OK so I've been ignoring (but not forgetting) my blog.
I'm not a writer, I'm a musician...
But I haven't forgotten my projects, about to throw the switch on the big one!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Monday, July 6, 2009
Guru yoga
I have been attending the Diamond Way centre in Canberra and studying hard and I feel a little detached from the whole experience.
I have found a wonderful meditation that has given me a lot of insight. I am learning a lot about the nature of the universe, mind and the pursuit of happiness.
I look forward to becoming more deeply involved and learning even more. I have set up an altar with a Buddha and I've got some beads I can use during my devotions. But for right now I just feel like I'm in limbo and have to wait until I can meet the guru who leads the Diamond Way centre or alternatively make a pilgrimage to meet some of his teachers and find a guru who will be able to lead me in my study.
You see Tibetan meditation is based on devotion, lineage and the desire to emulate a trusted guru. You can study some types of Buddhism from a book and even become a self-realised Buddha but Tibetan methods are based on the availability of a teacher. The leader of the tradition represented by Diamond Way Centres is Karmapa although there are other schools. For example the third Karmapa taught Sharmapa and ever since that time the two have alternated in the roles of student and teacher, recognising each other in successive rebirths. The two teach a very similar method however each has a different energy and some of the details may vary.
I have found the Karmapa visualisations to be very powerful and have a desire to take my meditation further however how can one practice guru yoga in Australia when the guru Karmapa lives in India and doesn't visit us here?
The people at my centre are followers of a very charismatic and Danish Lama called Ole Nydahl who has been instrumental in communicating the essence of Tibetan buddhism to a European audience. Lama Ole studied with the previous Karmapa and continues as a student of the current Karmapa. While his biggest followers are in Germany he does visit Australia every year and holds courses in Asia (for example there may be a Phowa course in Hong Kong next year) so there are many more opportunities to meet him... however he is a controversial lama and with good reason. In order to make Buddhism more familiar to Westerners he disregards the Tibetan cultural traditions which is good but the problem is that he also drinks, parties, travels all over the world... again probably great but not the right role model for me - I want to balance out my energy, not get swept up in an International party!
Sharmapa's recent blog on finding a meditation teacher emphasises the importance of a teacher who lives a simple life. But there are exceptions and Sharmapa would probably identify Lama Ole as a powerful exception for many Europeans and people with European heritage around the world.
So for right now I'm in limbo attempting to build a connection to a teacher and a method. Luckily there are stacks of videos on YouTube that allow me to connect with the lamas and receive their teachings by distance until I can make a pilgrimage and make contact. These videos are going to be crucial to my initial practice of meditation if I am to continue with this method. And I hope I can because up to now it has been really good!
I have found a wonderful meditation that has given me a lot of insight. I am learning a lot about the nature of the universe, mind and the pursuit of happiness.
I look forward to becoming more deeply involved and learning even more. I have set up an altar with a Buddha and I've got some beads I can use during my devotions. But for right now I just feel like I'm in limbo and have to wait until I can meet the guru who leads the Diamond Way centre or alternatively make a pilgrimage to meet some of his teachers and find a guru who will be able to lead me in my study.
You see Tibetan meditation is based on devotion, lineage and the desire to emulate a trusted guru. You can study some types of Buddhism from a book and even become a self-realised Buddha but Tibetan methods are based on the availability of a teacher. The leader of the tradition represented by Diamond Way Centres is Karmapa although there are other schools. For example the third Karmapa taught Sharmapa and ever since that time the two have alternated in the roles of student and teacher, recognising each other in successive rebirths. The two teach a very similar method however each has a different energy and some of the details may vary.
I have found the Karmapa visualisations to be very powerful and have a desire to take my meditation further however how can one practice guru yoga in Australia when the guru Karmapa lives in India and doesn't visit us here?
The people at my centre are followers of a very charismatic and Danish Lama called Ole Nydahl who has been instrumental in communicating the essence of Tibetan buddhism to a European audience. Lama Ole studied with the previous Karmapa and continues as a student of the current Karmapa. While his biggest followers are in Germany he does visit Australia every year and holds courses in Asia (for example there may be a Phowa course in Hong Kong next year) so there are many more opportunities to meet him... however he is a controversial lama and with good reason. In order to make Buddhism more familiar to Westerners he disregards the Tibetan cultural traditions which is good but the problem is that he also drinks, parties, travels all over the world... again probably great but not the right role model for me - I want to balance out my energy, not get swept up in an International party!
Sharmapa's recent blog on finding a meditation teacher emphasises the importance of a teacher who lives a simple life. But there are exceptions and Sharmapa would probably identify Lama Ole as a powerful exception for many Europeans and people with European heritage around the world.
So for right now I'm in limbo attempting to build a connection to a teacher and a method. Luckily there are stacks of videos on YouTube that allow me to connect with the lamas and receive their teachings by distance until I can make a pilgrimage and make contact. These videos are going to be crucial to my initial practice of meditation if I am to continue with this method. And I hope I can because up to now it has been really good!
Friday, July 3, 2009
The lunch break workout
There's no reason why the daily office experience has to leave us all weak and floppy and yet somehow we never seem to take advantage of our lunch break to get a bit of physical fitness!
I've designed a workout I can do outside in the couryard or inside around my desk. We have cubicles so I'll be visible but I'm hoping to start a trend.
First there's the aerobic workout. This means a half hour walk, some stair work (every office has at least a few stairs) or even just some skipping rope or jumping jacks in the couryard or in the carpark. As our courtyard is covered I can even use that space if it's raining! Do you have a good spot like that?
Then there's the toning up.
Upper body:
Obviously nobody wants to get down on the floor and do push-ups at the office so let's stick to something you can do at a desk or picnic table. First there's that backwards lunge where you face away from the table or chair (it has to be quite secure and definitely not on castors) then go down and push back up. You can also do push-ups by pushing off from the edge of a table either standing or sitting.
Core:
Apart from situps which don't lend themselves to the office environment, the best exercise is isometric contractions. While you're sitting at your desk, hold your stomach in and do pelvic floor exercises. You can do this all day long!
A good lunchtime exercise is isolations. Stand with your legs at shoulder width and keep your legs and hips steady then move your shoulders and upper body to the right, then back to the left and repeat. You can also do the cat/cow pose by isolating your chest area and pushing it forward then contracting backwards. Finally move your upper body in a cirlce while holding your hips still.
Lower body:
This is probably the easiest. You can do squats and plies at any time - make it a rule that you'll do 2 plies every time you go to the printer or 20 every time you go for a coffee. You can also work them into your lunchtime exercise routine. If your half hour of exercise includes the stairs your lower body is already getting a great workout!
Check out this article on great office stretches.
I've designed a workout I can do outside in the couryard or inside around my desk. We have cubicles so I'll be visible but I'm hoping to start a trend.
First there's the aerobic workout. This means a half hour walk, some stair work (every office has at least a few stairs) or even just some skipping rope or jumping jacks in the couryard or in the carpark. As our courtyard is covered I can even use that space if it's raining! Do you have a good spot like that?
Then there's the toning up.
Upper body:
Obviously nobody wants to get down on the floor and do push-ups at the office so let's stick to something you can do at a desk or picnic table. First there's that backwards lunge where you face away from the table or chair (it has to be quite secure and definitely not on castors) then go down and push back up. You can also do push-ups by pushing off from the edge of a table either standing or sitting.
Core:
Apart from situps which don't lend themselves to the office environment, the best exercise is isometric contractions. While you're sitting at your desk, hold your stomach in and do pelvic floor exercises. You can do this all day long!
A good lunchtime exercise is isolations. Stand with your legs at shoulder width and keep your legs and hips steady then move your shoulders and upper body to the right, then back to the left and repeat. You can also do the cat/cow pose by isolating your chest area and pushing it forward then contracting backwards. Finally move your upper body in a cirlce while holding your hips still.
Lower body:
This is probably the easiest. You can do squats and plies at any time - make it a rule that you'll do 2 plies every time you go to the printer or 20 every time you go for a coffee. You can also work them into your lunchtime exercise routine. If your half hour of exercise includes the stairs your lower body is already getting a great workout!
Check out this article on great office stretches.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Mindfulness
A five minute break in my duties at work - and instead of stressing about the things that have been getting me down lately I'd like to return to my first passion and kick off with a few musings on the topic of minfulness.
It's a very fashionable topic in psychology at the moment - cognitive therapy has been slowly developed over the past few decades and established itself as quite distinct from the old "lie on the couch and tell me about your mother" routine.
Where psychoanalysis had its purpose in assisting people to understand more about the nature of their problems there comes a point where it can do a lot of harm by encouraging them to really wallow in their suffering. Cognitive and behavioural therapy on the other hand has a goal of teaching the patient to really let go of the pain and suffering and learn new, positive thoughts and activities.
I have recently been suffering from a double-whammy of eating disorder. I was anorexic as a teen and into my early 20s but have not really beaten it, I've just learned to tap into that greed for candy I felt as a kid and that led me to start obsessing with weight gain in the first place. I now fight bulimia and can binge with a change of the wind - but I fight it by holding onto the anorexia I want to let go of.
Understanding those complex motivations is certainly stage one of mindfulness and illustrates where some of the techniques of analysis still have their place in modern cognitive therapy. But the big goal I'm facing with my therapist at the moment is to learn to let go of these thoughts and the negative beliefs I have about food and body image that are really holding them in close to me.
The "cognitive" part is really learning to identify and slowly replace the convoluted and slightly ridiculous belief structure responsible for the negative thoughts and the "behavioural" part is about learning new habits - mental or otherwise.
I've done this quite successfully for a period in my life when I suffered from extreme depression. By discovering Buddha and learning that "with our thoughts we create the world" of emotion and feeling I learned to find new thoughts that decreased my suffering.
But true mindfulness in Buddhism goes beyond these notions of replacing one thought with another and really focuses on just letting go of belief, thought and feeling. At the essence of Zen meditation is the letting go of thoughts and keeping the mind clear and open. Try not thinking for just 10 seconds! It's harder than it seems!
And this is why I have been unable to apply the same techniques to a more complex set of motivations and beliefs and cure myself of eating disorder.
In cognitive therapy the goal is simply to build certain thought "habits" but habits are mindless and only see us through a certain set of circumstances. With mindfulness we can respond to any situation and maintain mental health and strength.
Your thoughts are as random as the quantum mechanical fluctuation that causes a neuron to discharge an electrical signal. Your emotions are simply a chemical response to electrical stimulation. But in your wisdom and mindfulness you can decide how much value to apply to those thoughts and you can examine your beliefs to determine why some thoughts affect you more than others. You can catch negative thoughts long before they become negative habits of thought and you can dismiss them as easily as a daydream.
So with mindfulness I am controlling my food intake. I can take an antacid to quiet a grumbling tummy and I can count out an appropriate caloric intake for the day. More importantly I am controlling my thoughts - if I find myself thinking about food or body image I simply dismiss the thought and continue working on my higher priority activities.
Cognitive therapy is a powerful tool because it simply applies the outcomes of mindfulness to the problem at hand - and is the major treatment for most mental illnesses these days. In a later post I will expand on my own experiences and I will also talk about how the brain works and what it means for mindfulness
It's a very fashionable topic in psychology at the moment - cognitive therapy has been slowly developed over the past few decades and established itself as quite distinct from the old "lie on the couch and tell me about your mother" routine.
Where psychoanalysis had its purpose in assisting people to understand more about the nature of their problems there comes a point where it can do a lot of harm by encouraging them to really wallow in their suffering. Cognitive and behavioural therapy on the other hand has a goal of teaching the patient to really let go of the pain and suffering and learn new, positive thoughts and activities.
I have recently been suffering from a double-whammy of eating disorder. I was anorexic as a teen and into my early 20s but have not really beaten it, I've just learned to tap into that greed for candy I felt as a kid and that led me to start obsessing with weight gain in the first place. I now fight bulimia and can binge with a change of the wind - but I fight it by holding onto the anorexia I want to let go of.
Understanding those complex motivations is certainly stage one of mindfulness and illustrates where some of the techniques of analysis still have their place in modern cognitive therapy. But the big goal I'm facing with my therapist at the moment is to learn to let go of these thoughts and the negative beliefs I have about food and body image that are really holding them in close to me.
The "cognitive" part is really learning to identify and slowly replace the convoluted and slightly ridiculous belief structure responsible for the negative thoughts and the "behavioural" part is about learning new habits - mental or otherwise.
I've done this quite successfully for a period in my life when I suffered from extreme depression. By discovering Buddha and learning that "with our thoughts we create the world" of emotion and feeling I learned to find new thoughts that decreased my suffering.
But true mindfulness in Buddhism goes beyond these notions of replacing one thought with another and really focuses on just letting go of belief, thought and feeling. At the essence of Zen meditation is the letting go of thoughts and keeping the mind clear and open. Try not thinking for just 10 seconds! It's harder than it seems!
And this is why I have been unable to apply the same techniques to a more complex set of motivations and beliefs and cure myself of eating disorder.
In cognitive therapy the goal is simply to build certain thought "habits" but habits are mindless and only see us through a certain set of circumstances. With mindfulness we can respond to any situation and maintain mental health and strength.
Your thoughts are as random as the quantum mechanical fluctuation that causes a neuron to discharge an electrical signal. Your emotions are simply a chemical response to electrical stimulation. But in your wisdom and mindfulness you can decide how much value to apply to those thoughts and you can examine your beliefs to determine why some thoughts affect you more than others. You can catch negative thoughts long before they become negative habits of thought and you can dismiss them as easily as a daydream.
So with mindfulness I am controlling my food intake. I can take an antacid to quiet a grumbling tummy and I can count out an appropriate caloric intake for the day. More importantly I am controlling my thoughts - if I find myself thinking about food or body image I simply dismiss the thought and continue working on my higher priority activities.
Cognitive therapy is a powerful tool because it simply applies the outcomes of mindfulness to the problem at hand - and is the major treatment for most mental illnesses these days. In a later post I will expand on my own experiences and I will also talk about how the brain works and what it means for mindfulness
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Not as daily as planned
It is fascinating how a big idea is rapidly forgotten. I haven't forgotten my blog although I haven't really known what to write next.
For example there is the development of the universe of Qan. I don't know if that is the name I want to give this heroine, it is actually a derivative of the name of my fantasy heroine, I just needed some name and used a familiar one. She already looks different to my fantasy heroine though - less proud and perfect, more real.
Everything about this story is going to be based on harsh reality. For example without faster than light travel, a galaxy as densely populated and technically advanced as Foundation would be a series of islands that are well-connected internally but social connections between islands would be few, far between and would involve long distance travel. Even the postulated "hub" would be several months' journey and expensive in fuel. I need a way for Forever to engage with the wider universe but I don't think setting it up as a trading station is necessarily the way. Certainly she could have a good understanding of physics and know that there are all sorts of other civilisations out there. Some would be happily drifting along but most would be pretty stable within a solar system, and most people would not really make the expensive journey to a different planetary body.
Instead it might be more interesting to give her a more stable environment and see how her culture reacts to intrusion by a world ship. This would be analogous to a viking or Pacific Island explorer and yet so much more - they would be looking for somewhere and yet self-sufficient to continue drifting for another generation if nothing suitable showed up. Would they even speak a similar language? Well with radio transmissions beaming far out into space there's no reason why they wouldn't have learned it but they would also have their own language.
I want to give my heroine some real human weaknesses too. Too many science fiction stories have perfect heroes going on amazing journeys and I want this to be more about an imperfect person driven from a stagnant environment and exploring the deeper structure of her social fabric but also learning and growing within herself.
It really helps to just sit, write this out and get my thoughts straight. More on the initial self-sufficiency and less on the space tourism centre. Maybe she's a secretary in a position to overhear some of the negotiations that are going on - the aliens could show up saying "look at our awesome ship, pay us tribute!" She might be excited by this power and wish to join them, only to find that her stagnant culture, while technically advanced, hasn't equipped her for useful work on the world-ship. I'd like her to think she's pretty prestigious and find she has no real skills but develop good cunning and shrewdness on the world ship. That would be a story!
For example there is the development of the universe of Qan. I don't know if that is the name I want to give this heroine, it is actually a derivative of the name of my fantasy heroine, I just needed some name and used a familiar one. She already looks different to my fantasy heroine though - less proud and perfect, more real.
Everything about this story is going to be based on harsh reality. For example without faster than light travel, a galaxy as densely populated and technically advanced as Foundation would be a series of islands that are well-connected internally but social connections between islands would be few, far between and would involve long distance travel. Even the postulated "hub" would be several months' journey and expensive in fuel. I need a way for Forever to engage with the wider universe but I don't think setting it up as a trading station is necessarily the way. Certainly she could have a good understanding of physics and know that there are all sorts of other civilisations out there. Some would be happily drifting along but most would be pretty stable within a solar system, and most people would not really make the expensive journey to a different planetary body.
Instead it might be more interesting to give her a more stable environment and see how her culture reacts to intrusion by a world ship. This would be analogous to a viking or Pacific Island explorer and yet so much more - they would be looking for somewhere and yet self-sufficient to continue drifting for another generation if nothing suitable showed up. Would they even speak a similar language? Well with radio transmissions beaming far out into space there's no reason why they wouldn't have learned it but they would also have their own language.
I want to give my heroine some real human weaknesses too. Too many science fiction stories have perfect heroes going on amazing journeys and I want this to be more about an imperfect person driven from a stagnant environment and exploring the deeper structure of her social fabric but also learning and growing within herself.
It really helps to just sit, write this out and get my thoughts straight. More on the initial self-sufficiency and less on the space tourism centre. Maybe she's a secretary in a position to overhear some of the negotiations that are going on - the aliens could show up saying "look at our awesome ship, pay us tribute!" She might be excited by this power and wish to join them, only to find that her stagnant culture, while technically advanced, hasn't equipped her for useful work on the world-ship. I'd like her to think she's pretty prestigious and find she has no real skills but develop good cunning and shrewdness on the world ship. That would be a story!
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Journey From Forever - Chapter One
A note from The Dreamer: I have been thinking about this story for several months and have finally gained the courage to start writing it down. The protagonist shares many of my characteristics but has fundamentally different ambitions and motivations. I am trying to get a feel for who she is and where she lives so that I can further develop her world and begin her journey.
In order to understand the story you must first understand the protagonist. Our story begins at Forever Station where Qan lives in modest accommodations well suited to her age and position.
A visitor from our time and place would recognise her as fifteen years old although she does not circle this Sun or indeed observe an exact 24 hour Earth day however her day is close to ours and she has lived over 5300 of them - her contemporaries would recognise her as 53 seasons of age.
Most people would actually not comment on her age because Qan is legally an adult. She has completed her formal education, lives independently and studies for a career in a more advanced field than her current junior occupation in entertainment coordination for visitors to Forever.
The name Forever is a historical reference to the construction of the Station in its earlier historical phase as a ferry to the world-ship Hub. In fact Forever and its sister station Tranquility have been independent for many generations and are maintained by an army of maintenance engineers that regularly transfer between stations learning new skills and methods. Forever has now become a minor trading centre on the edge of the star system known simply to locals as Alpha. Tranquility ekes out a more traditional living for its inhabitants by inventing new practical technologies to improve the functioning of the Stations in this sector. Hub remains a major population centre with a variety of industries and a major source of visitors to Forever.
Qan is aware of the history of this sector of space from school - that it was settled many generations ago and how her Station came into being. She often gives a short history of Forever to visitors from Hub who seem less focused on the past and more on the future. Qan is slim and toned from many hours after work spent perfecting her understanding of Forever's traditional dances but she can see by the shape of visitors from Hub that recreation is another tradition they lack.
Returning to her small apartment after an evening's dancing she enters and immediately her screens illuminate the room in a relaxing green. Her cheerful ornaments and awards mark her success in placing visitors in suitable entertainment where they have spent a lot of money and Qan has profited for her good judgement of character. Today most of her clients were clearly not interested in spending a lot of money but simply wanted to pass the time - Qan directed them to the nearest theatre and recommended a good place to get a drink of the sweet beverages that Hub locals prefer and tried not to judge poorly those visitors who would look at her agape as if they were not familiar with the appearance of a dancer's body.
Sitting down to her study, Qan once again considered her future career opportunities as an event coordinator for major trading fairs. This would require a refinement of her current skills to judge characteristics of a guest from a great distance, to find and sell a suitable package and to earn herself a generous commisssion of course.
This is an early draft of the scene-setting for Chapter One of Journey From Forever. Please don't judge me too early as it may be revised many times and will certainly be extended and continued. But it's half past 11 and I need my beauty sleep!
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