> event analysis > evsis.org >

Phamily

I was born in Western, New York state on July, 28th of 1969. They had just landed on the moon (if you believe that sort of thing - ha) a few days earlier and I guess my mind has always been "up there" and "out there." After completing high school I attended Monroe Community College and SUNY Brockport and picked up a B.S. with majors in Physics and Mathematics. I then went to graduate school at the University of Arkansas, where I studied experimental nonlinear optics with Surendra Singh and wrote my dissertation in theoretical atomic physics (three-body scattering) with Mike Lieber.

My wife Kathy ("Kat") and I have been married since 1997 and have four beautiful kids (cats): Musashi (a.k.a., "Moose"), Taliesin (a.k.a., "Tally"), Underfoot (a.k.a., "Princess") and Sketches (a.k.a., "Prescious"). The boys are decidely more reserved!

Phun

Kat and I enjoy lots of physical activity, including Yoga, swimming and long walks. While in graduate school I took up Tomiki Aikido under sensei Ed Mink (Article) and earned a first-degree black belt certificate (shodan).

Since that time I have practised many different martial arts including Brazillian (Gracie) Jiu-Jitsu, Pikiti Tersia and Yi-Chaun. I have also taught a few classes of my own at various times and venues that I have come to call, "moving body healing mind." More to come...

Philosophy

I usually tell people that I am a Physicist because I wanted to be a Philosopher but didn't feel that I could make any money as a Philosopher. Of course now I realize that making money as a Physicist is nearly impossible too without working for the government! At any rate, the philosopher in me still reigns and my favorite quote (lately) is the following from Will Durant (my gradfather's favorite philosopher):

"Human knowledge had become too great for mankind. ... All that remained was the scientific specialist, who knew more and more about less and less, and the philosophical speculator, who knew less and less about more and more. ... The common man found himself forced to choose between a scientific priesthood mumbling unintelligible pessimism, and a theological priesthood mumbling incredible hope. ... In this situation the function of the professional teacher was clear. ... [t]o learn the specialists language, as the specialist had learned nature's, in order to break down the barriers between knowledge and need, and find for new truths old terms that all literate people might understand. For, if knowledge became too great for communication, it would degenerate into scholasticism, and the weak acceptance of authority; mankind would slip into a new age of faith, worshiping at a respectful distance its new priests; and civilization, which had hoped to raise itself upon education disseminated far and wide, would be left precariously based upon a technical erudition that had become the monopoly of an esoteric class monastically isolated from the world by the high birth rate of terminology."

Durant wrote this in 1953 and I think that because science has developed at a pace that was not even imaginable then, it is far more true now. I am of course educated in science but do not really fall into the whole of the scientific view. To me scientism is probably just as "bad" from a logical perspective as fundamentalism is from a spritual perpsective. Though I tend to think that the methods of science may come to the same conclusions as those of the philosopher or priest, that other, more colloquial and personal view of exoeriences is also necessary. In short my philosophy is that we need science and spirit.

Phenomena

My drive to understand both the scientific and spiritual perspectives of meditation was given a big push a few years back when I was fortunate to attend the first Mind and Life Summer Research Institute, which brought together scientists and meditative practitioners for a week long meeting. I think it was the first time when my professional and personal goals found a pure resonance! Having the opportunbity to talk with world-class scientists (Richie Davidson, Alan Wallace, and John-Kabatt Zinn) whom are also long-term meditation practitioners was truly encouraging.

Hearing learned people talk first hand about how one may begin to integrate the wealth of knowledge from Western and Eastern wisdom traditions was very refreshing. In the above graphic I show the results (left panel) from Lutz, first discussed by Davidson at MLSRI, on gamma synchrony for subjects performing objectless meditation (skt. "metta" or compassion). These results illustrate that large-scale recruitment of neural activity may be self-induced! according to a recent National Geographic article where Davidsona dn others are interviewed, "the Mind is what the Brain does." seems that there may be more to it than this!

Without making it sound trite, John Kabatt-Zinn summed it all up when he reminded the audience that we humans have called ourselves homo sapien sapien, which means "knowing and knowing that we know." We are simply the union of the conventional, scientific (knowing) and the untilmate, spiritual (knowing that we know) aspects of experience. That meeting (and all since) was held at the Garrison Institute in upstate, New York. I wrote the following poem to help me understand and remember how significant if was:

Indifference

Monks and scholars traveled,
distances both small and great.
Gathered by strange forces,
to the Hudson’s banks to meditate.

Knowing not what future,
their mutual karma did mediate.
What they sought with the mind,
was the “I” to obliterate.

They rose early in the morning,
and they would talk until late.
Whether in silence or in dialogue,
they sat mindfully and ate.

Let’s “drop in” they would say,
with surprisingly little weight.
To ponder consciousness,
and to simply gravitate.

Generating list after list,
and lists to promulgate.
Their search for knowledge,
simply would not abate.

Vigilantly they fought
to better frame the debate,
between Birth, Death and Bardo,
the triumvirate of fate.

Exploring ever deeper,
the mystery that time does create.
Stabilizing the continuum they found,
is like standing at a gate.

Riding lazily on the breath,
brings delusions, like anger and hate.
By simply abiding they discover,
all these ailments you may alleviate.

Here finally is the message,
that they came to investigate.
With compassion and wisdom,
indifference you can eliminate!