mindfulness

 Semi-final in world cup in soccer tonight. France versus Morocco. The Le-Pen family mean that you cannot have double nationalities.  But a lot of people with Moroccan ancestors celebrated in France after the quarter-final. I guess many of them have double identities; a bit French and maybe at bigger bit Moroccan (maybe some sees themselves a international citizens too),  I think you can can have many identities, Zygmunt Bauman used the word fluid instead of postmodernism to categorize out times.  We live in fluid times. If there's a war in Ukraine, it influence the whole world.  Th queer movement is in the loop now. I think Bauman is looking for something steady, too much information nowadays, too much changing in job market. You have to be flexible, too flexible like plankton, moves around by waves and winds. (If you read about Bauman's life you will see that he seems to have been moved around quite much too). Bauman is mostly known for wanting to see the Holocaust as part of

 What is that?  It can mean many things dependent on the discourse.  But here is the definition from Oxford research encyclopedias:  Posthumanism is a philosophical perspective of how change is enacted in the world. As a conceptualization and historicization of both agency and the “human,” it is different from those conceived through humanism. Whereas a humanist perspective frequently assumes the human is autonomous, conscious, intentional, and exceptional in acts of change, a posthumanist perspective assumes agency is distributed through dynamic forces of which the human participates but does not completely intend or control. Posthumanist philosophy constitutes the human as: (a) physically, chemically, and biologically enmeshed and dependent on the environment; (b) moved to action through interactions that generate affects, habits, and reason; and (c) possessing no attribute that is uniquely human but is instead made up of a larger evolving ecosystem. There is little consensus in post

 In a comment to one of Anna Thorvaldsdottir´s compositions a listener makes the remark in the headline above.  Maybe it is so. Depends of what we mean with the word "nature".  I guess the writer means that nature is one thing and human another.  But if we say that all is nature, nature is if course not indifferent.  Unfortunately mankind sometimes acts like the most evil creature on Earth;  Uses and exploits the rest of nature but are not indifferent to it.  Other animals does not exploit us, and we are for sure not neutral to our pets.  Often we  also look at wild animals with wonder.  We can interact with them too: I meet two deer in a nearby forest yesterday.  I spoke to them in a friendly voice, as pet owners speaks to their dogs. And the deer stayed just some meters from me and the biggest one started to lick the other in the face. Showing some kind of goodness. Maybe I influenced them a bit - they are quite used to meet people here, in the outskirts of Stockholm.  Of c

 A mix of different personalities on the scene.  Zisek, as usual, a bit controversial. Harari, as usual, very mindful - meditates more than an hour every morning and goes on long retreats.  Please, make a comment if something bothers or upsets you..  Mother nature is a bitch says Zizek and means all the suffering on Earth because  of droughts, floods, climate change and so on.  Well, maybe the Earth can be nasty, but of course also beautiful.  I guess Zizek wants to start a debate. Even so when he condemns Buddhism, or the extreme parts of it.  

 I'm a bit ambiguous desires - are they good or bad? Desire is the opening track on the album Harmony of differences by Kamasi Washington. Kamasi explains that if you want to find truth you have start with a desire for it. This peace is named "Desire": Kamasi says i an interview   “I’m always studying, always searching, always trying to find something new to inspire me.”   He also says that he wants to unite people, even if diversity is needed.  that means not condemn the ones that are not like you.  Desire is also what makes the eagle good to fly and the rabbit good at running from the eagle. But as Kamasi's words explains; Desire will never be satisfied.  Joseph Goldberg, author about and practitioner of meditation write about dreaming of things in the future; "Certain kinds of expectations are so seductive because they masquerade as dharma aspirations. But there’s a big difference between aspiration and expectation. Aspirations can inspire us. We might have an

When your in a period of depression thoughts of self hatred can occur as  living beings inside of you. That's not much to do about them, they may come from some trauma in the past. Often the feelings are projected on other beings, "you are awful, ugly and fat. Your life is not worth anything" And so on.  Hopefully you don't say those words out load. If you have meditated you can study the thoughts, accept them and and bit later on understand what their source are. We have to remember that the thoughts are our identity - they change and are just a part of us.  Another tactic is too see the sorrow and darkness in other people. Some are trying to get rid of their feelings of loneliness or worries by surfing on the net. Some are talking for hours to not let the dark feelings through.  One trick can be to talk with strangers, maybe just some seconds. Lately I made some complements to colored  bus drivers - just "god music you play" or to a Muslim girl with her

Anna Thorvaldsdottir is an Islandic composer now living in London. She cares for nature and fears the destroying of it... She shows this in her music. Her way if writing it down is special and I guess she needs a long chat with the conductor before a concert. She belongs to a new generation of composers with some distance to the human dance on the Earth. On Island nature still are on the move. Volcanos, hot springs and earthquakes forms the landscape. But the glaciers are melting and one of the is now  declared "dead". When we use a word like "nature" we look at at something outside of us. But that is a wrong view.  We interact with nature - or rather - we are nature. A thinking nature - but not so different from other primates.  Thorvaldsdottir  may help us to see this. You can hear her late music here ;

  Arvo Pärt STATEMENT: Dear friends in Ukraine, dear colleagues, dear all fighting for your home at the price of your life, We bow before your bravery, bravery in the face of nearly unbearable suffering. We are with you as much as we are able to. All that is left to us is a lump in our throats and tears and prayers. Words have begun to lose their meaning. Forgive us! Forgive us for failing to protect you from a disaster unimaginable in our time. Long live Ukraine! Слава Україні! Pärt’s statement was shared in Estonian, English, Ukrainian and Russian. He was born in Estonia what then the Soviet Union. He was not allowed to set up his religious music, so he mowed to Berlin and is now again living in Estonia. As a mirror to another mirror the war in Ukraine is very living here.  Not just because many refugees from there is here now. Also because we are so near, both Russia and Ukraine, but also the Baltic countries. We are so interconnected. I used to play table tennis against a Russian m

Cancer is like a small fire in tn body. It will burn until nothing is there for the fire to eat. What starts the fire? It may be complicated,  may have many causes. Of course fires have always existed in forests. And it will be in the future.  If the temperature rises and rain doesn't come the fire will be worse. It may be the same with cancer, may father had it too, but it didn't kill him.  my cancer may be inherited, but the way I have lived my life may also have reflections in my body. And my first years, and my problems trying to live with women.  Now much is too late, by mindfulness is not, it can be practiced the whole life and it includes to listen to child in oneself.  My father had that kind of child in himself too. But he found ways to hide the child. Like the golfers in this photo seem to forget about the fire.        Photo ; Kristi McCluer/Reuters we have to distract our selves so we don't see the fire. I understood that something was wrong when I had to pee so

Carlos Rovelli  is a theoretical physicist that is supporter of a solution of the Quantum paradox that has much in common with Buddhist philosophy. Namely that there are no essence in things including humans.  Light waves becomes photons when they interacts with something or someone. Before that they are probabilities. And when the photons interact with a human eye and brain, we see some shapes end colors. Though another animal or an insect may see other colors.  So both in Rovelli's theory and i Buddhism all is relations, as Einstein showed it is in velocity, everything moves in a special speed relative to something else,  Characteristics describes how something is interacting with something else, so things have properties relative to something else with witch it is interacting. This is the relational interpretation of quantum theory Nothing is fundamental, everything is in relations We are often longing for something fundamental. A God, special laws, the absolute truth and so on.

 Thich Nath Hanh is dead, Though in his view nothing can die. No coming - no going. As we have no essence, no intrinsic I, we are all interacting beings.  The German sociologist Hartmut Rosa is not a Buddhist but uses the word  resonance  to describe the interaction   not just with other human beings but with nature and the society around us.  In an interview he says;  Resonance means becoming  vulnerable  and losing control.  That's what happened to Thich Nhat Hanh the last years. He lost control and was for sure vulnerable as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage.  But he was well treated by his students, nuns and monks and the burial was attended by so many people in Vietnam where he lived his last years, His view is that he will live on in the people who met him and was influenced by him and his book or talks in Youtube. Rosa is an atheist and thinks capitalism and the forever increasing economic system is the biggest obstacle for us. That makes is see nature as something other tha