Transhumanist Manifesto

Zen and Transhumanism - the Complete Liberation.

2009-03-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

Can a Zen practitioner be a Transhumanist?

To tackle this question we must understand the targets of each philosophy. Both are intimately involved with suffering and it's demise. But there is a important distinction in the class of suffering that it targets. Zen targets the tyranny of the self, negative states of mind and it's influence on our well-being. Or simply put the psychological suffering. Transhumanism on the other hand tackles the physical suffering. It targets the tyranny of genetics and the limitations brought about by the natural laws. Together they form an all-encompassing liberation from suffering as it's ideal goal.

While the tortures of the soul can be effectively treated through Zen. Cancer, death, heart disease, tsunamis, earth quakes and meteors are out of it's scope of reach. This is where Transhumanism takes over with it's powerful, almost magical technologies.

I predict that far into the future - they will converge into the POST-era. The post-humans will almost be post-zen. Why? Because the psychological suffering is rooted in the physical patterns of the brain. If we learn to build brains - then there will be no need for Zen. Everyone will be born enlightened. They will be designed to be what today takes years to achieve.

On Intelligence, Loneliness, and Waisting Time.

2009-02-25T11:33:00.000-08:00

First let us define Intelligence:

Intelligence is measured by the capacity to remember and predict patterns in the world, including language, mathematics, physical properties of objects, and social situations. Your brain receives patterns from the outside world, stores them as memories, and makes predictions by combining what it has seen before and what is happening now... The human brain is more intelligent than that of other animals because it can make predictions about more abstract kinds of patterns and longer temporal pattern sequences.

- Jeff Hawkins.

In addition to this my friend James helped to point out that there is an important distinction between subjective pattern prediction and objective (i.e, everything that does not directly involve the self). And it is the objective pattern prediction(OPP) that plays the critical role in what makes someone intelligent.

Now given this definition of Intelligence we can come up with a definition of Boredom: When the brain makes a prediction and it fits rather accurately the Here & NOW pattern - it feels satisfaction from learning something new. Given enough such successful predictions the brain is now confident that it has indeed learned the pattern to a satisfactory level and now it is very logical for the emotion of boredom to set in. Now every time you have to do that task there is a sense of boredom from lack of anything new. Which plays an important role in our motivation for novel learning. If not for boredom we would seldom learn anything new.

Now imagine you are very intelligent (i.e, you make predictions about the world to a very advanced level and you do it fast.) Would it not follow that not only your are more intelligent - but you are statistically likely to get bored more often unless you specifically choose you life to be a life of an intellectual endeavors. Why? Well because many tasks in life will quickly become easily predictable for you and thus - boring.

There is of course another important factor in this equation, namely - Knowledge Database. It is not enough to make predictions - you must also have a wide range of patterns in your database to make predictions from. So it follows that people who have more time/spend more time learning will naturally make more predictions then people who do not learn( e.g, read, write, go to lectures.) And thus get bored more frequently(in some settings).

So if a child is born with a slightly faster mind(makes predictions faster) and higher intelligence(ability to associate and predict in a broad sense) and has a lot of time on his hands to learn (and of course the desire to do so). Then it is not hard to imagine that the child will outgrow the average child in intellect quite fast and what is more dramatic then that - the gap between his level of intellect and the average will widen rapidly through time. Just like a snail who moves 1cm/h faster then another snail will in 1 000 000 hours have a kilometer advantage.

At this point i want to define loneliness using the definitions of intellect i had laid out in the beginning. Loneliness: A feeling that there are no people around you (or not enough) whom share your predictions about the world to the level that you had conceived (i.e, perspective on the world). This perspective of course involves the speed/pattern database and the degree of association you are capable of.

I think the reader must agree that it is not enough to be surrounded by people- we have to be surrounded by people with approximate intellect. In a similar way that surrounded by monkeys would not make one feel any less lonely. Otherwise we would find them boring. Boring People: People whose behavior/thought patterns is easily predictable or is already contained within the pattern database(a long time ago).

Let us venture into a few thought experiments/introspection. What happens in a child's mind when he no longer enjoys playing with toys? I distinctly remember a few moments long ago when i would pick up Legos or Action Man and no longer feel the joy from playing - i was bored. What happened? Why did i grow bored of them? I think this question is a very important question in understanding this topic. One explanation would be - it became too predictable and as my mind matured i needed to learn new things. Another would be a realization that it was all just a game but there is a whole reality in front of me to explore. Perhaps Legos became engineering and problem solving somewhere along the way - a more complicated version of the game. Another would be a realization that my toys had little consequences on my ability to control the world around me. Perhaps somewhere deep inside i started thinking more objectively and realizing that there are problems in the real world that my toys are not addressing at all. Perhaps it was a combination of the lot. Whatever the cause may be- i sense that toys is not the only things we grow bored of as we age. Toys is just one little stage - and there are many to go.

Eventually when the child's mind reaches enough objectivity - a sense of wasting time is developed. Wasting Time: Recognizing that current behavior does not synchronize the the pattern of behavior that we predict would optimally help us achieve our aspirations. It is very likely that people with higher intellect also feel a heightened awareness of wasting time, since they are able to recognize more patterns that are detrimental to their goals.

As perspective matures and becomes more objective, more and more types of behavior makes little sense. And it becomes more and more clear what one SHOULD do. For instance trying to get really good at a sport starts to make less and less sense. So ok, I am good at putting basketballs in the basket. Now what? What benefit does it bring me or humanity? Perhaps it gives me exercise but that is about it. When an intellect reaches a high level of objectivity - it becomes very important that his actions are not just pleasurable but bring some kind of benefits to those around him. It becomes very obvious that there are better ways to spend time then playing basketball. Especially seeing all the suffering around us - and most importantly the realization that much of it can be fixed with a lot of effort from a lot of people.

I would like to conclude with a though experiment: Imagine that an evil scientist plays a horrible joke on you and puts your brain inside a monkey's body. You wake up in a cage of monkeys. How would you feel? Lonely? Eager to find the company of people like you? Puzzled by the sheer stupidity and irrationality of the monkeys around you?

This is how many great intellects of our time feel, especially at an age when they have not yet found those like them.

My problem with justification through altered experience.

2009-02-14T12:31:00.000-08:00

We all dream. Some dreams are more vivid then others and some are indistinguishable from reality. When i have a vivid dream, it is only upon awakening that i realize that it was just a dream. Now imagine that upon awakening i would claim "the ultimate nature of reality is that which i saw in my dream." And for the sakes of the argument let us say that what i dreamed was a huge creature made up of people from which i inferred that all people are actually one entity. You would not take me seriously now would you?

Or say that instead of a dream i took a hallucinogenic drug such as LSD. And during the trip i saw exactly what i claimed to see in a dream earlier and made the same inference. You would probably call a psychiatrist.

The point is - i made an inference from a subjective experience that i had during an altered state of consciousness. In these cases you must agree that no claim about the objective world can be made from these experiences. It seems rather obvious doesn't it.

Then can someone explain to me why the same exact situations in the context of religion is taken very seriously? Why do Buddhist "gurus" meditating(i.e, altering their state of mind) for years and then claiming enlightenment and a discovery that the nature of reality is empty, are taken seriously?

Why do Christian or any other theist priests praying(i.e, altering their state of mind) daily for years and then sensing cosmic love or the presence of God to be taken seriously?

The difference is nonexistent. What does make it seem more credible is simply the amount of people that allow for this type of justification. Might i remind you that at one point people believed the earth to be flat.

Free writing

2009-01-25T20:43:00.000-08:00

"Unproductive pleasures pall eventually. After a while you get tired of lying on the beach. If you want to stay happy, you have to do something." - Paul Graham

This quote had triggered my thoughts about the topic to come to the surface. I find myself guilty of wasting time quite often. I cannot help but feel unproductive when i hang out with some people after a few hours. Perhaps to fix this i need to limit the amount of time i hang out so that i cherish it more. Boredom comes with repetition so the more i limit myself to indulge in unproductive pleasures the more i will enjoy it.

I find that no matter how smart a person is - it is hard to keep having fun with the person unless its quite rare.

I had also found that the whole video game reward system i had tried to motivate myself does not work because i end up rewarding myself a little too often.

I should keep in mind that the more i withhold from playing a video game or going to chill - the more i will enjoy it once it comes.

But how do i do it so that i do not loose any friends in the process? Perhaps i should arrange some kind of chill-out every week or twice a week.

I should check out "non-conformity" blog to read more about that.

And why is it that most girls i meet are not very interesting. Well at least i know i am not the only person who feels that way.

Variety and scarcity is the key to enjoy pleasures.

Meaning and intellectual satisfaction is the key to enjoy work.

Consciousness/Skepticism

2009-01-24T14:25:00.001-08:00

I remember sitting in a neuroscience class full of aspirations to find out what consciousness is, to break the final mystery i had left. But halfway through the semester i realized memorizing the names of neurotransmitters is not my idea of trying to answer the "hard question" of science. This realization suddenly depleted me of any desire for further inquiry into neuroscience.

In fact i am now convinced neuroscience in its current state will never solve the question. This will require a total paradigm shift in science. The problem is a lot of research that could potentially evoke that change is being swiped from the table-top due to stigma associated with the nature of such research.

Enlightenment era was considered the end of superstition and the celebration of science which alas, for historical reasons grouped such questions along with superstition. And today we suffer the consequences.

Skeptics need to realize that nature does not always conform to common sense as illustrated numerously by such discoveries as black holes, relativity theory, quantum mechanics or even heleo-centric model.

True science must leave the final judgment until the results of the experiments are in.

What is plaguing mankind is the false idea that we had got the universe figured out and there is nothing mysterious anymore. But what about consciousness? People like to pretend that we had solved the question with neuroscience but we did not even get close. All we did was notice some correlation but not a single answer to the hard - why? question.

Looking at all the psychedelic art makes me seriously rethink our common-sense understanding of consciousness as an emergent property of the brain. (like that answers anything). The brain has much to do with the content of the consciousness - that is clear. But beyond that so far we know nothing.

Today i declare that i will stop being the closed minded skeptic and start to mostly rely on experiments rather then pure common sense. If experiment challenges my world-view then so be it.

Why does consciousness have to be constricted by what is within the boundaries of the skull? What makes the neurons so special to other matter? Why do two chemicals in the skull create an emotion but 2 chemicals in the test tube do not?(obviously this is over simplified.)

I must ponder about that.

Another brick in the wall. Pt - 1

2009-01-22T11:31:00.000-08:00

Today i was reading an essay about writing essays which brought up a lot of memories of the "proper" way to write an essay they taught us back in high school. Did anyone else make little sense of it?

The one thing that pissed me of the most is the topics we wrote about. We had to compare characters to Jesus, find nonsensical symbolism in every little utter of the protagonist and in general be more poetic then the poet. I can picture the author reading our essays about his book and going "Why do you find this important!? Stop wasting time. This is not why i wrote the book!!!"

Another thing that never made sense to me is the conclusion. I never understood why the hell we needed conclusion in the first place. "Restate your introduction in different words" - teachers would say. Huh? Why!?

And come to think of it introduction made no sense to me either. Is it not much more appealing to read a slightly mysterious essay that slowly introduces you to the topic paragraph by paragraph and thus keeping your interest?

And what about those "research" papers. You go online, copy someone elses work and reword what he said in a way that makes it look like a student could write it. And everyone knows that students do it. The education system did not catch up to the technology.

We are stuck in mindless rituals.

Fending off the geek myth.

2008-12-17T15:12:00.000-08:00

For as long as i can remember people always assumed that the reasons geeks tend to be single is because they lack the confidence, social skills and of course physical attractiveness to get a girl. While that is of course true for many cases, i believe there is a whole spectrum of interesting reasons that are left out of the picture that may explain this phenomena.

I used to subscribe to this myth for a while. I was one of these geeks without a girl.

But one day i decided to become the popular kid - and i did. I did all the meaningless things that the popular kids do and for a few month - i will not lie - i did have quite a bit of fun. I got a number of girls, i got into an athletic shape, i was constantly at a party or something similar - i lived a stereotypical college fraternity life.

But deep inside i was always a geek and the real me was harder to suppress. It wasn't long before i was back to my normal self, but this time the popular kids could no longer trick me into thinking that i was a second class human being. I lived their life and i knew that all those years wishing to be them was really a wish for people to wake up to whats really important in this universe.

That experience had led me to realize many important things. For one - i was not happy with the girlfriends i had. Yes they were hot, yes there were fun and somewhat not entirely dumb, but i was just so bored with them. Geeks all share a trait of high IQ, passion for one thing or many, and extreme enthusiasm. So finally it hit me - my geekiness was only partially the reason for my being single for so long. The main one was that firstly i did not want to be the kind of person that they like and two - i did not like them enough to put effort into it.

Geeks is actually a code name for a smart person that popular people use to make it seem like a negative thing. And what do smart people want? They want intellectual challenge. And what do many popular kids lack? Exactly that. And that includes majority of girls.

It is time for people to realize that being in a relationship with a intellectually inferior person is VERY boring. Geeks are not better of finding girls in bars. NO! They are better of finding a girl exactly like them - that is smart and enthusiastic. Problem is - such girls are rare. Anything of value is usually rare. So purely probabilistically it is harder for geeks to find girlfriends because there are less people like them in the pool of human species.

But to be fair - here is so criticism to geeks. I know geeks tend to be less obsessive about how they look and such but maybe they should be. Looks are important, and so is confidence. That last girl didn't reject you because you were a "nice smart guy". She rejected you because you were fat and unconfident. So hit the gym and learn some social skills.

2008-11-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

I had realized that all the differences between me and other people is my way of coping with ADHD. The reason i read philosophy, take on hard projects, read numerous books about numerous topics, constantly make new friends- it is all a way to avoid the dreadful boredom of ADHD.

I am like a winded up monkey with unlimited batteries. I never need to recharge.

For the most part - i enjoy my adhd. It makes me smart, creative, enthusiastic, broadly educated and interesting. But at the same time in messes up my life.

All the things i never finished. All the goals, aspirations - they are all pieces of unfinished puzzles. My mind is the world biggest collection of jig saw pieces, and my life is the attempt to make something meaningful out of them.

But the one thing in my life that makes me cry about my adhd is how it destroys my relationships. All the loving people i had to break up with just because i got bored - and it was not their fault. All the hurt i caused them and myself - all due to the god damn chemistry.

I have a love/hate relationship with my ADHD.

PHD - do it only if you cannot imagine doing anything else.

2008-10-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

This past year had been a career struggle for me. I have less then 2 years left in college and yet i am still largely undecided when it comes to my long term goals. This post is the result of accumulated wisdom and research of the graduate world.

MD vs PHD
This debate had tortured my mind every moment of solitude that i had. Here are some adv/dis analysis.

MD:
ADV
Much better guaranteed pay and stability.(~200, 000+)
Less education. 4-8 years.
Ability to have your own practice with your own schedule.
High status in our society
Useful knowledge that could help you and your friends.
DIS
Debt of ~200, 000+
Potentially long hours
Potentially high stress

PHD:
ADV
Intellectually stimulating.
Broad spectrum of career opportunities.
Potential for low hours, low stress careers.
Potential to get rich with a discovery/invention.
Hanging out with highly intellectual and enthusiastic crowd.

DIS
Low pay for many years (15, 000 while working on doc and ~45, 000 postdoc. Potential ~100 000
Extremely hard.
Very long education (doc + postdoc ~ 7-10 years.)

Graduating as MD you will have -200, 000 debt and graduating PHD you will gain +100 000. Thus a +300 000 difference. But doctors get paid more (200, 000), thus it will take them -3 years to make up the difference. Which makes up for the longer education of PHD(+3). Thus education/money wise both careers are fairly equal on the start but MDs out-money PHDs by a huge margin in the end. So financially MDs are much better of. In fact quite a bit of careers are better financially of then PHDs with a much shorter education time.

So why go PHD?
Because it is one of the only intellectually satisfying careers. Most careers are mechanical in nature. Doctors are biological mechanics. Yes, a lot of careers offer better hours and salary but to me intellectual satisfaction is much more important. Where else will you get paid to learn about the world and fulfill your curiosity?

Do Something.

2008-10-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

Do something else.
Do something real.
Do something.

Quote about human nature.

2008-10-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

"Man will become better when you show him what he is like." -Chekhov.

Semantics

2008-09-30T21:38:00.001-07:00

Philosophy is an endless wrestling with language.

The Noodle Bible

2008-09-17T08:23:00.000-07:00

“for FSM so loved the World that he gave his Noodle soup”

Noodely Determinism

1. Great Noodle is omniscient.
2. Since Great Noodle is omniscient, Great Noodle has infallible foreknowledge.
3. If Great Noddle has infallible foreknowledge that tomorrow you will engage in event of eating noodles, then you must invariably engage in event of eating noodle.
4. You must invariably engage in eating noodles.

1:1 - In the beginning Flying Noodle Monster created the wheat and the cup.
1:2 - And the soup was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Flying Noodle Monster moved upon the face of the waters.
1:3 - And Flying Noodle Monster said, Let there be spices: and there was spices.
1:4 - And God saw the spices, that it was good: and God divided the Ramen from chep shit.

And Flying Noodle Monster said, Let us make Noodles in our utility, after our laziness: and let them cook in one minute, and be only required hot water, and a cup, and let it be good.

But of the secret book of the knowledge of Ramen recepie, thou shalt not read of it: for in the day that thou read thereof thou shalt surely overeat.

[Noodle Monster to Poor Student] Take now thy noodle soup, thine only food , whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of free hot water; and poor it slowly there for a burnt offering upon one of the cups which I will tell thee of.

“Our Flying Sphaeti Monster who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.”
“Thy kingdom come. Thy noodle-will be done on earth as it is in noodle restaraunts.”
“Give us this day our daily noodle soup.”
“And forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us"
“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from Swiming Rice Monster.”
“For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory. Amen.”

“Noodely Father, You are intimately aware of the hunger I am experiencing -- the pain and the despair. You know the desire of my stomach to be filled with this noodles. I ask now for Your filling bite. I know that You are able and that just like in Bible times, You can feed me.

“I also understand that You will chose what is best for me. I pray that through this trial, I will draw close to You -- that You will be my comfort and strength. I pray that ultimately, whatever happens, You will be glorified through me. I pray this in Noodle’ name, ramen.”

Flying spagheti monster grant me the opportunity to accept all the noodles I can eat;
courage to eat all I can; and wisdom to never leave a noodle.
Living one noodle at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to my mouth;
Taking, as He did, this noodely world as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Noodle;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next. Ramen.

“Ask for a noodle soup and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; eat it all and the next one will be opened to you.”

The Noodle Rule:
“Eat as much noodles as you would like others to eat"

1. Thou shalt not eat more then 10 cups of Ramen a day.
2. Thou shalt not pay more then 1$ for Ramen.
3. Thou shalt give Ramen to those in need.
4. Thou Ramen shalt taste good.
5. Thou shalt not eat your friends Ramen.

“Let him who is without noodles eat the first cup.”

"What If Einstein Had Taken Ritalin?" ADHD - a disorder or hope for humanity?

2008-09-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

"What If Einstein Had Taken Ritalin?" i read today in newspaper. Indeed what if? Would we have E=MC^2 or the theory of relativity? Yes his room was a mess, yes he challenged authority, yes he did poorly in school but what if patching all these flaws would rid humanity of his genius? Undoubtedly had he lived today, he would be stuffed with Ritalin and other stimulants to make him "like everybody else," or my version of it - BORING! Yes he would be made boring! He would be made into the horse with blinds to the sides who does nothing but what he is told, blindly following the strings that his teacher's pull.

"He doesn't listen" - the teacher would complain to his parents. He does nothing i tell him to! His head is in the clouds! Yes Ms. Boring! Of course he doesn't! Why would he? Your lectures are boring and he is way too intelligent and creative to be bothered to listen. Had you the mental power to think of The General Relativity Theory - you would be bored too!

Too many people are preoccupied with what is "normal" and too little with what is beneficial. If normal is being boring then i would rather have ADHD! Normal does not give us E=MC^2 nor does it give us the genius of Picasso or Mozart. Please for the love of humanity and our future, stop bashing those who are more intelligent and creative! For ages people bash skeptics, nerds, ADHDs, philosophers. People don't want to admit that its not that they have a disorder its that they are SMARTER AND MORE CREATIVE and less preoccupied with trivial things such as 6pack or breast size.

Evolution had bestowed us with a wide variety of personality knobs and combine that with genetic variations, and we have a wide range of personalities we see today. Normal is simply the middle of the standard deviation. The motivation/focus knobs is what differentiates ADHDs from "normal". Some people are tuned to have fun simply looking at a flower for 8 hours. Some are tuned to get bored with even the most exciting things. Some are in the middle and are "normal. Some ADHDs who cannot focus at all may indeed be a disorder but most ADHDS are simply people who are less boring then others. They are not satisfied with the mundanes of life and look for something much more. They find regular people to be stuck on the surface of the potential experience of life.

Remember that moment when toys stopped being satisfying? Is that really such a bad thing? It is part of finding more exciting things in life and realizing toys is but a trivial of childhood comparing to the real potential of experience. Adult ADHDs are simply people who lost interest in not only toys but many many other things and find satisfaction in only the most stimulating and profound - such as philosophy, science or art. Gifted ADHDs need to stop striving to be normal and instead realize that they are the hope of humanity! They are the once that challenge the status quo and come up with new original ideas. They are the once that merge academic fields and bring innovation. The "normal" mind is far too weak and boring for that.

Yes ADHDs face problems daily. It is hard for them to be focused on a particular one thing for a long time and instead they jump from topic to topic which is not always beneficial. But consider this likely fact - what if it is not possible to be both creative, enthusiastic, original, broad-educated, etc. and be "normal" at the same time. What if "normal" leads one to a minimum wage job or a professor assistant position which is indeed the case by statistics. Only about 1% of population have Doctorate level degrees, the rest are "normal." Now count how many of these Doctorate people actually achieve something great and you should get the picture - NORMAL IS BAD!

Noramal vs Desirable

2008-09-05T12:49:00.000-07:00

Too much effort is spent aiming at normal then figuring out what is actually dis arable. Normal simply means that a large portion of population exhibits a certain trait/behavior and does not in any way produce a desirable goal. Cancer for example is fairly normal and heart disease is almost perfectly normal and yet is it desirable? So many people strive to repeat what others do and yet how much thought is actually put into whether such behavior leads to positive consequences?

7 days a week = 168 hours.

2008-08-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

Week = 7 days = 24(7)= 168 hours.
Work = 5(8) = 40 hours
Sleep = 7(8) = 56 hours.
40+56 = 96 hours
168 - 96 = 72 hours of relatively free time.

Money and Happiness.

2008-08-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

I am going to say something that poor/average people pretend to be false but inside their hearts know is true. Money DOES bring MORE happiness. It is true that money alone is a pointless paper but come on, let us not delude ourselves. It is not the case that money and happiness is a dichotomy. You can have both! It is probably true that happiness largely depends on factors such as friends, family, health, intellectual satisfaction, meaning, etc. But let us face it, it is also true that it depends on things like a car you drive, choices you have open to you, the way your interior design looks, etc. Let us also not forget that money can also influense the amount of friends you have by being able to afford to go out places you need money for. It will afford you a great doctor and food, thus improving your health.

Yes it is true that there might be little difference in happiness between someone who makes 3 million versus someone who makes 4. The more you get paid, the less there is a difference if you get paid more. But the difference in life satisfaction between someone who has 50 000 and someone who has 100 000 salary is significant. So is the difference between someone who gets paid 100 000 and 200 000.

Most people pretend that by having a bigger salary, you also have to give up things like intellectual satisfaction, meaning, soul, etc. This is simply false. By making wise education/career decisions you can have both. There is one thing for sure, the road to great financial success is not that of a lazy person. It takes great deal of work. So next time you pretend like you didn't become a doctor because you are not "interested" in becoming one, consider that you are simply LAZY. Also some career choices are simply the result of poor career planning. Too many people think they can major in whatever they want and get paid as high as they want. It is simply not the case. Society pays you for going into niches it has a demand for.

The problem with definitions.

2008-08-21T10:13:00.001-07:00

Here is a typical pseudo-philosophical problem that our society is infused with:
"How can there be an objective truth in a world of subjectivity?" This only seems like a legitimate problem due to ambiguities in the words and misuse of language. This problem doesn't actually exist and i can demonstrate it by defining the words. Objective - the way reality is. Subjective - what we think reality is. Now lets reword the sentence with the new definitions. How can we know the way reality is when we can only think about how reality is? The answer is simple - through methodology such as science + the usage of our senses and its technological extensions such as microscope.

Subjetive-Objective are not mutualy exlusive.

2008-08-21T09:57:00.001-07:00

Another way to counter Subjectivity type arguments is by explaining the fact that Subjectivity and Objectivity is not mutually exclusive in the epistemic uses of the word. For example:

Two people are standing in the desert. One says to another "the earth is round". The other one replies "no it is not, it is in fact flat!" Now suppose the both have no reasons to believe why either one is true except their wild guesses. Those ideas are mutually exclusive because a priori we can know that a thing cannot be both round and square at the same time. In this case two subjective ideas are mutually exclusive which is important because that would mean certain ideas cannot be true by virtue of inconsistency.

Now we must also accept the fact that the earth they are standing on must be some shape, whether it be square, round or flat. In this case the persons belief about earth fits with the objective fact which is that it is in fact round. There is no subjective - objective conflict that many people try to impose in their arguments as demonstrated here. A thing can be both subjective and objective at the same time. Just like our opinion about something can in fact match with the true nature of that something.

The errors of subjectivity arguments.

2008-08-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

If you are like me, you are probably exhausted of hearing the same old "it is your subjective opinion" type of arguments to counter whatever rational argument you give certain individuals to try to expose their irrationalities. It gets especially annoying in the realms of morality and religion.

One of the ways religious people do this is by trying to claim that science is just as much as a belief system as religion is(subjective). And the amusing thing is that they mean the word "religion" in a degrading sense. This argument gives away the fact that they are well aware of shortcoming of faith. It is worth mentioning here that even if they succeed in somehow proving that science is false or futile somehow, that will not in any way make the religion true. It is not Either science Or Religion, it is Probably Science, Highly Unlikely Religion.

What the Subjectivity(what i call this type of arguments) tries to achieve is equate everything into the same probability of truth(epistemic probability is what i call it). When people say "it is just your opinion" what they mean is that "my belief has the right to be considered truth just as much as yours". What is wrong with that picture? They are assuming that we are somehow completely separate from the Real Objective World and just blindly guessing about it. Well this would only be true in two cases - and that is if we were blind, deaf, unable to touch, think rationally, etc. Or if our senses and rational faculties gave us completely unreliable data. First case is obviously false because my qualia(conscious expirience is directly evident to me) and the second one is almost certainly false. I say almost never because there is never 100% in empiricism due to problem of induction and because there are always distant possibilities like simulated reality, solipsism and Evil Demon deceiving us type of arguments.

Demonstrating this is very easy. If all ideas are equal because they are subjective, then why don't you jump of a building? You know you are going to fall and die right? Well isn't that subjective? Of course it is but so far our senses gave us good reasons to believe that jumping of a roof will cause pain or death.

Once we accept the probable fact that our senses do in fact resemble reality in some way(which we have a lot of empirical evidence for) then the next step is to figure out the methodology for figuring out the nature of objective world which is what we call science. The methodology is where the subjective arguments really break. Because some methodologies are demonstratively better then others at finding out facts. We have cars, airplanes, neuroscience to demonstrate that science is a good methodology. The technology speaks for itself.

The technology also extended our natural senses indefinably to a point that we can almost see the atoms and distant stars just as well as i see this screen in front of me which further shows that this subjective-objective dichotomy needs to go.

I must note here to avoid confusion that this argument only applies to the word subjectivity in a sense that there is an objective world and subjective world which is what we think objective world is. Basically this type of subjectivity deals with truths about the world.

There is another kind of subjectivity that has nothing to do with epistemology or truths about the world and that is things like aesthetics, pain, color and so on which make no claims about the real world. In my opinion the world of subjectivity should shrink at the same rate that our knowledge about it as wells as tools of inquiring about it progress. Soon even things like color, aesthetics will be objective due to our understanding of the brain.

A method for choosing a career.

2008-08-18T09:54:00.001-07:00

It took me about a year to realize that the common advice people give about choosing a career is unhelpful and ends up in endless loops of unproductive decisions. Our brain is not wired to make good decisions with that many variables and uncertainties in place. We are bound to make errors without the help of first acquiring a proper methodology for choosing a career to help bring the decisions process outside of the brain and unto the algorithm.

There are two common myths amongst career advice. First one is "do not do it for the money, find your passion" and the second is "go for whichever makes the most mone The first "passion" myth has an underlying assumption that a person is either somehow predestines to like a particular and ONLY that particular exclusively from birth and one has to find it. Or once one finds a certain particular of interest, he cannot then find interest in another particular or volitionally try to like something else. To those who believe either one, let me remind you that there MUST be an underlying psychological process by which a particular career/subject is learned as a pleasant, interesting, etc., subject. What that process and its necessary and contingent conditions are, i am not sure. But we do not need to know the specifics to know it exists for obvious reasons, we are creatures of neural algorithms.

I can only theorize about that process but i think i can, from introspection find a pretty probable algorithm by which it is done. The process is probably one or more of the following conditions:
1. X is respected position in a society.
2. X makes money.
3. X is useful for humanity.
4. X relates to the subjects i learned hitherto.
5. X might help me with my own problem(like saving my kid from cancer by becoming cancer researcher, or becoming a psychotherapist to overcome loneliness or personal problems.)
6. X is intellectually satisfying(uses mental capacity to the adequate amount so that the person is not bored and doesn't feel like he can solve better puzzles.)
7. X has less working hours or more vacation.

I must note that what i think people mean by interesting/passion is that X uses their mental capacities to the maximum rather then feeling that are doing a job someone with half their brain could do. But in my opinion a human is capable of finding ANY subject interesting(granted that it is challenging enough for the person) and i suspect the underlying process by which that happens is positive exposure to the stimuli(subject.) What i mean by positive exposure are things like seeing a movie in which the subject is portrayed, having a good teacher for the subject, reading an interesting book about the subject, etc. No one is BORN liking a subject, it is learned! Think about it. Think of why you enjoy law as opposed to science. Or engineering as opposed to medicine. Or art as opposed to music. A positive exposure to a challenging subject over time will most likely get the person interested in the subject(i do not mean career by the word subject - i mean subject of intellectual/artistic inquiry.)

I for example during my life wanted to be everything from musician, engineer, to a doctor and lawyer and each time it was simply a proper exposure to the subject. Why i am not a musician is probably simply due to my lack of musical abilities which brings me to another point, one must not only find a subject challenging and have a positive exposure to it over time, one must also find himself good/able at that subject. If one is multi-talented, the choice of a subject is completely arbitrary and simply a work of lady fortuna(luck.) and time. Which means that one having this insight, can use it to his advantage and STOP that endless search for elusive passion which seems to be replaced every book you read and class you take and for a good reason - there is no such thing as life's passion. It is an arbitrary process you can take in your own hands. Try doing something with an intention to like it, you will see what i mean.

Another myth is that one must find EVERYTHING in the subject/career interesting to consider it a good match with you. That is simply false. Be realistic, there is not a single subject that does not contain tedious, hard and abstract parts which simply must be learned. Take chemistry for example, there is A LOT of things to be learned and many of them are boring and tedious but the subject itself can be a lot of fun once you get through that initial hump of work. Learning pure rules/facts/words is always boring but applying it in a creative way is always fun and there is plenty of that is every academic subject.

Also it must be noted that what i am saying applies to people that are above avg. intelligence, creativity and open-mindness with a primary drive of curiosity. If you are not ambitious about life, your future and until now were not interested with anything but getting laid, this article is little of value for you. Also if you are not intelligent enough(genetic determinism) you may want to look for a job of a more mechanical nature.

I hope i convinced you by this point that looking for a "passion" is a fruitless task and it might be wiser to simply look for challange/creativity in a career amongst other things which i will discuss further in this essay. And only once all those other aspects of a career are satisfied you may allow yourself to try and learn to enjoy it. For example find a financially stable challanging/creative career and then try to like it as opposed to liking something first and then realizing you will be payed 30 000 all your life with no vacation. I must admit that it is MUCH harder to learn to enjoy another subject when you are already considerably invested emotionally/intellectually somewhere else. My point is do the research about careers first and take classes later, not other way around like most people do. There are three major factors i believe to research about before you start trying to like a particular subject which i believe to be: Intellectual Satisfaction(challenge, creativity, fun, etc.) Financial Aspect(salary, cost of education, benefits etc.), and Time Investment(hours worked weekly, length of education, vacations etc).

We live in a society of a supply and demand, which implies that positions get paid directly proportionally to the primarily three factors: demand, qualifications, quantity of qualified. If the job is in demand - the pay will go up, if it requires education - the pay will go up, if only a few people can do your job - the pay will go up. Also the pay is related to money in the industry/corporation you are working for. Which means that you can have a PHD in whatever you want but if your job is not in demand, and a lot of people can replace you, you will not make much money. The length of study has little to do with pay but perhaps a lot to do with nature of work. So if you want a good paying job you need to do research about what will be in demand when you graduate. And let me remind you that this is a GOOD thing. This is how a society lures people in the fields it needs most to prosper. If there are too many PHDs in physics as it is, why put more people in?

One you have a list of careers with good financial prospects and intellectually satisfaction you can start sorting careers based on time investment. Consider the length of education, how many hours a day you will work, how hard it will be, and allowed vacation time. For example doctors get payed a lot, have a decent intellectual satisfaction(not the best due to mechanical nature of work) but spend countless years and countless hours a day on education and then countless hours at work with little vacation. Take all that in consideration.

Of course a full methodology for choosing a career is much longer then this but it is a start. It is something to think about.

Inspired by anthropologist to find happiness.

2008-08-14T08:00:00.001-07:00

Today i woke up feeling grateful and it reminded me of my buddhist days of happiness and why i was so happy. It reminded me of all the work i had to put in being happy. We put in work to be healthy, fit, to keep a relationship, to build a career, but happiness we think we just be there on its own, and so it withers away in neglect.
There is a Greek philosopher, i forgot his name but he made a good point; we need to be constantly reminded of wise lessons in life, for we quickly forget either the lesson itself or to practice what we learned. I forgot all my happiness skills. I forgot all the good things i am grateful for, and instead i am focused on the bad. And it is no surprise i am so filled with negativity, i am reminded of it constantly, i am surrounded by it! I am drowning in it.

And alas, i am reminded of negativity far more then i remember the things i am grateful for. I am so used to those things that i take them for granted. A dreadful thing about being human is that it is so easy to get used to good things and so hard to adopt to the bad.

But we mustn't forget the good thing or the negativity will take over! Hold on to those few things, cherish them, and never let go. They are your tickets to happiness.

And alas it is the same with people! I understand now. We focus so much on the bad that that little black dot shades the whole person black, and yet there is always soo much white surrounding it! If only we can just move our starring eyes away and look at the whole. Everyone will have that black dot somewhere on their soul but the trick is to learn to see the white.

I am inspired. I am inspired by AJ Jacobs who does those interesting experiments where he adopts a whole new way of being for about a year, learns from it and writes about it. He lived a year biblically, and i will live a year practicing every major happiness exercise there is. From cultivating loving kindness meditation, to gratefulness mindfulness, to even as far as prayer! I will do it all every morning and keep a journal of the changes it will bring about me.

But first i need to make a list of all the exercises.

A day of work.

2008-07-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

As i repeat the same motion with my hand, swing after swing, swaying to the symphony of boredom, i find myself wrestling to enjoy the moment. Customer after customer, they take what i had made as if it belonged to them even before i started the mindless motion. There is no smile, and i am left to beg for that occasional genuine "thank you" which warms the heart for a few minutes before i step back into the void. I sense the stare of my boss, enslaving the little dignity i had left, a moment, which even a zen-master could not pass in peace.

And then, as i leave home, standing engulfed in darkness of the night, i softly cry and the spirit returns with the rise of the new sun.

Figuring "it" out.

2008-07-22T07:38:00.000-07:00

The majority of my time, is spent figuring "it" out. The tragedy of this equation is that it is solely made up of variables. Sometimes the X is meaning of life, sometimes its future plans, past regrets, or simply existential angst. I ponder on each variable, driven by sophia of philo into its endless questioning and occasional wonder.

Fully aware of its unsolvability, i still think, for "unreflected life is not worth living" - Socrates. I am happy as I roll the bolder up the hill, for if one is to find happiness in human condition, it is only by learning to enjoy rolling, for at the top, it will inevitably fall again.

A song by Freddy Mercury comes to mind - Show Must Go On:
"I guess i'm learning
I must be warmer now..
I'll soon be turning round the corner now."

Transhumanism part 2 - Reality

2008-06-26T21:17:00.001-07:00

Here i would like to distinguish between a commonly misunderstood difference between Posthumanism and Transhumanism.
Transhumanism is more of a process and recognizing the process, it is not the goal. Transhumanism is "...a rope stretched between an animal and the Superman - a rope over abyss" - Nietzsche.
Posthumanism is like a futurist philosophy about a possible outcome of this transhumanism movement. It is the goal.
The distinction is important because what most people criticize in transhumanism like its naive and over optimisitc hype about technology is actually a critique of post-human ideas and not transhumanism.

Transhumanism makes no promises but it is rather recognizing our present. It is kind of like atheism, it is something you discover and not something you invent. We are as species drawn to self improvement, and transhumanism is a simple realization of the fact that this self-improvement is going on right now and what it does is simply makes you aware of it, so that you are aware of the implications, ethics, dangers, and your duty to future generations and possibly posthumans.

Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence, by Andy Clark makes a good point about cyborgs and it is a perfect illustration of transhumanism and how it is a social reality rather then simply philosophy and that is why i included it in the topic. Most of us imagine cyborgs as robot/human looking entities but that is more of a far fetched nerd/fantasy, the reality is, we are already cyborgs. The second we get on a bicycle, take a car, use computer, cellphone, artificial heart, paper, pen, almost anything makes us a cyborg. We are born as potential cyborgs and thats why we advanced so far in technology, we can use tools to aid us, and enhance us. For example you take a picture of your family and save it into your hard drive, that is in a way a memory, a solid memory you would not be able to form naturally but with a camera - you can. Objects do not have to be attached to you to make you a cyborg. Take for example wireless DSL, you do not see a wire going from your pc to Modem and yet we call it the same - Internet connection. Who cares if it is attached or not, if it serves the same function?

Technological progress, self enhancement of every kind, from photoshop improving art, to digital programs aiding music to medical equipment or pills, we are on a huge wave of advancement and you cannot hide from it, but you can embrace it and become aware of it, become aware of reality - transhuman reality.

Transhumanism part 1- AI

2008-06-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

I will be posting a series of Tranhumanist relating topics. I am myself a Transhumanist.

AI

First of all let us start with AI and Simulating consciousness or reality(and everything related).
I will bluntly say that it is impossible in the way most people imagine it.
First of all consciousness happens as an emerging attribute of lower level(zoom level) molecular/neural activity, basically consciousness is the result of biological mechanisms and the causality laws it obeys. This view is best labeled as Biological Naturalism(coined by John Searle) and most of the current evidence makes this view the most probable "solution" to the mind body problem. To get back to the topic, consciousness emerging out of molecular activity can be best imagined by thinking of how Solidity of objects is emerging property of molecular activity. It is the fact of how molecules behave that create solidity and consciousness. Why? It is simply the way nature works and thus is called Biological Naturalism.

Now to get back to AI and the idea that consciousness and intelligence can be a program(or is a program). Now, that is simply impossible because a program doesn't posses the biological causality required for such act. My premise is that consciousness is required for complex tasks, and consciousness is the result of biological causality, which program lacks, thus making it impossible. Think about it, you can simulate anything you want, but all it will be is observer-dependent fantasy of a computer. Simulation can be used as prediction tool but not a substitute for the actual causality of the real world. You cannot make things like consciousness or solidity by simulation.

The lack of causality in a program counters both, the idea that the reality is simulated and the idea that AI can be conscious and i will go even further to say that without consciousness, most complex tasks are impossible, like talking in a very human like manner(of course the word complex is very relative). Had complex being been possible without consciousness, i think nature would find a way to do it.

Now there is another common misconception, the idea that the brain is a computer(by Turings definition). Now the problem with that idea is very simple, a program is observer dependent. Binary code means nothing unless we agree on what it means, just like language. There is no programs in nature, we make it into programs by observing it. If you say a mind is a computer, then that requires a little man sitting inside your skull, making sense of the input. Now having said that, i do not deny the idea that a mind is a biological machine, i only say that by Turings definition - it is not a computer.

Why are we conscious of particulars but not the whole?

2008-06-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

There is a constant input coming from all our senses and yet we seem to be only aware of a few things at a time. When i focus on typing this essay, i stop being aware of the pain in my toe that i recently broke, yet the pain is still there. Why then is consciousness selective? I defined this question from phenomenological perspective but describing it from neurological brings even more mystery.

The brain is in constant flux of activity and yet only certain activity of the brain are conscious. What makes those particulars special? What is it about them that brings it to consciousness level?

Yesterday i think i had a glimpse at a solution of this problem. Suppose there is actually nothing special about those neurons or areas of the brain, then it should follow that if some of it is conscious, then all of it should be conscious; just like if some Zebras are mammals then all Zebras are mammals. Well Mr. Genius you might say, why then are we only aware of limited phenomena and not the whole?

I am glad you asked! The answer came to me after my dream, which i had instantly forgotten and yet i knew that i had one, i must have had one in my REM stage. I was aware of my dream while having it and yet the second i woke up there was no trace of me having been aware of it just few seconds before. If not my knowledge of sleep cycles i could have just said that i never had a dream, but i did. Where did all the conscious experience disappear? This question is the key! It disappeared because it was not linked to memory or our sense of time flow.

An example of why music works so well can help us understand. Music is directly interwoven with out perception of time. We hear a note, we remember it from the past along with the other notes that were played, we then hear a note in the present and also expect a note in the future. It is the combination of memory, present perception and expectation that makes music work. I believe it is very similar with consciousness. If conscious experience is not registered in short or long term memory then suddenly it is as if it never happened, but it did!

Hypothesis: The whole brain is conscious. The appearance that only certain things are conscious at a time is illusion created by memory faculties.

Education; what to start with?

2008-04-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

Lincoln once said "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe." The tree is of course a metaphor for challenges in life and the axe for rationality. To do anything in the world, you need to be able to think, but unluckily for us, the evolution had left us with slightly less then rational faculties. The first step is to realize that you are born irrational. If you don't believe me, here is a fun fact, human species had spent 99% of its evolution in primitive tribal environment and that HAD to have an effect, don't you think? Your brain is not perfect, and thus so is your reasoning. While i must not deny, the brain is an amazingly complex unit of our body with great capabilities, nevertheless, the software that comes with it is full of bugs and artifacts. So in getting your education, your first priority is debugging your brain and that means philosophy, and lots of it!

Become a free thinker and question everything because our culture is full of useless, counterproductive memes, and our cells are filled with selfish genes, and mind you, neither has any regard for your happiness or success in life, and yet both unconsciously try to dictate your actions. Your are surrounded by hogwash! Learn to recognize it and cut the ropes of the puppeteer.

Take a class in reasoning and prepare for a slow recovery from irrationality to skepticism. It is worth the trip.

Priority based lifestyle.

2008-04-20T22:52:00.001-07:00

First priority is to figure out the priorities. Here is an example of what a priority list should look like for a typical college student.

1. Priorities
2. Health
3. Get As
4. Finance
5. Networking
6. Independence
7. Ivy League
8. Education
9. Relationship
10.Leisure

Priorities
Why did i choose priorities as a first priority? Because without getting organized you will not succeed in any of your goals. Virtually anything you set yourself to do well requires a great deal of organization, planning and willpower.

Health
Health is the second most important aspect of your life. Without health, you cannot do much of anything else, so please get your lifestyle straight.

Get As
What i mean by As is of course getting As in all your classes. Why is that important? Because doing well in school greatly increases your chances of success in the long term. Not to mention it also improves your organizational skills, willpower and confidence.

Finance
What i mean by finance is getting a way to pay your bills(i.e. a job). This is a very important step as it allows for a whole set of activities and goals that would not be possible without a decent income.

Networking
What i mean by networking is friends, business relationships and family. This involves going to parties, meeting people in your classes and trying to establish a solid network of people you can trust or use in the future.

Independence
Move out! This will teach you a great deal about life and help you become more mature, organized and responsible.

Ivy League
Get into a good college(preferably one of the top) because it will put you into competition with the greatest minds of your generation and inspire you to study harder as well as create the best environment for creating a solid network of friends and most importantly greatly increase your income in the long run.

Education
Read books, watch documentaries, take electives. This is a broad goal but keep in mind that priorities should be kept in tact, meaning that you order of books to read should be in logical sequence to what you currently need in life. For example if your goal is to open a business and you have no idea how business works, do not start reading about Nietzsche, instead try to read books about starting a business as it will be more practical.

Relationship
After getting a grip on your life you can allow yourself to start dating.

LeisureHaving done everything you need you can allow yourself a break and read some Nietzsche.

schopenhauer's pride

2008-04-06T09:53:00.000-07:00
What is after all life? Life is an expirience. What use is anything without emotion accompanying it? What use is knowledge if it doesn't bring happiness? What use is it to be set on truth when you are not designed to hold such a view, both biologically and culturally. A noble savage is after all more satisfied then the most truth bearing philosopher.

Truth is elusive in the face of emotion, for emotion always wins the argument, if not for a hardcore set philosopher, then at least for the masses. For when we look at Sisyphus and his daunting task which in reality we all face, we see that what makes his task absurd and tragic is that he is fully aware that the rock will fall again and he will have to climb back up ad infinitum. Had his memory of the punishment erased every time he would climb up, his state would not be tragic, it would be that of blissful determination and then satisfied at the top, at least for a while.

What is this need for truth at any cost if not Schopenhauer's pride -- the will to seek truth at any emotional cost, it is the will to hold such bleak, dispiriting views which a regular person would not even allow himself to hear. What use is such pride? Perhaps its use is important in the process of making certain decisions , but not as a world view or personality trait, for such a thing is deeply unsatisfying. We expirience what we believe, not what we see. We see what we believe and not what is.

Why not therefor make a leap of faith? Contrary to all you understand to be true. For your sake, for the sake of your spirit, overcome your Schopenhauer's pride and welcome home my dear noble savage.

Free Will and Duality.

2008-04-01T11:15:00.000-07:00
If we accept materialism as a solution for Body-Mind problem, it should follow that all conscious phenomena IS the neurons firing and to say there is a distinction would be making a category mistake. While this is commonly accepted, there is a persistent tendency to discard conscious phenomena as an illusion by explaining the physiological processes responsible for it.

Most people would recognize a claim that love is an illusion merely because there is an underlying physiological process behind it as a fallacy, yet when it comes to free will, the fallacy seems to go unnoticed. The fallacy goes like this:

X(in this case X is conscious phenomena) happens due to the following processes Y, therefore X is an illusion.

How many times do we hear people say "free will is an illusion"? I read or hear it every time i bring up a topic of free will vs determinism into a discussion. People seem to forget that Free Will is a conscious phenomena, it is an expirience we go through in our heads and thus to say that just because it happens due to neurological processes(even though they are determined), it is an illusion is fallacious.

Here i would like to make a distinction between Free Will(FW) as a philosophical concept of Libertarianism(L) and Free Will as a conscious phenomena. While Libertarianism may indeed be an illusion or even a Delusion, Free Will(FW) as a Conscious Phenomena(CP) is not.

FWCP is simply a conscious process of decision making which is ultimately neurons firing, they are two sides of the same coin. To speak of FWCP as separate or an illusion is to forget that it IS the neurons firing and thus make a category mistake. The sensation of choice might be, on neurological level some type of synapse or synapses forming, but that does not make it an illusion, it simply explains the underlying processes.

When people read about Determinism, they usually have an aversion to the idea and i believe such emotional response happens largely due to mistaking FWCP for FWL.

Relationships

2008-03-27T11:48:00.000-07:00
I desire what i know won't work. Yet i still desire. What is it that those replicators want? Leave me alone! I want to be free of genetic manipulation. I want to do what makes sense - to me. I need to make a promise to not ever kid myself again as i did many times in the past. Desire for relationships is so strong that it blinds me again and again. But you know what i will focus on myself for now. I am tired of looking for that which is so rare. I hope i will find it, but even if i won't ill be satisfied by myself.

The mountaintop of philosophy.

2008-03-16T14:20:00.000-07:00
You may live beneath the mountain of knowledge. You might enjoy the comforts and say "why would i ever go through struggle to climb it?" and so you hug your pillow, addicted to comfort. Those who climb no doubt struggle, and those who stay beneath, no doubt feel safer and live a more comforting life. Those climbing, are dripping with sweat, you can see pain in their eyes, but they persist. The comfort-lover asks "why?" but the answer is in the eyes of those at the top, looking at the beautiful landscape, a perspective only enjoyed by those who suffer.

Atheism as therapy.

2008-02-28T13:53:00.000-08:00
Had you ever cried out emotionally looking into the sky, awaiting an answer? Your eyes watery and innocent like a a child gazing at his mothers eye in search for forgiveness. Have you thought why you were punished? Have you promised to improve, to do anything as long as God releaves your suffering. Have you cried for hours, outraged by injustice? And every time you were met by a cold indifference of the universe. Have you asked why that asshole over there, filled with vanity gets everything while you, trying hard to be "good" only get disappointment? Maybe the answer is because there is no God. There is no reason why you left out, no reason why it should be made up and nothing guarantees your reward for being good, or the punishment for that asshole over there. It just is.

Meditation 1

2008-02-28T13:25:00.000-08:00
It was the middle of winter; as usual - no snow, only the illusion of warmth created by sunny reflections of the rooftops. I felt empty. I seemed to be evolved into a being of empathy, yet born in a world where empathy is a weakness. I am intelligent in search of intelligence, i am compassionate in search of compassion. Was evolution so cruel to had created me so good in a world so soaked in selfishness? I longed for answers for long years and the answers while intellectually satisfying, always left me drowning in my own cynicism. Can the sober truth be something we don't want to know? For the past year i had lost my romanticism for love, my illusion of free will, my hope for God, and finally the will to do anything.

What am i to do next? How can i knowing all this go on in happiness. I was promised that the truth would set me free. He was wrong. It didn't set me free, it only awoke me to the fact that i am in prison built by a blind watchmaker! Yes, the universe is amazing but should i stick around to see the end? Or should i end it now? No, i want to go on, but i need to find something, something that i could throw myself into, a bottomless pit of creativity. Yes, thats what i need but where is the pit!? I long for it. I want it, i want it now!

If there was a designer perhaps i could ask for purpouse of my creation, but knowing that there isn't, i am left to choose my own. What will it be? The technology? The philosophy? Should i start writing as Nietzsche did? For hours at an end, staring at the paper till his eyes bled, bleeding and thus inspiring his thought.

But i must find it, i mustn't give up. If i give up, the humanity gives up for what will such act tell people about the truth and philosophy? That it ultimately leads to despair? No, it doesn't but i must prove it. The search goes on and the ride is about the take another turn, and i have no plans to get of just yet! I am ready for a few more adrenalin rushes and this time i will keep my hands in the air, not holding on, i don't need a false sense of security. Let the Gods will take me!
I surrender and maybe thats Hegelian freedom. Maybe thats what he meant.

The next chapter is blank, but i have to make sure it will be a climax of my thought, a new beginning where i finally take life into my own hands. No more silliness, let's get serious! I don't even know why i am writing this. I am just letting loose all my thoughts, holding back none, and spitting out fire as fast as i can. I don't know when i will stop writing this either, maybe now, maybe until my fingers bleed but i will go on. I can't stop. This actually feels pretty good. I feel like i am learning to think with typing. I feel like whatever i think is being directly directed at the scree, i already lost the sense of my hands and now there is only my mind, i am even unaware what my next thought will be, interestingly enough i feel bare naked. I don't know what my mind will type will next, perhaps it will put a dot and it will be over but maybe it will decide to go on, typing and typing. Maybe thats how those people who claim to speak in tongues feel?

Butterfly effect of moral causality.

2008-01-05T10:16:00.000-08:00
Every morally-related action bears a consequence, which in turn bears another consequence, which creates an immoral chain of causality. And thus no morally-related action is truly meaningless or mortal, for once such an action takes place, it creates a potentially infinite chain of causality, and being one choice out of numerous others - it also bears responsibility for all alternative choices that could have been made in its place, which in turn could have caused their own infinite chain of consequences. Now you might say that some actions bare little consequences, or only a short link of causality(not infinite) such as perhaps opening a door to a stranger or not saying "bless you" when someone sneezes. In science people know that no meter how small, a cause can add up to something much bigger, such as billion of butterflies can cause a tsunami to go of, by adding its wind force to the already existing wind, which in turn causes a tsunami - that is called Butterfly Effect. Now it is possible to imagine that say that one butterfly is responsible for something like tsunami in a case when its little push was enough to add up to an already existing force and thus it can be said the Butterfly alone caused a tsunami. Now the tsunami in turn can possibly wash over a shore where people live, kill thousands, which in turn will make some people depressed...cause and effect and effect and effect... The chain in this case can be imagined to be infinite. I mean we can imagine people looking at the news, and say loosing faith in god for allowing such natural evil to take place causing thousands of innocent deaths. There are infinite effects that the tsunami can have and yet caused by a single wings-flip of a butterfly. Now we can imagine the same thing is a scenario of not saying "bless you" when someone sneezes. What if the man whom sneezed was already depressed and felt suicidal and that one little neglect from your added up to already existing isolation and caused him to kill himself. Now i keep using causes that finish an already existing force of other causes which create a strong effect, such as that last flip of a butterfly that added up to the force of the wind and caused tsunami, but we can imagine that it doesn't need to be that last addition, for every butterfly is equally guilty. Every butterfly had the same input into the totality of forces and thus it is unfair to say that only the last one that actually caused the tsunami is guilty for without the others, the last one would be the first, making very little effect. It applies the same to any morally-significant action for we never know what chains of causality they might trigger, and what in turn it will add up to.

It applies also to say out contribution to global warming or nuclear war, each one of us is guilty of it, for no matter how small, it plays its role in the totality of causes. Every extra electricity burned, every little evil added, by itself plays little significance, but once we see the endless chains of effects and the property it has to add up, we see that we bear enormous responsibility. If one million people leave their computer on over night, it will add up to much bigger then your computer alone. If billions of people don't open a door for a stranger, we can imagine how much of a depressing wave it will cause, for a lot of people will loose faith in the world.

Free Will VS Predeterminism.

2007-12-27T13:16:00.000-08:00
It is established that no one has an entirely free will. Our wills are prone to influence by external factors, be it parents or culture or just experiences, as is clearly evident through psychology and other sciences. But is free will a hopeful thought or reality? Is there at least a fraction of choice that can be genuinely called free will or is everything predetermined?

Now i do not deny that the process of decision making takes place and that we are in fact in control of our bodies, at least to some extent. Just the fact that i am writing this seemingly proves this but can the fact that i can decide and plan(as allowed by my frontal lobes) constitute for the notion of free will?

I propose the following thought experiment. Imagine a reality, a copy of this one, an alter reality which came into existence just now. Before now, it was one with this reality but now there is a copy. Now imagine that the two realities exist independent of each other with no causal relationship happening between the two. Now the question is - is the alter reality ever going to be different from this one or is it going to be identical? If it stays identical then everything is in fact predetermined, if not, then can we say that free will does exist to some extent?

It is possible that it will remain identical, because even though we do seem to have an ability to think, plan and decide, whose to say that it is not determined completely by outside factors and our experiences. Perhaps, given the same circumstances, we would decide identically, every time, resulting in an alter reality which would be identical.

Now if the alter reality does in fact diverge and become different, at least to some extent, then another philosophical question arises - what made it change? Why, given the same circumstances, a difference emerged? If the reason for the change is a simple random accident, of perhaps quantum level, then can we still say that we have free will? I think not, because with the quantum accident, the circumstances would change, which would lead the person to come up to a different decision and free will could not be clearly distinguished from predeterminism of circumstances. For free will to be clearly proven, we would need an alter reality whose circumstances remain the same.

I will argue that it is very hard to imagine a reality with identical circumstances and yet people coming to different decisions. But does it make sense to say that everything is predetermined? I think determined is a better word because decision process does in fact take place and no one knows or can predict the decisions of people due to butterfly effect, and yet i think people would come up to the same decision every time given the same circumstances.

Let us assume now that the copy of this reality would in fact diverge, yet the circumstances would not change(like quantum mechanics variations). Again i ask the question - what made that change in decision process of people or a person? There has to be a reason for that other choice, or is it complete accident? Only the former would constitute for free will because randomness is not a conscious decision. And what would be that reason for a different choice?

Now let us imagine that the alter reality is identical to the current reality + one hour and that it doesn't really exist but is simply a simulator of this reality. Meaning that it is perfect prediction of this reality 1 hour ahead. Imagine that we can observe that alter reality on tv and look at ourselves in an hour and thus to some extent know our future. That would surely change how we would act.

Perhaps free will is simply a kind of butterfly effect of circumstances. There are soo many circumstances and so many factors for a decision that perhaps the brain can even come up to different decisions every time it is informed of identical circumstances.

In conclusion i think there is no will separate from circumstances. I think if we change circumstances, the decision will change but if they remain identical, the choice of each individual on the planet will also remain identical.

Gender, Sex and Sexuality.

2007-12-20T09:05:00.000-08:00

Gender, Sex and Sexuality.

As people, we seem to have an obsession with labels. It is a way we understand the world, give it order and predictability. The idea of chaos is uncomfortable to us and our minds do our best to create an illusion of knowing. The language shapes how we perceive the world and our oversimplified, over-generalized labels create a world so distorted from reality that it becomes merely an illusion, a caricature of the real world imposed by our minds. In fact we often generalize so much that a whole spectrum of phenomenology is reduced to binary labels like black/white, good/bad or female/male. We often reduce everything either to one or the other unrealistic category. On top of that, as a society we create an imaginary norm and choose which labels are normal and which are not. In particular I would like to focus on categories of Gender, Sex and Sexuality and the shape it took in our society.

The way we use language can clue us in to how we view the topic of human sexuality unconsciously. For example we often hear the word “gay” used to describe any disliked behavior. People say it as if being gay is the last thing someone wants to be. Most often we divide people into Females and Males and assume that the “normal” way is for male to be attracted to females, to be masculine, to dress looser clothing, to participate in certain activities like sports and be responsible for certain roles. The desire to be part of that illusory “normal” category causes all kind of identity issues and confusion. People unconsciously sign up to the latest issue of what’s normal and try to act accordingly, often suppressing their unique personality as a result, which psychologically is rarely healthy.

To understand the problem better we need to posses a clear understanding of the distinction between Gender, Sex, and Sexuality, and try to transcend our usually way of seeing the world through the over-generalized binaries and culturally constructed norms. Sex is a strictly biological term, predetermined completely by the genes, in most cases being either Female or Male. All embryos are identical within first 8 weeks until either prenatal production of male hormones produces the male pattern or the production does not occur resulting in female. Sex is generally identified by the chromosomes; being XX in a case of female and XY in a case of male. However even here there are many exceptions such as hermaphrodites who have other chromosome differences. In society we usually identify sex by physical features such as penis for a male and vagina/breasts for a female. We only consider two categories as normal – Male and Female, which can cause confusion in those who are different. We have no right to make those who are different feel like they are freaks of nature.

Gender is a much more complex issue and deals more with personality and behavior of a person. The simplest terms we identify gender is socially constructed notion of what is feminine and masculine. For example we consider wearing tight clothing as feminine and loose clothing as masculine. We consider applying make up to be feminine and weight training masculine. Genders have certain roles, expectation and norms. We find it weird when a guy applies make up or a girl plays with cars, but we are much more accretive of girls being like guys then guys being like girls.

Sexuality deals with sexual attraction to other human beings. Generally we identify three categories – heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality; heterosexuality being attraction to different sex, homosexuality to the same sex and bisexuality to both sexes. There are numerous combinations a person can be; a person can be a masculine or feminine gay, a masculine lesbian or a feminine lesbian. In fact if we truly look at the differences of people then we will see that attempt to label everything is futile. For example a girl can love make up and at the same time love to weight train, have sex with mostly men and at the same time flirt around a lot with other women. Labels are important tools but we must be careful to not let them distort reality.

Attempts to define what is normal and try to create a “normal” world are only posing limitations and frustrations upon ourselves. People are born a certain way, have certain genes, hormones and neurology. There will always be physical differences and no one has the right to say what is normal and what is not. People have free will and should have the freedom to dress how they like, be creative with their personalities and how they express themselves. People also come from different cultures, parents and experiences. There will always be variation. Freedom from identification with such terms is liberating, as the poet Eileen Myles said: "If we don't define who we are, we are everything. Once we define ourselves, we are nothing." We must celebrate the differences and uniqueness of each individual that create this wonderful world.

Anterograde Amnesia

2007-12-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

Anterograde Amnesia

Imagine a sunny morning, the rays of light pleasantly tingle your face, and as you are slowly coming back from the world of dreams, your arm automatically reaches for the other side of the bed, seeking the warmth of your loving wife. But -- instead it is met with an indifferent, lifeless fabric of the cotton bed-sheet. Suddenly the reality of the past rushes in -- all at once. The shock of paralyzing memories followed by questions; questions that demand answers, all merge into a terrifying moment of lucidity – ‘my wife is dead! I must revenge her death and my ruined life. Where am I? How long ago did it happen? What happened since?’

How would you feel? This sequence became almost a part of a morning-routine for the main hero in the movie – “Momento,” Leonard Shelby, due to an assault resulting in his anterograde amnesia and the death of his wife. Anterograde amnesia is characterized as a loss of memory occurring after the injury which caused the amnesia, and in his case it is also an inability to form long-term memories, making him unable to remember anything he was doing as soon as attention is diverted. His only memories are of the past, before the incident; the last being of his wife – ding.

Every morning he is met with confusion, terror, and unsettling feeling of revenge. To cope with his condition he came up with a system of reminders consisting of notes he keeps all over his apartment, pictures of people he met with descriptions on the back, and for those drastically important facts concerning the murder of his wife – he tattoos inscriptions on his body. Every day he wakes up, looking at the reflection of himself in the mirror, reads the notes and reminds himself of the only meaning he has left in his life – to revenge the death of his wife. He keeps a special place on his chest for a tattoo to remind himself in case he finally kills the murderer.

Anterograde amnesia is usually caused by the traumatic brain injury resulting in damage to hippocampus or surrounding cortices. Cure for this condition is currently unknown. A famous case depicting this condition is that of H.M. Victims of this condition most frequently loose ability to form both episodic and semantic memories while retaining the ability to form procedural memories, although in certain cases the ability to form semantic memory is not lost completely.

Memories

2007-12-06T19:55:00.001-08:00
As i laid on my bed, reflecting, random thoughts flowed chaotically without any intention on my part. Every memory recollecting itself, seemed to add to the present feeling of absurdity. There was no flow- they were fragments, random fragment of random people. Where they really me? I remembered praying. How curious! I lost faith long ago. The memory tells me that it was only a year ago. Do people really change that fast? No, that feels like eternity, it cant be a year, but it is!

What i saw unfolding before me could only compare to a movie, no not a movie, fragments of movies put together randomly by a crazy artist. The genre was impossible to tell. I remember laughing hysterically; was it a comedy? No, i see great suffering. Perhaps a drama? Yes maybe drama with some comedy thrown in. But wait i see beauty, blinding beauty and so much suffering and love and suffering again. What is it then? What causes this character to go from scene to scene? What is his motivation? He was thrown in without a choice. He could not hold on to love or pleasure when he wanted or let go of pain when he needed. There are so much despair and yet so much curiosity, so many questions but no answers, only more and more questions. Why does he continue living? Had he been a logical creature, he would terminate himself long time ago. There is something that keeps him going, perhaps curiosity itself or maybe he found beauty in meaninglessness itself.

Poem

2007-12-06T19:26:00.001-08:00

Random Thoughts

I? Exist?

Absurd.

I want order.

Meaning?

God?

No.

Wishful thinking...

Now what?

Death?

No.

Curiosity…

I see suffering

Why?

No answer.

I see beauty

How?

No answer.

Illogical

?

?
?

Must find answers.

Buddhism is equaly irrational as any other religion.

2007-12-06T11:16:00.001-08:00

Hello fellow thinkers,

I found Christianity/New Age to be finally fading away under the influence of rational thought and scientific evidence, but there is one little thorn of insanity stuck in the world that is often mistaken to be our ally, often being equated to atheism and ration, namely -- Buddhism.

In this essay I would like to attack this notion and reveal Buddhism for what it really is -- Culturally constructed religion of beliefs and not "truth" based on ration or evidence.

Buddhism appeals to many Americans as it promises what most lack - Happiness and contempt. In our society it is just another business of the "happiness industry" abused so much by marketing schemes. We have a number of depressed and unsatisfied individuals and the promise of happiness is hard to resist in the face of all the smiling faces you see on the pictures of gurus and especially the compassionate look of Dali Lama that seem to be empirical evidence that Buddhism does in fact work. The pictures seem to talk for themselves but as I will go into it later in my essay, looks can be deceiving.

We are bombarded with adds saying "you are not happy because you lack X product and by getting it you will be accepted by society and be happy". While Buddhism seems to attack this idea directly and promote simplicity of living and Letting Go to whatever condition, it nevertheless uses the same psychological scheme to trick people in. (perhaps without realizing it.) Buddhism will make you happy they say; the magical cure is to practice the 8fold path and meditate daily (and of course number of other things).

Now before I make my next claim I would like to talk about a simple fact of human cognition, namely the idea that we often “appeal to nobler motives” instead of the truth for why certain thing happened or our real motives behind our actions or how we feel. The best way to understand it is through examples, for instance instead of admitting to failing the class because we were lazy or lacked the intelligence we often appeal to another reason like saying that the teacher was unfair or the class was stupid or anything of that nature – we blame it on someone else or make a complete bullshit excuse to diminish the blow to our ego, because had we accepted the truth, the blow would be much more drastic. Or for example people who do not have sex very often would rather say that they just don’t care about it rather then saying that they can’t get it. Or people who do not understand a certain philosopher would rather say that he is completely illogical rather then admitting the fact that they simply do not understand and the real reason might be their lack of knowledge or intelligence.

Now assuming you got the jest of, it I will make a highly controversial claim and I will say it bluntly – Buddhism is “appeal to nobler motives” in case depression, unsatisfaction, body image problems or practically any other psychological disorder that would make one want to believe the first noble truth – Life IS Suffering and the idea that one need to realize that his own ego doesn’t really exist and that one needs to reach enlightenment which is ceasing to be completely and escaping the wheel of rebirth. As Nietzsche often said that we cannot separate philosophy from those who follow it, there are always reasons for why they follow this one and not the other. Think about it, if you have body image problem, you would love to believe the whole ego thing where people claim it can be gotten rid of and would cure their suffering. The promise lures them in and instead of admitting their pathology they start saying that anyone who has healthy egos are suffering and ignorant to Buddhist truth(complete delusion) and somehow label them as “bad” and him/her self as “good”, which is exactly why Nietzsche would call Slave Morality or I just call Jealousy inspired morality. In a case of depression one would love to believe that it is not pathology but “a realization of the first noble truth!”; the contrast being something like being considered blessed as opposed to sick.

Buddhism can also be thought of Nihilism in disguise of Spirituality or simply what Nietzsche criticized so much as “the other worldly philosophy”, meaning a philosophy that creates aversion to this world, this self, the way things are and instead putting all the focus on a goal outside of it. Of course you can claim it is not so but I think beyond the superficial beliefs Buddhism is exactly that – an escapism in disguise as evident in almost all the “teachings” given by its masters.

Now to go back to the Happy Faces on the pictures I offer the following examples. Look at the faces of some deluded Christians when they pray or are “possessed by holy spirit”. They are deluded as delusion can be and yet they are smiling. Now the reason why they smile is simply – they are told to smile. They act as if they are happy like all those fake smiles you see in America that is considered to be part of our culture. They are conditioned to present themselves as happy and they lie that they are happy but inside they have the hardest conflicts and turmoil that anyone imagine. In a case of Christians it is turmoils of guild, doubt and resisting sinful thoughts, in a case of Buddhists it is turmoil of trying to reach and impossible ideal of loss of ego, enlightenment and karma and the similar “deluded” states of mind such as anger. Now it is possible that some Buddhists are happy but the happiness is from successful escapism that they have in monastery isolated from any problems a person integrated in society might have like job, children and so on. Of course if you sit for days at a time doing nothing but breathing, you have not much to worry about but what kind of pussy existence is that? But of course they will not admit that they escaped the world, they will say they did it out of some kind of spiritual awakening which I will argue is simply depression.

Now why I said that Buddhism is not ally of reason is because it holds a number of beliefs claimed to be truth but are in fact having zero evidence. Of course they never say that it is complete bullshit – they will just say that you have to find out for yourself by meditating and or brainwashing yourself to their philosophy every day. They will say things like Buddha was enlightened and he knew the truth so basically the only evidence you have is someone word for it. Of course there are a number of people that I don’t argue probably came to feeling the same was as Buddha and claimed to be enlightened but I think it is just a delusion or error in brain cognition after years of conditioning. In fact Buddhism is very anti reason, especially in Zen as evident in their teachings like “it is the mind before the question.”

Having said all that I will confess that I myself is a former Buddhist with a few years of extensive experience including meditation practice and meeting very known people following the philosophy. Buddhism has to offer a lot of interesting ideas and wisdom but nothing worth going through piles and piles of bullshit, cultural baggage or something you will not get from a few western existentialist philosophers like Nietzsche or Sarte. In fact I learned MUCH more from them and my quality of life was improved greatly which I cannot say Buddhism did that much.

Basically let me save you some time. Meditating will not get you anything but mild relaxation and detachment from the world, which can be achieved much more efficiently by smoking pot or taking a hot bath. Buddhism is not the noble truth discovered by some lunatic but rather it is just another philosophy based on escapism and people unable to deal with life. Buddhism is not your road to happiness or self realization or even inner change. Masters will teach you how to tame “negative” emotions but they themselves suffer from them as much as you; ask them yourself they will tell you. The ideals Buddhism builds is against our biological nature and is impossible.

I hope this essay will save some years of bullshit, suffering and in the end realizing as many do today that Buddhism is just another Fad in our society.

A cool trip summary i found online!

2007-12-05T14:13:00.000-08:00
“Little sally-D sits at the right of DMT 100 times old LSD… “

I would apologize in advance as this report seems the length of a Quantum Physics discourse, yet put yourself in my place and I promise it to be anything but boring.

The Salvia experience – as anyone who has ever been totally thrashed on ‘The Lady’ will confirm – is difficult to convey at best. Its realms are beyond description or belief to the uninitiated.

I’m (now) an almost weekly salvia user. I use ‘Her’ solo (i.e., all alone with no sitter) but in only modest amounts. I generally stick to premium leaf and maybe 5x, - never anything stronger (20x) and never on top of tincture. Keeping the dosages to relatively “mild” amounts I love it for its deeply contemplative potential and instruction.

But as to the road I foolishly took to reach this point…

BACKGROUND:
I’m 47 years old and until recently had considered myself quite the cocky Psychonaut. Since age 14, I have had mushrooms 6 times, DMT twice, Ayahuasca, and LSD well over 150 times (this last probably a low-end guesstimate).

Looking back on my younger years, the only mid-life crisis I ever experienced was at age 25, when I found myself incomprehensibly shocked that I had actually made it to that age alive...but life can itself turn around. I now have two Masters Degrees and am a (fully Ordained) Rinzai Zen Buddhist, (more than a few friends from the bad old days would shake their heads in disbelief at this…) with over 20 years experience in various forms of meditation as well as being a meditation instructor and lecturer on dream recall/analysis. Hence I nonchalantly believed my philosophical, psychological and spiritual strengths to be well above the norm. But as will soon be divulged my only worst enemy was my own self-righteous arrogance, which almost never failed to get me deeply in shit. I’ve also always had an obsessive interest in primitive tribalism (i.e., Shamanism), and looking back find it very strange that I had never heard of Salvia divinorum considering the vast info on the net...

Anyway...

My long time Buddhist friend Richard who is a Biologist with a specialty in Botany (how appropriate) calls me up to say that he has 6+ grams of primo Psilocybe subcubensis, which is pretty rare around here lately or so he claims. Not that I would know as I haven’t touched any hard entheogens in over 20 years. I'm thinking that after 20 years cold turkey a good mushroom trip would be a totally awesome birthday present to myself. I am getting more and more psyched obsessing about it and not two days later Rich calls back and my answer is yes, yes, YES!

GROUND CONTROL:
So it’s late Tuesday evening and we are both at the Zen hermitage where I conduct practice, assured that we would be totally alone and undisturbed till well into Wednesday. We arrived after 10:30pm, and I can't wait to open that little bag of veggies at exactly the midnight hour. We’re somewhat mellowed out after having 30 minutes before ingested a hefty gram of Kratom powder (15x) each, which I might add is for me (the tea, that is) one of the most vile tasting substances yet – the more I indulge the nastier it gets (although ayahuasca - depending on the mix - can be far worse).

Rich says to me “I brought something really special for a kickoff', pulling out this miniscule zip-lock of what looks like the tiniest most pathetic gram of black pot I have ever seen, his 2-chambered wooden pipe, tiny measuring spoons and small dropper vial of something he called 'Emerald Essence' (a sublingual tincture form of Salvia)...

“Seems you’re a little short, pal!” I laugh, pointing at the “pot”, which had never gotten me off past a mild buzz in the zillion times I've smoked it years back.

“Not that! The juice is for you, Bro.”

Stupidly I chose to ignore him telling me that this was not pot, but about a hefty 1/3 gram of 20x Salvia which he had left and of which he and only he would take a small pinch of, for I was not ready for that yet.

“What are you fucking kidding?” I’m picking at the envelope which he grabs away.

“That’s ‘purple-sticky’ astronaut Sally D, brother! Forget about it. Just put 3 droppers full of the juice there in your mouth and hold it under your tongue and don’t swallow. It’s a little uncomfortable but keep it in best you can. She’s the Teacher Plant, and Bro… you’ll be more than a little amazed… ”

I’m more than a little pissed at his suggesting that I can’t handle some tiny wisp of weed.... Maybe she can teach me to stop swearing.

He starts blabbing, as Richard always does: 'It's a total kick/ lasts so short a time but will take you places/ It'll be a great shroom intro/ can’t believe you never heard of this/..Ohh yadayadayada blahblahblah”. I’m not really listening until he starts in with the I’m-not-ready lecture again but I’m determined to keep my 'set and setting' on a nice calm, even keel and not let him spoil my kratom haze and so veg’d back with, 'yea whatever…”

FIRST BIG MISTAKE: Looking back my “Set & Setting” were anything BUT optimal:
1.) That day everything was wonderful, but over the long run, aside from the normal, routine family stresses, I had been dwelling acutely on my mother’s long-time battles with cancer.

2.) (The worst) I was subconsciously hiding deep-seated guilt that I was using a Buddhist Zen retreat where I have key responsibilities to “cloud my Mind” (i.e., take hallucinogens). I was about to break one of the key precepts (commandments) of Buddhist practice, and for my digressions would be suitably rewarded.
And so...

Richard is all fired up like some excited 10 yr. old who just won’t quit and keeps on about Salvia being 'kinda like 15 minute acid but different' etc. etc. At one point he’s telling me how once on Salvia he “spent ‘a lifetime or so’ as a garden hose up against a house, observing a whole family pass through each individual stage of their entire lives” (is this to convince me? oh, Yea, ‘cause that’s always been one of my fucking goals’).

I seemed not so much leery as skeptical especially after he tells me this stuff ('she's his ‘Velvet Princess’'...) is totally legal in all but 5 states. (And even now as I write this am still in totally befuddlement at this little fact! How our Gestapo-DEA ever missed this one...) But I just laughed, and chalked it up to thinking poor Rich has been spending just a little too much time with his plants and that this is just one of his bullshit New Age relaxing-herbs/ no wonder I never heard of it and so I mentally shrug him off, dwelling only on the shrooms I have been dying for and that will soon invade my being but are still in his possession so I will behave

SECOND BIG MISTAKE: My total lack of proper investigation and respect to the preternatural power (what a weak word in this case) of “The Diviners Sage”.

LEAVING NORMAL:
We proceed to settle in: I’m sitting lotus on my zabuton (meditation cushion), Rich choosing a small sofa across from me we’d moved into the library (perfect setting!) from the front greeting hall. I'm comfortable, yet more than anxious as I light 3 sticks of Japanese incense to set the mood and then put Lustmord’s percussive “The Place where the Dark Star hangs” CD on low (a serious miscalculation that!)

I am set to go and reach for his precious tincture. He warned me to “just take 3 drops” so naturally I squeeze out a fast 6 droppers-full quick under my tongue. Damn this FUCKING SHIT BURNS but I manage to hold it in like I half remember his ramblings about not swallowing, proper oral absorption, etc.

“There!” I slur. ”You happy now!” This sucks, as saliva is pouring into my mouth and it’s all I can do not to gag and throwup much less not swallow.

“Don’t talk! Hold it in! Oh, man you took way too much… we might hav’ta wait awhile on the shrooms now!” He’s ranting but the look I flash conveys he better forget that thought and get that shroom tea cooking! He starts pacing like some Nervous Nellie wondering what to do next as he was against this entire idea of using the Zen center in the first place and I’m trying my best to not get aggravated. He is such a compulsive worrier over every little thing and his drama is getting old.

We’d set up a small timer so I can count off 8 minutes before swallowing but I can’t bear much more of this. The tincture is frying the underside of my mouth, it feels like I’m holding acid under my tongue! I’m gonna have vicious cankers tomorrow...

“Almost! Just a couple more minutes! You ok? Man, I don’t know Jon, I just don’t know about this. Hold on a sec I’ll be back,..”

He leaves the room mumbling to himself and he better be checking on those shrooms and after a good 4 minutes I’m feeling somewhat ‘muddy’ and my right arm is getting very heavy. The music starts to sound very far away, almost like it’s in another room on another floor. I hear the toilet flush. 5-plus minutes and shit I'm done waiting, and though I’m expecting a big Nothing from this aside from a mild time-killer, I’m feeling rather “playful” and increasingly lightheaded (the kratom kick-in sure is helping too). I spy his pipe the selfish bastards’ got all nicely set up and decide to torch it myself before he wanders back. So its fuck him and I swallow the nasty crap that’s been under my tongue long enough, my eyes tearing as I fight the overwhelming urge to vomit. Rich is one of my closest friends, but breaking his balls lately has become one of my favorite pastimes, especially considering all the hassle it took coaxing and then practically dragging his sorry ass here tonight. I will hit-up his entire teeny stash of salvia-pot just to bust’im, a suitable revenge for all his little irritations.

LAST HUGE MISTAKE (...and the biggest in my entire life):
He’s got a piece of some leaf (salvia?) already packed in the bowl in place of a screen, and what looks like only 2 or3 tiny grains at most of his “astronaut” shit on the leaf…always the wimp. So I tap out the rest of the entire small envelope of his salvia on top – it looks like pulverized blackish-green cigarette tobacco and there’s not much there to talk about - barely a dusting. Or so it would seem to this dupe as I hit the flame.
“I’ll show him!...”

First big toke deep as I possibly can. Like riding a bike…one never forgets technique. Managed to hold it in a full 25 seconds at least – and that was some accomplishment ‘cause man this stuff burns hot!

There’s something...I think for a sec I’m hearing muted voices, someone talking loudly but through a pillow and I assume it must be from the street but it’s different, very odd (so friggin’ dizzy!). And weird red-green flashes in my head, like having a quick high blood pressure rush, and my jaw is feeling numb, but I’m sure that’s from just holding in a lungful of heat as I haven’t smoked anything in years.

I'm trying for a second big rip as deep as I possibly can right down hard past my gut which is proving quite difficult as when I exhaled the first hit I got the biggest head-rush of my life ever. Felt like someone right in front of me just reached forward, wrapped their hands around the back of my neck and pulled me forcefully forward… Whoa!

Rich comes back holding a small tea kettle. He’s all grins until he looks at me and I wave at him and give him a wink, pointing to his precious glowing pipe on the floor (floor? How the hell did it get there? Don’t remember dropping it, that could prove dangerous...). I’ve never seen such a look on anyone’s face like that before and it’s all I can do to keep from cracking up but I can’t ‘cause I’m fighting this new feeling of something forcefully pulling my lower jaw right down to the floor and its all I can do to keep my head leveled. Everything is getting real “choppy”, my thoughts growing more and more nonlinear and fractionated….

'Hey, MAN THAT’S 20X! What the FUCK!?' Grandma scolded. It’s funny because he never swears and looks really foolish staring at his empty envelope but the only fool in the room is me and he just stands there, looking down at me with this blank look on his face.

Rich told me days later a college of his - a routine, daily Salvia-tripper (daily!?!?…shit, I can’t even imagine there are such creatures...) practically burst a nut laughing at how much I’d done my first time out).

I’m thinking (thinking?) on one last big toke but my hands are empty and I can’t seem to find my fingers anyway. I suddenly start laughing hysterically but can’t really understand why as this is less than enjoyable. I’m getting more and more confused and my crossed legs feel like they’re getting pressed into the floor like some reverse wishbone and my right arm is now so heavy I can’t budge it. There are sharp electrical-like pins running all up and down my left arm (“Oh,Oh!! heart attack!!”), and this just makes me laugh even more but WHY I don’t know as I am now not enjoying any of this and it’s funny there’ll be no smoke for Poor Ol’ Rich....

(“Look at you...can’t even take a friggin’ joke…”) I wanted to say but I couldn’t remember how to form any words and what the fuck that’s weird… now I can’t do anything but stare over at my blue Temper-pedic “eye-mask” wondering why the hell it was here (I’d brought it to assure a shroom trip in total darkness). I guess I meant to slip it on before but why? What? What!! is going on now I’m starting to sweat – I mean immediate buckets are running down my forehead, neck and chest and it feels like I just passed through a wall of hot steam. And the music.. That’s not the CD I put on! It’s like...stuck at one throbbing drone note - an ‘infinite repeat’ delay that can’t catch up to the rest of the sounds...Those voices are getting louder too, and it must be the stereo but the Lustmord CD has no vocals... and where is Rich…

This is fucked! I’m starting to get really scared and I can’t think! (or should I say there are so many images rushing through my brain I can’t slow any one down long enough to make any sense of anything)…Something really …he might actually have some major shit here but I don’t like it and want this to end. End Now. And this mask, why did I want that blue thing, it’s…and last thing I was conscious of before IT happened was some guy squatting next to me and I’m dreaming voices: “relax, Jon, your in for… big …just go with it man …let the Lady sweep you in…..if you rela… let go!” and he puts this thing over my eyes for me that’s so nice of you Who Are You Who Is Jon...

...And somewhere in a distant past I'm still connecting with the thought of shrooms but then I can’t remember what shrooms are exactly.

And it was the last normal thing before the world broke apart. . . .

THE NEW ROOM AND WHOSE GOT THE RAID:
Funny but even with my eyes covered I can still see. I don’t even have a second to think how the room seems different before all hell broke loose.

The floor below my cushion started to swiftly ripple out into dense grey wave-like patterns, undulating forward and engulfing the entire room, as if someone “behind” me (I was sitting in lotus with my back against the wall) had leaned down and was hosing the floor down with bucketsful of grey paint.

At the exact same moment the entire left side of the room took on a bright, glimmering, greenish-red luminescence. As this was happening those damned humming voices steadily grew into staccato-like, grinding pulses. The pulses gave way to a hammering in my head so intense as to take on an almost physical force. If I wasn’t sure it was all in my head I’d swear the entire hermitage would come crashing down around us (no doubt the Lustmord CD had kicked in to serenade the salvia). The voices seemed so loud but yet very muddled, soft and indistinct. (How does one even begin to put this madness into English language!?!?)

”HEY! Hey pal…Don’t you FUCKING HEAR THAT!” I can’t find my voice but wanted to scream at the top of my lungs to this guy now sitting across from me but with his back turned, seemingly oblivious to the screeching throb overhead that I thought threatened to topple the entire house. He was hunched over, ostensibly intent on something that looked from the side like an antique typewriter but there never was a desk there before (?!!). In what seemed like a second or 100,000 years later “Richard” did not even register, and for that matter I could not even remember HOW I had gotten to this place, WHERE I was, and most importantly had no idea WHO “”I”” was.

Then I was being suddenly pulled downward and to the left – progressively dragged by what seemed to be an invisible, malicious entity attempting to rip my body in half if I didn’t succumb and go willingly to the corner side of the room. I say “rip in half” as strangely enough my right side remained placid, still and upright on the cushion. Half my body remaining ‘normal’ as a solid, the other half started to stretch out like a piece of old stuck gum that you’d pull off a school desk bottom. All this was happening in such rapid succession that my mind couldn’t catch up fast enough to register what the hell was happening – or that Hell was happening. I strained forward against the magnetic pull and pleaded in a voice I couldn’t seem to raise above a whisper.

“Please! Hey buddy! Help me,..what..” and I could SEE my voice /words disintegrate as they left my mouth along with part of my lips and cheek – like those high speed freeze-frame photographs you see of the guy sneezing and you see his saliva droplets flying across the room in a 2 foot mist. That was my voice. My flesh. Riding along with ego-death my physical self had now started to particularize. (the friggin’ guy in front of me was still tap/ tap/ tap typing totally oblivious to the Armageddon around us.

Now on acid one might have brief moments of lucidity (“Damn! There’s a bad-boy comin’up...the drugs...”), a brain lifeboat, if you will - that could ground your sanity somewhat. And I have had a few bad trips, except they were trips. The problem here was that THIS WAS MY NEW REALITY. Though somewhat “dulled” there was nothing that made me stop and reason that is was anything but a new actuality ripped from the old...and I was fucking DISINTIGRATING! Forget the old acid rule “just go with it and expect the unacceptable“, because I couldn’t remember taking or smoking any drugs or doing anything prior to just existing for all time and place in this Hellroom. I must have broken some sanctified cosmic rule of some sort and can’t stop thinking that all this is somehow my fault…!

At this point the zabuton started to join in. I looked down and the cushion was now “reaching up” and attempting to attach itself to my calves, thighs and hips, grabbing me like a huge black glove and holding me still while the entire floor sucked downward in a steady, slow-motion vacuum into and under the floorboards. White, unadulterated panic had finally managed to catch up to events as – in direct conflict to the rooms blinding green kaleidoscope – a creeping blackness was forming on the ceiling to the far right. Black as ink and spreading lazily downward it approached me from its corner in a languid, foreboding manner. For what ungodly reason I found this much more threatening than the zabuton-suction that was turning me into a human pretzel against the fucking persistent alien-gravity pulling and stretching against my left side.

I was filled with a fear so raw as to be almost palpable. If anything I could NOT let this black”foam” reach me. I couldn’t make sense of it but I knew that if it did all would be lost, which seemed pretty ridiculous considering everything else happening around me. As it descended ever downward I kept trying to lift myself up against the straining cushion swallowing me into the floor while gravity tugged to the left. It now had my lower body pulled into and between the floors to waist level. I wanted to scream, but now had no mouth! (Dorothy’s spiraling during the W.o.OZ hurricane had nothing on me…).

In this tug-o-war with insanity I was somehow able to wrench loose long enough to skid face forward into the sinking hardwood, my nose to the floor as I pushed hard with my forearms in an attempt to rise upward against the gravitational sink. Doing this I slipped forward as my pressed palms started ‘melting’ right into the wood, (just as if you’d run a crayon across the surface of a hot stove). The floor started to widen further and I could see that what was pulling me now was not the cushion itself but arm-thick blackish green ‘vines’ that had broken through the fabric and had entangled themselves securely past my shins and around my lower legs and waist.

I flipped out. Wanting to scream I could only wheeze. I was beyond a terror so primordial that any rationalization or bargaining power I had over my psyche was in shutdown. It would be easy to admit “I’m just a raving OD looking for an asylum”, except this was my real world with nothing drug-induced or I-know-this-is-all-a-dream- about-to-end reassurances about it.

And the room ...The room seemed to be possessed with a life all its own. It had started to ‘tilt’ back and forth at slow 45o angles pendulum-like, while folding into itself with the floor the center of a singular, evolving vortex getting smaller and smaller by degrees until all would be sucked right out of existence - a sort of Flying Dutchman among rough waters - with both this guy in front of me and I its insignificant, unwelcome guests. Nonetheless I believed somehow that if the room disappeared we would not – that we’d remain floating in an endless void of cold nothingness. Richard – or the person that no longer registered as such – was unmindful to any of this, just sitting there.
(“What IS he typing!”)

What does one do? I looked across at my beloved statue of Buddha serene in his corner and knew I’d get no help from him (what audacity on my part to even entertain that possibility!). So I found the voice of my innocence and with it returned to the source of all nurturing, starting to beg, whimper, cry and finally shrieked for my mother like the most helpless child. Yes, and far from ashamed of the fact. My friends and colleges would have scoffed at this little display and mother would have been quite impressed. It would be embarrassing to even hint at never mind admit in writing if it all wasn’t as real as concrete.

(“concrete”…yes, more about that soon…)

“MA!! MA HELP ME”. Cries of mother were all that were called for here. Nothing less would have sufficed. “I’m Dying. Ma I’m dying please!! GodBuddhaMama PLEASE!”

And then – just what I needed – the thing before me shifts and rises from its small desk and in rising it is 20 ft. tall if it’s a foot, and in turning it is not a man or Rich or even human. I am faced with what feels like (visuals still as I mentioned somewhat hazy but yet distinct in their conceptions) a giant roach/beetle thing. Stooped it practically touches the ceiling and shuffles toward me on thin, spindly “legs” bent back at reverse 90o angles peeking out from beneath a black body wrap - somewhat like a topcoat. I can now make out insect features and its wearing round rimless glasses just like my friend Rich (Who?). It has just about reached me when it stops and holds an index finger against what I guess would be defined as lips and shushes me with mild disapproval, oblivious to my choked pleadings and agitated no doubt by all the noise I make bawling like a baby and it probably can't concentrate on its all-important typing or the melodies playing around us...

…And grant me why should I find this any more bizarre with all the other normality raging around me? And what does a massive roach/beetle thing type? I just wanted to know before it reached out for what I’m sure was The Kill. Funny how our priorities shift - the questions we feel MUST be answered before what we truly believe to be our last precious seconds of life are extinguished.

And it rolled forward, not by bending straight over but by a kind of undulant, snake-like downward advance. I feel almost at peace…a relieved resignation. Finally I’m dead.

Practically touching my face, its syrupy, mandible drools fell into my lap and hands and it spoke soothingly.

“Shhhush…Quiet now…you keep up that racket and you’ll disturb all the workers…”

(Richard later divulged that during most of this I barley moved, just sat slumped over the whole time salivating a lot of green tincture/drool over my interlocked fingers and grunt or mumble occasionally. He came forward twice during what he cheerily called ‘my mama episode’ and raised the eye-fold for a quick curiosity check (“You were a sitter’s dream, just...gone.') and then reset the mask back into place. He made sure there were NO extraneous noises that could “upset” my little trip – even having shut off the CD player - and only once did I make a futile attempt to flail my arms and point and then almost fell over sideways. All I seemed to do consistently was groan.)

And then, from out of the green-red glow an octagonal wheel had now materialized in the far upper left corner, a spinning glass-like orb that is rotating and slowly accelerating. In sharper detail it is stretched out past its portal of entry creating an octagonal “tube”, like the top of a giant ice-cream cone in space. Did I just not notice this before? It seems so close I can almost reach out and touch it although it hangs suspended a good 20 feet away. Out of the orb a face appeared, then the upper half of a torso, in contrast hazy and opaque but clear enough that I was able to make out its of a small boy of about 8-10 yrs. old (!). And he looks so familiar…

'Come on! You gotta hurry come on quick!' he giggles delightedly and leans forward, his hand sticking out toward me like he was emerging out of a picture frame. He waives, beckoning for me to reach up and join him inside this flashing, spinning wheel - the only portal to safety whose risks seems far preferable to the madness of my other guest before me and the enveloping, flesh-oven floor beneath.

'Go away kid, ya' bother me!' the Roach yells up with enraged annoyance.

The boy grabs me and I'm lifted forward effortlessly as if I’d weighed nothing (and after all I was disintegrating). He looks right at me – we are nose to nose but even still his features are vague yet unsettling. I feel I know this kid, but can’t place him. He reminds me of that kid in the Dutch-boy paint commercials (?!?) He attempts to pulls me through the portal and I’m about to ask HOW as it’s getting smaller by degrees and I can’t possibly fit but all he does is cackle and first thing I feel is my right arm being stretched up and around my face, jaw and throat like a piece of wet silly putty before I‘m just folded clean backwards – halved at the center of my spine with my stomach protruding, the back of my head level with my calves. It was as if I was made of jelly and there was not a solid bone in my body, somehow completely painless yet no less horrified that I can now be so easily accordioned like a folded sheet of paper, a completely flattened, 2-dimentional version of my ’self’... halved and shelved for some new torment.

(Richard referred to this as the infamous “Salvia gravity” or “The Oxaca ‘Bends’” ... and it can be the worst experience, especially your first time out not knowing what to expect! I’m still trying today to fruitlessly get used to this. Like he always assures me: “The salvia realms are mysterious and varied...but the ride getting there is usually uncomfortable”. Try imagining 30 people or so jumping up and down and stomping their feet excitedly all over you – because you have become a Ferris wheel. The word “uncomfortable” seems to be interchangeable with “salvia” when discussing these experiences, no argument there…).

And for a microsecond I am up on the ceiling looking down at myself on the ground! Looking down as this body-on-a-cushion reaching up to me-who-was-no-longer-there because I am in multiple dimensions at once! Like being simultaneously actor and audience at the same time gauging each others performance.

I hear the kid whisper in my ear: “We’re going from the place no one wants to go…”

No shit.

And then I'm suddenly alone. The kid is gone. The room is gone. Imploded? Just disappeared? It is all just a great empty, void as if the black ooze from the room had caught up to me during my exit and had won. I am no longer conscious of inhabiting a physical body but only of pure disembodied thought being stretched out– flattened and extended out over eons at a billion miles per second. I felt a communication of some sort telling me, that not only was I disconnected from all that I had known before, but that the world I came from, my friends, my family, my previous life hadn’t really existed…ever! It felt like I had just woken up from a slumber, a warm cozy comfortable sleep, only to realize that what I had thought was physically real had been but a dream. The deities had played a terrible trick on me. Now I can acclimate to the cosmic idea of total obliteration and death (after all I am a Rinzai Buddhist), but to be somehow consciously and for all eternity AWARE of nothing but vast nonexistence - the totality of infinite abandonment - this was far and beyond the terrors of any previous concept of Christian purgatory.

FROM SIDEWALKS TO PETTYCOATS:
From the black wherever I am now lying naked in the sidewalk off the busy Mass.Ave. Intersection not two miles from my home. That's right, not 'on' the sidewalk but half-buried directly in concrete...my head, neck, and upper chest are the only body parts above ground level. I was stuck fast, immobile as half of me lies beneath and held fast into the street surface. Below lies absolute nothingness, and all I can barely manage is to swivel my head, my vision limited to the periphery.

My entire lower half lies suspended limply in what I was sure was another world or that I had not quite returned from the previous Void to this latest stop in this infinite nightmare... once again half in-half out of 2 entirely different dimensions, stuck in the middle (so to speak). When I tried to swing my legs or move my hands no feeling registered whatsoever, with the ominous realization that I had no physical connection below the surface at all. All of what was previously 'me' was now above street level, my appendages merely a superfluous outgrowth of the street surface. I was now part of a fucking sidewalk! Better to have gone back to being a flattened plain of disembodied consciousness than this.

Accessing my immediate surroundings I had been dropped off in a time-dimensional cube that seemed to be no larger than the circumference of one city block, for beyond that relative distance all I could make out was a wall of white emptiness, like the city had run head on with an enormous cloud. Also this new piece of a World was perceptibly turning ever so slowly, revolving vertically a full 18Oo but at a barely discernible rate – and through the slow, relentless spinning the traffic, pedestrians, and everything around me held fast, with no gravitational recourses.

(It seems that on salvia EVERYTHING is forever turning, churning or spinning...)

Traffic would speed by, and as soon as it passed would shrivel and blur out into the blankness, leaving subdued tracers of faint green gold as they passed. Only the buildings in my direct vision, and the vague outlines of pedestrians were visually sharp – facial details were once again blurred. And the traffic...

Traffic of not only modern vehicles as we know it zipping past at 30 or so mph but also an equal number of 1800’s type horse & buggies plodded by in this bi-dimensional time warp.

And I am not alone.

Standing directly next to me - I was literally 'at their feet' - were two women, a man and a little girl whispering pensively amongst themselves and occasionally looking down at me with barely discernable interest. The women seemed drawn and severe looking, one in particular seemed to give me the most resentful look. The man... the man in contrast had a green, cartoonish-face and towered over the other 3 by at least a foot. All wore period clothing, the women in hoop skirts and holding parasols, the man in Edwardian top hat and black tailored jacket. Only the vacant little girl – expressionless in a long flowered dress - seemed fixated at the half-interred man prostrated before her.

They stood next to Ace Wheelworks with its huge plate-glass window and were studying a rusted bicycle before them, the type you see in those old movies where the front wheel was massive and the back no bigger than a kids tricycle training-wheel. But this bike was slightly different. In place of plastic peddles it had furred goat hooves.

The Green Man turned his attention from the “bike” to me. “Nothing seems to work anymore… It can’t be helped” he shrugged.

I was about to call out and plead to them when at that precise moment there was no cause for further alarm or complaint - for I was now the little girl staring down where “I” had previously held my place in the ground. I turned around AS THE GIRL, looking at the reflection in the glass and then back down but there was no other body below - just an empty sidewalk and the flowing, hurried traffic...

When I turned and looked back up at my new mother I lived with new eyes, for I was Now, Then and Forever her only little girl…

Thoughts and projected memories reeled like I was experiencing a childhood and living it in flash-frame succession all the way from pre-adolescence to motherhood to old age all in a matter of mille-seconds. I had rapid-fire visions from playmates, friends and lovers up to what would be my three children not yet born. From marriage to old age to death, with no memory whatsoever to the thing that had previously lain at my tiny feet.
It was NOT like I was standing there reminiscing...I was actually LIVING THESE YEARS as I stood and gazed at the empty street before me. 70 years? 75? 80? It did not measure in exact time but then what did anymore? I would freeze in the moment and then barrel off to another lifetime(s).

(Getting this? Cause I wasn’t. The ability - the sheer magnitude of trying to not only comprehend but communicate this borders the impossible. I’m supposed to be a big expert on dreams and the subliminal, and after all this all I can do is stammer…
But… I know that all you salvia-orians out there will somehow understand...)

'Aaahhh Hah Hah Hah!”

On the corner by the K.F.C. side street The Little Dutch Boy has returned, pacing there, watching and laughing hysterically and slapping his knee while pulling a small Red Ryder wagon along with the other hand.

'I thought you were going HOME!' 'Hah Hah' Come ‘on I'll take ya now!”

On closer inspection the face sure didn’t match the voice, which was that of a mischievous brat, but given his size and wizened, craggy features he looked more like an old troll or leprechaun. He turns and reaches down, picking up a fluorescent orange ball from the wagon and holds it forward towards me with both hands. And I'm suddenly staring directly up in front of his face and he is now holding me with both hands squeezing my ears. I’m not an orange ball but once again the head and shoulders attachment that was formerly concreted, teleported from the street directly into his hands. Guess my stint as a little girl is over…

He keeps squeezing the sides of my head tighter and tighter, the pressure radiating downward and I’m again having this heavy tugging feeling like I remembered from another time and would hurtle straight down and to the left if he wasn't supporting me.
Again, all these impossibilities of Physics are painless…

(If I was at this point lucid I would have to say these Salvia-beings – if not this whole experience borders closely on that I experienced on DMT, except for the fact that DMT was much “clearer and cleaner” but NO LESS fantastic and far less threatening.)

'We can go home now!' a high pitched sing-song and he spins around and deposited my head/chest into the Red Ryder wagon and never stopped laughing as he ran forward with 'me' jarring in tow behind him.

THE GAUNTLET OF GUILT:
And then Paint-troll gone. Wagon gone. Mass.Ave. gone.

This time I’m running (got some legs back!) in black woods and it’s so, so black. Night was never this black. Running, running all this fucking running but the weird thing is I’m also running on a stairwell platform, or should I say attempting to outrun the stairs themselves, for they were dissolving both in front and behind me with each step taken. I started to outrun them faster and faster but the stairs would keep pace creating a disappearing cube no larger than the width of each step. Steps would materialize as I ran forward, and then disintegrate as I stepped off no matter how fast I ran. The world started spinning and churning once again and in no time I was running upside down, sideways, and at diverse 90 degree angles without ever falling, losing place – or making any kind of headway at all in this E.M. Escher pursuit to nowhere.

And then for the briefest instant my entire surroundings exploded into what seemed like some colorless celestial realm, with this monstrously large, intensely bright face covering my entire line of vision. The face before me felt comforting and maternal, and though I could not place it was for once unafraid, and I can make out just enough objects around me to see that I am momentarily back in the hermitage library I was in a zillion years ago. “Maybe I’m cresting…” I catch myself thinking and then it flashes for the first time that I am ON A DRUG. Shrooms? I’m thinking maybe shrooms but I remember smoking… I ‘m trying to look closer at this increasingly familiar face but the light is so damned bright and I have no time at all to assimilate it to my surroundings or ground myself mentally as to what has happened - or even calm myself and possibly go with the end experience in a relatively calmer manner. I’m starting to gather thoughts and then suddenly all is black once again and there is no time for any rationalization or reason…

Cut back to running, never having stopped. To either side of me there are these ashen, phantasmal strobes accompanied by a pitched hum that softened to a low throb as the strobes rapidly decelerated to where they now revealed themselves as minuscule bodies with exaggeratingly enlarged heads. Swollen to at least 10 times the comparative size the heads looked like huge cartoons, like those stupid spring-neck bobbing figures people insist on placing in their back car window for the tailgaters’ entertainment. But as the faces continued to slow and materialize they were anything but funny. I clearly recognized most, although a few – if not immediately familiar - struck cords of nostalgic recognitions...

There were no strangers.

Mother…Father…family…friends…lovers…

A gauntlet of the loved and lost.

And with each and every face flashed an instant memory where I had hurt, disappointed, or let each down in some deeply personal, irreparable way or another. I have led a diversely tainted past, but the last 20 years were exemplary ones of fond memories, reconciliations and contentment... but this little cosmic parade only proved once again that in each and every one of us are buried gilts so deep that they never recede - always lurking beneath the folds of our subconscious. On and on they went. The visions would just saunter by and I would remember and lament the lifetimes of irretrievable regrets. My angling body skittered forward on this stairway of self torment now trying to outrun these vaporous intrusions to my long worked for inner peace, trying not to look up as I could not keep up with the endless stream, and therefore had nothing to say, nothing to offer but my own hell-racked conscience that may be forgiven but could never be appeased in my own heart.

So all I could now and forever do was continue forward, and it seemed like above all else THIS was My Final Frontier. There would be no more stops along the way. This was my end, and worse than any enormous bugs, body-moldings or concreted fresh. This was the very definition of eternal punishment. Hell is the unreserved, profound despair and regret at the pain we have caused to those we love…

“NORMAL” AGAIN
And then, though in only somewhat of a state of dazed comprehension, it was like I never left. The “gravity pull” was gone, replaced now by an almost pleasant feeling of sinking into cocoon-like slumber. (Like a good kratom buzz if everything else had been left well enough alone!) I just wanted to enjoy a few moments of this brief peace before I raised my head and why are my hands all slimy... thoughts just starting to clear. It’s gotta be morning... I expected the room to look like a monsoon and I’ve got a lot of explaining to do when the caretaker arrives probably any minute from now (and with the head priest tagging along with my luck!) and Man it’s all over for my ass in this place!

But the room has held fast and is once again its own silent, contemplative self. I look toward the picture window and its still pitch dark out. And I hope to Buddha/God I didn’t damage up my eyesight permanently. I thought of a buddy of mine that once ate 30 datura seeds and how his eyes were totally fucked for three days and the hell he went through. (I can’t wait to tell him about this little evening…).

But everything seems so quiet, unambiguous and … normal.

“Helloooooo .... Bro.” the voice from the corner of the room

Here I go all over again, me fooling myself into thinking that it was all over and now thinking this could never end.... but its just good old Hippie-Rich (not Rich-Roach) smiling over at me. And I just wanted to grab that long ponytail of his and hug’m!. Am I really normal again? My eyes I’m so worried about my eyes…I want to believe everything really is ok, and I just want to go home and go home NOW.

“Rich. I’m sorry I’m always such a shit…how do you put up with me…” and I don’t know where the hell that came from and my voice sounds like it belongs somewhere else.

He just smirks and stares intently – studying me, I felt like now I was the bug under his microscope. He scoots forward and just keeps staring at me and as soon as he was certain I was at least lucid enough to warrant conversation the sonovabitch started right in without the decency to allow me my bearings, raving like he never did before. He’s just one continuously manic, pacing rant…

“Oh man if you coulda just now seen you! Biiiig tough guy …I must say you’re The Man even with your Mommy!” He makes mock terror-faces and throws punches at the air. “Ugh! Ugh! Ohhhhh! Ma! Ma!!! I coulda pissed myself, it was so priceless!”
“Hey!... Tough guy! You there?” he’s waving his arms, looking ridiculous.
“You shoulda seen you… what I woulda given for a video camera the last forty-five minutes…”

45 minutes.

Not countless lifetimes. Not a million years. Not even all night.

Just 45 minutes!?

“So...wha’d you see? Anything? I mean anything other than your ‘Mama’ (laughs). Did you see Her? Did you see this/that/ blahblahblah..' and starts in about it serves me right smoking a years worth of his salvia and he’s once again unstoppable. Mr. Comedian looks real pleased with himself, rambling tangents as he always does - proving to me above all else that everything is back to normal.

I’ve never before in my life felt so bewildered, numb and relieved all at once. I can only sit there and stare at him. I’ve got nothing to say…

I’m still worried and obsessing about any long-term affects to my vision…

'Does this cause brain fry Rich!? Christ, please for once just STOP and tell me!'

'No, no way, Jon believe me. Most just feel really humble their first time out but I'm sure that'll pass real quick in your case...' But it takes a more than a few assurances from him once he grew serious before I can let this dread go…

And this guy still wants to do shrooms!!… Is he for real!?... I just want to hit him.

I can’t listen any more to any of this. I am DONE. I tell him he can put his shrooms on a fucking pizza for all I care. I tell him in no polite terms I’ve had enough entheogens for another 20 years, and that if and when I ever did indulge again I would opt for something slightly mellower… like say an 18 hour full throttle acid trip, as no other drug ever came even close to something like this!

Acid?... If you ask me compared to The Sage you gotta be kidding…
DMT? DMT was just a Sunday afternoon practice run(well, maybe definitely not... can’t beat those aluminum-foil Keeblers. ..,-)

Fast forward past the next 15 minutes of arguing and “make-sure-you-lock-up-behind-you and Thank You and Fuck You for everything”...

I just needed to be alone…I can’t believe…

My mind is on fire!

It’s only 3 miles to my home from the Zen center, but it was the longest walk of my life. Now that it was all over I just keep checking my bearings and catch myself snickering nervously. My confidence is rapidly returning in increments. It seems like every 2 minutes and at every corner I gotta just stop and grab on to something - a signpost, piece of fence, car hood.... anything to make sure it is all once again solid, and I’m not going to be shwooshed off to some new Outland at any second. Holy Shit what a RUSH that was! The Fear is gone, replaced now by a state of vast awe. Right before I reach the corner of M- ave across from a Chicken restaurant I wonder if I’ll be greeted by ladies in parasols, bikes with feet (me in concrete!) or the sounds of troll laughter and then find myself laughing. I’m starting to feel so good maybe I should go back with funnyman and do those shrooms after all...!!

I can’t stop thinking, thinking, thinking…

45 minutes!

And Rich tells me later that was considered a long time for a salvia experience!

The enormity… the Possibilities!

Just after 2:00am I get home and pause to collect myself one more time before going upstairs to explain to my wife how 'the overnight retreat' was cancelled and I just did my own thing (boy did I) for a few hours before returning. I crept downstairs to the den for the last few hours before daybreak. Like I was even gonna try sleeping! I stop for a second – What if I’m STILL TRIPING! – about to be pulled back once again into Salviaspace and this is just a dirty Rich-Roach trick to take one or all of my family along with me. (This is what it must feel like to live life as a paranoid schizophrenic!)

Then I just start laughing again. I don’t know why but I feel so... invigorated somehow. I could’ve just drunk 10 espressos I feel so pumped up. I want to just wake up the entire world and say, “Salvia!!!”

My own private alter, Buddha and zabuton are set up in the corner not 2 feet away and no way I sitting on THAT! I’m laughing so hard now I’m sure to wake up the wife and boys. All those reports about people feeling a lift after salvia? They sure weren’t kidding, this would sure beat Prozac (“here you go sir, just hit this pipe and…”)

God I just can’t stop laughing...

45 minutes!

IN CONCLUSION:
It’s a damned good thing I had the next day off from work, as for the next 12 hours I was on auto-pilot, still completely bewildered and trying to assimilate the whole experience in my brain. The Diviners Sage had definitely put me in my place and I was and am humbled beyond all words for it. It’s now been 4 weeks, another 5 salvia journeys and counting as I transcribe this tome. I had never been so relentlessly unnerved by anything in my life, but the initial wonderment and terror have been replaced by a sense of complete veneration to the plants contemplative and Shamantic potential!

My second trip was another disaster. I did it with another friend, and he only smoked a half a leaf and spent the next 5 minutes running around his apartment looking for his head, which he assured me “they stole and it was somewhere in Chicago”. But I am nothing if not persistent, and the last four journeys since then have been some of the most positively rewarding mind-experiences of my life. I have paid my dues royally and can finally say ‘She’ is now – to quote Richard – my own Velvet Princess. Not that I would ever think of using the word “fun” in these endeavors…

It's like those Hellraiser flicks. I’ve seen all 8 of them and love them, but could never figure out - until now - why those people always came back for more... reaching out yet again and again when offered that puzzlebox from Pinhead (i.e.,'The Box... you called.. WE came!'). Now I got my own puzzlebox, if you will. I’ve recently invested enough money in leaf, extract(s) and tincture from a number of on-line suppliers that even if it goes ‘Schedule 1’ I possess enough of the sage to last me the rest of my natural life.

I can just see myself at 80… easing back on my LazyBoy recliner and taking out my
teeth before loading up the old water bong, with Richard forever (worrying) by my side…

(”Gather ‘round children, in just ten minutes Uncle will have some tales to tell…!”)

I remember in my initial haste assuring Richard that night on my way out the zendo door I would never go back to Her, that he was crazy as a loon to do THAT shit more than once…Well, here I am. After wrapping up this last paragraph I’m hitting the pipe yet again for this, Trip # 7 and counting... but carefully unlike before, with total respect and the deepest reverence – and probably always scared shitless.

(source http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=57297)

The Mind-Body Problem.

2007-12-03T16:55:00.001-08:00

The Mind-Body Problem.

The world we perceive seems to be divided into two: one being the mental formations such as pain or pleasure and the other – physical world around us. We view objects such as pencils, mountains, and other people as separate from us and yet forming an experience in our consciousness. The world is necessarily perceived subjectively and while we do seem to find ourselves in a material world outside of us, we cannot experience it objectively and thus can only rely on interpretations of our mind. Our own body is curiously perceived as somehow separate, being part of the physical world and yet intimately connected to our mind. We feel as if our minds are imprisoned in the head of our bodies and forced to experience everything the body comes to contact with through its senses. We look in the mirror and find ourselves asking “what am I?”. We see the body reflecting back to our consciousness but is it the whole picture? What is the connection between the mental experiences of the mind and the body of the physical world? That is what we call the mind-body problem.

The are a number of solutions offered by philosophers through the years but in the face of modern science many are negated. The few that still hold ground is a type identity theory favoring the materialist approach and qualia theory attempting to defend dualism. Type identity theory states that the mind is the body/brain, meaning that the mind states are identical to the brain states and in fact are the brain states. How that comes to being is not entirely known but neurology had offered us a number of undeniable insights into the inner nature of the brain/mind. Qualia on the other hand attempts to disclaim the idea that physical processes could account for what we call subjective experience and consciousness. While Qualia argument has a good point that I will describe in greater detail later in the essay, I believe that type identity theory as of today is the most logical solution.

As an argument for my thesis, namely the type identity theory – I offer the following premises:

If the brain state is identical to mind state, then by changing the brain state, the mind state should change too.
Change in the brain state does in fact change the mind state.

_____________________________________________________________________

C. Type Identity Theory is true.

What I mean by changing the brain state in this argument falls under two categories:

Brain damage that changes the physical composition of the brain.
Psychoactive drugs that change the chemical composition.

To make it more clear the argument is as follows:

-If the brain parts are(identical) the mind parts then by removing a certain brain part responsible for X, the X in the mind should also disappear.

-If one of the ways the brain works is through chemistry then by changing the chemical composition through psychoactive drugs, mental experience should change too.

Of course we cannot directly experience that the person whose brain was damaged or who took psychoactive drugs did in fact experience a change in his mind but we can have a behaviorist argument by observing the changes in behavior of a person or him describing his experience and seeing if the changes took place. One example I offer to support my premises is the fact that people who experience stroke often loose ability to speak, experiencing aphasia. That can be easily explained through neurology because the part of the brain that is often damaged Is the part that is responsible for speech thus supporting my premise by showing that the ability that was lost was identical to the brain part damaged. Another famous medical case I want to use as an example is a case of Phineas P. Gage. The details are not important but the essence of the story is that Gage’s frontal lobes were damaged as a result of accident at work and as a result changed his character dramatically. He was a religious, what we call “good man” before the accident and right after the accident suddenly stopped going to church, started doing drugs and explored the “sinful” pleasures such as gambling and prostitution. To a neurologist it is not a surprise because the frontal lobes of the brain are responsible for inhibition and it was only natural that the man would be less able to control himself after suffering the damage, thus supporting my thesis. Now I also want to bring up numerous drugs out there that are known to change perception of the world or any other mind state through chemically influencing the brain. Speed, LSD, DMT, Prozac just to name a few all can make you suddenly happy or sad, see something that was not there before or not see something that was always there, loose the self or feel like you are everything at the same time. Further there are mental disorders such as split personality disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar that are known to be caused be chemical imbalances and can be fixed by certain drugs that further prove my point. The list of known facts that support type identity theory is endless.

Qualia argument states that the fact that we experience cannot be reduced to electro-chemical neurological processes. It states that the way everything feels is a sign of something separate from the brain.

Here are a number of possible objections and my defensive arguments:

O. While the brain states influence what you experience it doesn’t change that fact that there is an experiencer(an observer).

D. The ability to observe, the consciousness, the qualia is a faculty of the brain, a byproduct of the complexity of the brain. Certain brain damages such as frontal lobotomy seem to make people loose that ability.

O. The atoms, the chemicals and any of the particulars that the brain is composed of are only related physically and do not posses qualities such as consciousness and feelings. If the particulars do not posses these qualities, how does the whole produce them?

D. While the science today cannot explain that and it remains a great mystery – it is still more likely that it does in fact happen, namely that consciousness and qualia appear as a result of complexity of interactions of particulars. The science might be able to explain it later on.

O. How do you know that the mind(the thought) is not what causes the chemical change in the brain?

D. The thought IS the chemical process and the ability to think IS a faculty of the brain and can be also reduced to chemical processes. Thinking cannot go against chemical processes. For example if I stimulate a certain part of your brain, you will experience whatever that part of the brain activates and no thinking will change that. A thought can be induced and the ability to think can be removed. Thinking is also easily influenced by stimuli, such thoughts of food will appear when hungry and seeing food. All these facts indirectly point to likeliness of type identity theory.

I will admit that we cannot know for certain what the truth of this matter is but the evidence so far seems to make type identity theory much likelier to be the truth with the help of Ockham’s razor.

Having said all that I think that it is important not to devaluate our human qualities to just chemical processes. Yes it may be true that that is in fact what they are but that doesn’t change the fact that we experience, have emotions and fall in love. Phenomenology must not be ignored. While we might be able to point to a few chemicals and say “ha-ha this is what you call love!” but that would be ignoring a 400 pound gorilla in the room, namely the vast spectrum of subjective experience.

First Salvia Trip

2007-12-03T16:54:00.001-08:00
Ok it was nothing of what i expected. I am still a little buzzed from what happened.

I did not expirience any hallucinations or i don't remember any. I felt pulled to my right with great strength. It felt like my consciousness stretched out and became a rope that was being sucked in. I was so weird that i resisted and tried to come back into my body. I completely lost the track of time or space and i started hearing a voice mentally telling me something like "come here, follow me, let go" I remember saying ok but then getting freaked out a little and resisting it resulting in me sobering up quickly. It was as if someone female gender was attempting to lead me somewhere playfully. It felt as if my heart was pulsating in the center of my head and the world pulsating with it. Hmm interesting.

Will the 2nd expirience be less unpleasant? This way of being conscious was soo unusual maybe i just need to get used to it. Whoa! I need to make sense of that feeling. AMAZING!

Review of DMT - The Spirit Molecule, by Strassman

2007-12-02T10:07:00.000-08:00
Rating: 4 out of 5

This book if anything strikes as refreshingly honest. Book market is overflowing with nonsense bias, generalizations, simplifications, wishful thinking and lack of healthy skepticism/logic. This book does not fall under that category. If you want an honest book on the topic without cherry picking - this book is for you.

The errors of his research in my opinion was:
1. He picked too many New Agers in a negative sense of the word as his volunteers, which in turn resulted in unreliable interpretations of the expirience coming from them. People who are prone to "magical thinking" interpret what they see in very twisted ways that might have to do 0% with the truth and 100% with what they want it to be.
2. He himself was influenced by Buddhism as he openly admits in the book which in my opinion limited his views.
3. The only "tests" that were done were things like blood pressure and summary of the expirience on dmt by the volunteers which in my opinion is
far too limited.

What should have been done in my opinion in terms of volunteers to be given DMT is inviting ONLY MDs, Philosophers, Artists and (as he did do) Experienced drug users. And most importantly all the volunteers have to be completely free of religious, spiritual or philosophical dogma for the reasons of preventing wishful thinking interpretations and bias. Volunteers have to be able to either have excellent reasoning and skeptical abilities in case of philosophers to provide possible theories, or ability to draw what they saw in case of artists, or MDs in Psychiatry to provide some possible biological explanations. In short - talented individuals with excellent abilities in their fields.

Again the biggest flaw in the experiment in my opinion was that the drug was given to people of average to low intelligence with high inclination to religion, wishful thinking and magical thinking resulting in summaries of the expirience that have little value.

Skipping(short story)

2007-11-14T13:06:00.000-08:00

“Skipping”

I still remember that moment. I was standing in the middle of Times Square facing the entrance of one of the biggest ToysRUs stores in New York and holding my friends hand, gazing curiously into his eyes and rapidly analyzing what was about to happen. I anticipated that whatever we were about to do would not be in accord with anything that defined me and yet in perfect harmony with what I always wanted to become. I was standing soaking in anxiety and high on that pleasant feeling you get when you know that you are about to eat the forbidden fruit. I felt every defense mechanism in my psyche try to stop me but the other side of me – that rebellious shadow side far outweighed my usually modest nature; I wanted to conquer that weakness that restrained me for so long - I wanted freedom.

It all started with my friend saying “grab my hand!” whilst playfully gazing into a crowd of New Yorkers. Before I became conscious of it, my hand was already firmly placed in his. I knew that he was a little crazy and often lacked the feeling of embarrassment to stop him from certain norm defying activities and it is precisely that trait that I envied. Far too long I felt like a prisoner of my own mind, the prisoner of fear. Far too long my real self was masked by this persona that I always despised. I wanted to be me! I wanted to be unique, different, an individual! I planed to break free and I knew that this was my chance. I felt my chest fill with a rebellious tingling feeling and my mind filled with vigor. I moved my sight away from my friend, away from hesitating and gazed forward unto the crowd.

I noticed his body take an interesting shape; it was as if he was about to jump. “Oh no!” - I thought. He was about to skip! And what’s worse we were not alone! I was with him and the world was watching. It was one of these existential moment when the ability of self reflection becomes a curse. I could feel the eyes of the crowd as if they were red dots of laser scopes pointing directly at my heart. Their judgment was fast and unforgiving but I did not care. I sensed my arm rising as my friend took the first jump and to my surprise - I followed. We were skipping through the crowd and into that fun building in front of us.

I started laughing and it felt good! With every leap I became more and more comfortable and excited. I was perfectly aware of how we were perceived from the outside; two young adults, holding hands and skipping along the alleys of ToysRUs. I did not even attempt to try and count how many norms we were breaking. I wanted everyone around me to just let go, sing whatever was on top of their heads and skip around along with their children. Of course that did not happen.

There were only three types of reactions. Some giggled and expressed curiosity; some looked at us as if we were monkeys at the zoo and some showed no reaction whatsoever, appearing as if they had seen it all in their life time and there could be nothing that would raise even a hint of surprise in their tired eyes.

Once inside, we had to stop skipping due to massive amounts of people. I was still laughing, taking a break only to say “bro, you are fucking crazy!” to my friend every few seconds. In fact I probably said it about 15 times in that minute alone. He knew I was just saying it out of shock of what just happened and he knew that I loved him for initiating what we did; after all it was not the first time I said that to him.

We explored deeper into the store. I remember walking past hundreds of toys and feeling the urge to continue the adventure we started. After a few seconds of scanning the area for potential fun we both found ourselves fixed on a pink baseball toy hat. I approached it, grabbed the nearest one and put it on my friends head. We both burst into laughter. I took another one and put it on myself. Then I took a little children’s baseball bat with a few small balls and handed another bat to my friend. We looked like two overgrown kids but that was the idea!

We were about to have some fun playing a rather gay version of baseball but something else caught our sight. We noticed a few kids trying to spin plastic rings around their waists. Some(mostly guys) looked as if they were having sex with the air while their ring hopelessly kept dropping to the floor but girls seemed to show a decent skill; some could even spin three rings at a time and all in different locations on the torso. Without much thought we dropped the bats but still keept the pink hats for the entertainment factor and approached the basket with the rings.

My friend was not much of a gymnast… He looked like a flapping fish out of the water trying to find its way back. The sight was hilarious; I think it will be forever imbedded in my brain. It was now my turn. I took the ring and actually managed to make it spin a few times around my waist before it hit the ground. After a few more attempts I realized that even a 5 year old could do better then me so stopped embarrassing myself any further and put the ring back where it came from. I turned my sight unto my friend and to my amazement found him persisting with determination. It was amusing to see someone have such a serious face doing something so silly. Kids were tapping their mothers and pointing at us, while their faces were glowing with joy and laughter.

That day was a big step for me. It became an emergency memory for when I feel like life is not worth living and everything is hopeless. All I need to do is to remember that day; the children, the smile of my friends face and the euphoric feeling inside and the melancholia goes away. It became like a pleasant dream withered by the tolls of time and made vivid only in the face of a nightmare. That day had shown me a way out of the crippling forces of society, the norms dictated by the masses, television and parents. It had shown me a path to my true self and the sights of freedom on the horizon. Since then much of me had changed but there is one aspect that remained and it is the ability to take a deep breath and genuinely cry out “I am me!” and that is all I need. As for my friend – he often talks to me about that day when he is down. It is a memory that shall bind us forever in a tight grip of friendship.

Buddhism Wirthdrawl.

2007-11-14T13:05:00.000-08:00
Hi guys! I quit Christianity in hopes that i would rid myself of mind disease forever to only eventually be lured into Buddhism(another mind disease). I guess i could not live without meaning and a new set of beliefs which is i think quite natural to humans(human, all too human!). What attracted me at first was their anti-god and anti-Christianity attitude that prevailed throughout the followers that seemed to nurture my own hate towards those concepts.

Back then i was still a little brainwashed into thinking that there must be a true religion of some kind of divine origin, an ultimate truth. Basically i was still naively led by my desire of order. I feared chaos that would result in a world where everything is permitable and there is nothing that punishes that bad deeds or rewards the good. My mother being very "spiritual" conditioned me to desire to stay within the label "spiritual". I figured maybe Christianity was wrong but some other religions were not. I sleeked meaning and order so hard that eventually i was lured into the beautiful myth of Buddha who was enlightened and shared that objective truth of reality with us. I was promised happiness, rewards in new life and this one. I was promised answers that i could find myself.

I learned the four noble truths, i learned of many traditions and being quite philosophically inclined i found myself spending quite a lot of time trying to understand all the teachings. I learned to meditate. Back then i had many questions but i had faith that the Suttas and the Meditation will give me answers. A year passed and then another. There were only more questions and more contradictions but i still had faith. The hierarchy was supposed to have all the answers and it took me a long time to realize they didn't.

While studying Buddhism and practicing i found myself become more passive, less human, sometimes depressed and even contemplated on suicide(purely logically and mostly driven by the first noble truth - life is suffering). I was conditioned more and more to have aversion towards life and that only practice will save me - not even death can liberate. Right now i see many traditions of Buddhism as a direct road to suicide if only one element is removed - rebirth. The fear of rebirth is the only thing that keeps many Buddhist from suicide. I even know a few friends whose relatives suicided dew to Buddhism. The interesting fact is that whilst i was semi-depressed and passive i knew that i was supposed to be "happy" as seen on pictures of Buddhists masters. They always market Buddhism as the road to happiness. So i lived the illusion of happiness. I denied any feeling of unhappiness and pretended i was. Sometimes when i got way too depressed i just thought that it was due to my lack of practice and that only Buddhism would make me happy.

Any criticism of Buddhism i just rejected with some arbitrary and obscure quote that deep inside i knew was not really understood by anyone. They all claimed truth was "beyond words" and i believed them. Every time the quote did not make sense i thought that the truth was beyond so i just blindly accepted them. After a while i intellectually understood all the concepts like no-self and co-dependent origination and the four noble truth and the rest of it. But what hit me much later is that those concepts were not that "deep" or helpful. They were just some concepts by some philosophers that may or may not be helpful but i took them as some kind of divine truth. I reached some progress in meditation but i soon admitted that in fact i hated that state- it was a state of a veritable where life looses all color.

I pretended as if Buddhism was some kind of secret to life and happiness, some kind of sacred knowledge that only a few had karma to understand. I even got some Buddhist friends that i went to Buddhist class with and i found them acting happy even tho they weren't but i denied what i was seeing.

My cure was started with a book - an autobiography of one of masters where he explains that he is just a regular human and other make him to be all that. I started doubting the whole hierarchy. Another trigger to make me question was my best friend who couldn't take it anymore seeing what Buddhism was doing to me and just openly criticized me intensely. At first i got angry but now i thank him from all heart.

Soon another college semester started and luckily i was taking Psychology, Philosophy and Anthropology. I was faced with concepts like relativism, neurology, materialism, epistemology and i was learning to be more skeptical and "outside of box" type thinking.

My interest in Psychology and Philosophy grew and i found myself to be quite intelligent and talented in it. I still have hard to believing that back then i was a Buddhist - how the hell did i fall into that trap? I consider myself intelligent but i guess it has little to do with that. It is just a play on our desires of order and meaning. We fear chaos, uncertainty and permanent death.

The next and final step was Nietzsche, Sarte and other Existential philosophers that knew perfectly well how i felt and showed me another way to cure it - through freedom, choice and responsibility. Through individuality and facing of truth, through accepting rather then running away. Through giving life my own meaning and my own goals. Through new ideals.

Well that basically more or less brings us to where i am right now. And it is time for some criticism. I don't want to go into details but i will just list some things i find terribly wrong.

Anti-reason movement.
Belief in magical karma.
Aversion towards life.
Rebirth.
Belief in Enlightenment.
Mindfulness as promised to cure all problems while generally only creating more strain on the mind.
Meditation being promised a cure for many psychological problems which it never solves or does only temporary.
Belief that life IS suffering.
Belief that desire is bad causing people to get depressed(no desire = depression easily)
Non-dual teachings that make people passive, indifferent and easily fallen under suppression of government(although always denied and instead marketed as being a source of compassion, truth and wisdom).
Master-student relationship where student follows everything blindly.
Belief that all bad things are caused by Karma and that one should not be cured but left to suffer to "purify" oneself.
Selfish escapism.
Impossible ideals that only cause inner tension as they go against our nature and cause us to suppress the shadow to amazing extent.
False hope given to people.
Self righteousnesses.
Masked utilitarianism.
Constant chase of happiness resulting in paradox because when you chase happiness it causes sadness. Happiness only happens as byproduct but never as the goal.
Thinking of this reality as almost hell(what Nietzsche would criticize as other worldly religion)

Everything Buddhism promised had only resulted in the opposite effect.

If anyone had similar experiences - please share. Any comments are welcome except if you are gonna tell me that "i just got Buddhism wrong and misunderstood". I was one of these people telling others this kind of comments and believe me no- i got it right. I studied Buddhism long and hard and gave it plenty of chance. I was always leading philosopher in all my Buddhist classes.

Today i am very glad to be free of it. I am much more happier, realistic and enthusiastic about life. I am a Psychology/Philosophy major and perhaps psychology had became my religion but hey at least it is practical.

Thank you for reading, please comment.

Arguement against predeterminism.

2007-11-11T20:25:00.001-08:00
Also as response to predeterminists,

If we are purely biologically and sensationally determined and there is no free will then explain to me why there is such phenomena as people refusing to have sex for religious purposes, people sacrificing themselves out of principles and so on. That goes against both reproduction and survival mechanisms.

That was my biological determinism argument and now my causation argument,

If will is simply a response to a particular cause then what is a response to multiple causes? There seems to be an infinity of environmental causes on the mind. Are you saying we are programmed with infinity of responses that happen upon every possible cause? That seems highly unlikely. It is more likely that we have a faculty in the brain that serves a function of evaluation of the choices and its consequences based on perceived causes from the environment. If you say that our choice is always something our mind is programmed to perceive as "the best" then explain to me why i choose to slack of very often instead of doing certain work that would improve my rank in society, give me access to more potential mates and increase my chances of survival. Why in face of all those possible benefits i still choose to slack of many times? Obviously it is because we can know the best outcome and still choose the inferior.

Thus we have free will.

What is free will?

2007-11-11T18:15:00.000-08:00
Logic prefers extreme opposite such as
YES-NO
BLACK-WHITE
EVIL-GOOD
NEGATIVE-POSITIVE etc.

But the reality is always somewhere in between and relative. The inclination towards extremes often leads us to error. I want to explore what i consider a common contemporary collective error in psychology, namely - Free Will. Some say it exists and some some it doesn't. Those who say it doesn't tend to believe in predeterminism and those who say it does tend to fall under illusion of complete freedom of choice. The truth is - it is neither complete free will not complete lack of it. Yes we do have choice and yes sometimes we don't and the major deciding factor is not time. I believe the right question should be - to what degree do we have free will as opposed to simply logic yes/no type of question? Because its existence seems kind of obvious if we look at it purely phenomenologically.

Some people claim humans have free will and animals don't and again i think such statement flows out of cognitive errors of extremes. I think Free Will is like Heat - there are degrees to it. For example rock has 0 to 1 of free will out of 12. A plant might have something like 1-2. An ant something like 3-4. Dog 5-6. Ape 7-8. Human 9-10. Of course this is just a random guess and is probably far from truth but i think you get the point.

I believe we have potential to reach - 11 out of 12 and that is the meaning of artificial evolution and our involvement with AI and genetic engineering. Perhaps we will achieve that kind of freedom through genetically manipulating ourselves or perhaps by creating an extremely advanced robot with AI that is completely free of emotions and follows pure logic.

The next question is what is free will and is reaching 12 possible or even beneficial. If we analyze what we call free will - we usually define it as freedom to make a decision. But we always make the choice that we consider the best. We never choose something we consider inferior to the better choice. So is free will the ability to compare and contrast possible choices and follow the best solution? In that case the degree of free will is once ability to think of the most possibilities and come up to the best decision. But in that case what is the criteria for the best decision? Is it the self benefit or the benefit of others? Again altruism vs selfishness is a kind of extreme and the truth is probably in some kind of trade of. Altruism without too much sacrifice to self preservation or perhaps self preservation without too much altruism. What is better? That is a question for another topic.

If free will is ability to come to the best decision and the best decision is that which benefits oneself and others then it is not entirely free is it? Because it will always depend on the greatness of the decision. If one cannot choose an inferior choice but always follows the best then it is slavery to the best outcome. So if one truly does have free will one must be freely able to decide to follow the inferior choice. But why would he? Why would anyone consciously follow a choice that is inferior? A great paradox.

Let us redefine free will then - free will is choice independent of anything; a freedom in itself. It is no longer dependent on best choice but we must admit that the person will still be at least conscious of what is the best choice. Let us assume then that he has no drive whatsoever to choose the best choice but rather chooses without any criteria. Would that not define chaos itself? So pure free will(that of 12) is essentially pure chaos.

Is something like that beneficial and worth striving for? World of being with a 12 degree freedom would not sustain itself. There must be some kind of criteria for choice that one follows.
But we come back to that same problem- if one always chooses the best choice then free will can be redefined to pure slavery to the best choice. Again we are met in paradox.

Perhaps a solution is a being that is fully aware that acting without criteria for choice would be its own undoing and thus chooses to follow the criteria of the best choice while still having the ability to disobey. Alas now we are getting closer to the truth!

Also i forgot to include other beings. So far i was exploring the being as if it would be the only being with free will in the entire universe. Put him with 10 others and suddenly we see that what is best choice for him might be met with disagreement by others. Others might consider something else as the best choice. The only outcome in such people would be war.

What is the solution? The only solution i see is connected collective unconscious that itself would become a totally new being, kind of like how we are made of hundreds of cells. This collective being would evaluate all the "best choices" and come up with best choice+ that all must follow. Again we come to a new paradox - that would be slavery to best choice+ and not freedom.

The solution i see is again the kind of beings that would be aware of the best choice+ but still have the freedom to disobey but still mostly acting in accord just for collective preservation. But what would be the use of such an ability - to disobey. Out of principle of having free will? Then the free will is simply ability to rebel in a negative way. Thus free will is simply an ability to become a criminal? Does not make it sound all that great now.

A robot can be programmed to do what is best for itself without any self awareness and my definition of free will must include some kind of self awareness. Without self awareness it would be no different then a regular PC. In its case the best decision for the PC would be to do whatever i tell it to do and thus it has free will according to that logic. But it doesn't. It must be conscious of itself following what i tell it to do and not simply conscious but with ability to disobey.

Is it possible for a robot to be self aware without ability to disobey? Would it still constitute as free will? The more i go into this the more problems i raise.

Let us now add another factor - emotion.
Some people take emotion as the opposite of rational and logical. But i think emotion is just rationale with motivation attached to it. For example we can simply find the best solution but why would we follow it and not just choose to stay here until we die. We need some kind of motivation and emotion does just that. When our body feels its rational to drink water - we feel thirst(dopamines) which motivates us and then rewards us when we drink enough with endorphines. The emotion can be redefined as simply a collection of physiological responses to a particular rational decision. For example when one is angry - he judges situation as threatening to his self and releases a number of chemicals to motivate and prepare him for battle or defense. Of course it is only one of many possible rationales that anger is a result of but nevertheless my point is that emotion is not irrational but in fact it is very rational if we judge if from criteria of biological drives to reproduce and survive and many other once.

Perhaps it is in emotion that the key lies. If we define emotion as a certain judgment on the universe and the "feeling" it entails(collection of chemicals we perceive) then it is perhaps possible to make a number of those "feelings" in robots and thus make the best choice a little harder and give more variety to the choices. Perhaps the answer is in eliminating the objective best choice and rather make it as a bunch of subjective choices that are more or less equal. Perhaps the key is that while a person does one thing, he is also responsible for thing he does not do as Sarte stated in his philosophies. For example i can choose to go into biology or programming or become an artist but what is the best choice? If i choose art - i will not do science and visa versa. Therefore a choice will always entail an infinity of choices i did not make.
With no one objective truth and the best choice comes a variety of subjective choices that may be perfectly equal in their own way. Which is better art or science? Perhaps that is the key. The subjective expirience and emotions give rise to free will. Perhaps emotions are criterias for rationale. Is it possible then that rationale is not uniform but rather diverse? Is it possible that the existence of one best choice does not exist and thus giving rise to beautiful flower of free will that we all share?

On free will.

2007-11-11T16:54:00.001-08:00
Hmm, since i am free of the "religion virus" and entered into a world of free thought; there arised a new question. What before was a question inquiring into the existence of God is now the question of free will; namely - Is there free will?

My faith had shifted from that of divine order to the artificial order created my men and technology. I no longer have faith in anything but our own wit. If we are to survive and change the world for the better, we have only our own minds to rely on - that i am confident. I had prayed, meditated, asked, begged, but was answered with only a deafening silence of the indifferent universe. I am awake; but not in the sense of the Buddha but rather the sense of my own freedom and responsibility. I see death as inevitable and most likely the end of me and with it the world. It might come tomorrow or perhaps in 200 years but the only thing stopping it from happening the next moment is circumstances, my will, the will of others and my unconscious. If the driver decided to run over me - i will be dead. I rely on his will for my safety as he relies on his from mine. It is a sacred balance of survival. What i do unto others they might do unto me and thus i only do good with only faith in them keeping the other side of the contract.

I speak of free will but it leaps to great assumption of its existence, but does it really exist? Phenomenologically speaking - of course it does! - we perceive it, at least we think we do. But the second we analyze neurology behind what we call the self or the mind we arrive to a more complicated answer. The more i study psychology the less space i see for free will and yet it exists and this post is its proof! From my limited knowledge i can only conclude in contrary to the comforts of logic that it does and doesn't exist at the same time like with most question of existential nature. It does exist in terms of having a choice, freedom, ability to create something new but at the same time it doesn't because the choice, freedom and creativity are limited. Limited by conditions, biology, enviorment, society, drives, beliefs etc. The list is endless.

There are people who have less freedom and more freedom and by freedom i mean the ability to step beyond the natural response to the stimuli. Perhaps the amount of freedom depends on a personal choice to either follow the instincts or struggle against them or perhaps it is a matter of training or maturing or maybe it is biologically predetermined.

I do not doubt free will but i also do not doubt its limitations and i think it is our duty to strive for more freedom and especially freedom from our (unconscious) selves. Be it through genetic engineering or AI or by means of self mastery - if we are to truly live we must live free of nature itself.

Do not read ANY book.

2007-10-27T11:39:00.000-07:00
Life has limited hours but an virtually limitless number of great books. In this age of information we must change our strategies of reading. Do not just read a book because your friend said its good. Do not read it because it had good reviews. Do not read it because you had heard of it a lot. Do not read it out of habit of finishing books you start. Do not read all the book just to prove to yourself that you can.

Create priority list and stick to it. Some books are more important for you then others. Some topics more beneficial for your situation. If you notice that the book is useless for you, drop it. If it does not interest you, there is no reason to continue reading it. Some books are not worth the trouble. Some are written in a way that takes more time to understand that is worth the benefit of understanding.

If you keep reading uninteresting books you will loose the motivation to read altogether. Some books are just not the right time to read. For example reading war and peace at age of 10 might be an overkill...

Do not read bestsellers because they are bestsellers. Anyone who had been reading long enough will tell you that the best books are read far less then shitty wishful thinking everything is simple books like "you can heal your life" by Louise Hay. While gazillions of people had read that book only few had read books that really could help like books by noted psychologists such as Freud and Carl Jung or Viktor Frankl.

Truth will set you free, read books on truth and not on what you want the truth to be.

Finally some things and especialy in philosophy are better to read in chewed and digested form because reading an original might just not be worth your time. Although in many cases it is. You decide.

When Buddhism Becomes Escapism or On Paradox of Emotions.

2007-10-27T09:58:00.001-07:00
Chasing happiness is like chasing the horizon. The more you chase it, the further it retreats. Happiness comes as a byproduct but it never comes when looked at as a goal. It is an amazing paradox of human emotion. The more one reflects on the quality of his life, the more one gets depressed but once one just accepts the current situation as it is, suddenly happiness comes by itself.

The reason i use the words "human emotion" is because the paradox applies to virtually every human emotion. For example the more one tries to not be afraid or embarrassed, the more likely one will expirience the emotion. Sometimes a best way out is to simply notice the emotion and let is pass away by itself or there is another trick. One can simply act as if he does want to expirience emotion even though it did not come by choice. For example if one is embarrassed, wanting it to go away will only make it worse but if one tells oneself "I want to be embarrassed" it goes away by itself rather quickly.

Why this paradox happens is an interesting phenomena. Perhaps it happens because emotions and reason are tightly interwoven or to put it simply - emotions are judgments whether conscious or unconscious.

Emotions had evolved for a reason and one can identify its functions by reflecting to its causes. For example anger is usually rooted in a wounded ego. If the ego feels threatened one gets angry it acts as a motivator to prepare for defense or attack. It had served as greatly as a survival tool in the past. So what is the judgment here? The judgment is "my ego(pride) is hurt and i need to defend it" therefor i need to become angry to do something about it. One you know why your judgment on the situation is, you can reverse the judgment, for example tell yourself that "he didn't mean to hurt my ego and there is no need for conflict" or something like "there is no reason to get angry here" or "i have no right to be angry. Emotions are not some blind forces, they are tightly related to reason in fact what distinguishes them from reason is only that they are a result of rational that is mostly unconscious.

Now in this case if you tell yourself "don't be angry, it is wrong or bad" or "i don't want to be angry, go away" you will only create a judgment that will make you angry at yourself as a result and thus the paradox. Anger is not bad or negative, it is a tool of survival it means us good and so does every other emotion. The unconscious acts in a way that it thinks will benefit you the most and sometimes it is up to the conscious to fix it by reevaluating the judgment. It is never the right attitude to run away from an emotion or to be aversive to it. That will only make it worse for you.

Now i will go on to the second part of the topic - Buddhism. Buddhism can act as a perfect set up for this trap of paradoxes. For example it puts all emphasis on the chase for happiness and retreat from suffering. While i do not think it is what Gautama Buddha taught, it seems to be the expression it takes for many people. Chase for happiness would create depression as a paradox that i explained previously and chase out of suffering is impossible because it is part of life and aversion to it will again sink one even deeper into depression. It is bad enough that we suffer but to think "suffering is bad, i should be happy" is again a kind of self judgment that will put one even deeper into melancholy. As you can see it is a three leveled trap.
1. Chase for happiness and the paradox that reverses the effect.
2. Aversion to suffering and life.
3. Self judgment that one should not be suffering but be happy which is a negative judgment towards the self and thus creating more melancholy.

These traps can be seen in beliefs such as:
1. Enlightenment is when there is no more rebirth which is inevitably plain suffering. This kind of belief entails that life is bad in itself and one must try to end it but suicide will not end it because one will be reborn in hell and thus suffer even more causing one fear.
2. You are here as a result of ignorance which connotates some kind of inherent flaw in the character and aversion to life itself.
3. Second noble truth - there is a way out of suffering which implies that suffering can be escaped which is an illusion.
4. Teachings that make certain emotions "good" and certain "mara" or delusion, like anger would be mara or better know to westerners as "evil" and compassion would be good. This type of attitude creates aversion to certain emotions that are inevitable and part of once psyche.

This is the only list that comes to mind right now but it is far from over. Now what i think Buddha taught is this:
1. Suffering is inevitable part of life and by accepting it and embracing it one ceases to suffer because of it.
2. There is great responsibility in life and ever actions entails consequences on both oneself and others.
3. You have freedom of choice and it is up to you to become aware of what you can and cannot do.

8-fold path can be seen as suggestion Buddha gives on things to be aware of like speech, actions, thoughts and so on.

The importance of variety in your philosophical diet.

2007-10-27T09:30:00.000-07:00
I had fallen to various cognitive traps during my life. The traps of beliefs and outlooks on life preached by certain religions or philosophers. The traps of believing that there is only one truth, one outlook on life and most erroneously that i somehow discovered and possessed it. Today i awoke to the importance of the broad spectrum of human thought and the variety of lenses one can use to look through at life.

The variety is essentially important for the development of critical faculty of the brain. It provides an array of radically different ideas that contradict and yet somehow are all true and make perfect sense in their own context. Such conflicts of ideas train the mind to not get attached to one single idea or perspective falling under an illusion of ordered universe but rather to awaken to the truth of chaos and slowly but firmly begin to adopt. It trains one to choose the best ideas to particular situations as opposed to using the same mindset to tackle problems with the concept that is not equipped to be a key to every problem. No key is a key to everything but rather a perfect key to a certain lock. It is up to us to find the right key to our situation in life.

Identification with a Hero Archetype.

2007-10-20T16:18:00.001-07:00
It dawned on me that much of suffering or the lack of meaning of thereof in psyche of the modern man can be cured by identification with a hero archetype. Once a person identifies with a hero, his suffering no longer feels meaningless but the opposite - necessary for his existence and thereby not as a hindrance to his happiness but an essential element. It becomes a challenge to his existence but in no way limiting his happiness, it expends its definition and becomes part of happiness and meaning in his life.
Such phenomena does not have to be imagined heroes of myth, it can be great individuals of our world that were known to had suffered with the same condition. For instance if one is suffering with bipolar disorder and finds out that this particular famous and well achieved person suffered from the same condition, it somehow incurages the person to go on with feeling of meaning in spite of the condition knowing that someone else had suffered the same thing and yet it did not stop him for archiving great things.

The Modern Myth

2007-10-20T15:47:00.001-07:00
Carl Jung once said "a person is not complete without a myth to live by". The quote prompted a birth of a new idea to my consciousness. Perhaps the Myth, or at least the desire for myth is not lost in our modern and highly scientific society. Perhaps it is like Carl Jung himself expresses such a concept "it merely got new names". Perhaps the reason for such popularity of video games in our culture is a direct result. People NEED the myth to live and they find it, at least temporary in such phenomena as video games, books, New Age beliefs. If the urge for Myth is not expressed, it takes a form of neurosis what Viktor Frankl calls "Existential Vacuum" or simply put a feeling of emptiness, a lack of meaning.
For a indigenous society every action has meaning. They work for purpouse and suffer for purpouse defined by the Myth. Their existence is filled with meaning. In contrast to our society where we have everything but lacking and them where they have nothing but feel content, the former is better.

Religious Justification

2007-09-30T17:33:00.000-07:00
I would like to raise a question about certain types of religious justifications that are considered adequate for knowledge and question whether such type of knowledge can be at all considered knowledge and question if such justifications are always moral or wise.

For a believer in Abrahamic religion a typical justification for his knowledge is "it has been written in my religious text which was written by God therefore it is truth." or something similar. Of course such justification assumes that there is a God and that God wrote the Text and that God never lies. The text could have been written by regular people(claiming to be God or deluded to be God) for all we know and thus be a bunch of speculation and even lies.

Buddhist use this same justification for their spiritual "knowledge" although they also add a justification that "you can verify it yourself". I commonly observed this practice. Many people say that you should not believe in X(any superstitious belief in Buddhism) but verify it yourself.

Assuming this X is true and can be verified, is it right for a person who has not verified it himself assume that it can be verified for all we know the Buddha himself never verified it but simply claimed he did and all who followed assumed it can be verified. Is this not possible? This justification thus cannot be adequate for knowledge. Therefore no one here can claim that he knows unless he is enlightened but since he can not prove his enlightenment he cannot claim it. Thus we cannot trust anyone who claims he Knows. Is it possible that "you can verify it" claim is simply a psychological trick to lure us into illusion of knowing by saying that all those doubts will disappear but what if they never do?

Now why am i raising this issue? Why do i claim it is immoral and unwise? I set this example for this purpose:

Suppose i now start a religion called Killany and i have this religious text called Killallnow. I use the same type of justification and claim that it was passed to me by God and thus is true. The text claims that to reach enlightenment one must kill everyone else and thus prove to be the strongest to the eyes of god and be rewarded with enlightenment. I also say that this can be verified by killing a young child, after which there will be a vision revealing the truth. The text goes further to say that all morality is MARA and is work of the devil to trick us from achieving enlightenment.

Now in this example i used the same type of logic used by many of you here and in the world in general. Can such justification ever be adequate? I do not think so. We must realize that we really do not know. And this is all i want to say.

Missing something and getting it back.

2007-09-30T11:06:00.000-07:00
I was in a complete peace of mind for about two month. I was happy and nothing bothered me, even at work. When college started, something started to happen and i lost it. Ever since i tried to figure out why my old way of being returned to torture me. I started feeling insecure about myself again, unacceptive of my situation, not loving myself, complaining about everything, not setting my priorities right, waisting time online, not getting a job, spending too much money. Worst of all when i had a peace of mind i complained even though it was the greatest blessing one can have.

Maybe i had peace of mind for so long that i started taking it for granted, forgetting the amount of work i had to do to get there. I stopped praying, doing gratefulness exercise, mindfulness exercise, not-self exercise, loving kindness meditation, insight meditation, nonjudgmental attitude exercise, positive thinking exercise.

Had i become one of those people whom learn and learn about all the things to make one healthy but never put them to use? Indeed it is foolish.

It is time to go over the things i am grateful and love myself for who i am! I like the now whatever shape it takes! No more criticizing or judging myself or others or the now!

Fallacy

2007-09-29T09:23:00.000-07:00
Reading my intro to psychology book i stumbled upon an article about common fallacies in regards to evolutionary psychology and genetics.
Naturalistic fallacy - assumption that what nature does is moral and good and should be kept that way(like survival of the fittest, social Darwinism, etc.)
Predeterministic fallacy - assumption that genetic composition of human being directly influences behavior.

Reading this article made me realize another fallacy, common among spiritual seekers. I will call it Ancient Wisdom fallacy - assumption that what is old is wiser and truer then the new philosophies. For example people always look at ancient religious texts for wisdom and truth. They assume people in the past somehow knew better. I think this trend can be linked to the conditioning by our culture equating wisdom with age. When we say wisdom, an image of bearded men sitting in thinker position come to mind. Movies also had a role in this with all the fiction about mysteries of the past, especially Egypt. Depicting ancient Egypt as a land of Wisdom and artifacts and sacred knowledge.

Ideal education system in the age of information.

2007-09-16T12:58:00.001-07:00
We are living in an age of Information and the old ways of education do not seem to be efficient anymore.

We have an easy access to any bit of information. Memorizing all the information is no longer
1. Possible
2. Necessary
and due to limitation of our brain
3. Efficient

There is no longer a point(and arguably never was) to memorize countless facts about out world because they can be accessed within seconds. If we examine typical high school student and ask how much he actually remembers after he was finished with his regents the results would probably be eye opening, it would be close to nothing. A person will never learn unless he wants to by either finding it interesting or relevant to his survival or happiness. If the point of high school is to covey to us facts about the world - it is failing badly and it will never succeed by forcing facts simply because of human nature.

If the point of education system is to ready us for a life of career in a sense of proper habits, and endurance to information, it had failed in that sense too. Most students only learn how to cheat the system, slack of and still get by. The only habits students learn is how to be lazy and still pass classes and on top of that they form an idea that the only reason to learn anything is to pass a test and of course shortly after the test the information is forgotten.

Having finished high school i had not acquired neither knowledge nor how to acquire knowledge myself, nor how to think for myself and create my own ideas nor the proper habits to efficiently deal with information.

I propose a new system a system where the aim is to produce free thinkers and create a generation of creative and efficient work force.

In my opinion forcing facts down children throat is useless nor is necessary. We merely need to train them
1. How to acquire information they might need in the future
2. How to efficiently memorize it if needed
3. How to think for themselves, create new ideas and question everything around them
4. Proper habits of dealing with information(how to study efficiently and manage time and so on)

My view might be bias but i believe, the majority of time in school should be spent on psychology and philosophy and creative arts. On topics such as happiness, morality, spirituality and so on and most importantly how to question them and come up with their own ideas and conclusions. Before we give kids tools of knowledge we need to teach them first how to be human beings, how to be happy and how to apply that knowledge in a creative efficient way. What use is someone who knows math but is clueless to how to create new theories or simply how to manage his time and even more importantly be happy.

In conclusion- we need people who can think. We don't need walking servers of information - we have computers for that.

The brain and the spirit.

2007-09-16T12:39:00.000-07:00
I was thinking about how brain is responsible for personality and many many things so with the brain dead the personality, memories and so on are dead too, or so it seems. But what if the Brain is only sort of a medium through which "the spirit" is able to express itself in the physical world. What if this body, this brain and so on is only a tool and with parts of the brain dead, the spirit is very limited to expressing itself. Perhaps even the need to express and the expression itself is purely brain fabricated and the spirit is a sort of emptiness. Perhaps loss of certain brain parts or brain itself is sort of like loosing the eyes. The world is still there, it is just there is no more ways to visually perceive it. We know what it looked like before but there is no way to see it.
But the consciousness and the "I" is not lost with the loss of eyes. It had only lost one of its tools of perception. Perhaps loss of brain or brain parts is also a loss of tools of perception or in the case of death a total loss of tools to exist in the physical world but something is still there "the undefined self".

Attitude to meditation and practice of mindfulness.

2007-09-12T11:13:00.001-07:00
I just realized today that nonjudgmental attitude that you are supposed to develop during the meditation does not mean that mental formations stop being pleasant or unpleasant. They remain pleasant and unpleasant. Pain remains to be pain. Pleasure remains to be pleasure. What does happen is that you stop resisting pain and stop clinging to pleasure. The idea is to be content with the present in any shape it takes.

Cause and Effect and God.

2007-09-12T10:16:00.000-07:00
Cause is in itself an Effect and Effect is in itself a cause(In itself- in essence or potential to be or the same thing as)

It is commonly observed that our reality is that of cause and effect. An example is a game of billiards, the momentum transfers to the ball which makes it roll. Such observation is used to justify the existence of creator God. For there to be an effect(the world), there needed to be a cause(God), they argue.

Such statement is illogical because Cause in Effect are in fact the same concept, the different sounding of words creates an illusion of difference. A cause can be an effect if it is an effect from a previous cause- for example we say that the ball rolling in an effect from momentum of another ball that hit it, however the first ball itself was an effect caused by the force of a human applying force to the ball. So the difference between cause an effect is relative only to the sequence of events, outside of the sequence the cause and the effect are the same thing.

If we assume that there has to be a cause for an effect then, If God is the cause of the World(effect) then the cause(God) has to also be an effect caused by something else. A cause cannot exist without being caused by something else. Therefore such argument is illogical.

This train of thought also seems to lead to the limited nature of arguments based on cause and effect because if we trace the causes and effects all the way to the beginning we find ourselves in endless loop. The nature of reality seems to be either endless cause and effect(infinity, the beginingless begining) or perhaps the original cause is simply nature which was not caused by anything but simply is.

But if we say that there cannot be a cause without another cause then the argument contradicts itself.

To avoid such issue we can assume that it is possible that an effect has no cause and call it nature(something that just is and cannot be changed but only observed). But it is still Illogical to assume that God(as a being) had to exist in order for there to be the world because if we assume that there doesn't need to be a cause for the effect then there doesn't need to be god(cause) for the world(effect) unless god is simply nature and if it is nature then why does it have to be a being(someone with free will). Things can exist without being personified.

Therefore God cannot be proved through cause and effect.

"The only thing i know is that i don't know anything."

2007-09-12T10:02:00.000-07:00
The belief of knowledge is the only type of knowledge we have.

There are three types of cognitive information.
1. Blind Faith(Unjustified belief)
2. Belief(Justified belief)
3. Knowledge(Justified belief that is also true)

But since there is no answer book for reality, we can only assume we know. We can only believe that we know something because there is no way to check if something we believe is true in universal reality as opposed to personal reality. Therefore it is only logical to say that "I believe i know" and not "I know".

Whoever claims he knows is either:
1. Deluded
2. God or Enlightened Being.

Aristotle was right saying "the only thing i know is that i don't know anything."

Of course as Plato pointed out in "the Apology", going around proving that someone doesn't really know anything will only create more enemies. Another interesting fact he points out is that when you prove that someone doesn't really know, he assumes that you are wise or that you do know while all you are as ignorant as the next person except you are aware of it.

List of things to be mindful of for emotional health.

2007-09-12T08:59:00.000-07:00
1. Rationalizing(making sure your reaction is rational)
2. Skillfulness(is the reaction wise/beneficial or not?)
3. What is my intention?
4. Am i making an excuse?
5. Am i not doing X because i am lazy or is there a rational reason.
6. Am i resisting reality?
7. Am i clinging to something?
8. Am i placing expectations for the future?
9. Am i dwelling in the past unskillfully?
10. Process of selfing(comparing yourself to someone and regarding things as the self)
11. Am i in delusion about something.
12. Is happiness one of your goals?
13. Am i doing things according to their priority?

Planning for the future.

2007-08-08T19:57:00.000-07:00
I am getting more confident in my discovery as to what my calling in life is. Unless some major change is going to happen in my personality, the obvious choice seems to be Psychology. Bachelors in Psychology equals to not having a degree so i must plan to get into graduate school if i want to make a living.

Statistics are staggering :\ only about 30% of the American population finish their Bachelors, only about 7% finish Masters and a little over 1% finish Doctorate. There is only about 10% of successful admissions into PHD program from Colleges. I must make it into that 10% no meter what. I can do it.

If i want to make it i need to plan now and gain an advantage over others. Here is my plan for the next couple of years in college in terms of my career.

1. Get to know students who are majoring in Psychology and build up social network.
2. Get to know the professors and faculty members of psychology personally.
3. Gain research experience.(Very important for my resume)
4. Obtain a job as a research assistant.
5. Obtain letters of recommendation.(Need at least 3)
6. Find out which branch of psychology i have passion for.
7. Prepare for GRE early.
8. Face the fear of public speaking and improve on it.
9. Start thinking about the essay i will need to submit as to why i want to go into graduate school.
10. Improve my vocabulary.
11. Volunteer.
12. Join a psychology club and other discussion groups.

As for how i will be making money while i am studding. I think i should become an ENG-RUS translator. It will improve my verbal reasoning, communication skills and make me decent money. Here is my plan for this goal.

1. Define every unknown word you don't know in books.
2. Read as much as possible.
3. Practice translating.
4. Obtain a translators dictionary.
5. Educate yourself in possible career opportunities as a translator.

There Will Come Soft Rains

2007-08-06T21:31:00.001-07:00

An interesting Russian cartoon. Kind of like 1984 by George Orwell.

There Will Come Soft Rains
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

-- Sara Teasdale

clipped from philosophyofaheretic.blogspot.com

There will come soft rains

Let's be friends: If they can do it, then so can we

2007-08-06T21:26:00.001-07:00

clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Let's be friends
If they can do it, then so can we
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Mouse and Frog
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Dog, Squirrel and Bird
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Dog and Chicken
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Hippo and Turtle
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Dog and Fawn
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Pony and Cat
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Lamb and Dog
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Deer and Dog
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"Daddy, let's play horsey!"
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Cat and Turtle
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Cat and Rabbit
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Max Loves Chelsea
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Cat and Moose
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Bird and Mouse
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Monkey and Kitten
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Cat and Dog
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Hamster and Snake
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Poorly hedgehog and squirrel
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Tiger and piglets
clipped from letsbefriends.blogspot.com

Cat and toy chick

Sick of Your Job?

2007-08-06T21:10:00.001-07:00

clipped from www.sunbelt-software.com
Quit Complaining About Your Job

Suffering.

2007-07-27T21:30:00.000-07:00
I gave quite a bit of thought to the first noble truth in Buddhism(Life is Dukka or Inherent Unsatisfactoriness\Suffering). I think i am more equipped to explain it now so here is my attempt.
I realized my negatives feelings towards it were a result of wrong view.

The common translation Life is Suffering is a little misleading. The actual concept is more complicated. Firstly it is not meant to state that all life is suffering(Life does not equal suffering). It simply states that there is suffering in life. It can be a lot for some people and little for others. Second it is not the only truth in Buddhism and like everything else in Buddhism is meant to be thought about along with all the other factors and concepts in Buddhism to make sense(like the other three noble truths). Suffering includes mental, physical and also that of others.

Buddha noted three characteristics inherent in existence:
1. Impermanence
2. Suffering
3. Not-Self

I believe analyzing this concept can be of help to have more understanding about the first noble truth. Impermanence simply means that nothing is permanent. The computer you are reading this from will eventually break. You might be happy one moment and sad the next(no state of mind is permanent). Friendships arise and disappear and so do relationships along with everything else in life. You will die. There is no running from it.

Suffering - i already explained.

The thrid part - Not - Self can be simply explained in this saying "a tree is not a forest". We tend to use the word "I" a lot. But what do we really mean by I? Just like a tree is not a forest, there are many aspects that make the the I. We must not fall under the illusion and limitations of the languages and see the label as the actual thing. There are the feelings, the habits, the appearance, personality, body, perception and many other things that make up the I. And if we look closely to each one we see that not a single one of them is permanent. Feelings come and go and change. Body ages and dies. Personality changes. Thoughts change. So in fact what we thought was permanent and unchanging I is in fact a collection of constantly changing aggregates. This observation is what is meant by No - (permanent or fixed)Self. It does not deny the self it simply redefines it for us contrary to many beliefs of newcomers to Buddhism.

Buddha also noted that "whatever is impermanent is suffering, and whatever is impermanent and suffering is also not - self." Think about this quote for a while. Think of examples. Here is one - relationship. When it starts we feel love and it is so amazing and great but most of the time it is not permanent. Eventually love fades, both partners change and break up occurs followed by a lot of suffering. not - self is hard to explain in this example so i will give another. The feeling of happiness. When happiness comes we love it but when it leaves as it is impermanent we feel sad and wonder why it went away. We want the feeling to stay but it never does. It always escapes to be replaced by other feelings and very often negative once like loneliness and sadness. This can bring us quite a bit of suffering. Usually we consider happiness to be part of what we call I or the Self but if it is not permanent how can we consider it to be the self. If it causes us suffering how can we consider it our self? Sigh i cannot explain it that well but hopefully i make some sense. Explaining it fully will take too long.

Anyways, you probably noticed that not everything in life causes suffering simply because it is impermanent. That is why Buddha notes that impermanence is only an occasion(not the cause) for suffering. It only causes suffering because of our Ignorance, Craving and Clinging. A break up does not have to hurt. We can be wise and think of everything as "already broken" because it is bound to break. We cannot posses anything and nothing will last forever. We can simply accept it and when the relationship ends not be surprised or hurt by it. We will simply see it as the nature of things. How many relationships do you see lasting? Almost none. Love usually fades and if it doesn't there is the death to make sure it does. Dispelling ignorance also dispels suffering.

Adding to Dale Carnegie.

2007-07-23T20:58:00.001-07:00
I decided to add unto Dale Carnegie's book "How to win friends and influense people". The book inspired my journey into the world of human interactions. Of course just like any book it does not provide all the answers to the topic so i decided to share a few additional things i learned on the topic.

1. Always say "I think" before you give an opinion. Without it the person might feel the need to be defensive if his opinion differs.

2. When you ask someone to do something make sure you include "Don't just say yes, i want it to be your decision." That way the person will have a feeling of free will and will be more likely agree.

3. Avoid using diminishing terms such as "retard, fagot and so on..." It might offend someone.

4. Be indirect, suggest instead of being blunt.

5. To avoid problems with a girls boyfriend, include him in the conversation or activity while chatting with his girl.

6. Try not to mention your religion of choice and do not criticize others on their beliefs unless they ask as it is a very delicate manner and can make the person very defensive.

7. Be honest, people will trust you more when you need their trust.

8. Be reliable and do not be late. Do something if you said you will do it.

9. When you need someone to do something unpleasant make sure you sympathize. Let him know that you know it is unpleasant and you appreciate him going through it.

10. Do not try to change people, accept them how they are.

11. Before you give advice or opinion, ask if they want it.

12. Do not be afraid to ask questions. You will learn a lot more.

13. Do not try to do everything on your own, ask for advice. People enjoy giving advice as it makes them feel important.

14. Always give complete freedom to a person, never make them feel like they have to do something. Never make them feel like they do it for other reasons other then their personal choice.

15. Call people time to time. Arrange parties so that you can keep your networking in shape.

16 . Write down information about people. It will be of use. Keep index cards.

17. Remember - there is always a reason for peoples opinions and actions.

18. Do not let your jealousy in a way of giving a complement.

19. Talk about your negatives, not positives as people will connect more to you that way. Do not brag. Do not be afraid to criticize yourself.

20. Think of strangers as your family. It will help you be more at ease.

21. Give those you are not attracted to a chance. If you don;t you might be missing a love of your life or an amazing friend.

22. Give reasons to your opinions or provide stories. It will make them more solid.

The dark side of 4 noble truths.

2007-06-18T21:30:00.000-07:00
There is an interesting saying - "knowledge dispels ignorance." Have you ever had that happen? You know, when you find out something and suddenly you realize that the foundation of your beliefs is not that solid. I love that feeling, every time i get it - my mind opens wider and wider. I had that feeling a few days ago! and this essay is the fruit. Hopefully after reading this you will get that feeling too and maybe we can share the fruit together! Mmm mm good!
Everyone who knows me knows that i am obsessed with Buddhism! I studied it for almost 8 month now and some of my friends even call me Buddha, jokingly that is of course :D. I seem to always bring it up! I always find a Zen saying or little Buddhist story to almost any topic of the conversation : ). Well i am what i am. Thankfully i am also interested in psychology and many many other things, so i got to read other points of view and i think it is important to keep a variety of perspectives under your belt. Recently i read about NLP(Neuro Lenguistic Programming) and some ancient mythology that brought up an interesting realization that i will share with you in this essay ;P. As the topic suggest i will talk about the dark side of the four noble truths in Buddhism. If you don't know what they are i will summarize them for you : ) Here they are :

1. Life is Dukka(many people translate it as suffering or inherent dissatisfaction).
2. Desire is the cause of suffering.
3. There is a way out of suffering.
4 The eight-fold path is a way out of suffering.

As you can see there is a lot of emphasis on suffering and for those who studies NLP know that that is a very negative association in your brain. If you think that life is suffering and believe it - it will be suffering! You brain will make it happen. If you are a Buddhist you might be one of these people who constantly think about suffering and why there is suffering and guess what the whole system that is supposed to elevate it backfires and you artificially create even more suffering by thinking that you whole existence is suffering and that all your desires is the cause of it. Wake up call for people - desire is our nature! Hiding or denying it is not the answer. At least i think it is not. I was thinking of a way to change it a little here and there to make it more positive. Here is what i came up with:

1. Some thing in life can make you less happy!.
2. Desire can sometimes make you less happy.
3. You can be even happier then you are right now!
4. The eight-fold path is a great way to be happier and make others happy.

Of course this is just a prototype but hopefully you got my message. Being positive is very important! Some of you might argue that Buddha was enlightened and i am in no position to reword what he said. For those people i suggest, read some mythology! You will find that people believe all kinds of crazy things and we do not know what Buddha really said because we do not have a direct recording of his speeches. We only have a bunch of people summarizing what they thought he said. Not that i believe that enlightenment is possible. I just think he was a great philosopher and that is all. How is believing that Buddha was enlightened different from people believing that Jesus was god or that he was resurrected or that he walked on water? Ask yourself that you might find yourself dispelling some ignorance : ) How is believing suttas different then believing that everything in bible was gods unchanged word?

I think just like the word of Catholics, the world of Buddhism has a huge obsession with suffering and it does not make anyone happy. People condition themselves to always find suffering. We need to make it more positive, don't you think? Change the boat to a more colorful one, it is only the means to get to the truth.

Also we have the idea of liberation(Nirvana). That is also very negative! It implies that it is unbearable here and there is no reason to stay! It is amazing here and we should not try to escape! We need to enjoy!

Well this idea is just a small step in my journey and i might change my mind but hopefully it was a worthwhile read for you and you learned something : ) Until next time, farewell.

An intresting email.

2007-04-16T20:13:00.000-07:00
"If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world.

"If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

"And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity."

"If you woke up this morning with more health than illness ... you are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day.

"If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation. you are ahead of 700 million people in the world.

"If you can attend a church meeting without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.

"If your parents are still alive and still married.. You are very rare.

If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you're unique to all those in doubt and despair."

Ok, what now? How can I start?

If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Have a good day, count your blessings, and if you want, pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are.

Some Buddhist poems ;o

2007-04-16T20:12:00.000-07:00
Whatever joy there is in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world,
All comes from desiring oneself to be happy.

But what need is there to say much more?
The childish work for their own benefit,
The Buddhas work for the benefit of others.
Just look at the difference between them!

Shantideva

MN 131
Bhaddekaratta Sutta
An Auspicious Day

The Blessed One said:

You shouldn't chase after the past
or place expectations on the future.
What is past
is left behind.
The future
is as yet unreached.
Whatever quality is present
you clearly see right there,
right there.
Not taken in,
unshaken,
that's how you develop the heart.
Ardently doing
what should be done today,
for — who knows? — tomorrow
death.
There is no bargaining
with Mortality & his mighty horde.

Whoever lives thus ardently,
relentlessly
both day & night,
has truly had an auspicious day:
so says the Peaceful Sage.

I am like a tiger that smelled blood and cannot put it out of his mind.

2007-04-04T21:07:00.000-07:00
Yes that is the best way i can describe me and Buddhism. I had a taste of a spiritual truth and i did not like it. I was scared of it and did not want to face it. But like a tiger that smelled blood, i cannot think of anything else.

It was like being told that Santa Clause did not exist as a kid. I did not want to believe my parents. I tried to find ways to disprove them and prove that Santa exists, i fought the truth. I tried to find evidence but eventually i realized that sadly my parents told the truth and its existence was wishful thinking. In this case the Santa was "the Self" and the parents was " the Buddha."

Buddha taught Not-self and i didn't believe him. I was attached to the western selfish and primitive ways of looking at spirituality. My problem was seeking wishful thinking and fairy worlds, not the truth. But having deep inside the realization that he was in fact told the truth did not let me ignore it. I tried to disprove him. I tried to find ways to not think about it but in the end i had to face it because i knew it was the truth and it will be the truth whether i believe in it or not.

First i suffered and got a little depressed but then the delusion faded and i started to get liberated and now i am glad i faced it. Now i see the true path in spirituality, the selfless, unselfish devotion to help others and change of heart, purity of mind. It is not the selfish "attaining all desires" kind of spirituality promoting greed and materialism like in the new bullshit bestseller "the secret". What is so secret about it anyways? It was known for thousands of years but it is not as bullshit and primitive and simple as the author claims it is.

What the law of attraction is, is basically that you meet people by how you are inside, if you want to meet better people, you have to change inside yourself. Not what "the secret" tells us to be, the magic words to attract anything. Positive thinking, beliefs, affirmations - those are only small part of the formula. The real formula of reality is far more complex. There are many variables, take karma for example.

When desire for truth becomes too extreme.

2007-03-18T09:10:00.000-07:00
Even though lately Buddhism has stopped working for me or making as much sense as it used to, i still see a lot of truth and wisdom in it. So i must as myself this, what is Buddhism to me? Is it a way of life? Probably not because i do not share the same belief that we must give up sensual and material pleasures or to deny being human to live a good spiritual life or to be happy. It is ok to mess up once in a while. It is ok to drink. It is ok to have sex, chase women and take hot baths. It is ok to make money. Why make the life worse for ourselves? It is true that all those things do not bring happiness but they are sure are not what prevents us from being happy.
A car alone will not make a person happy while for example good friends will, but why
not have both friends and a car? Yes we must learn to be happy with what we have but not to the point of giving up everything and becoming a monk. All we need to be is a good person. I like my ego and i think we have it for a reason.

Buddhism is also certainly not a religion to me. I just do not see sense in becoming a monk or waisting once life away doing nothing but meditating in one way or the other. But Buddhism had definitely opened my eyes to a field of psychology called "emotional intelligence" which i think borrowed heavily from Buddhism and other religious wisdoms. In fact the only reason Buddhism did not make me happier is because i looked at it as a way of life or a spiritual truth instead of simply as psychology which led me to the main realization.

When i discovered Buddhism i had a desire to find the spiritual truths. I wanted to know the meaning of life and suffering. My desire was so strong that i started to believe almost anyone and anything that so called "gurus" claimed. This i realized thanks to my friend Steve while talking to him at the student center. Much of the stuff is bull crap and even more of it is simply a way to make money for scam artists.

Buddhism promises a way out of suffering and ego. Sure that sounds good but isn't ego and suffering an essential part of life and spiritual development of a person? Isn't it suffering that makes us learn in life and ask questions. Isn't it the ego that keeps us going forward in life. Sure there is a lot of unnecessary suffering and wrong usage of the ego but just like hands, we can use them as a tool create good or bad. Ego is not much different, we can get satisfaction of helping people.

I am sure a lot of Buddhists know this and probably know whole lot more then i do, but a lot of them seem to be very misled.

Importance of inspiration.

2007-03-06T18:22:00.000-08:00
Lately i been thinking that maybe procrastination is just a direct result of what sociologists call "lack of sense of direction". I do not know what i want to do in life nor do i see the point in most college work that i do. Lack of inspiration and motivation is attacking me from all directions. I do not know what to do. I do not feel free. Rather chained by all the little but dry and robotic things i have to do.

I feel those people who live in tribes like in Africa might be more motivated. I mean if i was hungry and i wanted to eat i would go hunt. Hunger would be my motivation. But in the case of college work it seems to disappear. I do not see the point in most things except that i get a paper that i need to have when i graduate. I study dry and lifeless works that are very depressing and written in a hard language that makes my brain want to spit it out with disgust. I buy all the books they tell me but in reality i do not read.

When will the education system learns the importance of making classes fun, social, motivating and inspirational and not the opposite. The person can only learn when he wants to, if he doesn't he won't.

There has to be a way to get good grades and sort of cheat the system. I mean they cannot expect to me to read all those things with 0 motivation. The "you have to" just makes me feel like a slave. Not a physical farmer type of slavery but mental. Is this much different?

But then again it might be my laziness talking, i don't know. I think this is a new generation and the old ways of learning just do not apply to us. We are sick of going to classes and in the end learning nothing.

List of author i read as a kid.

2007-03-06T18:05:00.000-08:00
Today i decided to go back to reading fiction books. I have spent the past year reading non fiction, mostly health and spirituality now my heart is aching for an adventure.

I remembered authors such as Harry Harrison, Sergey Lukyanenko, Terry Goodkind, Stanislaw Lem. My childhood was filled with imagination, i always built legos and read books as a kid. Somewhere in my addiction to computer games in the past, depression, and rebuilding myself i had forgot what a wonderful thing it is to read adventurous books that fulfill us in ways modern world cant.

I was too much of a hard ass on myself lately, trying to find a point in everything instead of doing what makes me happy. Time for a change. "every passing minute is a chance to turn it all around"

You know i probably don't remember a thing from the books i read as a kid but it made a thinker out of me. If not those books, i would not have the philosophical and out of the box mind i have today.

Re reading those books might be an interesting experience. A sort of witnessing to evolution of the mind since i was a kid.

When eating before exercise becomes an excuse.

2007-02-16T10:15:00.000-08:00
Last few weeks, mostly due to college and laziness i had not kept my regular yoga workout like i used to. I started observing why i did not do it. The main reason would have to be an unbalanced sleep resulting in inability to do anything in the morning and being too tired at night.

Another thing i noticed is that i use eating as an excuse to not workout. I eat and then i go "I can't do yoga now, have to wait 5 hours." Yoga should be done 5 hours after a mean so the best time is only realistic in the morning, before breakfast. I ideally planed to take a warm shower to loosen up the muscles and go straight for yoga.
Of course feeling tired from lack of sleep i just pres snooze button and go back to sleep. When i came back from college i would make an excuse that i can't do it now i just ate and make myself feel better that i will do it in the morning. In the morning i do the same thing resulting in endless loop of laziness.

So i started to think what can be done to fix this problem. Fixing a sleep schedule is one. I have to start getting home by 9:30 and be sound asleep by 11. So that i wake up at 7 all refreshed and do my morning routine.

Another thing i realized is that instead of doing Yoga i can just do a regular body weight exercise or jog, those only require two hours after eating. Stretching on the other hand can be done any time! So does meditation, Yoga Nidra, Breathing exercises, Eye exercises and massages. So now i have no excuse to not workout. If i cant do a regular workout because i miss a morning Yoga, i can still do any of the exercises that does not require stomach to be empty.

I just read a website saying that stretching should be done many times a day. After sitting on computer, watching tv, sitting on one place for too long in general. Waiting for a friend or a bus can also be occupied nicely with some healthy stretching. Look at animals, they always stretch! We should learn from animals.

Mindfulness of refusing fun.

2007-02-13T18:27:00.000-08:00
I usually say "yes" to any fun activity that my good friends offer, even if deep inside i know i have to study. I just make an excuse to myself like the typical "i will do it later or friends are more important" then i go chill and i end up not doing something important for school or my personal development like yoga or meditations. Then i regret it realizing it was not worth all the stress it created. Because pressure of time creates stress. Now i have to do it in one day or sometimes one hour which is unrealistic. Instead i should learn to say "no" and sacrifice some of my fun for greater benefit in the end. This is one of these destructive habits.

I also need to learn to be mindful while chilling. If is see that the activity is just waisting my time and is not much fun, i should make an excuse and go home. Also if i see that i have to do something and i should be going home to finish it, i should do it. I need to start being realistic and stop making excuses to do it later and smashing everything into last minute and then wonder why i couldn't do it.

Make a constant sleep schedule.

2007-02-13T18:12:00.000-08:00
Hmm i find that sometimes to motivate yourself to do something one must to list the reasons to do something to remind myself occasionally why i am doing it.

I want to make a harsh before sunrise routine. Wake up before sunrise, do yoga, meditate and the rest of my morning routine.

List of reasons:

1. To have time to do the morning routine before college.
2. To get get ahead of the race of the world.
3. To get the extra energy from the special energies that the body is filled on sunrise and due to enough sleep the body gets with a constant routine.
4. To be more productive due to ability to plan a day better, knowing when i will wake up and go to sleep.
5. To see the beauty of sunrise.
6. Ability to focus better during the day, because lack of sleep messes up the whole day from the beginning.
7. Because not waking up early messes up the morning routine and creates disorder.

Difficulties, side effects:
1. I will have to sacrifice some time with my friends at night.
2. I will have to quit my job(but it is not good for me anyway) because it is late at night on Saturday.

Do not procrastinate homework untill night.

2007-02-13T18:08:00.000-08:00
Hmm i notice i spend most of the time when my head is "fresh" learning about spirituality and pondering about philosophies. By the time i get to homework my brain and eyes are so fatigued, it is hard to focus on anything. I need to make myself a solemn promise to do homework first and then i can spend all the time i want on procrastination. It is unrealistic to expect my body to be able to study before sleep.

Eating mindfully.

2007-02-12T19:49:00.000-08:00
Before i eat i do several things.
I tell myself a saying "Eat to live, not live to eat."
Then i try to force myself to eat for health rather then for taste and choose appropriate foods. Making a sandwich with meat and cheese can be fast and tasty but is it good for health?
Then i try to bring mindfulness to the process of eating. I do not watch tv or listen to music, i try to be in every moment of eating. I chew slow, enjoying every bite and feeling the spoon in my hand. Noticing every color on the plate. Noticing the texture, the taste, the feel.
I plan what i am going to eat to make sure i do not overeat. It is healthy to get up from the table 3/4 full. After 15 minutes you will feel full no matter how little you ate. If i know i will want something like a desert or a fruit at the end of meal, i make sure i put less food to leave space to make sure in the end i do not overeat because i wanted something "sweet". I think of the nutrition value of food and what i did not eat for a while and might be lacking.
Before i eat i also like to pray and ask god to clean my food of the chemicals and apologize for the horrible conditions the animals are treated and vegetables are grown. I say my thank you.

My douts started to affect my life.

2007-02-12T17:13:00.000-08:00
I constantly think about all the different religions and beliefs and spirituality!!!

I need to learn to leave my inner conflicts until after i study and do my daily routines. I can always think. I do not need to have the answer to my conflict right away. There will always be questions and i need to think about them only after i do everything i need to do.

Give yourself a break.

2007-02-12T16:58:00.000-08:00
Lately i had a lot of suffering with beliefs and trying to figure out spirituality. I realized i made a classic mistake of taking my thoughts and beliefs too seriously. I went too hard on myself. I rush too much and try to get everything at once, forgetting it is a long journey and i should enjoy every step of the way. I should take it slow and most of all allow myself a break!

I need to take my time and just stop thinking about all spiritual matter for a week or so. Just live and enjoy my life, just because its here - for no reason. Why do we need reasons for everything?

Instead of focusing on "upgrading" my belief system i will focus on practicing it. I will meditate, watch my ego, do some SOL technique awareness and thats it. Just enjoy the life! Why should i spend my life doubting and thinking about spirituality? I will think about it when i am reading, but after i am done, put my brain away and enjoy the "now".

I realized the only teachings that matter is the once that help you achieve unconditional love, forgiveness, kindness and compassion. Those are powerful energies with great transforming power that every religion point to and try to teach us! Those are more the states of the heart then the mind and as such, no knowledge will help. We can memorize all the spiritual books in the world and still be ugly inside. There is nothing that needs to be added in terms of knowledge that will help. I let it slip and let it be one of the "if i only get ____ i will be happy" things. I WILL NOT LIVE MY LIFE LIKE THAT!

LOVE is my religion <3.

Ability to not have to think is a great gift taught to us by Buddhas. So much extra suffering comes with constant thinking. Our brains need a break!

Embrace beliefs.

2007-02-07T13:38:00.000-08:00
Today after weeks of feeling dullness in life, largely because of me taking Buddhism too seriously i started to think why is that Buddhism makes me less happy and not more. Why with all the wisdom i had acquired, i am repeating the same mistakes? Why does it not stop me from sins and negative thoughts? I also experienced a lot of nostalgia. Nostalgia, unhappiness, dullness were all a clear signs from god that i am not really following the right path.

I realize that is because ego had slipped through the back door. Enlightenment became a means to upgrade myself and find the truth. Buddhism somehow made me believe that somehow it is possible to acquire the meaning of existence and i started taking everything too seriously. My mom once told me; devil has a trick for smart people such as you. He will tell you 99% truth and 1% bullshit. The 99% will sound so true and interesting and wise that i will disregard the 1% of Bullshit as simply me not understanding it enough. That 99% will make me blindly follow the 1% and she was right. That is what happened with me and Buddhism. I found truth in so much it said that i didn't notice the bullshit. After all Buddhism was made by people. And as people, we are not perfect. That 1% led me to be dull.

A few weeks ago i went to look at ducks in a park, and i saw a woman feeding them. She seemed really happy. I thought to myself, she must be spiritual. She came up to me and said "Do you know of Jesus, your savior?" I said "yes but i just believe him to be a teacher and i also believe in Buddha." She said "no you are wrong." I asked "why?" She said "Because Buddhism is created by people and Christianity is god sent." I thought to myself, ha another Christian brainwashed person.

But now i think to myself. How come with all her brainwashing, she is spiritually happy, satisfied and she had less ego then me. I am sure she had no deep understanding of emotions through meditations, nor did she try. She was simply happy.

Then in class i heard some spiritual guy say to another, "People need mythology to live, it is not wrong."

Today i realize those were all signs for me from god leading to an important realization. Beliefs are ok and even a good thing. We need them. We need hope, we need mythology, we need wonder and magic in our world. Buddhists claim that all beliefs are illusion, that there is no god and no self even. That through meditation they can somehow enter the realm of not knowing anything and that it somehow makes them realize that there is no self and no god. Then i realized, while listening to Nautilus Pampiuls - Skovanue Odnoi Tsepu, when they sing "mozhno i verit v otsytstvie veru" which translates into - We can believe in lack of believes. Meaning that those Buddhists are in as much illusion as any of us. No god is as much a belief as having a god. No self is as much a belief as having a soul. We cannot test it and even if we can we cannot be sure. Buddhists just somehow think they are better because they are not "under illusion" of beliefs and duality. Buddhists arguing that this is this and not that because of illusions is as lame as a brainwashed Christian claiming that this is this and not that because God said so in Bible.

In fact i think that most Buddhism is just trying to escape the fact that we are human. Yes our bodies might not be us and we are something greater BUT we are under limitations of this form and trying to claim we can escape it is the same egomania as anything else.

It is like atheist claiming that god doesn't exist because "humans made him up to have hope." Yes maybe we did but who is he to claim that he doesn't need hope and that he by not believing is somehow more stronger by facing the "truth" which he doesn't know. Not believing in god is also a belief. Perhaps that atheist came up with the belief of no god to make his ego stronger, to give him excuse why he is so unhappy. Supposedly we are happy because we are ignorant to the "truth" that there is no god or afterlife or anything.

And who are scientists to claim that science is the only truth. All science is based on believes and assumptions and there is so much unproven and unknown. Perhaps it is again their ego looking for excuse.

We live of believes. We have believe systems for everything, who not have belief system for religion. Why not believe in angels and demons and devils and gods and God. Why not believe in faeries and elves and Egyptian gods and deities. Why not make our world a magical world. Why not make it a world of wonder, mystery and hope? We need mythology. Our minds run on form, so why try no make it to be formless. We can't. Even if all guardian angel is in reality is a positive energy, why not imagine him as some powerful masculine archangel able to protect us if we only ask. We cannot comprehend the world of energies, but we can comprehend form. So why not take advantage of it. Why not face that we need form to exist and stop trying to be not human.

But we need to not take our beliefs seriously, but simply as perspectives, tools to help us live and operate in the world of unknown energies. Do not be afraid to give up beliefs and acquire new once.

Face it, since you were a kid you lost that magical feel to the world, why not learn from children and take that feeling back, it rightfully belongs to us. Hope, mystical protection, wonder is something we need as humans, stop trying to hide from it. We need that creativity and imagination back.

We all know many smart people and even wise people that are unhappy, but i know many people that believe in paranormal and religion and all the hokey stuff and they are happy. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned from them.

Just remember that time when you were a kid and believed in Santa, angels and all the magical creatures. Do you want it back? All you have to do is give up trying to explain everything in the world. You will never understand it in this form, you will never explain it logically and scientifically. Just relax and believe. It might be illusion, but if it is through illusion we can gain happiness, who not go for it?

A whole lifestyle in a single poem.

2007-02-04T07:34:00.000-08:00
Work like you don't need the money;
dance like no one is watching;
sing like no one is listening;
love like you've never been hurt;
and live life every day as if it were your last.
-Aurora Greenway (i think not sure)

Desire of relationship and expectations.

2007-02-01T19:25:00.000-08:00
Today i realized, many girls that i liked and had some kind of emotion to caused me pain and kept me from happiness. I do not blame it on them, it is my fault. But i thought why am i attracted to those whom create pain in me. I looked at many past crushes and emotions i had towards girls.

Ekhart Tolle warned me of this, calling it relationships based on the pain body. I think he is right. No need to even look around. All i have to is look at myself. Almost every girl i liked caused me the same kind of suffering.

I think problem lies with my desire to have a relationship. To have that special someone. Sometimes i want it so much that i see a potential where there is none. I give a certain girl expectations and build an image in my mind to how I THINK she is. I even give myself the illusion that she likes me back. I am so blinded by expectations and the image of how i want her to be that i do not see what really is. I see the illusion but not reality. I see what i want but not what is.

I often trick myself in believing that i like a girl not just because of lust but for her personality and the emotions are real. But if that was true, i would not experience all the pain from being with them, i would love their company. I sit there fantasizing about when i see them, and when i do i do not get my expectations met, i only get suffering. The next day i ignore the suffering and go back to false illusion and fantasy.

I made a promise to myself. "Be very careful about relationships. Make sure the girl is right for you. Do not get tricked by ego and lust. Do not rush, let time tell its tale. Do not have expectations."

I also remember i made myself a promise to never chill with people that make me feel like crap and only chill with those that uplift my spirit. I kept it with friends, it is time to expand it to relationships with girls.

I need to focus on the feeling i get from being with person, not the sexual energy but the feeling of being around the person, how calming it is, how uplifting and how easy i can feel safe to be myself. How much respect i get for being who i am. How much i can trust the person. How secure i feel with what i tell the person. How much we share in common and how much i would like to learn from her. How much she makes me laugh and forget my problems.

Also i find when we like someone we have to not take their jokes as jokes but take them seriously. There is always part truth in their jokes. If their jokes talk about you in diminishing way while rising their ego, that means they don't respect you, they just use you like vampires to get their confidence up at expense of yours.
Their jokes should not be hurtful, if they are they are not jokes but harassments disguised as jokes. Laugh along but do not chill with them again.

For now every girl i liked was nothing like this. I was always the clown, the teacher and the healer for those girls. I made them laugh, listened to their problems, warned them of the dangers and in return i only got pain so why do i do this to myself.

When we like someone physically we exaggerate the positives and diminish the negatives and we believe our illusion. Let us see through the illusion and see what is not what we want it to be.

Indeed the sexual energy is strong and hard to resist. Very tricky it is. Careful we must be.

Procrastination Part 1. (roots)

2007-01-25T19:14:00.000-08:00

Today one of my friends started chatting about procrastination and how much it effects his life, grades and happiness. He reminded me that it is a very much my own problem too. I was on careless vacation for a while and i quickly forgot how much i struggled with it just a short while ago. I decided to try and write about procrastination and explore strategies to get rid of it once and for all.

Sometimes i think my body has a mind of its own and a lazy attitude at that. Whenever i try to do something, my body seems to try anything in its power to stop me. If i try to study, i find myself standing in front of fridge, eating and drinking on an already full stomach. Then i find myself cleaning the room, something i never do! unless of course i have to study and use it to give me an excuse to delay it a little. Then i find myself doing all kind of weird things like working out, taking a bath, actually learning a musical instrument, reading a book. WOW! my body seems to really become a hard working being! BUT, only at expense of doing what i really need to do. Hmm weird.

So of course if you know me and my Buddhist ways, you will know that first we must study the problem and its roots. Every time you catch yourself doing an activity while you really should be doing something else, ask yourself this "Am i really doing this activity because i have to or need to, or am i doing it as an excuse to procrastinate?" Most times you will find that you are doing it just to procrastinate. That is ok. Patiently stop the activity and go do what you need to do.

Observe and make a mental list of activities that you seem to do while procrastinating. I find that i either do something "useful" like cleaning the house and use that "useful" as an excuse to procrastinate. Sometimes i find doing something that makes me escape the problem like playing a computer game, watching tv or reading a book. Sometimes i find myself doing something for pleasure such as taking bath or eating. Probably the pleasure part is a direct result of stress and tension that builds up when we procrastinate and we use pleasures as stress/tension release. This mental list we use to help us not to make the same mistake. So if you find yourself cleaning the room all of the sudden, ask yourself if you are just doing it as an excuse. Eventually you will get good at noticing this things and catching procrastination before it starts.

Another excuse we use might not be expressed in activities at all but simply in trick of words. Such as classic "I can do it later" or "I still have plenty of time before sleep". There are many tricks we use to give us an excuse to procrastinate, but we must catch them and identify them as excuses and not as truth. Also make a mental list of such sayings so you can later easier identify them and stop yourself from procrastinating. The trick is every time you identify such excuse in your mind, ask yourself the following "Is there a legit reason why i should do this later, or am i just making an excuse.

Most of us live subconsciouses life, and procrastination is a disease of such life. We must bring mindfulness into every moment and activity, and become consciouses and aware of what we are doing.

Now let us dig deeper and think of WHY we started to procrastinate and why is this so hard to overcome. Well most likely why we or rather our bodies/brains procrastinate such things as studding is firstly as a habit and secondly because we rape our bodies when we do it. Maybe when we study, we study so much and under so much stress that our bodies sort of develop a negative feeling or reaction associated with it. Of course we wait till the last day and study so much that our eyes pop out of their sockets. And then we wonder why our bodies dislike it so much. Well our bodies are not meant for this amount of stress and 8 hour study periods. We had done it so much that now our bodies think that study equals stress and neglect of its needs. We need to study a little every day and not everything in one day. And maybe we can prove to our bodies it is not all that bad and it will resist it less. Maybe what our bodies escape is not studding but the stress it reminds it of. If we do not wait until the last day, there is no stress or need to sit all day. The procrastination we experience last day is just our bodies being overwhelmed with the unrealistic amount of work expected of it and it just runs away from the mountain of pressure. If our bodies are ready to clean the room or do some other chore instead, there must be a reason it is so afraid.

While we study we need to watch the needs and limitations of our body. It needs exercise, stretching, food and sunshine. Our eyes get tired, our brains get tired, everything gets tired. We must take breaks. Go outside and come back if you need to. It is better to set realistic study goals then trying to study unrealistic amount of time to find that you are just waisting time. Study and hour or two, do something else and come back. You will find that if you expect to study without breaks, you will just waist time. "rest is a change of activity". When you feel you cannot study anymore take a break. As long as you need. But make sure the break will involve the same parts of your body. If you are studying, do not watch a movie or read or anything of that nature. It is not a break then, it is getting tired further. Do something like listening to calm music. Playing a musical instrument, take a walk in park or just outside, you can take a nap maybe or just lie down a little. Socialize with friends.

Make sure you do not do things such as taking a worm bath or doing something energy draining, or extremely relaxing before you study. Your body or ego might sneak in through the back door and use that activity to put you to sleep and thus procrastinate. Meditation on the other hand can be a great practice before studying. Also keeping very relaxing music, such as sounds of waves playing in background can be good thing to keep while studying, as it will keep you relaxed and not stressed. Also do not lie down or sit in bad posture when you study. Keep your back straight and sit down or stand up. Ling down or sitting in bad posture will trigger your body to sleep and it will gladly take it as an excuse. It will greatly effect your concentration. Treat your body with care and it will not resist studying as much.

Now let us focus on the second major reason for procrastination. You may find that many times procrastination is simply a habit or worse - an addiction. Many of us slackers had let is slip and not resisted it for so long that it has become almost our second nature. Fear not. If procrastination can become a habit, not procrastinating can become a habit too. You may have met people that cannot delay anything and do everything right away. You can achieve that too in time.

To review Part one of Procrastination let us summarize what we had learned. First we learned the tricks our bodies uses to get us to procrastinate such as activities and word tricks. Second we learned why our bodies try to procrastinate. First being that our bodies got used to associating negative feeling to certain activity and second out of habit. Do not forget to use the trick questions for your body as a strategy to stop procrastination. Ask yourself "if there is a real reason to do it later" and "if the activity you are doing currently is an excuse to not do what you need to do".

Some cool stories/teachings and analogies.

2007-01-22T19:27:00.000-08:00
I started collecting some cool analogies and stories from monks.

Here are a few ; )

“There was a guy that took some spiritual interest in life. He started up a business and eventually stopped practicing spirituality and got all into business. One day he fainted and doctors brought him the sad news. He had a leukemia tumor, a rapid growing one. Doctors told him that if they don’t operate he will die within 3 weeks. If they do, he will be unable to speak, read or understand language because the tumor is in the area of the brain that is responsible for speaking and comprehending words. He forgot all about his business and only talked about spiritual part of his life with visitors. He told them how he loves to observe birds in the windows. How he loves the sunshine. How beautiful everything is. And then he said, “You know maybe I should have the surgery, I had enough talking in my life, and maybe I should start listening.” The surgery was successful and the next morning he was able to say “good morning” because the doctor was able to remove the tumor without damaging his brain.”

“There was a great guru and healer that came to village to heal a child. He chanted a few words and prayers. Then he said “the child will be well”. A villager that did not believe in spirituality came up and said “You are a fluke, how can I few words do anything?” The monk came up to him and said “you are an ignorant fool, what do you know of spirituality to judge it?” The villager got red and started shaking from anger. The monk smiled and said “see if a few words can do this to you, why can’t they heal?”

“Love does not exist in the past or future.
Love in the future is called a fantasy.
Love in the past is called a memory.
Love can only exist in now.”

“When you are hungry what do you see on the street?
restaraunts and food markets.
You do not see clothing stores.
In the same way desire limits us.”

Not accepting yourself.

2007-01-22T13:29:00.000-08:00
I found a person on forums whose problem resonated in my heart, because i realized i went through the same thing and i know exactly what she or he is feeling.

Anyways her problem as she described was a scar on her face. She is constantly self consciouses of it. At home or in public. At home she can't look in the mirror without feeling bad. In public she cant let go and be herself. It is constantly effecting her feelings, mood and joy. It seems to infiltrate every part of her life.

I am sure many of us can relate to similar problem. For some of us its fat. For some hight. There are many things we are not happy about.

I had similar problem not too long ago. I didn't get over it consciously. I started practicing spirituality and eventually it was gone by itself. This is opportunity for me to look back at life and study what was going on inside of me. Perhaps i will find how i solved it.

First i will study the nature of the problem, it's roots. I realization came to my mind. I remember when i was a little overweight because of depression, i felt just like her but even after i got in shape, i still felt fat. After i got over the fat issue, there was something else. I will not go into it too personal but let us just stop on realization that it is not the "problem" whichever it is, that is causing us the suffering. It is our relationship with it. It is primary Ego problem. More specificly it is the problem with acceptance of ourselves exactly the way we are.

Her scar is not causing her pain or discomfort, she probably can't even feel it. It is her relationship and not accepting it. Now let us look at the world. Many skinny people think they are fat. Many fat people do not admit they are fat and claim if i had 20 more pounds i will be fat! That is what causing the suffering. Not accepting our form the way it is.

Now she might make the mistake of looking at the mirror and saying, "the scar is ugly but i accept it". That is labeling and focusing on bad things about yourself. She might also go to the mirror and say "I am Hot" or "The scar is beautiful, it is just people do not realize it" or something like that. That is all product of ego. Our mission is to not have ego and not encourage it. So the right thing to do in front of mirror is to say "this is my body, this is how my body is and looks, i accept how it is." Notice you do not call yourself hot or ugly, smart or beautiful. You do not label, because labels are only limited perspectives and usually far from truth. Labels are product of the ego or the mind trying to organize everything. That way you simply accept yourself, however you are without getting ego involved. Never take labels you apply to yourself or others seriously. They are just thoughts and just limited perspectives. Whenever you find a label in you for someone else or yourself, simply tell yourself it is just a thought and not important. That way they cant exist and eventually disappear.

Now she admitted she has a problem with judging others. If you judge others, you will judge yourself. If you judge yourself, you will judge others. That is the nature of it. Cure one and the other will disappear. Also practice accepting others. Just how they are. Not trying to control how you perceive them or how everyone looks. Just accept the world the way it is. Surrender to what is.

Now another perspective, remember these are all perspectives. Simply strategies but not what is. Another perspective on it is that we always try to control everything and change everything and upgrade ourselves somehow. If you can change something, do it. If you can't, surrender to it. Suffering comes from trying to control or change something. Letting go can be very liberating and solves most suffering. If there is a scar, let it be. If there is no scar, let it be.

Another perspective on it is that many people involve their bodies directly with their identity. They say "I am the body". Think of your body as just a vehicle of the soul. You are the awareness inside. Stop associating yourself with your body. That is also ego. A guru once said, "just because the body is sick, the mind doesn't have to be." Yes the body can have disease or imperfection. But it is just your body, not you. You are something much more.

Develop a good relationship with your body. A once heard a good analogy. What do you do to train a puppy sitting in one place? You put it in the place and say "stay!". If the puppy runs away, is it a good idea to punish it or cause pain to it? No. We have to patiently pick it up again and put it back and say "stay" again. Eventually the puppy learns. Now our bodies are even harder to train and it does far worse things then just not staying where we tell it to. In meditation we ask it to stay in one place but it wonders of. Do not punish yourself by saying, "i am no good! this and that!". Simply patiently tell your body whats right until it learns. If we don't do it to puppys why should we do it to ourselves. Be gentle to your body and it will be gentle to you.

Another problem might be getting stuck in the future or past. You might try to live in the time when you didn't have the problem, the past. Or in the future thinking about how eventually it will disappear and living all your life waiting for that future. Whenever that happens just focus on awareness of now. Patiently.

Now another problem is probably thinking of whatever imperfection or disease as a bad thing. Think of it as a blessing. Suffering is a great teacher. By having imperfections you learn to accept others and yourself. Let it be your teacher. Imagine being perfect. How much vanity it would bring. How much criticizing others and judging. And you might have never had the chance to realize it is a bad thing to do. Because you would not experience it on yourself.

Another great way to look at it is how one of my favorite monk describes suffering associated with certain life situations. Ajahn Brahmavamso describes changing life situations as simply trading one kind of suffering for another. If you are hot, you have one kind of problems, if you are ugly another. Or sometimes even the same.

You can observe "not accepting" in many models and celebrities. You would think wow if i had that body! I would surely not care. Problem is ego is never satisfied. There will always be someone whose bodies we like more. If we keep comparing, there will be suffering. Celebrities are just as worried about their weight and think they are ugly. The once that are confident in their looks, might find some imperfection in their make up or clothing. A stain on jeans can seem like a scar for that girl to a particular model. The wise choice is to go our of competition of bodies and simply accept everything. The ego always finds something. Yes it may seem like if you only fix "this problem", everything will be fine. But it is simply an illusion. You can have a plastic surgery, but i assure you, your ego will find something else to grab and torture you. It loves that.

Let go you must.

"ask and you shall receive"

2007-01-21T22:06:00.000-08:00
(Changed my view on it since i posted this. I no longer believe in such rule.)

"Ask and you shall receive"
"Seek and you shall find"
"Knock and doors will open" , Jesus

Perhaps what Jesus was pointing at is a spiritual rule i learned recently. If you have a question, there will be an answer. It might take many different forms. Intuition, a feeling, a thought that pops up in your head, something your friend says, or something you read. It is usually completely random and unexpected but when you get it you know it is "it"; the answer.

I will go further and say that once you have a question, there is already an answer deep inside of you. You just did not find it yet. It works especially well when you are trying to understand if something you are about to do is right or wrong. Usually when you even have a question about it being right or wrong, evil or good. The answer is usually it is bad. Because if it was good you wouldn't have a question to begin with. Do you question if giving money to the poor is good or bad? You can logically convince yourself into anything. You can probably even logically convince yourself killing someone is a right thing to do. How many times do we resort to logic to convince ourselves that something is a right thing to do? Like when we eat something bad for us. We say to ourselves "but i am hungry and starving is even worse for you!" or "its ok i had a rough day and i deserve a treat!" or "it is only a little bad!". Everyone has their own strategies to fool ourselvs. In reality we fool no one. The feeling we have that tells us it is bad is our answer to the question; if you notice no amount of logic and convincing yourself that it is a right thing to do or "good" will make the feeling go away.

One perspective to look at it is that the higher self warns us through that feeling and if we dig deep in ourselves and listen we know what is right and wrong. No need for logic or someone to make us feel better by saying "sure it is the right thing to do!". Do not seek another fool to make you feel better. Listen to yourself and i do not mean the mind! The heart. The intuition.

Another way, the answers to our questions comes out are usually in a conversations or when writing something about yourself, or especially when teaching others. I find that when my friend asks me a similar question that i asked "god" just a few days ago, somehow the answer magically comes out and it feels as if it was always there, i just didn't see it. It is as if the answer was just never put into words.

Seek deep inside we must!

Rememebred some poems i wrote.

2007-01-21T21:46:00.000-08:00
Hmm since i started the blog, might as well post some poems i remembered.

One of them i just came up with 2 days ago.

The awakening in nature.
He stepped on grass and something faded,
He looked at sky and something melted,
He looked and cried and something happened.

This one i wrote to my friend while chatting on msn.
But the feeling i tried to capture goes back to few weeks ago, when some magical force made me go into central park and just wonder around. I wondered around and cried. It was very healing and linked me back to nature.

Do not get caught in stream of thought.

2007-01-21T21:06:00.000-08:00
I made a mistake today.

Listening to Eckhart Tolle(Enlightened dude) audio recording of his talks during a 6 day retreat in India called "Touching the Eternal" had probably been the best investment of time i ever did. He thought me how to live in "now" and build a solid path to enlightenment. He warned me of the wrong turns along the way. The mind is a maze and we must learn how to navigate before we travel.

He made me realize that logic will never lead one any closer to the truth, God or Enlightenment. There are many confusing concept in Buddhism and spirituality in general. Some of them scare the hell out of me and defiantly threaten my individuality; something that i built the logical beliefs upon. My belief system until recently was so attached to the belief of "self" and if that would be removed, it would be much like cutting the root of a plant; it would die.

I spent a good deal today thinking about the concept of "no self" basically trying to find a place for it in my pyramid of beliefs. When i put it in. The pyramid crashed and i had much suffering.
I meditated for a long time and got a little depressed.

Meditation was really cool though. Today was the first time i saw the white/blue star in me. It was amazing experience.

Then i realized, DUH! There is no place for "no self" in logic. Of course the more i would think about it the more it would not make sense. The truth is beyond words and logic. The words are just strategies to get to the truth. Do not be one of these people who focus on the pointers but never seeing where they point!

I got caught in the stream of thinking which of course never does anything but creates suffering. So i stopped thinking and let go. I am back to my old happy self now. YAY!

So do not repeat my mistake. Never get caught up in trying to figure out god or the meaning of existence. You cannot do it with logic. If you find it with meditations, great! Before you do, do not think about it, for you will only go further from the truth.

Thoughts are just thoughts, not to be taken seriously but simply as one perspective but never the truth itself.