mindfulness

What does it mean to be an individual? What is the story of your life made of? What material? Perhaps you say that you are born in a certain country. But  what does it mean to be, for instance, Swedish? Are you very different from people from other nations? Is there really anything typically Swedish. Isn't everything imported and changing?  Of course we to some degree are shaped by our upbringing and our culture. We are not totally free... But when we are aware of our thought patterns, we can choose what thoughts to follow and what to leave... You will have more freedom, but you will also probably be a little more silent... It is often more important to show a smile or to lay your hand on someones shoulder, than to say something. You can see those actions as your karma, they will proceed in the people you meet, perhaps you can change them a bit - and then a part of you is in them. You have transformed... If you influence a young person you will live a long time in him or

Again and again I listen to the Mass i B-minor. It rises like a cathedral. It feels as if you for every time gets a little bit wiser. Not smarter and your English grammar will be as bad as ever... But your soul deepens, your ears becomes more open and sensible. You have to sens all the voices in the choir, like in life it's a complicated polyphony. I don't believe in a God, but Bach did and his beliefs led to this music. So much gladness in this performance - for instance after 28.34 minutes, the sitting singer to the right has to smile... It seems that the belief in that there are something bigger than mankind is necessary for a kind of art like this. Something higher is leading us. You just have to follow it. I don't know -  perhaps it is so - though I prefer to call it life-force, destiny or why not Tao. One thing is for certain - Bach is still with us - Where, O death, is Thy Sting ...

Mindfulness has to adapt to the places where it's used. Here in the north we can use the nature, as we often are nature-lovers and as we still have big areas of land without civilization. We still have opportunities to breath clean air. Many of us use nature as a kind of meditation, even if we don't call it so. But I hope we also can change, because of the interest of meditation and yoga. We can be more aware when we walk in nature - really be there, smell, listen and see. Often we miss places that are not so spectacular if we not are attentive; if we think of other things or talk with each other of what has happened or what will come. Of course you also can sit down and just breath, and then your individuality will slowly fade, you can  feel a humble distance not only to yourself, but also to your "home", your country and your flag. * You can feel that nature also are inside you; your kidneys, your heart and so on are a kind of organisms helping

A silver soul was he       not here for so long had some  loved cars and two  loved children still walking here       one driving his fathers Mercedes in the same little town                    a green cab -58 when I phone them I become the voice of my brother so his kids  still can hear him so I can be his thoughts and                                     care for a handicapped child so brave hiding her sadness           my brother has gone away but is anyway near too kind he was, they say people misused him,  probably i did it too                        away  (a word moving with the wings of a bird)     away                               is he and still here                              is he         he is my brother                           the silver soul                                                                           We cannot get the dead ones back. But we can imagine what they want us to do. It´s as if my brother whispe

Sitting in a hospital in the middle of the night. I'm mot sick - I'm caring for a handicapped man, he is sleeping. I just have to listen to the breath  to check that all is alright. Many people is the other rooms, three beds in each room. The nurses told me that most of the new patients arrives here at night. They comes from the emergency department, and will be cared for some days  before they can go home or will be passed to another part of the hospital. Most of the patients here seem to be elders, but some are young. . Yesterday morning, when I left the hospital, a woman lay on the snowy pavement beside a bus stop. Other people surrounded her. Somebody had laid a coat on her. A long blue bus stood there too. It was empty, the doors stood open. The bus driver  also stood beside the fallen women. Then he went into the bus and spoke to someone in a communication radio. Another man spoke in his mobile phone. I understood he phoned for an ambulance. The ambulance came an

You can enjoy the organ works of Bach without being a Christian, even without believing i God. I think Bach used the organ in Leipzig of pure joy. He often improvised, and reused old themes in his music. And from Leipzig the music has  slowly spread over the whole world. In that time there was also quite common to use the music of others, perhaps rearrange it  a bit- a kind of recycling... The music was not personal - was not your own. So with mindfulness: You don't have to be a Buddhist to practice it, you don't even have to know about Buddhism. Buddhism, like the music of Bach, has no essence, it is made of non-Buddhist elements. Furthermore, Buddha was no God, he was a human being like me and you and for shore he sometimes struggled. So you can experiment with mindfulness and do it your own way - but it's important that you take it seriously and train as often as possibly. You should, just as you brush your teeth, do it everyday, at least for some minutes. An

The members of this choir come from every part of the world. It´s a very clear symbol for our connections with each other. And it shows that new technology can be used in a very deep and constructive way.  Our spaceflights have shown us that our earth is very small, probably unique and beautiful. But they have also shown that the earth can be seen as a living organism, with inhabitants that are deeply connected and dependent on each other. We cannot avoid struggle and suffering but we can try to not make it worse for our selves and other living creatures. For instance, we don't have to make the daily life worse with thoughts that exaggerate the situation or make us hostile to others. If we take care of our selves, we have the energy to also be good to others and to set good examples. The people in the choir and the people that made the project possible are really good examples. It is possible to build bridges, even in the virtual world.

You don´t own your face. But you borrow it for a while Your face and your body changes, time is a sculptor  with skilful hands. So your face is in the hands of the web of time... And in your face hides your mother and your father and your ancestors - perhaps a neanderthaler and even older ancestors. In your face you can also see traces of your experiences, some use to say that so show or faces really is to be naked. But you can for sure help the sculptor time if you try to be less stressful and more skilful with yourself, for instance with the help of mindfulness. Mystics, but also scientists, use to say, that deeply we all are connected to everything else. So to see your face is, in that view, to see all the rest of the world. We are all not living just in the web of time - but also in the web of the whole word. Take a look behind the faces at Facebook. Then you see their interests, perhaps their parents and their ancestors... some of the things that a face is made of.

         Made of love we try to spread it like wings                  wings to small to stand the wind and we fall                   fall and fall in each others arms                     trying not to harm the sacred feelings we share the longing for joy and security              the scariness for death so take my hand in simple kindness                           to not loose our  splendid solitude We all share some suffering; feelings of loneliness and unsatisfactory,  but without those feelings no joy and feelings of sameness either . The beggar on the street, the sick man in the hospital but also the comedian on the TV-screen, the clown in the circus - they all are quite like we. Some of then have deep wounds and behave in strange ways- you cannot help them all - but you can honor them if you meet them... not behave as they not exist. In some way you and they are they the same,  you share the same oxygen, the same longing for happiness and security. May yo

We do not just need diversity in nature, but even among human cultures. I think the sami people in the northern of Scandinavia can learn us a lot. Here is one of them, the singer Sofia Jannok, speaking in Mumbai...

Are there any differences between humans and animals, or are we all just animals? If we stop eating meat, are we then on the slopery slip? Or perhaps vice verse - cows, for instance, produce a lot of methane, which speeds up the climate change.... Listen to this conversation with Peter Singer and Richard Dawkins. What is their views, what is yours? Perhaps the two philosophers are missing something...? The background is not so enjoyable - can it be they are missing joy and humor? Decide yourself...

It never ends to amaze me that small things make us upset. But we  do not care about about the most important things if a fork happens to be among the knives in the cutlery drawer an inner fire can for a moment lit as if the whole world have crumbled but when the whole world really is changing and very fast, in the earth's perspective, we show no concern maybe the issue it's too big maybe we need photos from the future... but already right now species extinct at least in the same scale as hat during the great mass extictions there must be something in the our psychology that makes us blind we cherish our family, our nation, our friends and perhaps our pets and I suppose it´s god to do that but most of us realize that the  whole world is connected   when a disaster, as the one in The Philippines, occurs  we are all more or less concerned and something in our selves are shaking and with warmer seas the storms will be stronger but climate warming and a

What is a home? Perhaps the word is misleading. Perhaps it's not a place. Rather more of a state of being. A way to be or a way to move from one place to another. Perhaps to meet another person Perhaps an action, as to give a helping hand to someone far away, perhaps just giving some money to the needing people in the Philippines just now... Perhaps an act of worthiness that can inspire other people. Anyway you need a shelter and some people around you. Much of it can change, but some will remain the same for a while, at least if we care for it. As for the houses on the photo, built before our modern time, and now they are some kind of treasures. Nowadays in company with the new subway trains, that for a while meet the sky....

He sat on a carpet at the entrance of the library. A little bend, one leg under the other. In his hand a leash and in front of him a big dog, probably a leonberger. Suddenly he raised and took some steps towards the books. A man rushed to him and told him to sit down, he did that but the dog kept on standing.  In some minutes the man was back, probably a keeper that helped the boy. He told one of the librarians that the boy had chosen the dog.  When they had visited a kennel, the boy was suddenly gone but was found beside the dog in a cage. They must have bought the dog and now, the man said, the boy is the only one that the dog listens to. "He protects him", he went on. The man said to the boy to stand up, the boy hesitated but then slowly stood up. The dog just watched the scene. The boy said nothing, probably mute. He must communicate with the dog in another way.  I have seen the boy another time, a teenager, but quite small - walking like he was lame - one

To admit that you don't know is to be humble. Most of us, or all of us, don't even know who we are...... We can tell a story about our life, our upbringing our background, our nationality, our memories, our first love, our suffering and so on - but it may not be true or just partly true - for instance; our memories are often false. In many ways, we will be a riddle to our self. We are not like an equation which has a "solution". So what can we know about the world, if we cannot know ourselves? First we have to accept that our senses and our brain are interacting with the world; we are dependent and limited by these "filters". They are helping us to survive - at least in the short run. But to survive in the long run, we should have to take a step backwards.... where are we going if we continue to live in this way. We like to buy things to impress on others. And we make then jealous and they want to buy the same thing. And that is probably somethin

When autumn comes, you have admit that everything changes. It's so clear. But without change, no life. Without the old leaves falling down, no new ones can come. We all are changing, growing. One day we will wake up and find that we no longer are the same. Perhaps we will be a little sad, want to return to the old days, want everything to be the same. That is futile, but you can still learn, you can use your experience and grow wise, like and old tree. It can bring happiness to us just with it's beautiful existence. And if your share your wisdom, it will grow in other people and renew itself with each generation. Photos from Stockholm, some days ago;

Red on a milk package; "When someone is kind you will be happy. But did you know that being kind makes you happy too? Researchers think it's because the hormone dopamine is released in the brain. And it also multiplies; people around you will be more kind too. So do something kind every day!" And if you can, be kind to animals too; for instance choose organic milk and yogurt. Today, at my walk, I saw that someone is kind to the horses nearby; The house owner gives away his apples on the pavement, one sign says "for people" the other "for horses"

A center for social sustainability has opened in Stockholm. http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=45637&l=en I guess this is a good thing. It not just nature resources that need sustainability, it's also the connections we have with each other. But I think they have forgotten one thing; mindfulness. That  is a wonderful tool to create compassion. Better to meditate then to talk about compassion, better to be active in your compassion, show it in the way you live. Ola Schenström, who I studied for to be a mindfulness trainer, is a professional doctor. But now he just learns out mindfulness. When he worked as a manager in a health center he found out that  many of the patients had stress symptoms. And then he started with mindfulness, and found out that it worked. And all of us knows that we have very little compassion when we are stressed and tired. So if you want to be more calm and have a good sleep at night, why not try mindfulness...? Here is Ola  about mindfu

The birds outside are getting ready for winter, the nights are getting colder and in the morning they are coming to the place where I  used to serve them food last winter. I put new seeds there and soon they will come and pick them. In winter they will be the only birds left here, so you better be kind to them. In Sweden there is a debate where people debate a big police- register of romani people. They seem to be in the register only because they are Roms, some of them just kids. A journalist writes about this; Democracy is also to see yourself in other people and to see other people in yourself. I suppose she means, to feel compassion, to not discriminate. The seer and the outer world interacts with each other. If you think that every Rom you meet are a thief or will cheat you, you will just see that. All what we see is in bedded in a context. In many ways we see what we want or what we are used to see. A video from TED shows that what we see depends on our experience and ou

A little film with the stand up comedian Louis C. K. is much shared at, for instance, Facebook. It is the Conan O'Brien show, and Louis is speaking about cellphones but mostly about an anguish that perhaps most people are familiar with. (But why all this need rude words and blips in american films?) At the telly David Attenborough speaks about music with Björk and says that helps us to cope with ourselves, without it we could not stand ourselves. It seems that he neither he is satisfied. So what will happen when he does not have music to listen too? I wonder if this kind of feelings are  more common in the west, than in Asia. When Dalai Lama first heard about "self-hatred" it was in the west, and he first could not understand the word - it took him ten minutes with the translator to understand. But Dalai Lama comes from an old and traditional culture, that until now has been well preserved. I think the rest of Asia would be more familiar with the word.

Compassion is necessary not only towards yourself or towards another human being. It can also be towards, for instance, a whale. In a letter to the Corinthians St Paul wrote;  If i speak in the name of men men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  Beautiful words, but instead of love you can use the word compassion. And remember, compassion makes you happier. Do you remember last time you where angry - did that make you happier? But first we must have compassion towards our self. For those of us, who where lucky to have loving parents or other kind adults nearby, it is easier to be content with ourselves. Other have to fight more and slowly learn how to come near the sad or even crying child in themselves... This is not easy and you need support from nature or other people, or both. But sometimes you can find help from other species. Look at this wonderful video about rescuing a whale... And look at the thankful whale,

If you look at a leaf you can imagine the things that are necessary for it; water and sun and minerals and so on. It is made of these  things and much more - so a leaf is not just a leaf - it is empty of a separate existence - but still it is a wonder - a little landscape with rivers floating towards the sea - or a city seen from above? And we also are without an essence, and therefore we can change, grow, live and dance. And we will also reach our autumn... But it is said that we are like a tree, that looses it's leaves, one after one, each time when we act and influence others we loose a leaf, but in the same moment we changes the world a little bit. When we takes our last breath it's just like when the last leaf falls from the tree. But the leaves on the ground will be mud, perhaps for another tree to grow from. So nothing will disappear just transform. So be aware, a moment without thoughts, of yourself and a leaf.  Both are really wonders.....

In my view - the answer is easy - to be happier. It's not to avoid the hard times, because they will come, but it is to not let them overwhelm you. And if you are happier you will be good for other people and for nature. It's a happiness born out of compassion, so it will seldom be very loud and will never tell yokes that will harm other people. Mindfulness will probably make you stress less and will make you more popular - it will make your life richer - you will have time to appreciate the small things in life, like a leaf moving in the wind. More money will seldom make you more happy, at least if you already have enough of the basic needs. In the long run, you also can reach some deeper understanding of things. And that will make you calmer, more relaxed and not so much dependent of what other think of you. You will look at them with the eyes of compassion. But you will probably take some more dance steps; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3OJVMuHwcU The video s

What is it to know? Is it even necessary? Yes, some things you have to know - how to get to one place from another and a lot of other practical things. But often it's best to just stop thinking, at least when we don't need it. Then we don't have to "know" things. In stead we can observe our "knowledge" and idées. And perhaps we can let many of them just go. Is not the most important thing how we behave to others? How we influence them? That is sometimes called karma or action. And some say that just our actions are our continuation. You continue on other people and in nature. If you drop a plastic bag in the ocean, you continue in the bag and in the fishes that are poisoned of the small particles that  are left of it. I have a long time been fascinated by the fact that two particles that have been together influence each other, as for an example photons - even if they are a long distance from each other. So let say that in some way

You have to know this human being - both as a human and as a painter - a kind of zen-master; http://vimeo.com/7127385   (or search for the video at vimeo or youtube) Her paintings are sometimes nearly unvisible. They reminds of the words in Rilkes Duino Elegies; Earth, is this your will? An invisible resurrection within ourselves? Is it your desire one day to vanish? Earth! Invisible! What do you demand but transformation? Beloved Earth, I will! What does Martins Painting mean? I think it's a wrong question - Just look at it, meditate about the title - She says that she always paints by inspiration - so we can not be sure of who really painted it. Then we will again land in the question; What is an "I"? And remember that the answer can be either conventional or ultimate - or both.... "I Love the whole world" by Agnes Martin:

It's important not to let sadness overwhelm you. Perhaps you can take care of yourself sadness as of  a forsaken child. Perhaps you have to show the child the good sides of life. If your child is sad it's best to not show him or her to much drama. What do you read in the newspapers? What do you look at tv? Is this really things you want show a forsaken child? Is this things that will nurture your own feelings? But don't be afraid of the sad child. Just take care of it. Remember that your suffering is the mud that a beautiful flower can grow in. Without the mud no flower grows. And you have to grow, so you can take care of your suffering. Those of us that cannot will try to drown our sorrows in alcohol or other drugs, like too much sandwiches ;~}If we do that we sure will, in the end, be overwhelmed by our sorrow. We will build a mental prison for ourselves. Thich Nath Hanh puts it this way; "We can stop at all time and become aware of the child within us. Wh

I think Rainer Maria Rilke have catched  something in his "Letters to a young poet." He wrote them just for a young and troubled man, but later on they have been collected in a small book. Rilke was a genius and a romantic poet, in the best sense. He needed a lot of solitude and moved from castle to castle to find some peace and inspiration. He wrote one of his few books, The Duino Elegies, when he lived at the Duino castle, near the sea in Italy; It starts with the words; "Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the hierarchies of angels?" He wrote this, words that suddenly came to him,  in 1912. But the whole poem was not completed until 1922. In a letter he explained that he hoped the poem to be a contribution for " to prepare in men's hearts the way for those gentle, mysterious, trembling transformations from which alone the understandings and harmonies of a serener future will proceed." But how to reach this transformation? In &quo

An article in Huffington post takes up this topic The quick-fix model of mindfulness is widely spread. But there are no quick fixes. As in a gym you have to take your time and exercise as often you can. Otherwise your body soon will show signs of laziness. And if we take away the buddhistic ground, we also take away the ethic side of mindfulness. Mindfulness is meant to increase compassion and understanding. And if it does it will influence your whole life. Even when you wash your dishes you can do it in a mindful way... But most of us don't want to change our life. And for those of us it's no use if mindfulness. Perhaps a quick Mcmindfulness course but no more. If your life is going well and you are satisfied with yourself you don't need it. Or if you, like some artists, are driven bye an inner fire, you would perhaps loose your driving force if you cool your fire. Rainer Maria Rilke stopped going to a psychotherapist with the words; "If my devils are to l

This man has mentioned a lot of interesting things, such as; If a lion could speak, we could not understand it.... I believe he means that a lions language game is so different from ours because of it's interests and perhaps also because it uses different senses. But I suppose we could understand a chimpanzee, at least a little... He has also said that the wonderful thing is not why things, as you and me are, but that we are... Philosophy can anyway not answer neither of this questions... That reminds of buddhism and mindfulness, no use to speculate about metaphysical things, better to practise mindfulness and follow the eightfold path... One who speculated to much is the antihero in Dostoyevsky's book Notes from Underground. He even writes himself; excessive consciousness, too much thoughts leads to paralysis. You cannot change yourself and even do anything at all..  The man in the underground thinks too much, is too conscious about himself. This book was writ

means;  no beginning                                no end                                           made one (maybe living) universe                                                                                    who made one mother earth                                                                                                   who  made one bacteria                                                                                                  who made all life                                                                                                        including you and me                                                                                                           means, no coming no going                                                                                                                                                                                                                              just new manifestations