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.