January 31st, 2017

January 31st, 2017


Word of the Day: kibitzer (n):

1. one who looks on and often offers unwanted advice or comment; broadly  one who offers opinions.

(I love that Yiddish has a word for this!)

Two Kinds of Intelligence

There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always
more marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it does not move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.

____


In Defense of Affirmations

It is true that we can't control our thoughts, but I do believe that we can train our minds.

Thoughts often give rise to words (whether internal or external dialogue, writing, communication, etc.), which is turn give rise to actions, which in turn shapes our lives. If we want to change our lives for the better, therefore, it follows that we must elevate our thoughts accordingly.

But how do we do that if we cannot control them? We take a step back and take a look at our words. We can harness the energy of our words as a means to shape our thoughts.

The concept of Right Speech (the 3rd teaching of the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path) has been prevalent for at least many millennia and across various spiritual traditions (from the Aztec "be impeccable with your word" to the Christian "in the beginning there was the word and the word was God"). This suggests that our word is more than a bond, more than a commitment, more than even a promise - there is an element of the divine within it (as there is in all forms of Self expression), which is why it has the ability to shape our lives and which is why it is so important that we pay attention to our internal and external words.

Whether it is self-criticism, gossip, idle chatter, or some type of falsehood, I invite you to consider what Right Speech means and looks like for you. For example, it is often said that one must T.H.I.N.K before speaking:

Is what I am about to say

True?
Helpful?
Inspiring?
Necessary?
Kind?

For me, I don't think that words need to be "necessary" in order to be spoken. Sometimes there is simple beauty in "unnecessary" gratitude or poetry or even just a musing. Similarly, not all words need to be inspiring. Find what feels right for your Right Speech.

And keep in mind that in order to feel a certain way and in order to manifest certain things in our lives, it is often necessary to act - and speak - ourselves there.

Would you guys like to see daily affirmations on this blog?

What are your thoughts on affirmations? Love them or leave them? Why?

PS Affirmations are path of my Right Speech practice and I have found them to be very helpful and life-elevating. I didn't want to write a post just yet on what my practice looks like or the ins and outs of my experience with affirmations, but if you are interested, let me know (I am also aware that a lot of people strongly dislike affirmations).

January 30th, 2017

January 30th, 2017


Word of the Day: macerate (v):

1. to cause to waste away by or as if by excessive fasting

2. to soften by steeping or soaking so as to separate the parts

A Dumb Experiment

Break open your personal self
to taste the story of the nutmeat soul.

These voices come from that rattling
against the outer shell.

The nut and the oil inside
have voices that can only be heard
with another kind of listening.

If it weren't for the sweetness of the nut,
the inner talking, who would ever shake a walnut?

We listen to words
so we can silently
reach into the other.

Let the ear and mouth get quiet,
so this taste can come to the lip.

Too long we have been saying poetry,
talking discourses, explaining the mystery out loud.

Let us try a dumb experiment.

____


The One Time You Should Sit Down

Though I am skeptical that it is contributing to our premature death and the cause of all that ails modern society, research does suggest that we sit more today then we ever did in the past. What with our sedentary cubicle lifestyles, cuts on recess, .... this comes as no surprise.

Yet, I am willing to wager that there are specific times during our day when we are sitting less and moving about more.

Eating.

Whether it's wolfing down breakfast on the way to class, juggling a croissant, a coffee, a banana, and a backpack or eating while doing work or some other task or eating while running errands, eating's place as a verb becomes a whole lot less important than the other verb we are engaged in.

This isn't about what the best thing to do it in terms of health or dieting - this has more to do with our increased propensity to multi-task and maximize which in turn leads to our increased propensity to stress out, zone out, and burn out. We are at once overly engaged and disengaged. Super-human and slothful. Overly ambitious or apathetic. Zealous or zombies. Productive or procrastinating.

What gives?

Tomorrow, I am going to encourage myself most of all (and invite you, if you would like) to eat just 1 meal - that's right, just 1 - without distractions or work or zoning out or standing or engaging in something that isn't the meal. I invite you to engage in gratitude for the food, if that is something that fits for you. And I invite you to engage your 5 senses with the food.

What does the food look like? Colors? Patterns?

What does the food taste like? Texture? Let the food linger on your tongue for a moment before swallowing.

What does the food smell like? Bring the food to your nostrils and inhale deeply before blindly eating.

What does the food sound like? Does it crunch? Sizzle? Slurp?

What does the food taste like? Can you distinguish the nuances of sweet, spicy, salty, sour, bitter, umami, etc.?

Thoughts?

January 29th, 2017

January 29th, 2017


Word of the Day: parergon (n):

1.something that is an accessory to a main work or subject; embellishment.

2. work undertaken in addition to one’s principal work.

Uthman’s Silence

The story is told of Uthman, who when he became caliph
mounted quickly the steps of Muhammad’s pulpit,
whereas Abu Bakr, out of respect for the prophet,
seated himself on the second step.

There were three steps. Omar sat on the third step.
Uthman climbed to the top. When asked why, he replied, 
If I sat on the third step, people would say
I was like Omar. If on the second step, 
He’s like Abu Bakr.

But up here where the chosen one sat, no one will think 

to compare me with that king of the spirit.

And sometimes when he had climbed
to the preaching place, that sweet one Uthman,
would not say anything. He stayed silent
until midafternoon. No one asked him
for a sermon, and no one left the mosque.

In the silence many began to see with Uthman’s light.
This is how a living master opens the inner eye.

____


For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The Bell Jar.

The concept of bells and angst-ridden protagonists seem to go hand-in-hand in literature. The act of "sounding a bell" is an alarm. Staying within the "bell curve" is seen as "safe" and "normal." But when is it OK - indeed preferable - to shatter this casing? And when is it better to stay within?

I don't have absolute answer, but I want to share a concept I thought of myself with you: the idea of ordinary vs. "odd-inary."

I believe that we are all, at our core, united yet unique - hence both ordinary and odd. When we are fully "being ourselves" and true to ourselves, we are therefore odd-inary.

Enough has been written on social media and in countless books about being unabashedly, spontaneously, creatively, and playfully ourselves, so I do not want to belabor the point.

On the other end, when does it behove us to be ordinary and fall within the bell curve? It comes as no surprise that having a fifth of vodka or a fifth pint of ice cream with dinner or no dinner at all certainly isn't where we want to fall. When it comes to when we should fall within the bell curve, our instincts are usually spot on.

But I do want to emphasize usually. Many people are so out of touch with their intuition that it can sometimes be worse to trust what you think your body/ Self is telling you. These are times when you can rely on your "tribe," on trusted sources, on well wishers, on what has worked for other people, and on the bell curve.

This line is blurry at best and knowing when to be odd versus ordinary is a life-long process. I don't think that it is an exact science nor do I believe that there exists any rule of thumb for knowing where to land.

I think that is where the frustration and growth and learning and journey of actually living comes in, in all its messy, confusing, redeeming, glorious wonder.