mindfulness

... but not the one we think of. In a conversation with Robert Wright  and Stephen Asma  the latter speaks about research of the brain in animals that has shown that there be an early part of the brain that can be seen as a permanent self. Both for humans and animals, and anyway as long as we stay alive. The thoughts and the stories we tell about our selves are not a self, for instance because of our tendency to deceive our selves. So we have much in common with other animals and maybe even with plants. A core-self that not has anything to do with personality or language - but probably with feelings and cravings. So we cannot get rid of the cravings with thought, but we can handle them... Maybe not always with sitting  meditation,  exercise or drawing may sometimes be better..... But as a lay Buddhist Asma can drink some whiskey in the evening if he's not attached to it... As the craving never will go away why not respect them a little...  Here's the conversation (

Body and mind are impermanent, suffering and are out of our control. We cannot stop the chattering monkey in our mind, but we can listen to him/her and let the chattering go. As we know, our health also is impermanent, one day we are not able to do do the things we wish to do. Here is was dying people mostly regretted on their deathbed; She talked to old people who was dying in Australia and summed it up in five answers. Maybe the answers had been a bit different in another culture. Number five shows that the fear of changes  may make us to put up a facade, and stay in old habits and patterns. So the knowledge of the ever changing world can be of great value, o not get stuck. Number three says that people regretted that they hadn't shown their feeling more often. I guess that means feeling of love, gratitude and compassion etc. I don't thing we are proud of our feelings of shame, hatred, jealousy and so on, Maybe many of us have been afraid of the word "no&q

Lets go a little bit further... lets say that it is like many people that have a NDU mean:. We are quite violent or at least ignorant towards each other lets say that this life is just a short visit in an quite hostile environment... Lets say that what counts is small moments of kindness. In that case, even a cat, a dog or a parrot can be as much kind as a human being. Prince also had the idea that this life is very short and we shouldn't identify with it too much. Maybe he here was influenced by the Jehovah witnesses. But or may also be his own thoughts. The witnesses couldn't stop him from doing very sexy videos, even in the late years. But they were never violent. He didn't seem to be so interested in violence. As many of us sadly are. As Janis Joplin he was bullied on the young years and later tried to compensate for this. He involved humor and some irony in the music in an intelligent way. And he surely wanted to entertain, as