mindfulness

Humans. Just a small part of the earth. But perhaps quite useful. We are connecting different part of the earth with each other... If the earth is a living being, and I´m sure it's so - we are his/hers brain cells. The earth is beginning to think and explore the space and other planets But it has a cost - the earth are beginning to get sick - it has fever. So it will find solutions to cure it self. Bill Bryson explains this in his much readable book "A short history of nearly everything" - he is witty, humorous and intelligent enough to explain the history of science in an understandable way. Here he speaks about, for instance global warming. In the book he writes about the climate impact of the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide; "it has happened before and the Earth has recovered, last time it took only 60 000 years." But I'm sure, if the Earth has a will, He/She doesn't want that to happen. The Earth doesn't want it...

The caption is a quote from Joseph Brodsky, the poet. We have only our human senses and our human way to understand things. We just have to go to the quantum dimension and it's a totally different  world- we cannot understand how it works, but it does. This computer is an example of it. If you take a photo with your camera, with the" wrong" settings you will get a clue of that you can see the world in a different way. Our way to see the environment is a way to handle the world so we can survive, and of course we also see world through the raster of our personality and our culture. And in a way we also create the world in that way.  A new survey shows that it's not stress itself, but to be scary of stress that is the most harmful ! The people who were scared of what stress could cause were the ones to get problem with their health. But there are for sure other ways to see the world. And if you meditate it's easier to leave the common feelings and thoughts b...

In the free online course Big History Project we can follow the history of the universe until now. Our earth is really a wonder. It's unique lifeforms will probably not occur on any other planet. Man's  progress is caused by the worldwide connections that started about 500 years ago. We have learned from each other. And now we are even more connected, cultures and and people from every nations are mixed together in the  big cities, for instance in Stockholm. And then we have big opportunistic to learn from each other. Mindfulness has come to the west to stay and will probably change it a bit. Delicious and tasty food from every corner of the world is now probably more popular than the traditional Swedish "smörgåsbord". You can now choose to eat vegetarian food in every school canteen. When I was young this was impossible. Other things have happened too; women rights, refugees, colored people even in small cities, and then reactions to that. Things are c...

Mindfulness in my view isn't about learning something new or to be skillful. We have enough of that. It is to be aware of what's going on, to slow the time. When you cock your vegetables, have a look at the beautiful colors, listen to sound when you slice the them, it the sound different when you slice the carrot from when you slice the coli flower? What sound can you hear when you drop the beets in the boiling water. Can you imagine the rain, the soil, the farmer, the fertilizer when you hold the broccoli in your hand?When you eat the meat, can you see the life of the cow, her eyes, her feelings feeling, her environment? In many ways we are what we eat; When you sit down and meditate, you don't have to breath in a special way, just follow the breath and when thoughts come, be curios to them, don't condemn them, but perhaps label them and let them go, They are just a part of you, you don't have to change them, but you don't have to follow them e...

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage      And then is heard no more: it is a tale   Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing. Macbeth is sad in the end of Shakespeare's tragedy. In the beginning he has been fooled by the witches. They promised him that he should become the king of Scotland, and he then figured out how to let it be a reality.  But all in vain - in the end Lady Macbeth has killed herself. Shakespeare himself lived another life. When he got older he moved back to Stratford upon Avon, the little town where  he was born. Away from the busy London, away from fame and the pleasures of a big city. Maybe he was fed up with this. His circle was completed and soon after he died. I will hope his last years were good ones. He had seen many famous people fall, even kings. Even today people struggle and fall, but if you don't look for success you do...

Aren't we all looking for answers? Some of us think we have them. Some of us are not so sure. Perhaps it's better to search for a simple life and to avoid suffering as much as possible, both for yourself and others. Unfortunately you will not completely succeed. But it worth trying. Perhaps you then should have some distance to the common, busy life. But you don't have to move to a monastery. Epicurus tried another way. The old Greek philosopher is falsely identified with   a lust for sex and wine. The world Epicure comes from this. He searched for pleasure, but in another way... His ideal was friendship and simple food as bread, cheese, vegetables and water. Meat was not necessary at all. At 306 b.c. he moved so a house outside of Athens with some friends. They had separate rooms but common places for meals and conversation. They accepted a simpler and cheap lifestyle as they didn't want to share the business life in Athens. They grow their own vegetable...

Kenneth Taylor at Stanford University has an interesting lecture  where he talks about the self. He comes to the same conclusion as many others do; we construct our selves with our stories about our life. But he adds, like a mindful person should, we also includes other people in our story and we tell their stories too. We have to, but perhaps we should be careful - we should know that it just are our stories about others.   ( the full lecture here:  http://vimeo.com/22352839   ) The stories may not be exactly true, but it is anyway important to tell your own story. Jackson has the perspective of black people in America in mind. He cites from "Song of Solomon", a novel by Toni Morrison: "She threw away every assumption that she had learned and bean at zero.... Then she tackled the problem of trying to decide how she wanted to live and what was valuable to her. When am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to stay alive? What ...