The obsolete consciousness I

The Dongria Kondhas people inhabit the plateaus of the Niyamgiri hills in India. The Niyamgiri Hills where the Dongria Kondh dwell are covered by superb natural forests and home to many rare species like the Golden Gecko and the Giant Squirrel. The Dongria Kondh call themselves Jharnia meaning those who live by the Jharana (streams). Hundreds of perennial streams flow from Niyamgiri hill, and there are hundreds of Dongria villages by the streams. The Dongria are the protectors of these streams, hills and jungles and are revered by people in the nearby plains.

A british based mining company, named Vedanta (ironic name as "vedanta" refers to the branch of Hindu philosophy that teaches the Ultimate Nature of Knowledge), wants to turn the the Niyamgiri mountains into a giant bauxite mine to feed its refinery at the foot of the mountain.

It is the mineral wealth lying beneath the slopes of the Niyamgiri mountains that has drawn Vedanta to Niyamgiri. If the flat-topped hills are destroyed, the forests that clothe them will be destroyed, too. So will the rivers and streams that flow out of them and irrigate the plains below. So will the Dongria Kondh.

This is a manifestation of the obsolete consciousness which has been pervasive in this time of human evolution.....

See the video

crisis in the outside world mirrors the crisis inside

It was a dialogue between people interested in education.

Suddenly one person asked: "Where is the crisis?"

And in that moment I saw, not theoretically or intellectually, but with clarity, that the crisis inside me was identical to the crisis in the outside world.

I was in conflict and the world is in conflict. I was trying to be better, and the world is also trying to be better. I am searching for security and the world too.....

A rock

There is something changeless, motionless,
immovable, rock-like, unassailable;
a solid mass of pure being-consciousness-bliss.
I am never out of it.
Nothing can take me out of it,
no torture, no calamity.

- Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Marcus Aurelius

Some quotes from his book"Meditations":

"If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment"

"Your life is what your thoughts make it"

"Everything harmonizes with me, which is harmonious to thee, O Universe. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee. There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains and infinite other things. There is one common substance, though it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among several natures and individual limitations. There is one intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided."

(Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, born on the year 121- died on the year 180)

Roots in the mind

Yesterday, at work, I had a problem with a person. There was some tension and some things were said.....This morning, the first thing that came to my mind when I woke up was this incident. "I should have said this and that, I should have not said this and that....."

And then I realized how important is to realize how some thoughts want and do take roots in our mind. That thought of yesterday's incident was forming roots and wanted to stay, to condition the mind.

It would be important to realize this phenomenon, and thus not allow it. It seems to me that painful (including fearful) thoughts take roots in our brain, and influence future behaviour, future reactions, that is, conditions our mind.

The extreme situation is when a thought takes roots and comes and comes again, becoming a kind of obsession. This clearly will influence our lives in a negative way.

This is why to realize this phenomenon, from subtle to extreme, would be important. At least that is what seemed to me today. What is your feeling?......

A chair........

Something that happenend in last night´s shift around 2:00 AM:

- A (patient, a young man of around 28): I have come because for 3 weeks I feel very depressed, all my symptoms have worsened, the anxiety, I spend the whole day performing "rituals", there are different ones, maybe I open and close a drawer fifty times. I have different obsessions. I am very religious and I do not mind to talk to god aloud on the streets, even if people look at me in a funny way, sometimes I just kneel down on the street and pray. But all this is wearing me down, I feel exhausted, deppressed, I do not want to live anymore. It all started 9 years ago, when my grandfather died, I was very close to him, I did a lot of sports, I was good at them and I was training to be a carpenter, but now I have 6 different medications for these problems, I do not work. Today all came to a point in which I cannot bear it anymore......

- B (practitioner): you have to understand one thing, please. I am working here not to tell you nice things or be complacent with you, but to tell you things that I think are true and maybe you might find difficult or strange....

-A: right....

-B: Look at this chair. If a chair would be conscious of being a chair....would it still be a chair?

-A: I do not think I understand....

-B: Yes, If a chair would become aware that it is a chair, if it would become aware of its existence as a chair, aware that it has 4 legs, that is an object for people to sit on her, aware that she was made and that she is decaying....completely aware of its "chairness".....would it still be a chair?....

-A: I do not know if I understand you, but a chair is normally not aware of being a chair. If it would be aware, then, it would not be anymore a chair as we know it .....

-B: That´s what I mean....it would continue having the shape of a chair....it would look still like a chair....people could still use it to sit, etc....but it would not be a chair anymore.....because chairs are not aware of being chairs...

A: ok....., but.......

-B: In the same way, if YOU would be completely aware of your condition, you would not be the "you" that is now. If you would be completely aware of all your rituals, your obssessions, your fears, the unstable balance you have came to have with all that, and even the nature of your nature.....then you would not be that....
I am not asking you that you change anything, continue with your rituals as they are now....but just be intensely aware as everything happens.....

-A: I am not sure I follow you....but would that help me?

-B: Don't do it for a goal, do it out of desperation, do it because it might be the only way, and a change might or might not happen, it will have a dynamic of its own.....go home now and work on this.....

what moves the world?

I was trying to get breakfast this morning in the dinning hall of my working place, and when I passed in front of the kitchen door, I saw this youngish woman working in front of a grill there.
The kitchen had no windows and was probably hot. And she was there seriously working grilling some food.....

And I thought "why does she work there?"....and an answer came to my head: "she might have a son and she wants the best for him and she works there for him......she was doing it because of love........"

Then I remember that I thought something similar the other day when I was going in a bus: "what makes this driver come day after day and do this mechanical repetitive job, day after day, year after year?.......and I remember that a similar idea came to my mind: "he might have a daughter or a couple of dauhgters....and he loves them....and so he kind of do this for some kind of love......but love nevertheless......"

And I was still waiting on the line to get breakfast and a weird idea, or rather a question, appeared in my mind: " is it possible that loves moves this world more than we imagined?"....

Suffering

I had finished last night shift, I had changed my clothes and I was walking out, when I crossed in a corridor a middle age lady on a bed, being pushed. Walking behind, a man, possibly a boyfriend or a husband. On her face there was a lot of suffering and grief.

And a question crossed my mind: what is the origin of all human suffering?.
Then I realized the Buddha had asked that question and answered it....but I did not remember his answer. Can we leave that question open, for as long as it takes, without taking answers from anybody?

wars: big and small ones

If you ask anybody, most people would be completely against war. They do not understand how they could happen. They would blame some evil people that manipulate other people......

This morning at work, some of my colleagues were talking about another one in a really bad way, and gathering signatures against her, planning a meeting to discuss ways to remove her, etc......there was a lot of violence, disrespect and ill feelings.

I think I remember Krishnamurti saying that war was not only the one between countries, but the war with our neighbours, our wives, our co-workers, even ourselves. The big wars "mirror" the small ones......

(Picture above: Phan Thi Kim Phúc, center left, running naked down a road near Trang Bang after a napalm attack in Vietnam on 8th June 1972. In an interview many years later, she recalled she was yelling "Nóng quá, nóng quá" ("too hot, too hot") in the picture. After a 14-month hospital stay and 17 surgical procedures, however, she was able to return home.)

Hari Om Tat Sat

I was sitting at a table and somebody asked "what does it mean Hari Om Tat Sat?"

I had never heard that expression.

My friend answered: "I think it means: what is now is all there is"

Nature and technology

It has some kind of beauty to see that a volcano can stop quite a "solid" and sophisticated human activity, as flying.

The eruption of Eyjafjall volcano on Iceland on 14 April 2010 threw volcanic ash several kilometres up in the atmosphere which led to air travel disruptions in Northwest Europe on April 15-17, including the closure of airspace over most of Europe.

Only on friday the 16th, 17,000 flights, more than half of Europe's average 28,000 daily flights, had to be cancelled.

28,000 daily flights, just in Europe?.....that was the news.....but how many flights are there daily in the whole world?

This has been difficult to research on the net. According to NATCA, the US National Air Traffic Controllers Association, only in the US, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies on any given day. Only one-third are commercial carriers, like American, United or Southwest. On an average day, air traffic controllers handle 28,537 commercial flights (major and regional airlines), 27,178 general aviation flights (private planes), 24,548 air taxi flights (planes for hire), 5,260 military flights and 2,148 air cargo flights.

I could not find a good source in Internet that would tell me the total flight number in the world per day. But if there are 87,000 in the USA and 28,000 just in Europe, let's guess another 30,000 for the rest of the world......that sums around 150,000 for the whole world...in a single day !! (isn't that a bit too much?...)

While researching the above figures, I found a study by scientists in the Zurich School of Applied Sciences. They traced every flight in the world over a 24-hour period and plotted them onto an impressive video map. (Each yellow dot represents a flight. A moving haze was then added to resemble the shifting darkness of night)
See the video here

Where is all this people going? to do what?
What moves us?

"They desired to help but were themselves helpless"

"When I went to Europe for the first time I lived among people who were wealthy and well educated, who held positions of social authority; but whatever their dignities or distinctions, they could not satisfy me. I was in revolt also against theosophists with all their jargon, their theories, their meetings, and their explanations of life. When I went to a meeting, the lecturers repeated the same ideas which did not satisfy me or make me happy. I went to fewer and fewer meetings, I saw less and less of the people who merely repeated the ideas of Theosophy. I questioned everything because I wanted to find out for myself.

I walked about the streets, watching the faces of people who perhaps watched me with even greater interest. I went to theatres; I saw how people amused themselves, trying to forget their unhappiness, thinking that they were solving their problems by drugging their hearts and minds with superficial excitement.

I saw people with political, social or religious power - and yet they did not have that one essential thing in their lives, which is happiness.

I attended labour meetings, communist meetings, and listened to what their leaders had to say. They were generally protesting against something. I was interested, but they did not give me satisfaction.

By observation of one type and another I gathered experience vicariously. Within everyone there was a latent volcano of unhappiness and discontentment. I passed from one pleasure to another, from one amusement to another, in search of happiness and found it not. I watched the amusements of the young people, their dances, their dresses, their extravagances, and I saw that they were not happy with the happiness which I was seeking. I watched people who had very little in life, who wanted to tear down those things which others had built up. They thought that they were solving life by destroying and building differently and yet they were unhappy.

I saw people who desired to serve going into those quarters where the poor and the degraded live. They desired to help but were themselves helpless. How can you cure another of disease if you are yourself a victim of that disease?

I saw people satisfied with the stagnation which is unproductive, uncreative - the bourgeois type which never struggles to be above the surface or falls below it and so feels its weight.

I read books on philosophy, on religion, biographies of great people and yet they could not give me what I wanted. I wanted to be so certain, so positive, in my attitude towards life that nothing could disturb me.

Then I came to India and I saw that the people there were deluding themselves equally, carrying on the same old traditions treating women cruelly. At the same time they called themselves very religious and painted their faces with ashes. In India they may have the most sacred books in the world, they may have the greatest philosophies, they may have constructed wonderful temples in the past, but none of these was able to give me what I wanted. Neither in Europe nor in India could I find happiness."

(J. Krishnamurti. "Life in Freedom". 1928)

Pattern recognition

"Erfahrung ist eben zentral. Mit das Bedeutendste im Schach ist die Mustererkennung - die Fähigkeit, auf dem Brett typische Motive und Bilder zu erkennen, Stellungsmerkmale und ihre Konsequenzen."
(Der Spiegel, march 2010, interview with Magnus Carlsen, a 19 year old top chess player)

One could translate it for:
"Experience is essential. The most significant in chess is pattern recognition - the ability to recognize typical motifs and images on the chess board, position characteristics and their consequences."

I find this sentence remarkable, because it seemed to me that it contains a description of how our brain works, essentially. If we slightly change the phrase for "Experience is essential. The most significant in perception is pattern recognition, the ability to recognize typical motifs and shapes in the environment, their position and their significance"

This sentence, it seems to me, contains the basic mechanism of our brain, how it works and how it is conditioned, both part of this mechanism..........

Gas bottle

I was dealing with some paperwork in an office and I was kind of complaining about how complex society has become, how dehumanized and commercial the relationship between humans has become in this complex transactions.

And then, next day, I ordered a gas bottle. The truck came, delivered it, I paid for it. And then I realized how complex the structure has to be for me to be able to get that gas bottle. Somebody had found the gas deposits, other people extracted it, transported it, somebody welded the gas bottle, the paint was produced and transported and applied to it, there was the fuel to transport the gas and the bottle, the truck driver that brought here, somebody has made the money, etc, etc.......mind boggling......if society would not have become so complex, that bottle would not have arrived here....

Brugada Syndrome

The Brugada syndrome is a genetic disease that is characterised by abnormal electrocardiogram (ECG) findings and an increased risk of sudden cardiac death or Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome, the most common cause of sudden death in young men without known underlying cardiac disease.
Although the ECG findings of Brugada syndrome were first reported among south east asian young people who had died suddenly, it is now recognized that it happens in all races.

This phenomenon is well known among the Hmong people of Laos, who ascribe these deaths to a malign spirit, dab tsuam, said to take the form of a jealous woman. Hmong men may even go to sleep dressed as women so as to avoid the attentions of this spirit.

In the Philippines this sudden death in young people is despicted as a mythological creature called batibat. This hag-like creature sits on the victim's face so as to immobilize and suffocate him.

While reading about Brugada's syndrome, I was thinking I might be one of these cases, why not?, and if diagnosed, I would go to bed and not know if I would wake up next morning. That there might not be a next morning.

What is our attitude to death?. Could we have this feeling present in our lives? would that be horrible or could it have some quality?

(In the picture above, column A represents normal ECG waves, and column B the different QRS waves of Brugada's syndrome ECG. Note the "hump" or the "saddle" morphology)

responsible for making changes

"Everyone knows what I've gone through. I'm human, I make mistakes, but I've come clean on them all. I don't deny them. I've taken the heat and felt highly embarrassed by a lot of them. I'm not proud of the things I've done and the incidents that have happened in my life, and I would never say I was. But I did something about it. I'm not above learning lessons.

'I'm not shirking blame for any of the things I did. I'm responsible for my actions. But I'm also responsible for making changes'

Naomi Campbell, on Mail on Sunday 22nd March 2010

contradictions

She was a young lady, in her thirties, and belonged to a generation theoretically interested in the environment......She was quite articulate and could speak very well about environmental problems, and its solutions.....If you wouldn't live with her, you would think she was quite concerned about the environment......but at home she would not switch a single light off........no matter how many times she was told......

Are contradictions a common phenomenon in us?, are they easy to spot on other people and very difficult to see on ourselves?
Can we see our contradictions?

Complaining about others

To a disciple who was forever complaining about others the Master said,
"If it is peace you want,
seek to change yourself, not other people.
It is easier to protect your feet with slippers
than to carpet the whole of the earth."

(Anthony de Mello)

Anthony de Mello (4 September 1931, Bombay, India 2 June 1987, New York) was a Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, public speaker and writer who wrote books on spirituality. He traveled to many countries to study and later to teach, most notably Spain and the United States. The Vatican condemned many of his writings and ideas in 1998.
See what you think here

Francis Bacon

"Reade not to Contradict, and Confute;Nor to Beleeve and Take for granted; Nor to Finde Talke and Disourse; But to weigh and Consider."
Francis Bacon “The Essays: Of Studies”

"A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion."
Francis Bacon “Essays: Of Atheism”

1 + 2 = mistery

Does everything have an influence on everything else, no matter how small influence it could be?......does that imply that all is inter-related?

+

"Emergence" is the way complex systems and patterns arise out (emerge) of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Nothing commands the system to form a pattern or even intends it.

=

.....and the mistery deepens......

Emergence

"Emergence" is the way complex systems and patterns arise out (emerge) of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.

Emergent structures are very common in Nature. They are patterns not created by a single event or rule. Nothing commands the system to form a pattern or even intends it. Instead, the interaction of several simple parts with each other and with its immediate surroundings causes a chain of processes leading to the emergence of a very complex structure.

Ripple patterns in the sand created by wind or water is an example of an emergent structure in nature. The interaction of very simple elements create a complex structure, without anyone of them intending it.

Water crystals forming on glass demonstrate an emergent natural process, where a high level of organizational structure is crafted directly by the random interaction of water molecules between themselves and particular surrounding conditions.

Is DNA, the central molecule in which life is based, an "emergent" structure?, created by the interaction of very simple molecules interacting between themselves and its environment? and these interactions just driven by simple affinities?, creating, without intending it, an incredible structure that is able to hold a memory and transmit it, unfolding what we call life?....
And now a logical question: is life an "emergent" structure, created by the interaction of many simple elements and their environment....without nothing intending it?

Can something which is not intended have a goal? in an unintended system could there be an intelligence?....

Listen to the music of an incredible group....called "Emergence", probably created by the unintended interaction of some people playing with sounds. By the way the singer is a good friend, Krishna (Duncan), and one of the people that demonstrated that friendship could be life long........by the way, is friendship an "emergent structure"?, coming out of the unintended interaction of many small factors, leading to a much more complex and amazing structure?

Listen to Emergence

interrelationship of influences

The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shifted Earth's axis. It is calculated that the quake should have moved Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters). Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters.

This has shortened the length of each Earth day: Jet Propulsion Laboratory research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth's rotation should have changed as a result of the quake. He and fellow scientists came up with a calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).

By comparison, Gross said the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake that created the huge tsunami should have shortened the length of day by 6.8 microseconds.

To make a comparison about the mass that was shifted as a result of the earthquake, and how it affected the Earth, he compares it to the great Three-Gorge reservoir of China. If filled, the gorge would hold 40 cubic kilometers (10 trillion gallons) of water. That shift of mass would increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and flat on the top. It would shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch)

"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," one of Gross's colaborators said.

(Data from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

I look in the dictionary the word interrelationship:
"mutual or reciprocal relation or relatedness"

Does everything have an influence on everything else, no matter how small influence it could be?......does that imply that all is inter-related?......what is the relationship of interrelation with "oneness"?.....

Eyes for beauty

Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut orbiting the Earth right now on board the International Space Station (ISS), is sending some pictures through the newly installed ISS's internet connection:

Mount Fuji, Japan

Aruba, Antilles, near Venezuela

Bahrain

Amazon, Brazil

Arabian desert

Do we have eyes for beauty?

(Pictures from http://twitpic.com/photos/Astro_Soichi)

mind body connection and the I

A friend from England sends the entry below. It is most welcome. This is a good occasion to remind everybody that this blog does not belong to somebody in particular. It belongs to all. Ideally it would be a forum where people from different geographic and cultural backgrounds could talk and explore relevant issues, and learn from each other.
If you have some thought, over the dinner table conversation, dialogue or something that has happened to you and you want to share it, and explore it together with other people (...this is after all a dialogue....) send it, and we will post it here.



"It does seem true for me, when my body is dealing with something difficult, my mind suffers for it as well. When I ingest things that my body does not like or has a hard time dealing with, I find that I become irritable, irrational and at times angry. I can see quite clearly, especially in my most recent years of life, how important eating a "good" diet is for my mental health. It seems to follow logically for me then that having a body which is in good physical condition would help me to have a mind which is better adept at dealing with life.

Whether or not having a healthy body would then allow my mind to be more alert and awake, I have no idea. How does one determine this to be true? How do I even acquire any evidence to support such things? I am not sure there is any physical evidence one could gather which would support such a notion. I can only make assumptions as to how my mind would react to a particular situation if my body were in a state different from the present state under which the conditions apply. Having this been said, however, I do find myself answering in the affirmative to the stated questions. In general, I feel that if I have a responsive body which is capable of dealing with the hardships that it endures over time; a body that can quickly, and with little effort, assimilate the energy that it needs for proper functioning while simultaneously discarding and excreting the matter that it does not need or want, this would be a body with exponentially more energy to use for other processes. It is my assumption that this unused energy could be directed more inwardly towards ones own nature and how one reacts in the environment which it is presented. Having such energy may possibly mean that I could experience, notice and/or pay attention to things happening within and without me that otherwise may go unnoticed when the body and mind are using its energy for other things.

I do see one problem with everything that I have stated above though. The basis for these views and assumptions are precluded by the very first assumption that the body and the mind are two separate things. It seems we find it quite easy to assume what exactly the thing that I call "I" really is. The common view of what I is in the west assumes a separation between the machine, which is the body, and the thing that resides in the machine called "I". "I" am separate from the thing in which "I" am housed. Being separate we then can assume that actions taken on the machine have no effect on the "I". This line of thinking can be seen in many aspects of society and in the way that I personally view and treat my body. I have the basic view 'keep the machine well oiled with good fuel and the machine will take me far with little trouble'. It is certainly possible though that the thing which I call "I" is nothing more than the machine itself. Logically, this seems much more realistic and plausible to me. A machine which operates in conjunction with numerous other machines working together to give rise to that which we see, feel and observe around us. It may have been that once it was a machine that acted in harmony with others around it, at some point seemingly this machine recognized and became aware that it was functioning and could control things around it through a will in of its own. This state of self awareness has assumed itself to be an individual separate from that which it acts on and observes externally. Born out of this perceived process of 'will, action and consequence' were the seeds which gave rise to the conscious being which I call "I". A machine with the ability to make decisions for itself which have a perceivable and definable consequence which the I is able to observe. The I that acts on the things that it can see, but has no relation to. I have then taken this a step further and assumed the thing that is the machine which I call "I" is separate from the thing that I call my body. I can act on the body; I can change the body through thought and will. The assumption being that anything I can change through my will is not then connected to or a part of me. The thing that I call "I" is everything that I assume cannot be changed through thought and self-made will. And to change the content of the the immovable "I" would be to destroy the "I" altogether. Conscious will and action taken from the point of view of the "I" to change or otherwise alter the "I" would be in essence a sort of mental suicide. In essence, a thought to change the very thing called "I" which makes the thought is an assumed contradiction and is dismissed as soon as it is thought up.

So, long story a little bit longer: this machine believes that it may have the energy and the will to see through that which itself has created in thought if indeed this machine took better care of that which it calls its body."

a fosil from a long long time

On 28 September 1969 at about 10:58 AM, near the town of Murchison in Australia, a bright firewall was observed to separate into three fragments before disappearing, leaving a cloud of smoke. About 30 seconds later, a tremor was heard. Many specimens were found over an area larger than 13 km², being the total collected mass around 100 kg. This was called the "Murchison meteorite".

It seems that the Murchison meteorite was formed when the solar system was formed, or even before the sun came into existence. That means that by studying its composition we could know the composition of this part of the universe at that time....a very very ancient "fosil"....

This study has been published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS, February 16, 2010).

The analysis of the chemicals on the meteorite, shows clear indicators that the composition of the earliest solar system had a much higher molecular diversity than our planet does at this point. The conclusions were based on a thorough analysis of the object, which was conducted using advanced, high-resolution tools, including spectroscopy. A single sample of the meteorite allowed the researchers to accurately identify up to 14,000 different compounds in the rock, of which 70 were amino acids. These are the building blocks of proteins, which are in turn indispensable to life.

But the advanced modeling of the new data seems to indicate that the meteorite as a whole could have as much as several million organic compounds inside it. “We have to crush a few milligrams from the core of the meteorite to enable the extractions with solvents and thus we only see the extractable fraction. In addition we are only seeing the ions we can generate with the ionization source of our mass spectrometer. With different types of ionization sources we could see even more”, said one of the scientists.

Is the history of something different to the thing itself?

A person

Last night I was called to see an 86 years old person in Box 6. When I saw her I already saw that she was a neat person, simple, attentive, austere. Her papers and records were carefully kept inside a neat black folder with a zipper. After a while she told me that she was a nun. She was now not so much involved anymore, but she had been working in a school for abandoned children. There was some clear and undefined naiveté and sincerity about her, some kind of transparency,and her voice was soft and and there was truth in it. And now she was in need. I cannot help but always feel a kind of deep respect for truly religious people.

After the shift I was going down the stairs, and I was thinking on her. And an idea came to my mind: it is not that a religion has made them good people, but goodness wanted to express and expressed itself through an available channel, in this case the channel of the available religion here, christianity.... but it can channel through many possible channels, religious or other......
The religion was not important, the important thing was goodness, which probably exists well before religions, manifesting through them......

To be or not to be

To be or not to be.....

How do we understand the meaning of this sentence?......

yoga sutras

The yoga sutras.....what a beautiful text....a gift (from a person???).....and such different meanings with the different translations.....I wonder what was the original meaning....

I am reading a sutra on samskaras, latent impressions, tendencies.....and karma, the influence from the past, even past lifes....

Being one of our strongest conditioning the believe that we are individuals....I wonder if our understanding of it was also influenced by this sense of "individuality"......like "my individual samskaras" or "my individual karma".......

it is just a question.........

The Semmelweis reflex, the opposite and another possibility

The Semmelweis reflex is a metaphor for the reflex-like rejection in most of us of new ideas or possibilities because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs, tradition, cultures or paradigms.

It refers to Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, who discovered by 1847 that the incidence of puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever (or childbed fever) was common in that time hospitals and killed 10%–35% of women giving birth.

Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality below 1%, Semmelweis's suggestions were rejected by his contemporaries and were largely ignored, rejected or ridiculed. He was dismissed from the hospital for political reasons and harassed by the medical community in Vienna.

The opposite to the Semmelweis reflex also exists. We could call it "the believe all reflex", in which one believes almost everything, the more strange the better.....

Would it be possible to live without beliefs? would it be possible to see the limitations of a concept of a belief? would it be possible to see how our mind works almost constantly through patterns of ideas?...and to see this not just intelectually (which would be another belief)?

.....by the way.....what is a belief?

old age

For the past months I see many old men (80-90 year old) in my work. Last night I took care of a quite famous ex-cyclist (85 years old). He tried to tell me he had been a famous cyclist. But his world has already dissapeared, the races, the recognitions, the congratulations, the friends. He was there, breathing with difficulty, still trying to be....
In the shower after the shift, I was thinking about it, and an idea came to my mind (from where?): old age should be a time to be with the "other", with the "Ground", to be in contact with it, to be in "it". Otherwise it would be a meaningless time at the end of a meaningless life.
....and why not do it before old age, also?.......

brain and mind

J. Krishnamurti, second dialogue with David Bohm at Brockwood Park 20 June 1983:

JK: Should we first distinguish between the brain and the mind?

DB: Yes, well that distinction has been made and it is not clear. Now of course, there are several views. One view is to say that the mind is just a function of the brain – that is the materialistic view. There is another view which says that the mind and brain are two different things.

JK: Yes, I think they are two different things.

DB: But there must be…..

JK: ….a contact between the two

…….......

JK: and it (the brain) is conditioned.

BD: Yes

JK: Conditioned by past generations, by society, by the newspapers, by the magazines, by all the activities and pressures from the outside (in another part of the dialogue: conditioned by time and evolution). It is conditioned.

……....

JK: I think the mind is separate from the brain.

DB: Well what does it mean separate? That it is in contact?

JK: Separate in the sense the brain is conditioned and the mind is not.

………..

JK: So as long s the brain is conditioned its relationship with the mind is limited.

…….

DB: Yes. Now we say the mind is free in some sense, not subject to the conditioning of the brain.

JK: Yes

DB: Now one could ask a question: what is the nature of the mind?

----------------------

What are the limits of the brain? and what is the essence of the mind?

(picture taken from the spaceship Cassini of Saturn, august 2009)

to cling to.....

I was observing my mind today and how it works, and I saw how easy is for it to cling to things.....and how difficult to let go....

To cling to ideas, to hurts, to guilt feelings, to images (about others and about oneself), to habits, to memories....

To let go, to move on, to pass page.....

And to observe all this....how we cling to the idea of modifying, of changing what we think is hurtful...it is like a reflex......

Reflexes......very old automatic mechanisms in the mind.......is clinging a reflex?....like breathing faster when moving more?.......

......and the old question.....is it possible to even attempt to modify all this....or the only possibility is to observe it?.........

obituary of a good person

Miep Gies (15 February 1909 – 11 January 2010) was one of the people who hid Anne Frank and her family from the nazis during world war II. She brought them food and support during the time they were hiding away (from July 1942 to 4 August 1944). She discovered and preserved Anne Frank's diary after the Franks were arrested. After the war she had Otto Frank, the only survivor, live in her house for several years.

Miep Gies states in her autobiography, and on her own website: "I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more – much more - during those dark and terrible times years ago"

There are people who feel and act in the direction of goodness. And they do it in a natural way. It is not that they think " I should act in a good way", they just do it, it flows out of them....
Where does this goodness stem from?
Is it that there are good and bad people?, or is it that this goodness is a part of all of us?...
The only way to really know is to find if this is true for oneself......

dynamic Nature !!!

Impressive distances: The Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) is a medium-sized seabird known to make the longest annual migration in the animal kingdom. It flies every year a roundtrip from Greenland/Iceland to the Weddell Sea (Antarctica) and back again, a trip aproximately 70,900 km.

As Arctic terns can live for over 30 years, the total distance flown in a tern’s lifetime may exceed 2.4 million km, that’s equivalent to around 3 return journeys to the Moon!. Not bad for a bird 100 grams in weight.....

Simplified figure showing the yearly migration pattern of the Arctic tern. The southbound migration is shown by a yellow line. In spring, the northbound migration (white line) is conducted in a gigantic “S” shaped pattern through the Atlantic Ocean.

How dynamic and creative Nature, existence, is.......

(information from http://www.arctictern.info/ and the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

living on a tight rope....

On August 7, 1974, shortly after 7:15 a.m., a young man stepped off the South Tower and onto a steel cable between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. He walked the wire for 45 minutes, making eight crossings between the towers, a quarter mile above the sidewalks of Manhattan. In addition to walking, he sat on the wire, gave knee salutes and, while lying on the wire, spoke with a gull circling above his head.

The video above is clipped from the 2008 film "Man on wire" , that chronicles Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between both Towers, and the dialogue below is a reflection at the end of this film:

"To me, it's so simple, that life should be lived on the edge....
You have to exercise rebellion,
to refuse to tape yourself to rules,
to refuse your own success,
to refuse to repeat yourself,
to see every day, every year, every idea,
as a true challenge
and then you are ready to live your life on a tight rope"

The human spirit......What depths are possible in our human spirit?, what are our boundaries?......or in other words, what is our real nature?........

Tara mantra

.....And in the hardship of the path, there is also kindness, symbolized here as "Tara"...

(This beautiful Tara mantra is in the film "Himalaya" (1999), directed by Eric Valli and shot in Nepal)

A Christmas present

This is the dilogue between father and son, in the film "Himalaya":

- "Why did you come with me?"
- "When you left the monastery...
I remembered what one of my masters said....
When two paths open up before you, always choose the hardest one"
- The hardest one....
The hardest one.......

A beautiful Christmas present....

(dedicated to Hugo)

bodhicitta

bodhicitta is a compassionate tendency towards respect and understanding and the willingness to help other sentient beings to become liberated themselves of ignorance and separation.

Is this also a part of human nature?

Something to reflect on

If somebody would tell us that the man in the picture above was a hero that saved a little girl from being killed......we would believe it. We would even look at his face with some admiration.....

If somebody would tell us that he was the initiator of a compassionate movement towards a minority group in south east Asia......we would believe it....

But, no. He is Kang Kek Iew, also known in the khmer rouge years as "Duch". He worked as a school mathematic's teacher, and became head of the the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. During this time 17000 people were tortured and killed in that prison. Only six survived. In an interview in 2008*, he said "No answer (from the prisoners) spared them from death".....

This is something to reflect about. Without judging.....

(in the lower picture, Kang Kek Iew at the age of about 17)
*: interview by Valerio Pellizzari

Is there a perception without the senses?

Is all seeing done with the eyes?
When I "look" at my fear or my tendencies,
do I "look" with the eyes?.....
So let's call it "perception", instead of "seeing"....
but, then......how does this perception come about?.......

what is seeing?

"The eye, who would believe that so small
an object could contain the images of
all the universe."
Leonardo da Vinci

What is seeing?
Is seeing conditioned?
Is there a seeing which is NOT conditioned?
Or.....is there a seeing which is also aware of its own conditioning?