WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN from ABOVE on Vimeo.

The effects of the current recession end up creating suffering for many people, it could be helped if the individuals behind many of the decisions that contributed to the recession had more balanced minds and more robust and logical understanding of the share values they are directly effecting.
In the last episode of BBC’s Evan Davis’s series The City Uncovered Evan talks to ex stockbroker turned psychologist about how stockbrokers behave like herds of wilderbeast, spooked by the smallest thing and they all go mad. Behavioral finance governs the way many traders make key decisions, eventually influencing share value patterns. Below is part of recent blog post I came across by a banker…

Behavioural finance is a well known subject area and has been studied by some of the greatest economists in modern times. And yet, we (the investor) continue to make the same mistakes! We trade on our emotions, we buy because we are greedy and we sell because we are fearful. Studies were done on professional traders during the tech bubble/bust in the early 2000’s. It was noticed that during periods of profit, traders displayed higher levels of testosterone, which lead to increased risk-taking and more bravado. During the bust period, traders displayed higher levels of Cortisone, the body’s natural way of dealing with stress, and a way of suppressing bad memories. Greed and Fear are natural emotions and removing them from your trading is extremely difficult.

So many stockbrokers don’t make decisions from their own research and logical conclusions but, like Dave Hinnenkamp, CEO at KDV Wealth Management said, “It’s fear-based selling”.
Instead of basing decisions on varying emotional states they should take - the middle way - which is about consistently navigating between extremes…

“Middle Path” may be misunderstood as equivocal. In fact Buddhism is not as such. “Middle” means neutral, upright, and centered. It means to investigate and penetrate the core of life and all things with an upright, unbiased attitude. In order to solve a problem, we should position ourselves on neutral, upright and unbiased ground. We investigate the problem from various angles, analyze the findings, understand the truth thoroughly, and find a reasonable conclusion.

The Middle Path in Buddhism does not mean having a biased view or superficial understanding only. The “Middle Path” represents a distinct theory and way of Buddhist practice that is not common to other religions. Buddhism is a religion with high moral values. It lays great emphasis on human thought and action in dealing with the natural environment, society or individual problems. It is concerned with the relationship between thoughts and behavior, and the relationship between behavior and its consequences

If you haven’t heard of the 2012 doomsday prediction then you have probably had better things to do with your time than browse youTube or talk to stoned couch monkeys (no dis-respect to the stoned couch monkeys intended). But this is probably the largest “end of the world” prediction for a while. These predictions usually just make a few authors a bunch of money, the prediction is proved wrong and we all continue with our lives. But I came across a worrying web site, www.instituteforhumancontinuity.org, that goes further than just promoting the prediction, and actually presents itself in an intelligent and composed way. They claim to be ex-political figures who will help your chances of survival after the 2012 “event“, and of course there’s a lottery to improve your chances…
I think it’s worrying how many people seem to be buying into it, and there are 3 years left for it all to gain momentum. How far will it go? Below is a great video showing Neil de Grasse Tyson, who is a respected astrophysicist, killing this prediction right where it stands…

Darwin’s philosophy and understanding of nature seem to resemble the basic principles and teachings of Buddhism. Source of story here (CNN).
He may not have been meditating daily or even considered himself Buddhist, but it makes sense that his views would resemble Buddhist viewpoints. Interconnectedness, for example, is a fundamental concept in Buddhism, and obviously this holds true in the natural world. This is something that Darwin focused on whilst coming up with his theory of evolution, about how ecosystems are effected by each other and the relationships between species. Before coming across the article I watched a BBC documentary on Darwin and I remember recognizing some correlations.
Buddhism is a practical and logically based spiritual system that easily fits in with science, I remember hearing about a scientific study that tracked brainwaves of meditating monks. The conclusion basically being that meditation works and that everyone would benefit. There have been lots of scientific studies in India on many aspects of Buddhism.

The web site is for a print design agency in paddington London (www.dialogue141.com). I developed the site in Flash (AS3), and its the first time I have used a 3D engine within a web site (Papervision 3D).

The largest computer database of Buddhist artifacts (paintings, sculptures, sutras, scrolls, clothes etc) is available for the public to search at will through a website (IDP, idp.bl.uk). Roughly 168,199 images currently on there! Many ancient Buddhist treasures have been at risk in the last 50 years (Tibet, Afganistan), this should go some way to saving what remains (in documentation at least).

Came across some cool work by “street artist” ShoeOne. Left image is a hand painted French antique armoir, which he took his spray paints to. Below is a tube caraige done in same style.

A friend of mine helped set up Ganesh-arts which is both a Registered Charitable Trust and a not for profit limited company, all profits from their exhibitions and donations received go towards financing their arts education programmes in India. They are currently building a school within Bharatha Sakthi Charitable Trust: A self sustaining environmental and ecologically based community in South India. They have had a number of past exhibitions and their future plans for both exhibitions in the UK and their education projects in India are growing. Best of luck to them, and I hope to get involved in what way I can with what they are doing in the medium-term future.

The Dalai Lama has been made a citizen of Rome during his visit.
He must be one of the most internationally awarded individuals ever. Notable awards he has received include The US Congressional Gold Medal in October 2007 (I was in his “home” town of Dharamasala when this happened, there were huge celebrations) and The Nobel Peace Prize (1989). A full list of his awards here.
Of course he would be the first to remind people that awards mean nothing real. On the other hand this continuing international recognition adds to Chinese political humiliation, Chinese PM Hu Jintao calls him ‘a wolf in monks clothing’. Which reflects the dark side of China, after all who would you trust: a secretive politician or a man who dedicates his life to the spiritual emancipation of humanity?

Came across a great artist, Nanami Cowdroy, her work is mainly prints but she also creates jewellery and does collaborative works. Above is a laser-etching on bottom of a skateboard deck. Her prints are fantastic, done originally with pen & ink. She is half Japanese and half Australian, so this contrast comes out in her work.

Duncan Forgan’s research which estimated that there are at least 361 intelligent civilizations in our galaxy and as many as 38,000 was published in The International Journal of Astrobiology. This estimate comes from his simulations based on mathematical probabilities, and recent discoveries of planets with similarities to our own in neighbouring solar systems. (Full BBC article here). There are about 100 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy, most have planets orbiting them, so there are likely more than 100 billion planets in our galaxy! only a certain amount of course are likely holding life and then only a fraction of those likely host ‘intelligent’ life forms. This is sound maths!

The article goes on to say that contact between these civilizations would be near impossible (due to the distance between them). You always hear experts explain that it is unlikely any intelligent aliens could travel the galaxy, this often irritates me because they are (fairly & rightly) basing this assumption on ‘our science’ (which states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light). ‘Our’ modern science is roughly 250 years old. 100 years ago the Wright brothers flew the first airplane, today we have space shuttles completing an orbiting space station, that progress was made in 100 years. What kind of progress will humans have made in 1,000 years? How different will our understanding of science be in 10,000 years? The universe is 14 billion years old, there could be an intelligent species out there that flew its first airplane 1,000,000 years ago. It’s fair to say their understanding of science compared to ours would be un-recognizably advanced, its fair I believe to at least factor in the chance that a civilization such as this would have found a way to travel between star systems…