you see yonder among the blue Mountains. They said to each other, It is a Spirit that perhaps has smelt our broiling Venison & wishes to eat of it: Let us offer some to her. They presented her with the Tongue, She was pleas’d with the Taste of it, and said, Your Kindness shall be rewarded: Come to this Place after thirteen Moons, and you shall find something that will be of great Benefit in nourishing you and your Children to the latest Generations. They did so, and to their Surprise found Plants they had never seen before, but which from that antique time have been instantly cultivated among us to our great Advantage. Where her right Hand had touch’d the Ground they found Maize; Where her left hand had touch’d it, they found Kidney Beans, and where her Backside had rested on it, they found Tobacco.—The good Missionary disgusted with this idle Tale, said, What I delivered to you were sacred Truths, but what you tell me is mere Fable, Fiction and Falshood. The Indian offended, reply’d, My Brother, it seems your Friends have not done you Justice in your Education, they have not well instructed you in the Rules of common Civility. You saw that we who understand and practise those Rules, believ’d all your Stories: Why do you refuse to believe ours?— [interleaved is a sheet with no writing, but a sketch of what appears to be a hot air balloon]

When any of them come into our Towns, our People are apt to croud round them, gaze upon them, & incommode them where they desire to be private; this they esteem great Rudeness, the Effect of & Want of Instruction in the Rules of Civility & good Manners. We have, say they, as much Curiosity as you, and when you come into our Towns, we wish for Opportunities of looking at you; but for this purpose we hide our Selves behind Bushes where you are to pass, and never intrude ourselves into your Company.—

Their Manner of entring one anothers villages has likewise its Rules. It is reckon’d uncivil in travelling Strangers to enter a Village abruptly, without giving Notice of their Approach. Therefore as soon as they arrive within Hearing, they stop & hollow, remaining there till invited to enter. Two old Men usually come out to them, and lead them in. There is in every Village a vacant Dwelling called the Strangers House. Here they are plac’d, while the old Men go round from Hut to Hut, acquainting the Inhabitants that Strangers are arriv’d who are probably hungry & weary; and every one sends them what he can spare of Victuals & Skins to repose on. When the Strangers are refresh’d, Pipes & Tobacco are brought, and then, but not before, Conversation begins, with Enquiries who they are, whither bound, what News, &c. and it usually ends with Offers of Service if the Strangers have occasion of Guides or any Necessaries for continuing their Journey, and nothing is exacted for the Entertainment.

The same Hospitality esteem’d among them as a principal Virtue, is practic’d by private Persons, of which Conrad Weiser, our Interpreter gave me the following Instance. He had been naturaliz’d among the Six Nations, & spoke well the Mohock Language. In going thro’ the Indian Country to carry a Message from our Governor to the Council at Onondaga, he call’d at the Habitation of Canasetego an old Acquaintance, who embrac’d him, spread Furs for him to sit on, plaid before him some boil’d Beans & Venison, and mix’d some Rum & Water for his Drink. When he was well refresh’d, and had lit his Pipe, Canassetego began to converse with him, ask’d how he had fard the many Years since they had seen each other, whence he then came, what occasion’d the Journey, &c. &c. Conrad answer’d all his Questions, & when the Discourse began to flag, the Indian to continue it, said, Conrad, you have lived long among the white People and know something of their Customs. I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed that once in Seven Days they shut up their Shops, and assemble all in the great House; tell me, what is it for? what do they do there?—They meet there, says Conrad, to hear and learn good Things. I do not doubt says the Indian, that they tell you so: They have told me the same; But I doubt the Truth of what they say, and I will tell you my Reasons. I was lately to Albany to sell my Skins, & buy Blankets, Knives, Powder &c Rum &c You know I us’d generally to deal with Hans Hanson, but I was a little inclin’d this time to try some other Merchant; however, I call’d first upon Hans, & ask’d him what he would give for Beaver. He said he could not give more than four Shillings a Pound; but says he I cannot talk on Business now; this is the Day when we meet together to learn good Things, and I am going to the Meeting. So I thought to my self, since we cannot do any Business to day, I may as well go to the Meeting too; and I went with him. There stood up a Man in Black, and began to talk to the People very angrily. I did not understand what he said; but perceiving that he look’d much at me, and at Hanson, I imagin’d he was angry at seeing me there, so I went out, sat down near the House, struck Fire and lit my Pipe, waiting till the Meeting should break up. I thought too that the Man had mention’d something of Beaver, & I suspected it might be the Subject of their Making. so when they came out, I accosted my Merchant, Well, Hans, says I, I hope you have agreed to give more than four Shillings a Pound. No, says he, I cannot give so much; I cannot give more than three shillings & sixpence. I then spoke to several other Dealers, but they all sung the same Song. Three & sixpence, Three & sixpence. This made it clear to me that my Suspicion was right; and that whatever they pretended of meeting to learn Good Things, the real purpose was to consult how to cheat Indians on the Price of Beaver. Consider but a little, Conrad, and you must be of my Opinion. If they met so often to learn Good Things, they would certainly have learnt some before this time. But they are still ignorant. You know our Practice. If a white Man in travelling thro’ our Country, enters one of our Cabins, we all treat him as I treat you; we dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, we give him Meat & Drinks that he may allay his Thirst and Hunger, and spread soft Furs for him to rest & sleep on: We demand nothing in return. But if I go into a white Man’s House at Albany, and ask for Victuals & Drink, they say, where is your Money? and if I have none; they say, Get out you Indian Dog. You see they have not yet learnt those little Good Things, that we need no Meetings to be instructed in, because our Mothers taught them to us when we were Children: And therefore, it is impossible their Meeting, Should be as they say, for any such purpose, or have any such Effect. They are only to contrive the Cheating of Indians in the Price of Beaver.—

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Scientifically Validated 7 minute Bodyweight Workout

Looking for a high intensity full body workout that you can do just about anywhere, anytime and you don’t need any fancy equipment? Here is a great one from the American College of Sports Medicine.

 

“The following is an example of a 12-station HICT program. All exercises can be done with body weight and implements easily acquired in almost any setting (e.g., home, office, hotel room, etc.). The exercise order allows for a total body exercise to significantly increase the heart rate while the lower, upper, and core exercises function to maintain the increased heart rate while developing strength.

Exercises are performed for 30 seconds, with 10 seconds of transition time between bouts. Total time for the entire circuit workout is approximately 7 minutes. The circuit can be repeated 2 to 3 times.

1. Jumping Jacks
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2. Wall Squat
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3, Push Up

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4. Abdominal Crunch

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5. Step-up on to chair

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6. Squat

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7. Tricep dip

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8. Plank

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9. High knees/Running in place

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10. Lunges

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 11. Push-up and rotation
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12. Side plank
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Conclusion:

High Intensity Circuit Training seems to be an efficient means of exercise to help decrease body fat, improve insulin sensitivity, and improve V˙O2max and muscular fitness. As the hectic pace of today’s corporate world continues to infringe on the amount of time individuals have for exercise, these types of programs can offer a good option to help busy individuals improve their health and recover from stress via exercise.

The practicality and accessibility of HICT using body weight as resistance makes this exercise program a viable option for the masses. Individuals who previously believed that they did not have the time for exercise can now trade total exercise time for total exercise effort and get similar or better health and fitness benefits.”

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Does Enlightenment Make You More Attractive To Women? Answers from 3 Enlightened People

The cult Guru Osho claimed to have sex with more women than any man in history. Osho claimed to be enlightened and maybe he was, or maybe he was just a charlatan, but other guru’s have had similar reputations for holding mass orgies with their many groupies. But is their sexual prowess due the benefits they received from being enlightened? Or can we chalk it up to charisma and a position of power?

It seems that becoming enlightened would give you many traits that on the face of it would be attractive to the opposite sex. Non-neediness, confidence, happiness, emotional equanimity,…but then again I’ve never heard any woman go…”Oh those buddhist monks, they are so sexy!” Perhaps a side effect of enlightenment is a lack of desire, passion and worldly ambition that many woman also go for.

So what gives? I decided to ask three people I know who are enlightened and get their responses…

The question was, “Has becoming enlightened made you more attractive to women?”

Daniel: I do think that there is something about meditative accomplishment that can make people attractive, many things, in fact, and emotional intelligence is refreshing and reassuring to people, like a breath of sanity, and people who are really present to others, who can really listen and respond to what someone is bringing to an interaction or a conversation, are more compelling, and meditative attainment can generate confidence, and that is attractive, and it can reduce cortisol levels and that makes people seem healthier, and it makes people more lighthearted and people like that, and it creates pathways of thought and association that people find fascinating, and it can itself be a status symbol, and some people like those with status, and it can make the brain function better, which breeds success, and success is attractive, and so and and so forth…

 

Blue (nickname): Meditating has a giant potential to improve your success with women.

1) Meditation improves equanimity and unattachment. These are the single most important factors when dealing with women. They are the benevolent forms of apathy, the reason that bad boys are so attractive to women.

2) Meditation improves the vibe you give off . How you make the woman feel is the second most important thing. The gold standard is “The way you feel is the way the women feels”. If you are having a blast the woman will have a blast, if you feel super cool and awesome the woman will perceive you as cool and awesome.

The way people perceive you is exactly the way you feel

Dauphine: In my personal experience, what seems to have made me more attractive was meditation itself, not necessarily the progress/enlightenment that came with it. I think it’s somewhat like this: Once you get some decent mindfulness and concentration going, your mind relaxes, your body relaxes, your face relaxes, and you look healthier, happier, more wholesome, so people will like your appearance. As you start understanding the nature of reality, though, you inevitably come to see that “falling in love” and “passion” and “commitment”—and all the other stuff that your partner is probably going to be looking for from you—are basically nothing but deluded mental fermentations leading to suffering, so as soon as you open your mouth, especially now that you’re not really into lying anymore, the women who initially had the hots for you will change their mind really quickly.

 

That last response is pure gold.

 

 

 

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Joe Rogan’s Green Smoothie

Joe Rogan likes to start his day by making a green smoothie. It’s paleo friendly and a great way to start the day.

 

Here are the ingredients

  • Cucumber
  • Celery
  • Ginger
  • Kale
  • Pear

 

Directions

1. Chop up cucumber, place in blender

2. Slice up pear, place in blender

3. Blend

4. Add Kale and blend

5. Add celery and ginger

6.Blend

7. Drink!

 

Here’s a video of the very powerful Joe Rogan making his famous smoothie

 

 

 

 

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3 Quick Tips to Make Eating Paleo Easy For Lazy People

I get a lot of people asking me, “Is the paleo diet hard to follow?” or “I’m pretty lazy and don’t cook much, how can I make eating paleo easy? Below are my three favorite techniques for making things super easy for us lazy folks.

1.Eat the same meals over and over again until you get the hang of it. Basically pick out 2 different breakfast’s..The egg scramble mentioned here or a green smoothie and just alternate back and forth or have whatever you feel like. And then have about 5 different lunch/dinner meals that you know how to make and are comfortable with.  You probably already do this anyway, you are just replacing your meals with healthier choices

Your five different lunch/dinner meals could be
  • Bratwurst/Sausages and golden potato’s.
  • Ground Beef with Mixed veggies and tahini Sauce
  • Salad with roasted chicken
  • Salad with Salmon
  • Juicy steak with a sweet potato
2. Put Potato’s in the microwave. Simply wash off potato, then pierce by stabbing it with a fork to let out heat while in microwave, and then put it in the microwave for about 5 minutes

3. Make food in bunches for the whole week. That means Cook a bunch of chicken/Sausages/steak/Ground beef and then just save it in the fridge for the week. That way whenever you want a meal, just pop a potato in the microwave, or make a quick salad and reheat your meat.