mindfulness

I'm not sure there is a path in ones life. And if it is, it must be crossed by other paths. It's impossible to have a path totally for oneself. Other people or animals, for sure, have had the same experiences like you; the same joy, same anger and the same longing. Even if we go to the other side of the continent, we will meet the same needs. When I stayed with a Vietnamese family  for a week, I soon understood that we had much in common. Just different languages made it difficult to communicate. Maybe it's about the weather, but the way to act was a little bit more relaxed than in Scandinavia. And of course the culture and the experiences differ. The older people that have gone through the war may have invisible scares. But we share many problems, as the pollution of the air and the sea and too much drugs and so on. And if I drive a car here i Sweden I will contribute a little to the rising see level that can threaten cities like Saigon. J Krishnamurt...

In a former blog post Asma had a conversation with Robert Wright in a video. Now I'm reading a book by Asma where he explains why he is a Buddhist. The subtitle goes; "No-Nonsense Buddhism for Modern Living". Asma is a professor of philosophy at Columbia University in Chicago and author of several books. In the book he shows us his interpretation of western Buddhism today. He has lived, for instance, in Cambodia and is familiar with the traditions there. In the video he explains that the traditions in Asia often is mixed with animism. That's why you can find holy Coke blessed by the deities in the temples in Vietnam and other eastern countries. Pure and very original Buddhism only exists in some temples in Sri Lanka, and is only practiced by a few monks, according to Asma. But he means that you don´t have to believe in karma or reincarnation to be a Buddhist. Since we have no permanent soul we cannot go on after death. And our actions doesn't seem to com...

I'm back outside of a little house at the countryside at Gotland, a big Island in the Baltic sea. It's nighttime and the sky is clear. I can see a lot of stars and some planets as Jupiter and Venus. I can hear the sea nearby and a nightingale's intense song. But what most struck me is the small and moving things up in the sky, so fast and so steady; satellites. We are everywhere, we dominate the Earth and now we are exploring new planets too. The satellites help us too see the beauty of the Earth, and also the complexity and interacting side of our planet. For instance, the cool streams from Antarctica helps the whole sea system to be balanced an to have the same average temperature. More and more often the Earth is called "a living organism", even by scientists. But nowadays it's an organism that is threatened by mankind. In the Chauvet caves in southern France, there are paintings on the walls that are more than 30 000 years old. Mostly i...

... but not the one we think of. In a conversation with Robert Wright  and Stephen Asma  the latter speaks about research of the brain in animals that has shown that there be an early part of the brain that can be seen as a permanent self. Both for humans and animals, and anyway as long as we stay alive. The thoughts and the stories we tell about our selves are not a self, for instance because of our tendency to deceive our selves. So we have much in common with other animals and maybe even with plants. A core-self that not has anything to do with personality or language - but probably with feelings and cravings. So we cannot get rid of the cravings with thought, but we can handle them... Maybe not always with sitting  meditation,  exercise or drawing may sometimes be better..... But as a lay Buddhist Asma can drink some whiskey in the evening if he's not attached to it... As the craving never will go away why not respect them a little...  Here's th...

Body and mind are impermanent, suffering and are out of our control. We cannot stop the chattering monkey in our mind, but we can listen to him/her and let the chattering go. As we know, our health also is impermanent, one day we are not able to do do the things we wish to do. Here is was dying people mostly regretted on their deathbed; She talked to old people who was dying in Australia and summed it up in five answers. Maybe the answers had been a bit different in another culture. Number five shows that the fear of changes  may make us to put up a facade, and stay in old habits and patterns. So the knowledge of the ever changing world can be of great value, o not get stuck. Number three says that people regretted that they hadn't shown their feeling more often. I guess that means feeling of love, gratitude and compassion etc. I don't thing we are proud of our feelings of shame, hatred, jealousy and so on, Maybe many of us have been afraid of the word "no...

Lets go a little bit further... lets say that it is like many people that have a NDU mean:. We are quite violent or at least ignorant towards each other lets say that this life is just a short visit in an quite hostile environment... Lets say that what counts is small moments of kindness. In that case, even a cat, a dog or a parrot can be as much kind as a human being. Prince also had the idea that this life is very short and we shouldn't identify with it too much. Maybe he here was influenced by the Jehovah witnesses. But or may also be his own thoughts. The witnesses couldn't stop him from doing very sexy videos, even in the late years. But they were never violent. He didn't seem to be so interested in violence. As many of us sadly are. As Janis Joplin he was bullied on the young years and later tried to compensate for this. He involved humor and some irony in the music in an intelligent way. And he surely wanted to entertain, as ...

Not only Shakespear's  Prospero, but also Rich Kelley claims this. It may be that was he says is false, but he has the right to have his perspective. And in this perspective meditation shows up in a new light. Buddha spoke about the five skandhas; material form, feelings, perception, mental formations and sensory consciousness. In Kelley's view the senses brings us the experience on Earth. But they also bind us to the Earth. That means, we think that the stage and the play is for real. But we are only here to have experiences that we have wished and  be entertained  and in that way learn new things. And therefore we have to live in an illusory world. It's looks like the Buddhist talk about of conventional and fundamental truth's. We have to deal with one truth at a time. But we can be aware of the other. The fundamental truth that Kelley experienced may be just imagination but is anyway interesting. And the idea that meditation can give us a tem...