monkey mind

After climbing Qinchengshan mountain in western Sichuan where Taoism began 2,000 years ago he introduced meditation concepts to his Grade 8 Chinese students.

“Mediation is sitting quietly to develop a calm mind,” he said.

“You sit tall with your hands on your knees, gently lower your eyes and focus on a single breath, ‘in, out, in, out.’

“If your mind becomes distracted by past or future thoughts you bring it back to your breath, ‘in, out, in out.’ Your single point of awareness. Be your breath. Do it for yourself. Not your friends, parents or teachers. Meditation allows you feel a harmony and balance.

"You will feel more peaceful and happier than other people busy rushing around. Your goal today is just to sit for five minutes. Sit and practice for five minutes every day before school. Eventually you may want to sit for twenty minutes every day, whenever and wherever you like.”

He wrote Chinese words on the board. Jing — quiet, stillness, calm, and Ding — concentration and focus - so they’d see the linguistic connection in Mandarin.

“When you begin to sit in meditation your mind will be very uncooperative. The ego or emotional mind will fight against it’s extinction by the higher forces of spiritual awareness. The ego loves the day-to-day circus of sensory entertainment and emotional turmoil. This game depletes your energy, degenerates your body and exhausts your spirit. We call the ego the monkey mind.”

They laughed.

“When your mind is calm and focused in the present it is neither reacting to past memories or preoccupied with future plans. No regrets, no fears. These are two major sources of chronic or long term health problems. People suffer because their monkey mind is busy regretting the past or afraid of the future and it drives them crazy, this little monkey. Do you want to try it?” 

“Yes.” 

“Great! No books, papers and pens. If you don’t want to try it, it’s ok. Please just sit quietly respecting others sitting in meditation. See how it feels. Let’s begin. Adjust your posture with shoulders back. Relax. Focus on your breath, ‘in, out, in, out.’ He dimmed the lights.

After five minutes he rang small Tibetan bells.

“How did it feel?” 

“Beautiful,” said a girl. “I was flying.”

Memory & Tibet

Greetings,

Here are a couple of new reads for you.

Moonwalking With Einstein...by Joshua Foer. 

..."Before writing was common, human beings had to use their own brains for information storage, and before books were indexed — making it possible to gain access to them in a nonlinear way — people labored under the “imperative to hold” books’ contents in their own mental hard drives simply to find particular bits of information. Poets in the oral tradition, like Homer, relied on repetition and rhythms and other patterns to recite their work from memory, and in the ancient world, exceptional memories were both exalted and widely known."

Colin Thubron a travel writer and novelist has published To A Mountain In Tibet. He has written about the Near East, Russia and The Silk Road.

“You cannot walk out your grief,” he tells himself. “Or bring anyone back. You are left with the desire only that things not be as they are.” This is the reason he has resolved to go “walking to a place beyond your own history, to the sound of the river flowing the other way.” 

Metta.

forgiveness

Greetings,

Today is a good day to practice forgiveness. Forgive the thief with her quick stealth like skill. Bait & Switch. How her daring desperate hunger and your brief lapse of attention moment allowed her and her friend to complete her mission. Dream big, steal small.

Goodbye phone. 

How this powerful little lesson is an excellent reminder of people's desperate short term desire for quick easy money. Clear when the average person makes $2.00 a day.

We have the mark. He has a phone. I will distract him. My fat female accomplice pries the window. We switch out, I grab, she conceals and we leave smiling. We deal. In-out cat like stealth. Diversions and sleeping detectives.

Clouded vision. Dump the SIMplify card. Fence it for quick cold hard cash. Call you later.

Thank you for the lesson. Laughing forgiveness.

Metta.

Sign 101

Greetings,

As I've said before in the long now, this is the land of MILLING AROUND. You are an object of endless fascination. A stranger in a strange land. 

Five boys stand around watching with their curious eyes. They are polite and friendly. They SIGN to speak. Their hands are wings in space. They are from Epic Arts. 

A boy signs to his friend, You only take this ride once.

His friend signs, Stay well grounded and do not fear risk.

Her friend signs, If you want to do amazing things you have to take amazing risks.

Her friend signs, Reveal. Bear witness. Be honest. Be visible.

His friend signs, Honor the muse in whatever way she comes.

A girl signs, They stare at you from the vacuum of their eyes and say would you like to make a deal?

He signs, Buy a ticket take the ride.

She signs, Can we find inside of us a source of inspiration?

He signs, My path is Light.

She sings, Phenomena is ambivalent.

A sign land of vacant hope. A sign people of broken distractions. Where attention span is limited to the stimuli of elastic necks. Life is an accident. A cruel joke. Riders slow down on bikes, motorcycles to survey the disaster in a clean 360 degree arc. 

What is louder than a group of voiced Khmer people? Another group of voiced Khmer people. It's a small miracle anyone can understand anything when they, Voiced Ones, are so busy all talking, speaking, asking at once. Because they are more interested in what THEY have to say the volume naturally increases exponentially. 

They don't get it. Cognitive dissonance.

Someone wants to understand before they are understood.

Two kids are talking. One from the west said, "Where did I come from?"

The kid from the east said, "How did I grow?"

A writer said, Your potential will always go unfulfilled unless it is accompanied by the daily grind of back breaking labor. Nobody wants to hear this. It is not a cheerful message. Writing is a disease. Either you can't stop it or in another case you can't start.

See with soft eyes. Signing off.

Metta.

  

Doing the Mango tango

 I go, we go, you go.

Mango. Super Fruit. Buy one, peel it down. Savor the succulent mass of alfa bet your sweet antioxidents.

A, C, E.

Ace a mango.

The humility of a mango. How the skin releases it's interior dally daily dialogue.

Being unknown. Practice flowing sensations, this dancing mango simplicity. 

Mr. Mango said, "Remember, there are two kinds of people in the world."

"What are they?" wondered a child.

"There are people who want to blame you and people who want to distract you."

"I see," said the child. "You mean, according to the philosopher, Damon Young, 'distraction is chiefly an inability to identify, attend to what is valuable, even when we are hard working or content.'"

"Yes," that is what I mean," laughed Mr. Mango doing the tango with some Taoist monks.

Metta.