Nor again will I pretend that, as Bacon asserts, “the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpasseth all other in nature.” This is too much the language of a salesman crying his own wares. The pleasures of the intellect are notoriously less vivid than either the pleasures of sense or the pleasures of the affections; and therefore, especially in the season of youth, the pursuit of knowledge is likely enough to be neglected and lightly esteemed in comparison with other pursuits offering much stronger immediate attractions. But the pleasure of learning and knowing, though not the keenest, is yet the least perishable of pleasures; the least subject to external things, and the play of chance, and the wear of time.
Albert Borgmann, Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life
A collection of notes in regard to Inaction.
Silence, it has been said by one writer, is a virtue which renders us agreeable to our fellow-creatures. Wu Wei means without doing, causing, or making. It flows like water, reflects like a mirror, and responds like an echo.
People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.Tolstoy
What is joy? Joy is the feeling of passing from a lesser to a greater perfection. Joy is the feeling that we are advancing towards happiness. What is happiness? Happiness is the state of the soul that feels itself free of all outside servitudes and feels itself in perfect accord with itself.
- Establishment of an always perfect tolerance, irrespective of the actions and words of others towards oneself.
- Truthfulness (to say only what is right).
- Rejection of hatred and worship. Not to follow any particular idea. Maintaining the mind in equanimity.
Many people are afraid of Emptiness,
because it reminds them of Loneliness.
They suppose Hesiod as knowing most, who indeed did not recognize that day and night were one.
If you feel like everyone hates you, you need to sleep. If you feel like you hate everyone else, you need to eat.
health knowledge
- Eat varied foods, biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields.
- Pay more for foods grown or raised less intensively and with more care, eat less.
- Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Cook, and if you can, plant a garden.
- Avoid food products with unpronounceable ingredients, or more than five in number.
- Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.
Because when an organ is working properly, you don't feel it. If you see your eye, you've got cataract. If you hear your ears, you've got singing in your ears, you know, getting in the way of hearing. When you are fully functioning, you are unaware of the organ. When you're thinking clearly, your brain isn't getting in your way.Alan Watts
Tummo is a combination of breathing and visualization techniques, used to enter into a state of meditation that is used to increase a person’s inner heat.
Box Breathing
- Expel all of the air from your lungs.
- Keep them empty for four seconds.
- Inhale through your nose for four seconds.
- Hold for four four seconds, don’t clamp down or create pressure.
Sitali Breathing
Roll your tongue, curling the sides in towards the center to form a tube (or a taco shape). Stick the end of the tongue out between your pursed lips. If you can’t roll your tongue, purse your lips instead, making a small “o” shape with your mouth. In this case, keep your tongue against the back side of your bottom teeth so that the air you are drawing in passes over it. Or, place your tongue on the roof of the mouth by sliding it back to rest on the ridge behind your top teeth.
Inhale slowly through the tube formed by your tongue as if you were sipping air through a straw. Let the breath expand your chest and fill your belly. If your lips are pursed in an "o" shape, channel the air through that opening. Close your mouth and exhale slowly through your nose.
Tummo Meditation
Use stress to go to a higher state of consciousness, not a relaxed state of mind.
Involves systematic physical exercises and techniques of concentration, visualization, breath practice and meditation. The breathing, which in tummo practice is forceful and involves abdominal and pelvic muscle contractions allows people to increase their core body temperature to a certain point. In tummo meditation, practitioners conjure intense visualization and mental images, such as flames, and imagine sensations of intense heat. This visualization allows practitioners to override the body's automatic cooling response, allowing them to push past their typical threshold.
incoming: wisdom