All posts tagged: Meditation Practice

Shut down for repairs

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I’m 48 hours into my fast. It’s been 2 days since I last ate. That leaves another 24-30 hours remaining. I haven’t done much by way of fasting in my life, but the little that I have done has been pretty beneficial. Mostly I fast for physical reasons, to cleanse and to give the digestive system a chance for some repairs and maintenance. I’ve been having digestive issues over the past several months, so this fast was prompted by a desire to let the digestive system rest and perhaps balance out the acid levels. After my fast, I’ll reevaluate my diet.

Let that shit go

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I have an office job at a small lodge in remote Alaska, and one of the hats I wear is HR Manager. I recently put this poster up on the wall next to my desk. It’s as close to a self-help/inspirational/motivational poster as I think I could get away with out here in the bush. It’s also not a bad summary of my spiritual philosophy.

Mixed Metaphor Monday Meditation Madness (but on Wednesday)

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I don’t usually meditate with sounds, like music or guided meditions. I’ve had some good experiences with them — once in a while there will be a guide I really connect with, like Joseph Goldstein (Buddhist) or James Finley (Christian/Buddhist) — but for the most part medition sounds feel like additives in food. Additives can be good if done skillfully by an experienced chef with real cheffing skills. I’ve nothing against additives, per se. So, if one were to listen to this as an additive, I’d have to say that you would probably get a lot of bang for your buck…or whatever happens to be the market value of five minutes and seven seconds of your time.  

Emerging from the dish pit, no worse for the wear

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The North Fork Vipassana Meditation Center is located in the foothills of the Sierras, just south of Yosemite. Not a bad place to do a retreat. I wasn’t, in fact, sitting for this one, though, just serving. 10 straight days in the dish pit, though, was enough to leave me feeling just a bit not my self, which of course is somewhat of the point of the path of the Buddha, the no-self thing, etc. So a service retreat is sort of its own form of growing process. We had some wacky weather: snow, sleet, heavy rains, and even a bit of thunder storm. All that plus a good soaking of sunshine. The place was starting to green up and will soon be popping with spring colors, what with the mix of rain and sunshine.

The supreme act of creativity, and other lessons one might learn in a bar

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One thing that was unique about my last meditation retreat: I carpooled with three other guys, also fellow meditators. It was unique because we had a chance to chat about the retreat on the way there, and then on the ride back, we debriefed. Even so, conversations don’t always dwell solely on the topic of meditation. I said something about my summer job in McCarthy, and I mentioned my favorite bar in the whole wide world, The Golden Saloon. Suresh, a Bay Area consultant, was sitting beside me. Normally the most reserved in our bunch and the last one to speak, he cut me off and enthusiastically began to extole the virtures of a bar. By his second sentence, he was getting philosophical. Hospitality, he said, is the supreme act of creativity.

Yuval Harari, author of “Sapiens,” on AI, religion, and 60-day meditation retreats

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I thought I’d share an excellent interview by the author of my current favorite book, Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. As artificial intelligence becomes more normative, the elimination of low skill labor is in the near future, i.e., machines replacing humans is no longer a question of if but of when. There are many people discussing this and writing books, but few can provide the kind of historical perspective on our species in the way that Yuval Harari does. He also does Vipassana meditation retreats, like the one I just finished. (My retreat was only ten days, his retreats are two months.) If you want a sample of the kinds of things Harari talks about, here’s a great 60 minute interview he did with Ezra Klein: https://art19.com/shows/the-ezra-klein-show/episodes/261857d5-9ee4-43fa-b8a9-afed18e74d4b