Having shifted all alone from my home few months back to ‘settle’ in another part of the globe, I am facing my deepest vulnerabilities quite intimately. Snow covered landscape, minimal human interaction, and stretches of silence paused by grooves of deeper silence make a usual day here. I work in a laboratory, and only the …
Author: Anonymous
Confusion and not knowing
Making plan and sticking to it. Being pro-active. Improving yourself continuously. Living by the expectations. Keeping the promises. These are mantras of success. The effectiveness of these rules is proven by the general consensus in placing high value on these qualities. However, it appears that there is another aspect of these collective ‘matter-of-fact’ rationality. There …
Deadlines
I’m listening to a man on the radio explain that it’s too late to limit the world to 2° C of global warming, the level identified by climate negotiators as the threshold beyond which the world faces “dangerous” consequences: acidification of oceans and extinction of many species in them, the gradual disappearance of island nations …
Tumble Home
After my car, and then my partner's car, got stuck in the snow I had little choice but to walk home from my neighborhood yoga studio. Not a big deal for most people. But I'm from eastern North Carolina, have a high center of gravity, and tend towards grandmotherly caution... walking on the icy slush, …
Dogs and Doubt
A family gathers around after their dog passes away. They begin to discuss life and death and why animals have shorter lifespans than humans. The little boy, who loved his dog, speaks up to the others' surprise. He says, "I know why." They wait. "People have to learn to be kind and good people right? …
A Candle Sits
It is so nice to sit here writing by the fire on a little candle stick lighting up the room. The only light except my clock and the computer screens and the desktop, or whatever you call it. The core of the root of the computer, that makes all this happen, that makes my creativity …
S. N. Goenka: Notes – Day 3 Discourse
So much attachment towards this I. What is this I? At the apparent level, yes, there is this solid body, but at the actual level, just subatomic particles, constantly changing. Arising and passing at such rapidity, like a light bulb. You take a dip in the river. Is it the same river? What same river? …
In communication. In understanding. In balance.
I am writing after a long hiatus. Travel is just one excuse. So is the excuse of hectic work schedule with back to back teaching in classrooms and workshops. But truth be told, I was not ready to share and write my stories. Growing up hearing stories from my dad and grandmother, I remember one such …
Continue reading In communication. In understanding. In balance.
S. N. Goenka: Notes – Day 2 Discourse
Perform Wholesome action Don't perform sinful action Keep on purifying your mind That is all. Dhamma – nothing to take away, nothing to add. Acting without craving and aversion. What's wholesome? Abstain from sinful, and what remains is wholesome. Universal. Every religion would say this. The difference in the explanations. In sectarianism, Dhamma is no …
Commit
The word seems violent. Short and sharp, like so many crimes. It harkens suicide and mental hospitals. Electroshock therapy. Urgent test answers rammed into shallow grooves of my cortex. I've been consciously thinking of the word in softer terms, lately: Beneath the whole gamut of negative cultural connotations, it means to entrust or pledge fully …
Living Vipassana 