mindfulness

In the 14 precepts for Thich Nhath Hanh's community the first goes: Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth. Does he mean that we should skip Buddhism? probably not. But we cannot be sure of anything Buddha said, he didn't write anything down. other did, all a long time afterwards. Maybe it's right maybe not, maybe some of it are right. Maybe the first writings are the more accurate As the four Noble truth and such. But I'm sure T N H is hanging n to mindfulness, i guess because it works for him. For me its a great help too -  but its not a miracle cure. You have to combine with another things. As exercise. I play a lot of table tennis with not mindfulness trained bur nice people. There I can use mindfulness to try to be concentrated. But its all about to win too. And it would be foolish not to to try to do it, that's import

Is  something happening that we are involved in without to understand it? Some say that human consciousness should be a part of science and of the development of the world. Consciousness have led us to go to the moon, has helped us make UN och to build bombs. It has given us internet that are connecting the world. Let's say that art, science and  infrastructure  is a part of the earth and therefore a part of the universe. It's a kind of nature made by the human mind. And the mind is made by life on earth. Ants and beavers also build places to stay and birds sing and dance. But they don't write books and direct films. We enrich the earth with these human phenomena and hopefully enrich ourselves too. As somebody said; Hamlet and other fictional characters exist, in a special area that are not connected at all to for instance, science and astronomy. So  to say something holistic about the universe is really impossible, as it contains so many different areas or level

Maybe a question we don't use so often. Of course I'm the ruler of me! Well after some years of meditation training you may anyway want to look for what is the "king" or ruler in me. And the answer may be; nothing in particular.  Different parts of me rules in different times. The environment wakes up different parts of the brain. If we are scared probably the fight area or the flight  area will react. And they react before we are aware of it. Of course inheritance and environment may influence what part of the brain will react. But neither inheritance or the environment i come from is the king. We can train to not follow our impulses. A swedish monk in California have cancer, and in a talk he empathies the benefits the Buddhist training has given him. It has learned him to let go. To not be overwhelmed by feeling and so on. He led a retreat i visited some years ago, but then he had so much energy. In this talk he is another, but still a sympathetic man.

We live in an era where we seem to be more mighty and at the same time more vulnerable than ever. The word Anthropocene can help us to understand why. I can collect many questions under it wings and bind them together in the same discussion.  We can, for instance, se climate change and extinction of species as connected phenomena.  We can also see that something happened with the human society after WW2. ( se more at  http://www.anthropocene.info/great-accele ration.php  ) Until recently not many understood that we could change the surface or the earth so much. That we also have influenced the atmosphere and the big oceans a lot. That we are causing a mass extinction of animals and insects.  In the site above there are many suggested solutions to look at. And the situation  is very severe.    The new view of humankind is that we really can influence the Earth. We have not been aware of it      before. But now we can be m

Will all fall apart if we don't have anything to believe in? The importance of the  old gods in Greek and Rome faded away. And instead came Christianity. Now, in the west, the belief in God and the truth of the Bible is fading away too... This painting of Goya is said to illustrate this; The dog is looking for his master in a cold and empty world, but he (God) is nowhere to be found. What myths do we have insteadS Maybe the one of liberal democracy . It may be a good one, even if its now threatened by old fashioned ideas. In Brunei, for instance, sharia-laws are introduced, as stoning for homosexuality and adultery. In other part of the world nationalism is growing. Yuval Harari points out that liberal democracy has a hidden weakness, the belief in free will. We have never had much free will, but in the future it may be totally gone. We will be in danger of being hacked by the algorithms in AI. Governments or companies can send so much false news , that we st

David Deutsch writes in his book "The Fabric of Reality" about ethics and aesthetics; .... beauty and rightness must be as objective as scientific and mathematical truth. How come? Well D D is known for his spectacular ideas, even if he works in the scientific field. He advocates the theory that comes from Quantum experiments. A photon that splits into a real photon and a "shadow photon" in the double split experiment, goes really into parallel universums. For D D that indicates that parallel universes really exist. Many think that already there he goes too far, but others says that is the plausible outcome of the math formulas of quantum physics. D D also means that the parallel universes can be in some kind of contact with each other. And why not have a common strive to better and better knowledge, even about beauty and rightness? So, in that case the Kantian "objective" moral laws is a reality (even if they can change as scientific knowled

Let's take some help from the Philosopher Ricoeur and the author Auerbach to approach the question. But first; Religions learn that there are some state, probably in the future, that will be a salvation. - or a hell. Even Buddhist texts talks about it in the sense of karma and afterlife. Some modern Buddhists, as Thich Nhat Hanh means that hell is a state of mind, ebut with mindfulness and awareness of every step you can reach some kind of heaven. In here and now you don't regret the past or worry about the future. When I practice mindfulness its really like that... But my tinnitus gets more obvious and maybe hidden feelings will come to the surface. When I practice with my sangha its a bit easier.  Originally Buddha wanted us to see the terrible sides of life, like sickness, changes and other unsatisfactory things in life and of course old age and death. Its better not to be reborn. Its better not to think so much... Its better not to collect things for yourselves, a

I went to a funeral yesterday. It was held in a small chapel near the graveyard. A female priest held the ceremony which was simple and nice. But I couldn't believe in the talk about God and Paradise. For me both paradise and hell can be here on earth or in our own minds. The buried man X , I had helped for some years in a place for slightly handicapped people. He was a bit mentally handicapped. But very kind was he. He stayed with his grandmother as a kid, and as at teenager at a family on Gotland, the big Island in the Baltic sea. His wife had Asperger's syndrome. She could be angry for small things. She shouted to him if he did something wrong. He cold strike back, banging  the table, sometimes he hit her. But when he got weaker he just trembled, while she dominated him. If you have asperger you easily get angry for small things. You cannot understand that other people dint think like you. Everything is black and white. And X got dementia. He was a kind and

The novel, Stoner, by John Williams was published in 1965. But its first now its really known and   its sold  in thousands of copies, especially in Europe. Why? Mainly because its well written, in an epic and pre-modern style, not at all experimental.  and it I tries to say something - what? It's the one of Williams's books that is nearest his own life. Stoner is a teacher in literature, as Williams was. So maybe it's that he want to say something about his life or about the life of Everyman. I'm sure Prince had the same kind of love for music as Williams had for litteratur. You can hear it in the album "Prince; Piano & a Microphone" recorded in 1983 but not published until last year. Maybe we also can hear the foundation for his music here. His father worked as a pianist but was not so good as a father. He left the family when Prince was ten. In the recording from -83 we can hear him sing a bit of the song "a case of you" by Joni Mit

You may say that this has nothing to do with mindfulness. On the other hand you can think that these topics comes to your mind when meditation has made the talking monkey inside silent. Let's say that David Deutsch is right in his view of time in a multiverse  landscape: Well, then, as i understand it, you can be in different ages in different universes. And different universes can interact with each other, at least at the atomic level.  That seems to be the implication of the theories of quantum physics.  Here is a painting by Hilma af Klint that could illustrate an interacting multiverse.    Well I may go to far, other things can be interpreted there too. Even af Klint didn't know what she was painting.  I better stop here for to today with a winter scenery from Rättvik - to come down to earth

I recently watched a tv-program about natural disasters in 2017. They were many; storms, hurricanes, floods and big fires. Hundreds of people dead, not to mention all the animals, also dead or without their natural habitat. Its seems  to be a time of destruction. But under the catastrophes lies an underlying hope. Quiet friend who has come so far, feel how your breathing makes more space around you. Let this darkness be a bell tower and you the bell. As you ring, what batters you becomes your strength. Move back and forth into the change. What is it like, such intensity of pain? If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine. In this uncontainable night, be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses, the meaning discovered there. And if the world has ceased to hear you, say to the silent earth: I flow. To the rushing water, speak: I am. Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29 Or like another German poet, Hölderlin, wrote : Wo aber gefahr ist wächst das rettende auch But where