mindfulness

I'm not sure there is a path in ones life. And if it is, it must be crossed by other paths. It's impossible to have a path totally for oneself. Other people or animals, for sure, have had the same experiences like you; the same joy, same anger and the same longing. Even if we go to the other side of the continent, we will meet the same needs. When I stayed with a Vietnamese family  for a week, I soon understood that we had much in common. Just different languages made it difficult to communicate. Maybe it's about the weather, but the way to act was a little bit more relaxed than in Scandinavia. And of course the culture and the experiences differ. The older people that have gone through the war may have invisible scares. But we share many problems, as the pollution of the air and the sea and too much drugs and so on. And if I drive a car here i Sweden I will contribute a little to the rising see level that can threaten cities like Saigon. J Krishnamurt

In a former blog post Asma had a conversation with Robert Wright in a video. Now I'm reading a book by Asma where he explains why he is a Buddhist. The subtitle goes; "No-Nonsense Buddhism for Modern Living". Asma is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University in Chicago and author of several books. In the book he shows us his interpretation of western Buddhism today. He has lived, for instance, in Cambodia and is familiar with the traditions there. In the video he explains that the traditions in Asia often is mixed with animism. That's why you can find holy Coke blessed by the deities in the temples in Vietnam and other eastern countries. Pure and very original Buddhism only exists in some temples in Sri Lanka, and is only practiced by a few monks, according to Asma. But he means that you don´t have to believe in karma or reincarnation to be a Buddhist. Since we have no permanent soul we cannot go on after death. And our actions doesn't seem to com

I'm back outside of a little house at the countryside at Gotland, a big Island in the Baltic sea. It's nighttime and the sky is clear. I can see a lot of stars and some planets as Jupiter and Venus. I can hear the sea nearby and a nightingale's intense song. But what most struck me is the small and moving things up in the sky, so fast and so steady; satellites. We are everywhere, we dominate the Earth and now we are exploring new planets too. The satellites help us too see the beauty of the Earth, and also the complexity and interacting side of our planet. For instance, the cool streams from Antarctica helps the whole sea system to be balanced an to have the same average temperature. More and more often the Earth is called "a living organism", even by scientists. But nowadays it's an organism that is threatened by mankind. In the Chauvet caves in southern France, there are paintings on the walls that are more than 30 000 years old. Mostly i