Over the past month I’ve been doing a lot of school work and website development on the computer. I notice that its very easy to get caught up in unneccesary distractions and lose focus on the task at hand. For example, while working on a statistical programming problem I wasted two days on what ended up being a dead end, and I kind of knew it from the start.
So as part of an at-home retreat, I’ve recently restarted my dharma practice, devoting the first 5 hours of the day to sitting meditation, reading dharma texts and contemplation.
While it would seem that spending a good part of my day doing not much of anything would reduce my productivity; ironically it has the opposite effect. When I start work after practicing all morning, my head is clear and I am focused. Frivolous distractions have less power to pull me away and if they do I come back faster–just like comng back to the breath.
Things that Id been putting off due to some subtle fear or aversion, now I just lean in and do it fearlessly. What a great feeling.
This insight is not new to me I’ve known it for years. Yet it is still easy to fool oneself into thinkng that the more one works the more one gets done. But as usual quality is more important than quantity. Do less to get more done.
And from a spiritual perspective the only way to get anything done is to do absolutely no-thing.
I wanted to share this article from the Times Magazine because I think it is one of the most important issues of our time, and yet it is not part of our public consciousness. The thrust of the article is that empowering women in developing countries is essential in solving the most pressing problems of poverty, corruption, and even terrorism. A very well written and moving article. Read the Article here: The Women’s Crusade
A friend of a friend living in Sri Lanka sent this editorial by a murdered Sri Lankan journalist. He wrote the article titled ‘And then then came for me’ to be published if he was killed, and he was. It is a very powerful and moving article by a brilliant, courageous man. Here is an excerpt of him speaking to the current president.
In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.
http://www.thesundayleader.lk/20090111/editorial-.htm
Everything we do matters. I’ve given this a lot of thought lately. It may seem like a strong statement, but it is not meant in a rigid kind of way. Nevertheless, the more I contemplate it, the more it rings true to me. Every single thing we do in our life, every moment, it all matters. Now obviously killing someone is different than throwing garbage on the street. But even the simple stuff like going for a walk or cooking dinner, or reading the news matters. What do I mean by matters? I mean that it all adds up, all of our actions have an effect on our state of mind now and in the future.
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Alberto, a reader of my website posted a very thought provoking comment. I really appreciated it and thought that I would form a new post with my comments. Alberto asks the question on my about page: if love is the basis of our existence, then why is mother nature and evolution full of suffering and violence? Thank you very much for such a great question!
Looking at it from the physical perspective I can see that in the beginning of our universe out of matter came life, and as we became more complex creatures, we developed complex emotions that helped us to survive. The complex emotions that helped our ancestors survive in the savanna and jungle are those of fear, desire and love. The monkey that sat on the ground enjoying the beautiful sunrise without worries got eaten by the tiger, and the monkey that was scared for his life, filled with sexual desire and loved his children desperately, this is our great great great … grand parent. So why do we love, because it help keep our children alive. It’s no fluke that babies are so darn cute! That is why there exists fear, desire, jealousy, even hatred – they served a purpose in the unfolding of our physical beings. Our powerful brains overrun with thoughts also evolved for the same reason – to help us survive better. But these emotions which were once gifts of survival are now the cause of our greatest suffering.
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I came across this list made by Stefan Sagmeister, a Scandinavian artist. There is a simple, honest common sense to his list. It is very pithy and straight forward and is not overly altruistic. I have learned a number of these already, and still have yet to fully grasp a few others.
- Helping other people helps me.
- Having guts always works out for me.
- Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.
- Starting a charity is surprisingly easy.
- Being not truthful works against me.
- Everything I do always comes back to me.
- Assuming is stifling.
- [Addictive] drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
- Over time I get used to everything and start taking for granted.
- Money does not make me happy.
- Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
- Keeping a diary supports personal development.
- Trying to look good limits my life.
- Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
- Worrying solves nothing.
- Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
- Actually doing the things I set out to do increases my overall satisfaction.
- Everybody thinks they are right.
- Low expectations are a good strategy.
- Whatever I want to explore professionally, its best to try it out for myself first.
- Everybody who is honest is interesting.
This is now one of my favorite albums. It really is a hidden treasure. Hauntingly beautiful melodies and so much heart. I highly recommend it. It is available on emusic.com as well as iTunes.
By Dakpo Tashi Namgyal
This is a powerful, pithy book on mahamudra. The teachings are direct, and while the traditional four levels of mahamudra are covered, I prefer the preceding chapters where a fresh, lucid, almost personal account of the nature of mind is given. It seems as if this was written as one-on-one personal advice from an enlightened master to a student on solitary retreat, which in a way it perhaps was meant to be.
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This collection of articles on consciousness, physics and reality is one of the best I have ever come across: TWN Reference. The person who put together the index is practicing Indigenous Weather Modification in New Zealand. Now that is interesting.
Here are some article highlights:
I hope you may enjoy this hidden treasure.
A strange buddha mandala I discovered under a temple in Shikoku, Japan
When I was young, I recall being reprimanded for taking apart my aunt’s toaster—I just wanted to understand how it worked. Now I find myself attempting to do the same thing with reality itself. How is it all put together, what is it’s nature, how does it work?
I’ve never been that interested in a philosophical approach because I think one could easily get lost in a spiral of thoughts. I’m more interested in an experiential approach supported by a healthy skepticism. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that this search in intertwined with a spiritual journey. And the more the journey continues I realize that the spiritual journey of self transformation is actually the most important thing. Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder: what is it all about.
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I recently came across the unique Canadian NGO called One Sky. They are practicing international environmental conservation and sustainable development with an integral approach. As someone who is very interested in integral philosophy it is exciting to see it put in action.
The integral movement is a fast growing community of people who are taking the integral philosophies of Sri Aurobindo, Ken Wilber and others and putting this inclusive world view into action in the world. In brief, integral theory takes the position that every tradition from spiritual to cultural to scientific has a slice of the truth. Using a four quadrant model with different levels in each quadrant, each truth has it’s place and relationship with the whole.
One Sky is using this-in my opinion, brilliant-model as the central part of their work. Rather than the traditional approach which often focuses on a narrow field such as conservation, development, or social issues, their work is taking all aspects and all perspectives into account when creating a new program.
An example of the four perspectives in an integral conservation and development project are:
- Rainforest conservation activities based on environmental science
- External community needs such as health care and teacher training
- The shared internal cultural values of the community, respecting tradition
- The internal personal and spiritual experiences of everyone involved
They have a project quite close to Cusco, so hopefully one day I can go and visit. They have an interesting video highlighting their philosophy and their project in peru. Here is their website: http://onesky.ca
I wonder if it is possible to unite these two vast ways of understanding our world, our consciousness and reality itself. To explore this question I will look at the views of mind from the western scientific and the eastern spiritual perspectives. After reviewing philosophers and scientists working in this intersection, I’ll share my own thoughts on the unity of spirit and science.
The general scientific view on consciousness is that it is a product of billions of years of evolution resulting in us—homo sapiens—the pinnacle of higher thought on this planet. Our bodies and brains have been shaped by millions of years of environmental factors; beginning with single celled amoebas that are attracted to food and escape danger and ending with all of nature’s beautiful complexity, including our unique frontal lobes.
In the field of neuroscience, the theory of consciousness generally put forward is that consciousness as we experience it arises from the complex interactions of neurons (and now other cells) in the brain: the brain is a computer. This view of consciousness is a materialistic bottom up approach where this simple equation might suffice:
energy <-> particles <-> molecules <-> cells <-> brain <-> consciousness
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I’d like to take the liberty to define a new psychological disorder: ITAD: Information & Technology Addition Disorder. If this condition doesn’t exist in modern psychology, I believe that maybe it should. Yes, it would just be another-perhaps useless-label on what is just a stream of consciousness; Nevertheless, for myself, I feel it would be helpful to have a label to highlight a condition that I see myself often falling into.
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As my experience of déjà vu increases, I realize that perhaps it is not the mental aberration I once thought it was. It might just be a glimpse into the true nature of reality: that time is not finite—it is illusory. Fundamentally time does not exist, it is a construct of our collective minds. The nature of reality is a unity existing in a multi dimensional perfection. In this original state, there is no time, all things exist simultaneously: past present and future. When we see the same thing from a lower perspective of reality, it looks like time exists and is solid. Déjà vu is a brief glimpse—a glitch in the matrix—when we see time’s non-linear quality.
This might be obvious for some, but for me this has been a revelation. How we are in our live, on a moment to moment basis is the essential thing. This is who we really are. What we do in our life is less important that how we are.
monks taking a break from practice at the Maha Bodhi temple in India
An example of what I mean: I am an environmental activist doing good work in the world, but on a day to day basis we are hard on ourselves and treat others with disrespect, frustration and sometimes anger. Because we are so focused on protecting the environment and see that as the most important thing, eventually we burn out or become jaded. The alternative is to do environmental conservation work and at the same time realize that how we are matters, we are more relaxed, caring, gentle, and ironically because of our authentic approach we might even be more effective, but that is not the point.
At the end of our life, we are a cumulative product of how we have been, not what we did. What we did is simply a thought, a memory, whereas how we have been is the moment to moment accumulation of habitual tendencies—or karma—that creates who we are in this present moment.
I believe what we do is still important, I’m not advocating being a compassionate bank robber. I’m simply noticing the need for moving away from doing towards being.
