I try to keep in mind the ‘decidedly non-woo’ when I write blog posts about meditation or insight, because there isn’t much out there aimed at secular practitioners of contemplative arts, aside from some (great) Zen practices like koan study and Just Sitting. That said, I think it shows sometimes, that I’m holding myself back,…
Category: Contemplative Exercises
Forget monkeys, what about spider mind?
Although I’ve loved meditation for a while, I had begun to coast with it, keeping it as mostly a tool behind glass in case of anxiety emergencies. It wasn’t that I wasn’t sitting, but rather I’d stopped exploring with wide-eyed curiosity. No more. I’m having a great time again, like greeting a long lost best…
Comparing ‘Waking Up’ and ‘Insight Timer’
I stepped up meditation practice recently, beginning with using the new app from Sam Harris, Waking Up, but also continuing with Insight Timer. Along with just giving more time. Things I appreciate about the Waking Up app: It is NOT a social media app. There are no ‘rewards’ like stars or trophies for meditating more…
Holding/Not Holding
I couldn’t hold on to the sounds, but I would generate a trace memory of the sound that would trick me occasionally, that would seem to be me holding onto the sound…
Recovery
Flu. I feel so vulnerable during and just after illness, as though my will has failed in a small way, just to show me nothing is in my control…
sparking joy
To be organized feels like greeting a clean slate every time, feels like unearthing dormant potential. THAT is what “sparks joy” – which she over and over again describes as her central objective.
First Book of the New Year: Yuval Noah Harari’s “Lessons for the 21st Century”
Yuval Noah Harari is among my very favorite public intellectuals, even though some of his prophesies are terrifying! Listening to a talk he gave in India this last year, about the capacity of future algorithms and reach of AI, I was struck by just how close the future he describes seems. Indeed, it is already…
sneaky mind
Having decided to spend more time blogging and away from Facebook in the coming year, this morning I searched and scrolled through random blogs. I’m curious about how to build a real sense of community through this notes-in-a-bottle-from-disparate-islands medium, and to see what balances people find for themselves with regard to their blogging identities. For…
Collision with the Infinite
Picked up a surprising book written by Suzanne Segal, who’d been a student of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi before becoming disillusioned with aspects of the TM organization. It is written in a matter-of-fact way for being, by the end, a quite revolutionary story about awakening and the ‘no-self’ insight, and uncannily, its arrival is perfectly timed…
The Pronoun Post – Gender, Identity, Shape-shifting, and Source (looking forward, 2019)
I dreamed that I was aware of looking a certain way, a certain gender, to others interacting with me. Yet “I” was deep down. I knew they couldn’t see/hear me through conceptions of what I, and therefore my life, was supposed to mean according to my gender, on the surface.
