Human Nature Is Good, but It Needs to Be Cultivated

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Eastern thought posits that your basic nature is good, right? It gets covered over, but as you uncover it, what emerges naturally is compassion and love. In western thought, we've been shaped so much by the doctrine of original sin rigts. These ideas came partly from buddhism, but also from traditional chinese thought. There was one of the great sages from ancient china who talked a lot about human nature.

Jeremy Lent is an author and speaker whose work investigates the patterns of thought that have led our civilization to its current crisis of sustainability.

Today Jeremy and Eric discuss his new book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe

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In This Interview, Jeremy Lent and I Discuss the Integration of Science and Traditional Wisdom in Life and …

His book, The Web of Meaning: Integrating Science and Traditional Wisdom to Find Our Place in the Universe
The difference between want and intention
Understanding the power of kindness toward the “negative” parts of us
His character, “Uncle Bob,” who represents the dominant worldview
Worldview is the lens through which we see and make sense of everything
How humans pattern meaning into the world based on what our culture tells us
Cultural mindfulness frees us to open up to other possibilities
The idea that humans are selfish or have a “selfish gene” and how science refutes this
The self-organization of life: the different parts make the whole and the whole relates to the different parts
Human nature and how cooperation, not competition has led to the abundance of life on earth
Differences between Eastern and Western traditional beliefs in regard to human nature
The negative aspects of humans’ ability to cooperate
The Taoist notion of Wu-Wei (effortless action) and Yu-Wei (purposive action)
Integrating two elements of human consciousness; conceptual (left brain) and animate (right brain)
The most important relationship in life is the “I’ and the “self”
Chi is translated to matter and energy that make up the universe
Li is how Chi is organized
How the deep spiritual traditions from the past add richness to what modern science reveals
The realization that deep human intuitions are our internal validation of what science tells us about how the universe really is
Fractals and the holarchy or structure of life’s interconnectedness