mindfulness

Our western way of thinking of time is often progressive and linear: things will be better and better in the coming times But what about aging and death? Well sometimes that seem to be a problem for us. A problem that may be solved so when a thing like corona comes, it's looked upon as something unnatural.  But it is not, virus like covid 19 is natural, even if we don't know if it is dead or a living thing.  but there are other ways to look at time It can be seen as circular, or like a spiral. Things like civilizations and species come and go.  it may be seen as a development, or maybe we want to see like that. we humans are more developed than the monkeys. or?  time can also be seen as Einstein explained, it is the clock time, its invented by us...  let's agree that our way of looking at time is one of many, and it may be a way that in the end creates more problems than it solves.  Andrey Tarkovsky, the Russian director, had a special way to look at time.  He filmed scenes

  Even if Spinoza is dead, pantheism is not , in the contrary it may be a philosophy for the  future.  You can include a god in pantheism but you don't have too. There can be a kind of holiness anyway, vut that includes every living beings and why not even mountains and rivers. Mankind is just one of the holy animals, not more worthy than elephants, turtles, worms and bacterias.  Let's see what the professor of religion,  Mary-Jane Rubenstein, says about it.     There are not a clear definition of pantheism, but for me there's feeling and why not music included.  Here seen in this beautiful hymn to a lark. The violinist, Hillary Hahn, has the ability to leave her ego behind when she plays. She uses her whole body as an instrument for the music.  Take care out there   

Stephen Jenkinson, the Canadian citizen, is often talking about To be an elder. And that includes grief. The grief of losing someone dear to us.  But also grief for a dying culture. I was not good at grieving when my mother died. Partly because she was over nighty, she was demented and sad and she had the right tp be proud of her life.  She actually started dying when my dad and later on my elder brother died, that was doo much for him. May she was, as I am, a bit too sensitive too handle all the troublesome things in this world. Masshunger, war, hard words from people all around, maybe mostly in the media that was quite new for her; radio, tv newspapers...  We had a quite good life in Sweden, but what about the rest of the world.....  I have been aware of the personal death for a long time. The view of live forever has not comfort me at all, In Buddhism and meditation you also learn to be aware of death too. As life is troublesome it's no disaster to die, it's worse to be born

 Penrose has today been awarded with a half Nobel prize in Physics.  He was the first to predict that Einstein's general theory of relativity predicts black holes. (the  other  half of the price goes to the ones who discovered what must be a black hole in the middle of our galaxy).   Penrose describes himself as an atheist but;  In the film  A Brief History of Time , he said, "I think I would say that the universe has a purpose, it's not somehow just there by chance ... some people, I think, take the view that the universe is just there and it runs along – it's a bit like it just sort of computes, and we happen somehow by accident to find ourselves in this thing. But I don't think that's a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe, I think that there is something much deeper about it." [  He went on to explain that he believed our universe would end in a  Big Crunch , a scenario cosmology has since found to be unlikely. Penrose's model re

So we can never be totally alone.  A society is more like a wood wide web - we are connected to relatives, children, friends, work, bus-drivers, health care and so on. We are also connected to history and nowadays to countries all over the world. We are connected to melting ice in Arktis and to what's happening in the Amazonas.  That's why Robert Macfarlane compares our world with the fungus network underground. The wood wide web;  It is said the the trees can communicate with each other with the help of the mycelium. A big tree can  nourish a smaller one through the mycelium that can spread very long in the depth.  As we can nourish or or even threaten a fellow being on another continent through our web.  We can also try to change the story of historical events, or of coming ages - so time is also included in our internet- games. So beware of the sources that writers in the internet use.  My source here is mostly Macfarlane's book Underland. Please read it! We can never be

 Michael Shawe, an Australian producer and director has made a film called "Living in the time of dying". It is really powerful for the ones that really care for the future, who has time and energy enough to care. He interviews people who is caring but also sees the threat of a global tragedy that has already started.  So Shawe seems to come to the conclusion that what is best now is to do the things that really matters.  I guess that is, to be present, to listen and to care for the ones  that are near us, even animal and plants.  I'm not without hope that the situation can change and no one is knowing exactly what the future looks like.  Anyway here is the film:   So what can we do with the voices we have listened to in this film? Turn away? Stop to listen because its to scary? Or maybe just listen and not think much of it for some weeks.  Robert Macfarlane writes in his quite new book "Underland": We are presently living through the Anthropocene, an epoch of i

Jem Bendell, who is the founder of the Deep Adaptation (to climate change) movement, started it with a paper.  It's now downloaded more than 100 000 times.  But it's now also read bye scientists that not miss to mention that Bendell is a professor of sociology and not an expert of climate change.  Though Bendell refers to scientists he is accused for doing cherry picking among them.  Bendell is also very sure of his findings: We are on our way towards a collapse of civilization. We should grieve and then prepare for the collapse.  Many young people will die, but hopefully humankind will survive in some form.  A respected journal,  Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal (SAMPJ), rejected the paper. A publisher explained that the paper wasn't peer reviewed. They wanted Bendell to correct the paper so it reflected the facts.  Bendell didn't do so but posted it in a blog.  Bendell means that the journal didn't want to post the paper, because it says th

It seems to be quite clear. It's relations I think it's too narrow to just say that's it's about other people. Of course it also can be relations to dogs, cats and so on. But also relations to trees, flowers and wild animals. I can sit for hours and look at swallows  in the sky or near the sky. But at the end of the day I mayfLong for the touch of another human. Buy ourselves we are nothing. Yes, it seems that we Are our relations. That is what holds us together. But what happens when an important relation ends? And beware of bad relationships:  A

 At least that's what Rupert Sheldrake.  And he means he could show scientific proof for it.  Well, Sheldrake is not a newcomer in that business.  He has had dialogs with Krishnamurti long ago and he is a defender of the idea that a morfologic field is surrounding us and is binding us together in a great distance.  Nowadays he doesn't speak so much of that field. In his latest book he writes about the benefits of an spiritual practise. He himself meditates in the morning and and prays in the evening.  And it seems to make him more happy; he makes jokes and smiles a lot in this lecture. (you can see the whole speech at IAT-tv)    Is he into New Age. Maybe. But he means that it's science. And I can follow him in that - meditation, and some discipline to do it regularly, preferably with others, seems to make you, at least, more satisfied.  For me it's enough to do it once a day, but also to try be mindful in the everyday things, as washing the dishes.  When a play table te

 Jeremy Lent believe that we need the latter, a deep transformation. Then we can stop climate change and save civilisation.  Jem Bendell, the founder of Deep Adaptation (to climate change) means that it is too late. We have to prepare for a civilization crash.  We have to learn to use  permaculture, to grow our own food and to live near freshwater.  And we have just ten years to prepare for that....  As you can see on this film from Nasa, the change in temperature has rapidly increased the last decades.    It seems clear that the temperature is increasing fast and it's because of human activity.  Already now people are suffering from the effects of the climate change.   you can read about it. for instance, here;  https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/global-warming-effects/ Well, I'm not an scientist and cannot predict the future.  But there are visions for a sustainable world:  Jeremy Lent means that Bendell is defaitstic. If everyone would think like B

This post is under reconstruction.... Is there never a right view?  Maybe not Let's say that there are many planets with intelligent life in our universe and of course they have their own view - that's perspectivism: there are never just one perspective of a phenomena, but a lot perspectives -       not understand their views.   Do our brains and our consciousness compose even such things as mathematics  B i mathematics is "out there", as Pythagoras and his modern followers think, then there may be absolute truth - anyway in science.          what  about art, religion and the things that give life meaning for us?   I'm sure the inhabitants in different planets will have different opinions about that.  In our time, which in the west are quite secular, many of us find the meaning in nature  and we may include certain people in what we call nature. Maybe the near and dear ones. I suggest an answer to what is most important on the surface of the Earth: Diversity  Let&

When I looked at my naked foot this morning i could see that it was the foot of an ape.  Not good enough to swing from tree to tree, but good for long walks.  Yes, we are intelligent monkey's https://www.livescience.com/11119-men-apes-competing-status.htm l Does that mean that we are violent by nature. Not necessarily. Chimps is sad to be violent, but their relatives on the other side of the Congo river is not - the bonobo's also chimps, but a little bit smaller. The latter has another culture. They live in a matriarchy. Maybe the majority of us now is very little violent. Or at least less violent than earlier generations.  And of course, i now talk about men.  And if we are there may be a hopeful future in front of us.  If we look at the new we see much violence, but if we compare it with how many people we are on this Earth, we can see in another perspective.  AI may have a bad side, but if we handle it with care it may help us with the climate change and other issues.  The o

Dont forget about the small miracles. Like sunshine in graas. It's a wonder to live on mother Earth. To meet the first butterfly; Or to take a flying and walking meditation: 

After Kennedy was murdered, Johnson became President and sent thousands of soldiers to Vietnam.  The war got worse, and US was there until the massacre in Son My changed the view of the war. In an interview in New York Times, Dylan recently spoke about that he was thinking more of the extinction of humankind than of his own death. Same with me....  Dylan seems to think that it all started with the murder in the 1963. That I don't know. The Viking age here and for example the Celtic era i Britain was very bloody with sacrificing of humans for various reasons.  It seems that Cristianity made it more peaceful, at least for a while.  What now makes it more scary is AI-technology and climate change. But as in the Viking-story of Ragnarök, some people will anyhow survive.  Let us many of us as possible strive to make the Climate change less severe.  But let us also see the beauty in the small things.  But let us also think of Mother Earth.  Was is best for her? What is best for humankind

There's an organisation I have joined that has this vision... It's called Deep Adaptation.... The view is that we have to adapt to the new climate. Here in Scandinavia the temperature already has raised more than two degrees celsius since pre-industrial times. All serious reports tell that we haven't done enough to stop climate change yet. And the atmosphere is already filled with so much greenhouse gases, that we have to go 3 million years back to see the same level - and then the sea level were more than 15 meters higher than today. (some say 800 000 years ago, though) That and millions of refugees is what we have to adapt too. So that will probably happen. It's too late.... If we don't go on living  that we do now because of the covid-19. Less traveling buy car and plane. Less production in fabrics and so on. Less people employed (will anyway happen because of new technology). Less consumption. Less far away produced food. Less meat Les

There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so, Hamlet says i the play. We are made of the universe, but also of stories. If many people will believe in a story it will be true for them. Even if it will mean that you kill other people or animals. But to work the stories must be corresponding to feelings. To make soldiers fight they have to demonize the enemies. Someone has to tell them that the enemies are bad. That its best to kill them. And there must be a reason for it; they are bad because.... What if we understand that it's just stories? Then, is Shakespeare right? Let' s see - if something is good there must be a bad behavior to compare it too. God and bad are interdependent. Let's say that we call it skilful or unskilful. Of course also interdependent. But also interdependent of the culture around and what century. What is good and bad changes. Buddha is said to have eaten meet, Today in most Buddhist monasteries that is unskilful. Nowa

Cora Diamond is a new name for me, even if she has worked as a professor in Philosophy in the states for a long time and is still  teaching at the university of Virginia, even she is over 80 years old. She has written a lot about Wittgenstein and that has helped her to express her view of the topic. Although she, like Wittgenstein,  has lived in a hut in Norway - and actually brought Tractatus with hes - she seems to be different and for sure more glad than W. Anyways, its W: s writings that interests her and especially his critics of metaphysics and ethics in philosophy. As it is said in Tractacus  : " Whereof one  cannot speak , thereof one must be silent." And of ethics philosophy should not speak - why? Is it like in Buddhism - its better to sit in silence and let know yourself, than to speculate about what will happen when we die? But for sure there ethical guidelines in Buddhism,  but the behaviors is often named skilful, not good (or bad). Another

It seems that the cosmos is very special and fine tuned for life. Stephen Hawking; The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life. You can learn more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_universe There seem to be at least two answer why it is so; the anthropic one, otherwise wouldn't we humans be here. Another answer may be, if there are an infinite numbers of universes out there some will be fine tuned for life to exist. A third third view can be: yes, some universes  would be fine tuned for life, but maybe why for humans, is it not a lucky (or unlucky) chance that we are here? We may never have the right answer, but for me it may be many universes out there, m

We are the eco-terrorists of the world. - what if look us in the mirror with that in mind.  Here you can read about what it means today and about our time; anthropocene; http://humanorigins.si.edu/research/age-humans-evolutionary-perspectives-anthropocene But not every human society has lived like this, and some still live in balance with the rest of nature, like the Kogi indians in Colombia: Maybe we in the lack a mythology that sees our connection with Gaia or Mother Earth. the mythology we live in now, late capitalism, sees her just like raw material. The Buddhas words about cooling desires, with meditation and and compassion seem to be relevant, but not many Buddhist lives like that, even not in the monasteries. Or may Brian Swimme's view of Evolution, even in a cosmic sense, as a big sacred story a new mythology to grasp? At least it seems that we need a new story or mythology to survive.... But first, when we have to look ourselves in the mirror with bru

I'm studying an online course at Yale - Story of the universe. Its based on a book by Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker and video films with Swimme as a host and some kind of storyteller. He means that we are facing the end of our last story, the one of men as kings and rulers on the earth. An egocentric and anthropocentric story. We have seen nature and the rest of the animals as resources. We have lost our sense of awe over the Earth and cosmos. And it doesn't seem that we understand that we all are made from dust from an exploding supernova, a very big star. Swimme means that the universe seem to be a self organizing entity. New stars are born in the arms of galaxies and after a long while they will die, as our sun will. As in Buddhist philosophy everything is changing and there is no essence in the universe, in fact everything is in its center! You and me and a fish in the sea and a sone at Mars and so on. So maybe everything is related - we are for sure r

Ever heard of these Ladies? Maybe not. Joanna is ninety years old now but still going strong. She is a mindfulness practitioner and teacher. But mostly she's known for being an environmentalist activist. And she still is: She's a great speaker and has written many books. She combines spiritualism with environmentalism. She doesn't call her selves a Buddhist but someone that is inspired by the teachings of Buddha. Another inspiring women is Valerie June a singer and composer that have had a long and winding road to her music life. She had diabetes but didn't know it and after that diagnose she dedicates her life to music. Many of us are glad for us. Her voice and music have many sources, and doesn't want  to label her style . You can hear echoes from Africa in her voice and a tone of spirituality there too.  As if  many old voices  has guided here. She have had som astral travelling and here she sings about it. Enjoy:

Im reading Paul Larkins book Journey to Earthland. His the founder of Great Transition Initiative Here you can hear and see him:  He means that big crisis will come in our time. He calls the era for the planetary phase. a time or glocalization. Even such things like a pandemy can trigger it (of course he didn't know about Corona when the book was written) The same things that are threatening us can start the transition. I think that's true. Big crisis will come - maybe many of us will die because of it - but ut of that change will come. A new look at humans, at the Earth. on politics and so on. It will take time, but we can see the birth of it already As in the Great Transition Initiative:

Here you at last you have the answer.... ? At least there's  a book about it Here you can buy the book And in this dialogue you have the answers from the two editors of the book ( in the end): On of the editors say utilitarisme, and the other Buddhism. I would say, every time has it own answer. And you cannot stuck totally to any philosophy. Why? I guess we are organism and not machines. In one part of you life you may be drawn to one philosophy and later to another. And as long as I can understand; you will always rely on something. Even if it is eclecticism or even capitalism. Or even something like this;