Mindfulness

I have come across this word so many times since the new millennium. I have seen it in books and all over the internet.Ironically,I have never seen the word "mindfully". I have tried to read its definition and thought of it as some new jargon created by some one desperate to millions and be on Oprah,or does it work the other way?  In my foolish judgmental thought process and was throwing away the key that i was looking for.The universe seemed to throw it back at me again and again but i refused to look at it.Now i hold the key and look at it with renewed interest.I still dont know how to use it completely but it definitely has my attention.

As i had discussed in an earlier post,One of realizations last year was the centrality of thought in our problems. we are constantly thinking and this ticking brain creates this noise of thoughts in our head which clouds all our thinking.After coming to the conclusion that thought is at the centre of our issues i set about thinking on what could be ways to overcome this problem of the centrality of thought.Some ways i stumbled upon were-

a) Religion-the moment we want to think about any way of life which doesnt involve materialism we come to religion or at least thats where we are shoved to by the societies that we live in.is  But for me it has never held much attraction. The rituals,the godmen, they have always seemed a sham. The More i live life and experience it ,the belief that there is a personal god who rewards and punishes us for our actions is fast losing relevance.Religion,at the core of it, means a worship to this personal god.

b) Being Epicurian- Being happy all the time by indulging all that one's senses crave for seem to be another way to live where we dont get bogged down by metaphysical questions .The idea is appealing.  But more i put this theory to test,it appears flawed.So i go on this trip of trying to be happy all the time.Now what if my actions dont have the resultant "happy" consequences?,how do i deal with the situation. Are not happy and sad names of two sides of the same coin? how can i have one for sure without the slightest chance of the other? how to cultivate this " absence of pain"?-the quest of every epicurun true to his salt. So while Epicurun philosophy is deeply appealing and does lot of good if you understand it,specially as it talks about the absence of personal gods and propagates communal living,it cannnot be accepted in it totality.

c)Mindfulness-Then i came to mindfulness,or stumbled upon it for the umpteenth time in my life but this time decided to pay attention to it. In simple terms it means staying in the moment. I always understood it but i never got hooked to it as i didnt find a methodology to practise staying in the moment-ok to be fair i wasnt even looking as i didnt believe that was such a problem-staying in the moment. " i am living in the moment where else will i be living, what load of horse shit,anything to sell a book" -thats what i would think whenever i came across this word-MINDFULNESS.

But as i continued my quest for a more calmer self i came across something called as " vipasanna" which in simple terms is an ancient meditation technique which new age folks use for mindfulness training.It is basically sitting quietly and observing the in haling and exhaling of breath and move towards quietening the mind. The trick is not to try to force the mind bt just watch and observe as thoughts come and go without passing judgement on them. If the mind decides to wander with one of the thoughts you try and bring it back to observing the inhaling and exhaling of breath..
i have been practising it for over a month .My efforts have been pretty modest and i have not yet managed a session of more than 20 minutes at one go. However i do feel it helps.

it is helping in two ways- a) immediate-it helps me calm down in the immediate moment.Whatever the jumble of thoughts that arising in my mind over one or many things that are worrying me seem to go and lie in the back ground after a few moments of vipassana. my problems still exist .But i am able to look at them with a fresher perspective.

b) long term-overall i feel calmer. there have been some huge positives in my life in the last month and couple of setbacks. One of the setbacks was of a nature which i had simply not foreseen. It literally came from the blue. Considering the magnitude of the setback i have surprised myself with the calmness i have dealt with it and all the resultant tamasha. I do feel vipassana has played a role in it.

More on mindfulness and Vipassana in the days and weeks ahead.

Buddha's parable of the Arrow

I have been thinking on how sometimes we get lost in words and concepts and miss out on practical experiences.The thirst quenching capacity of water can only be felt after drinking it and not learning the many words by which water  is known in various languages and the difference between river water and sea water.Though those questions will have intellectual relevance in enhancing our knowledge they dont quench our thirst. This self realization journey can be like that. we read about a great saintly person .we like what he says. That leads us to a video of another sage sounding person who tempts us with his wares of words.and on and on we go. We think we are making progress but in reality we are mistaking  activity for progress. Just staying busy is not fruitful work.In fact thats how our modern mechanical world has designed our lives-modern and very mechanical. Everyone is busy and no one is getting anywhere.So we need to take a step back from this words and verbalizations and experience things. I came across a parable of Buddha where he talks about a man who is hit by an arrow who then has two options a) take the arrow out b) wait till he finds out everything about the arrow before deciding to let it be removed. Which option does he take? isnt it obvious? So want to improve ? Do the work.Dont just read and read and watch videos on how life can be better. Go out and do it!

The parable is presented here in more details

“Suppose, Malunkya,putta, a man were wounded by an arrow, thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and companions, his kinsmen and blood relatives, bring a physician who is an arrow-remover to treat him. 

If he were to say, ‘I will not let the arrow-removing physician pull out this arrow until I know if the man who wounded me is a noble, or a priest, or a merchant, or a worker.’ 

Or if he were to say, ‘I will not let the arrow-removing physician pull out this arrow until I know the name and clan of the man who wounded me. 

…until I know whether the man who wounded me is tall or short or of medium height.…until I know whether the man who wounded me is dark or brown or golden-skinned.…until I know whether the man who wounded me lives in such and such a village or town or city.…until I know whether the bow with which I am wounded is a longbow or a Munda bow.…until I know whether the bowstring with which I am wounded is fiber or reed or sinew or hemp or bark.…until I know whether the shaft with which I am wounded is wild or cultivated.…until I know whether the feathers fitted to the shaft with which I am wounded is from a vulture or a heron or a hawk or a peacock or a stork.…until I know whether the sinew which binds the shaft with which I am wounded is that of an ox or a buffalo or a deer or a monkey.…until I know whether the dart that wounded me is hoof-tipped or curved or barbed or calf-footed or oleander.’ 

All this would still not be known to the man and meanwhile he would die.” 

Looking back at 2016

2016 has been interesting.I wont yet call it a landmark year because it will depend on how i use and built upon the path that is slowly becoming clear to me( with more than enough moments of self doubt thrown in also).Lets try to take a look back and take a stock of some of the main learnings from the year.

Somewhere around April of last year i realised coupleof things. One that i was in a perennial state of unhappiness and two the fact that time for me is running out on this mother earth.I have had both those thoughts/ feelings earlier also but this time they gripped me more sternly. So i decided to set about a journey of trying to find a more happy way to live and as a corollary to that make better use of this limited time on earth.Well " set about a journey" sounds too grand and organised. it was more the reading of a krishnaji quote on social media ( where he talks about world peace) which made me try to find out more about the man and his teachings. Lot of what he said had a profound impact on me and later watching videos of Alan Watts simply reinforced those learning.

So what are some of the things i have internalised


The cosmos is one- the world along with all it people and then everything in nature is all made of the same matter . Everything in the cosmos -the galaxies,the stars.are also made of the same matter.

The astronomer and Scientist Edgar Mitchell said this of what he felt when he was out in space

“Then, looking beyond the Earth itself to the magnificence of the larger scene, there was a startling recognition that the nature of the universe was not as I had been taught. My understanding of the separate distinctness and the relative independence of movement of those cosmic bodies was shattered. There was an upwelling of fresh insight coupled with a feeling of ubiquitous harmony-a sense of interconnectedness with the celestial bodies surrounding our spacecraft. "


This is not the romanticism of a event by a poet type. These are the words of the person who was the sixth man to walk on the moon. He then dedicated rest of his life in learning more about this oneness and interconnectness and where our consciousness fits into all of this.


If i understand everything is one and interconnected then i also admit my action affects everything around me. If i want a more non violent world i need to be more non violent. I need to stop killing for the purposes of filling my stomach. I need to be a vegetarian. I need to be less violent with words.Having meltdowns or using harsh language with the world isnt revolving they way you want it to is no good.then my understanding of the interconnectness if just a phony intellectual thing. This is something i constantly remind myself now and am using to make my day to day decisions.


Thoughts are center stage of our life:the other learning i have had is the understanding the importance of thoughts .As Buddha had implied " you become what you think " through his teachings.I dont think its a difficult concept to grasp and well agree with the centerity of the mind in our existence.All feelings of happiness and sorrow seem to depend on it.Once i agree that thoughts are important it follows from that i need to have some way to control or monitor them.

Here Krishnaji was of great help.He repeatedly says that trying to control your thoughts is really going to create a conflict and is big fight between you and your thoughts.Moreover any victory you can get over your thoughts in such "battles" is only going to give you temporary relief. He instead wants us to develop the trait of observing our thoughts.The moment we observe our negative thoughts or become aware of them, they slowly wither away in the background.The observation of disorder is the cessation of disorder.I am still trying to practise and learn more about this technique to"observe my mind'but can say it does help.


Facing your demons-Another important learning is that we need to face our demons-the internal fears and not run away from them. We need to sit and think about things which are worrying us and most times we will get to the root of the issue.We may not have a ready solution but we will make a good start.The world is created to forget about our worries and drown ourselves in all kinds of sensual pleasures. .While doing all that is fine and dandy it doesnt do much for a troubled mind. we may forget about our worries but the worry doesnt go anywhere and it will come knocking on our minds door sooner or later. It is better to try and tackle it.



There will need to be a part 2 of this blogpost

Time-Linear or cyclical

I came across this question recently. Is time cyclical or linear in nature?  It was a question Alan Watts discussed in his video. He did not seem to go through into too much details but he said enough to trigger my interest in the topic.I tried to do some research on it but did not come across much which would satiate my thirst for knowledge on this topic or maybe i was looking in the wrong places.there was a bit here and a bit there because time as subject has gripped us from  the ages. Is it real? is it illusionary? lot of deep questions have been covered about it by various eminent people right from physicists to philospohers. Whatver little i have tasted from this fountain of knowledge seems intriguing and i want to learn more but i have not find much on this linear vs cyclical nature question and to be this would be one of the fundamental paradoxes to understand time,our attitude towards it and how in the end it affects our well being.

lets try and put together what i understand so far of this question.

if we assume time to be linear be basically are saying that it moves in a straight line,from Point A to to Point B.Lot of western thought/culture  is based on this.This moving in a straight line means we have a destination,we need goals for the future to get  a certain place/state in life. Those goals imply we need need to plan to reach the goals and and then we need to put the plan in action.All this implied a structured planned existence and life is something which we can mould according to our goals and plans.We also need to record how we are doing,map out our progress.We need to record our history as society so that future generations can continue to use that information in their movement forward. Individuals move forward ,so do societies,nations -progress,evolution all stems from this structured journey in linear time.

on the other hand in eastern philosophy time has almost always been looked as cyclical.
There is day and then there is night and then we are back with day after that. Time is moving ina cycle as earth is moving around the sun.we dont have a specific point to get to.Things start and finish and restart again. There is no big grand purpose of existence except existence itself. Species form,evolve into other species or wither away into the dust of nature. Trying to have too many macro goals is not the way to live life as it contradicts the way the cosmos works..Living in the moment without losing oneself in reminiscing in the past or worrying about the future is the way to go.

This is the surface of what i understand.But more i think of it more i believe this belief of how time works may hold the key( or one of the keys) for me atleast on how to lead a calmer life.