mindfulness

The title above relates to a sculpture by Thomas LeRooy:  When we meditate we try to make the thoughts be fewer. Its seems impossible to totally stop them. If we focus of something else, as the breathe or  a mantra we can reduce them. very skilled meditators can do meditate without any focus.  It is said that experienced meditators can reach a higher kind of consciousness that make them loose desires and thoughts for a very long time.  Of course you also can shift from different kind of meditation. If you are beginner is good to start with training concentration. You can do it while walking or eating breakfast too. Don't let the mobile phone or radio disturb you. Here you can learn about different kind of meditations, some of may indicate that time and space, as Kant pointed out, is an illusion (even though an illusion we cant live without). Ruben Laukkonen is looking at meditation in both an scientific and practical way. ( You can find his Doctoral Thesis online): ...

 I have been told by a woman that she couldn't imagine that people lived inside of all buildings. they were more like a the scenography in film: Just thin walls with nothing inside of it. She was autistic. I think its the same when we meet other people - we are not able to see the complexity behind the mask. After having meditated for many years it has really come in to my mind that all things have a depth and it is impossible to understand everything about a phenomena. I see more see whole than the small parts when I take my daily (sometimes mindful) walk, Everything is connected to everything else. There are really people behind windows in the buildings, but we don't know much about them .  In the next year there may be other people behind the walls.: everything changes. So don't stick to anything too much. There is a speculation about the chance that life came to our planet with asteroids from other corners of our universe. In that case all life is connected. Of course l...

I read the book in my younger days, and I hesitated to reread it. It is said to be a book for hippies, together with Steppenwolf. Well when i read it now it seems to more of a parable, it has a didactic smell from the beginning to the end. But it is still worth reading ( Steppenwolf is more complex). And the end of Siddharta it has a likeness of what people who have had an NDE mentions. I will come to that, but first a short summary of the plot in Siddhartha  The main character has the same name as is used on Buddha and some other things are also quite similar. He is born in a rich family in India but leaves to live in asceticism. He does this with a man called Govinda who soon leaves to follow the real Buddha and to follow the middle way. Siddhartha wants to go his own way, so he stays with Kamala, a rich woman who becomes his lover. He even works so he can buy fancy clothes and presents to her. But he leaves her after a while not satisfied, even if Kamala is pregn...

What David Chalmers named "the hard problem" has not been solved: How can the brain produce  consciousness? No one seem to have the answer for that yet. Although consciousness maybe is the phenomena witch we can be most certain of that it exists. The definition of  consciousness here is; the way we experience things. In this definition it's quite obvious that even a bat has  om kind of experience, even if  Thomas Nagel and others mean that we can never imagine the "umwelt" of a bat. But even if the experiences for the bat is different from ours its still  consciousness. But is an ant  conscious - or a plant? We now know that a plant can react to the bite from insect and warn other plants. We know that som flowers can send electric signals to a bee that says, I have a lot of nectar here, come and eat", the bee can answer with another electric signal and when he or she comes both signals fade away. Descartes meant that animals where machi...

 Quantum physics is weird but it works. There are many explanations for what happens in the really small parts of the world - but non are proved to be the right one yet. Maybe the many-worlds solution is the most known. Carlo Rovelli has another solution - everything is relational, even in the quantum world. That means, when you measure something you also are in a relation with it - you interact.  In a video conversation with Brian Green, another well known physicist, Rovelli points to a bottle at the table and says, that for us the bottle stand still, but from the view of the sun it moves. He also says entanglement may be what holds the timespace together.  An in the end Green summarize Rovelli´s view : We are mistaken relative qualities for being intrinsic qualities, like mass or charge.    But both of them also concludes; even if quantum physics really works, we still don't how.  Entanglement or spooky action on distance is quantum phenomena, that s...

 Nowadays you watch a lot of films with people who have had a near-death-experince  At least in the west they all have a similar pattern: They come to a beautiful place and feel unconditional love and so on (but its always hard to describe the sensations with words).  But when they come back to this world they may feel trapped both in the body and in the environment.  There is where mindfulness comes in.  I sometimes silently say to my self while a meditate - I´m (inbreath) perfect (outbreath ) or I´m (in) light (out). This is influenced by the NDE that people have told. There is also another  message from the after-life: All is one.  When I meditate on that theme I use to visualize the Earth and say I´m (in) thankful (out). Then I visualize, in turn, the solarsystem with the planets, the moon and of course the sun, our galaxy and then the whole Universe and send, in turn thankfulness to all of  then. When I try to visualize the Universe a smile a...

  Let´s say we all are like marionets. Some hidden things are guiding us. It may be many causes to our actions and thinking. Let´s say it´s our brains in combination with the environment.  In that case it would be good to stay in a good environment that is good for us. It seems that Trump is going in that way, if he again becomes president his co-workers will be ones that are lojal.  His brain is of course very much made by his mother and father´s genes. And we know quite much about his father. I seems that Trump has very much followed the environment he was raised in.  Let´s say that we have no, or just a little free will, and that evolution also has shaped us. Evolution (so far) seems to favour tall white men with some esprit and courage. We want strong leaders. I they cheat or pay less taxes that they should, also shows that they are strong and are like the most of us.  This may slowly change, or our democratic era may be an exception. Let´s say meny women li...

 The major theory about the universe today is that there was a Big Bang that made up everything from a very tiny spot.  And then we have the boring story about the forever expanding universe that will be colder and colder and fade away.  But still we have no proof of that Anna Ijje is a researcher that is looking at another possibility - an infinite universe. Í use to meditate on the whole universe and when I do it I feel well and are always smiling. As if the universe in some way is connected to us and wants us to go on. This is of course feelings but very deep ones.  When i meditate on the Earth and our solarsystem I don't feel the same.  Anna Ijje shows us a picture of an universe that is expanding but that has an end and after that it is contracting until i will be very small (but not as small as in a Big Bang). According to Ilje the universe will now expand again and form a new and more complex one. And probably with life in some way.  (Even Roger Penr...

  Here in Sweden, its raining in the middle in winter, the temperature is jumping up and down, Nature likes diversity. Then at least some creatures will survive if a catastrophe like a big climate change will occur.  It has happened before and it will happen again, man made or not.  For a long time we have adapt to weather changes. But for extrem weather it will be much harder to survive. In the landcape near Tjernobyl wild animals are coming back.  I'm reading Ed Yong's book   An Immense World and its obvious that we have to handle the destruction of habitats for trees, insects, medical herbs and so on.  Maybe Yuval Harari has an answer for all of is. In this interview he in the end talks about boredom and meditation: If we don't learn to handle boredom without running away from it we will be in big trouble. Harari says meditation has made him more happy (and learned him to stay in the boredom). Though we don't have to meditate as much as Harari, its ...