The Fruitfulness of the Moment - H.Miller, V.Frankl

Henry Miller's "The Wisdom of the Heart"

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/10/09/the-wisdom-of-the-heart-henry-miller/

The art of living is based on rhythm — on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, ‘the dance of life,’ metamorphosis. One can dance to sorrow or to joy; one can even dance abstractly. … But the point is that, by the mere act of dancing, the elements which compose it are transformed; the dance is an end in itself, just like life. The acceptance of the situation, any situation, brings about a flow, a rhythmic impulse towards self-expression. To relax is, of course, the first thing a dancer has to learn. It is also the first thing a patient has to learn when he confronts the analyst. It is the first thing any one has to learn in order to live. It is extremely difficult, because it means surrender, full surrender.

For the awakened individual, however, life begins now, at any and every moment; it begins at the moment when he realizes that he is part of a great whole, and in the realization becomes himself whole. In the knowledge of limits and relationships he discovers the eternal self, thenceforth to move with obedience and discipline in full freedom.

An attempt, in short, to arrive at a total grasp of the universe, and thus keep man anchored in the moving stream of life, which embraces known and unknown. Any and every moment, from this viewpoint, is therefore good or right, the best for whoever it be, for on how one orients himself to the moment depends the failure or fruitfulness of it.

Real love is never perplexed, never qualifies, never rejects, never demands. It replenishes, by grace of restoring unlimited circulation. It burns, because it knows the true meaning of sacrifice. It is life illuminated.

http://www.raptitude.com/2013/10/6-helpful-reminders-for-the-overwhelmed-person/

 ... Viktor Frankl’s great discovery — that nobody can take away your freedom to choose your way of relating to your circumstances. Wherever you are, you can do something to make the rest of the day better than it would otherwise be, and that means you are not helpless. No matter how small the action, once you see you are capable of improving your position, the feeling of helplessness cannot survive unless you want it to.

Bucurie si recunostinta in inimile noastre - Joy and Gratitude in Our Hearts

"Si fie ca noi sa avem mereu bucurie si recunostinta in inimile noastre pentru ca Marele Creator al tuturor lucrurilor, in Dragostea Sa pentru noi, a pus plantele pe campuri spre vindecarea noastra." Dr. Bach

"And may we ever have joy and gratitude in our hearts that the Great Creator of all things, in His love for us, has placed the herbs in the field for our healing." Dr. Bach

From "The Twelve Healers"
http://www.bachcentre.com/centre/download/healers.htm

7 Perspectives on Purpose and Doing Work that You Love

Excellent article from brainpickings:
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/27/purpose-work-love/

Nr. 4 Lewis Hyde on Work vs. Labor:

Work is what we do by the hour. It begins and, if possible, we do it for money. Welding car bodies on an assembly line is work; washing dishes, computing taxes, walking the rounds in a psychiatric ward, picking asparagus — these are work. Labor, on the other hand, sets its own pace. We may get paid for it, but it’s harder to quantify… Writing a poem, raising a child, developing a new calculus, resolving a neurosis, invention in all forms — these are labors.

Work is an intended activity that is accomplished through the will. A labor can be intended but only to the extent of doing the groundwork, or of not doing things that would clearly prevent the labor. Beyond that, labor has its own schedule.

…

There is no technology, no time-saving device that can alter the rhythms of creative labor. When the worth of labor is expressed in terms of exchange value, therefore, creativity is automatically devalued every time there is an advance in the technology of work.”

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has a term for the quality that sets labor apart from work: flow — a kind of intense focus and crisp sense of clarity where you forget yourself, lose track of time, and feel like you’re part of something larger. If you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter for a pet project, or even spent 20 consecutive hours composing a love letter, you’ve experienced flow and you know creative labor."


Nr. 5 Steve Jobs on Not Settling:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

How do we interpret transits and progressions from a psychological perspective?

http://www.astro.com/astrology/in_transits_e.htm

Liz Green: The Horoscope in Manifestation - How do we interpret transits and progressions from a psychological perspective?

...
Nevertheless, a great deal of what we assume to be predictable may not be predictable at all, once individual consciousness has begun to expand the levels at which we experience reality. For this reason I believe we need to try to live as though we have the freedom to work with our transits and progressions on a psychological level. We may then have room to transform or alter future events, or deal more creatively with anything that is our own creation due to the workings of unconscious complexes. As for those things about which we truly have no choice, we will find out soon enough, and can hopefully learn to accept and live with our necessity in a more tranquil spirit.

One of my main objectives in exploring this theme is to suggest that we may have more freedom than we think, on levels of which we might not initially be aware. If we can learn to work with the planetary movements with more insight and less of a literal, 'Uranus is going over whatnot and therefore such-and-such will happen' approach, we might discover what Pico della Mirandola meant when he said that human beings are co-creators with God. Literal-mindedness doesn't do us justice as astrologers. It can also be downright destructive, because there is, of course, such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because our perceptions are invariably distorted by our individual complexes, we are inclined to interpret transits and progressions not according to what they might mean, but according to what our complexes tell us they will 'do' to us. Even the most orthodox 'traditional' astrologer is not really able to be objective when it comes to predicting events. We cannot even be certain what an 'event' really is, since so much depends on how and when the person registers what has happened. Our assumptions about the future are just as heavily coloured by our own psyches as our assumptions about the present.

Life is glorious - The power of presence over productivity

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/03/11/a-short-guide-to-a-happy-life-anna-quindlen/

Here, Annie Dillard, who so memorably expounded the power of presence over productivity in the making of a rich life, would have agreed. For Quindlen, however, an even richer life than that of simply being present is one of being present with a palpable generosity of spirit towards the world:

"Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take the money you would have spent on beers in a bar and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Tutor a seventh-grader.

All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough."

Be kind to your neighbor and Wash your bowl

Excellent post from David Cain - How to find the way - click here for the entire article

Sint micile obiceiuri care ne fac sa traim frumos, din plin, prezenti. Bunatatea, mintea limpede si linistita, inima usoara. Articolul lui David Cain este amplu si clar. Concluzia este simpla si puternica: fii bun cu aproapele tau si pastreaza-ti bolul curat.

Excerpts:
...
So head north. But keep in mind that the intention to move north is entirely different from pursuing the desire to reach the North Pole. At a glance, spiritual practices seem to focus on figures that have reached the Pole, so to speak — Jesus and Buddha come to mind — as well as the possibility of doing it yourself. But I think the North Pole was always meant to be a lot less important than simply heading north, and even just knowing which way it is. After all, most of the actionable passages in those doctrines describe the smaller habits that gradually move you farther north: being kind to your neighbor and washing your bowl.

....

This spectrum — I never really explained what it was — doesn’t quite equate with mood, or with happiness even. It has more to do with how reactive you are, how self-absorbed your view, how much you are in your own way, in any given moment.

This is how movement along the spectrum manifests itself, in my experience.

As you move south:

You become more self-conscious, more easily embarrassed, and more concerned with how you are perceived by others.
Thoughts have an increasingly strong influence on mood. You can slip into a bad mood just by having a thought about something negative, even something that happened years ago.
You feel more inclined to take thoughts at face value. For example, if you have a thought that a problem of yours is unsolvable, you’re more likely to believe it and stop seeking solutions.
Increasingly, you regard everything that happens in terms of how it affects your own interests, which means external events become more distressing and you become more anxious about controlling them.
You become less inclined to see others as equals. You tend to regard them as either better than you or worse than you.
You become more likely to wish for solutions to your problems, and less likely to believe you are capable of solving them yourself. You feel like a small part of a big world.
You become more reactive. If you are very far this way down the spectrum, you may even react violently.
An increasing proportion of your attention is taken by your thoughts, which leaves less attention for sense perceptions.
Cravings for gratification and comfort increase in frequency and intensity, and appear to be the only possibilities for fulfillment. You grow increasingly less likely to feel peace or joy in ordinary moments.
As you move north:

Personal criticisms seem less relevant to you and you’re less likely to react to them emotionally.
It becomes easier and more appealing to relinquish control over external events, particularly over what other people do.
You naturally put a greater proportion of your attention on the physical world around you, which leaves less attention for following your internal dialogue. Inner dialogue becomes less persistent.
Ordinary details of the physical world become more beautiful, and feel like they somehow make more sense, and you feel less inclined to tell others this. Private experiences of beauty make up a greater proportion of your day.
You evaluate external events more in terms of their overall good in the world — how much joy they bring or suffering they relieve — than in terms of your own interests.
You come closer to being able to accept undesirable events in real-time. You lose interest in talking about how the situation ought to be.
Other human beings (and, farther north, animals) appear more individualized. They seem more delicate, interesting, and worthy of care and attention. Walking among them begins to feel more like walking in a china shop.
Self-consciousness fades. You feel an increased willingness to let things be. Farther north, you cease experiencing yourself as an opaque object moving in the world and instead feel like a transparent subject through which the world moves. You may feel like you are watching the world without being there at all.
***

I don’t know if there’s a specific quality the spectrum reflects. It’s not important. The best barometer for your current position on the spectrum is probably how much peace and ease you feel during in-between moments. By in-between moments I mean moments in which you’re not getting what you want and not getting what you don’t want, which is most moments.

We move north and south along the spectrum throughout our lives. A swing can happen within a day, especially as a reaction to the arrival of exceptionally desirable or undesirable circumstances: major setbacks, major insights, major gains or major losses. You may be in one place one day and quite another a few days later.

It tends to shift in wide arcs though, like the tension in a storyline does. You may spend an arc of a year or two quite farther north than normal for you, if you’re doing something that serves your deepest values, or something that requires exceptional levels of attention or effort from you. You might have an arc in the other direction corresponding with a rough period, like a divorce or an illness.

But generally, if you have a persistent interest in personal growth, you’ll find yourself gradually moving northward over the years.

Meditatia in 3 pasi

WHY YOU REALLY NEED TO QUIET YOUR MIND (AND HOW TO DO IT)
MEDITATION IS AN UNDERAPPRECIATED PRACTICE, ESPECIALLY IN A HIGH-STRESS WORKPLACE--BUT THAT'S WHERE IT'S NEEDED THE MOST. HERE'S HOW TO QUIET YOUR RACING THOUGHTS.
BY STEPHANIE VOZZA

http://m.fastcompany.com/3026898/work-smart/why-you-really-need-to-quiet-your-mind-and-how-to-do-it

1. Get into a good position.

Take a deep breath and sigh it out. Sit comfortably and relax your body as much as you can. “We have these visions of needing to have a full lotus position,” Davich says. “It’s not necessary.”

2. Get in touch with your breathing.

Close your eyes and find the place in your body where you feel your breath most prominently. Davich says it could be your abdomen, diaphragm, or under your nostrils. Start to focus your attention in a gentle way to your breathing--this will be your anchor point.

3. Detach from your thoughts.

Within a few seconds, distractions like thoughts, body sensations, or images will start to bubble up. Realize that this is normal and gently return to the anchor point. Continue this for eight minutes. To keep track of the time and set the tone, you can use an app, such as Davich’s Simply8 or Buddhify.

Davich says most people find morning to be a quiet and convenient time of day to meditate. Others do it before bed, to help them sleep. You could meditate during your lunch break or any other time that works for you.

There is just one rule: “Keep a daily consistent appointment with your mediation practice, just like brushing your teeth,” he says. “It’s a wonderful tool to help put space between you and the world’s distractions.”

Doing vs. Deciding - Clear Mind and Focused Action

One way of aquiring a peaceful and focused mind, besides taking Bach Flower Remedies (to name just two of the possible choices: White Chestnut, Impatiens) is to read and follow the simple and yet fundamental principle described in the article below.

Keep your doing and deciding away from each other - says David Cain and he is so right.

http://www.raptitude.com/2014/02/keep-your-doing-and-your-deciding-away-from-each-other/

It makes sense, then, to keep your decision-making time separate from your doing time whenever possible, as a rule. I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of simply asking myself whether I am, at this moment, 1) making decisions, or 2) acting on decisions I’ve already made. It’s easy to slip into a stuttering kind of mode where you’re trying to do both, which feels about as comfortable and efficient as tying your shoes while you’re running.

This kind of clarity is beautiful and powerful, and I want to have it in every aspect of my life. As generally defiant of authority as I am, it turns out I love being told what to do if what I’m being told to do is something that works. It doesn’t even have to be the most efficient or helpful path to my goal as long as it moves me toward it without the constant backpedaling. It’s a very empowering position — to be in a place where you know that all you have to do is do.

Doubt is the real work-stopper, and that happens when you’re deciding what to do, not when you’re doing it. If doubt seems to hinder you while you’re working, it’s because you either haven’t decided what to do yet, or you’re letting yourself reconsider your decision while you’re supposed to be carrying it out.

When it comes to actually getting something done, it makes all the difference in the world to have the decision of what to do already made, whether it was your decision or someone else’s. In the case of my return to fitness, what a relief it is to know I’m almost guaranteed to move steadily toward my goal if I just follow the program. It’s like a yellow brick road. There’s no more trickiness or ambivalence about it, just pushups.

With all of my goals, I want the doing aspect to be as separate as possible from the question of what I should be doing. They’re both essential parts of getting something done, but they need to be done at different times.

Decision points are momentum killers. They’re the moments where high-level doubt about your actions can establish itself. In thirty seconds you can go from doing, to wondering whether you should be doing something else instead, to wondering where this particular plan went wrong, to wondering where your life went wrong. Being uncertain of what to do right now often means you won’t do anything right now, and years can go by that way

How not to Worry & Steinbeck

An excellent article on how not to worry.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/18/you-can-master-life-1934/

The following excerpt from the link above reminds me of what John Steinbeck said in "Sweet Thursday":

"In the following chapter, “Learning to Adjust,” Gilkey revisits the subject through the lens of aging:

Only as we yield to the inexorable, only as we accept the situations which we find ourselves powerless to change, can we free ourselves from fatal inward tensions, and acquire that inward quietness amid which we can seek — and usually find — ways by which our limitations can be made at least partially endurable."

"Nu poti sa te impotrivesti Destinului. Daca i te supui, dobaindesti o forta noua, canalizata intr-o singura directie."

Earth Gym - Gimnastica Pamantului

http://totb.ro/un-barbat-care-locuieste-de-25-de-ani-in-padure-a-inventat-gimnastica-pamantului/


Am început să dansez ca focul, să alerg ca vântul, am devenit puternic ca piatra şi fluid ca apa, prin simplul fapt de a merge în picioarele goale şi de a-i permite Pământului să mă înveţe,” spune Dodge, protagonsitul emisiunii The Legend of Mike Dodge, realizată de National Geographic.

I was dancing as the fire, running as the wind, strengthening as the stone and flowing as the water within, by the simple act of touching with my bare soles and allowing the Earth to teach. It is a simple matter to follow your feet, but is does not come easy. The Earth will eat you if you are not paying attention.
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/he-lives-in-a-tree-doesnt-wear-shoes-and-brushes-hisFire is one of the elements of the forest that I have learned to develop a relationship to use in healing. Another key element in healing is water. After all, we are all walking sacks of water. I found during those times when I had been around people from the city, I would catch some kind of cold or flu. I would enter back into the Hoh and drink the water and soak my entire body in the glacial water. My grandfather called it “kissing the foot of the glacier.” There are all kinds of mushrooms, herbs, etc. to be used for healing, and I keep a close relationship with those in the Earth communities that master the healing and herbal arts, such as my friend Doc Gare, who is introduced in the series.

Going barefoot, did you ever injure your feet?
On one of my long running quests in my bare soles into the highlands of the Olympics, I was taught a lesson by the mountain. It was early winter. The snows came and I almost lost my toes. I had no footwear with me. It was a 30-mile walk out. So I cut up my moose hide jacket and had to make a set of mukluks to protect my feet. It was then that I realized that … I better shift my attitude and vow about bare footing. It was a powerful teaching. I learned the meaning and wisdom of the old saying of my elders. "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

How difficult are the winters for you, with diminished resources?
It is not difficult at all. It is an adventure and I have never had to deal with diminished food sources. I just follow my feet. There is not much that I do not eat. I am an omnivore, able to eat a wide variety of food, which also means that I learned how to become a scavenger and allowed the hunger in my belly to guide me into discovering all kinds of food. For example, I would come upon an elk killed by a cougar. When a cougar kills an elk, the entire forest moves in to eat. So I do the same. I often come upon road kill. Many people are scared of such food and yet they eat jerky … and jerky is nothing more than sun-dried meat. So what I eat during a normal week changes depending upon which one of the three terrains that I am footing my way through. But there is one highly spiritual food that I try to maintain in my stashes and storage places and that is chocolate-chip cookies. My grandmothers got me hooked on them.

Have you had any close call animal encounters?
I was footing my way along the road headed for my home camp, when some idiot talking on a cellphone, doing at least 80 miles per hour, almost hit a deer and then me. The most dangerous encounters that I have ever had in the gated wild, walls of the city and in the open fenced lands are with two footed creatures.

What do you do if you get sick? Have you ever had an emergency situation?
Fire is one of the elements of the forest that I have learned to develop a relationship to use in healing. Another key element in healing is water. After all, we are all walking sacks of water. I found during those times when I had been around people from the city, I would catch some kind of cold or flu. I would enter back into the Hoh and drink the water and soak my entire body in the glacial water. My grandfather called it “kissing the foot of the glacier.” There are all kinds of mushrooms, herbs, etc. to be used for healing, and I keep a close relationship with those in the Earth communities that master the healing and herbal arts, such as my friend Doc Gare, who is introduced in the series.

Does this lifestyle give you a heightened appreciation of Mother Nature?
Appreciation is such a weak word to express what I feel for the Earth and the transitions that I have gone through and am still going through. Hell, I am just getting started. One of the ways that was taught to me on one of my long gated wild quests was to break free of the polarization of the modern world. People always trying to put you in box. By getting some distance from the comforts, habits, physical structures like shoes, machines, walls, electronics, I find myself seeking out what makes sense, what fits, and integration of the wild and tame make sense. So l learned to hunt and track the middle path, the middle way. It is not easy at times figuring out the middle way between the modern world and the Earth. But it is fun and adventure.

What's the best and worst part of this lifestyle?
Wherever there is good there is bad. That is the game of life. My passion in life is to explore, engage, challenge and balance whatever comes in the three terrains that I run through.

I don't imagine there are many mountain women out there. Do you get lonely?
On my journey, I have formed so many wonderful connections with women, formed strong brother-and-sister relationships with them. I may not be able to figure out what they are always talking about. But if their soles are touching the Earth, I am more able to figure it out. A few years ago my path wandered into the Cedar Woman. We share a common vision of these Olympic Mountains and a deep musing of the lands, and in order for a vision to manifest from the Earth it takes a mission — a mission brings it to a physical reality. Cedar, along with others, created the Olympic Mountain Earth Wisdom Circle. Our lives are guided by the musings that come from living in a deep connection with the Earth, and Cedar holds the feminine wisdom fire of our hearth, which I keep coming back to, what I call the base camp.

Insightful Analogy

I've always loved analogies.
I couldn't have said it better myself:

From- Peter Lawrence - The Happy Minimalist

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/fulfillment.html


Sometimes, some people can keep eating and yet continue to feel hungry. Gorging oneself with empty calories is no substitute for the essential nutrients that the body needs. Eating a variety of different colors of fruits and vegetables together with nuts, grains and legumes can provide the necessary nutrients that the body needs such that one can actually cut down on the calories without experiencing hunger. Calorie restriction is a proven way to slow the aging process and maintain peak vitality. The goal should then be to consume nutrition dense food rather than calorie rich foods. Unfortunately, many people choose the latter. And when they continue to feel hungry, they continue to stuff themselves with the same junk, processed or packaged foods. But no amount of foods rich in energy but poor in nutrition will fulfill the body’s craving. Likewise, no amount of material stuff can fulfill our highest needs.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow put forth his theory of human motivation commonly known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the bottom of the pyramid are the physiological needs. At the apex is the need for self-actualization. In the developed world, despite having easily fulfilled our lower level needs, many don’t seem fulfilled. The reason is they are trying to satisfy their highest need with lower level stuff. The pursuit to keep up and beat the Joneses is deemed as the ultimate success. As such, they continue to play in the lower levels of the pyramid instead of recognizing that they have enough and transcending. As long as you are stuck in the mode that you have to have a bigger house, a faster car etc; you are never going to be fully satisfied . Just as your body’s needs cannot be satisfied with empty calories, your soul’s cravings cannot be satisfied by material stuff either. As Abraham Maslow said, “A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself.”

How to live in the Moment - from Raptitude

How to live in the moment
http://www.raptitude.com/2014/01/how-to-live-in-the-moment/



Excerpts. See full article here.

In my experience, if I actually look rather than just think about it, where I’m supposed to have a face I actually have nothing. It’s a clear space. Out in front of that nothing a little ways, there is a nose-blur and sometimes a hair-blur, and beyond that there is all sorts of interesting content which changes all the time — people, skies, computer screens, piles of snow, concerts, city lights, birds, throw rugs, music, food. But in every moment, no matter what the content, at the absolute nearest end is a great big nothing.

I am looking out of this nothing everywhere I go. On a plane. Across a diner booth from someone. From my pillow. While I’m doing a push up. Wherever I am, in every single moment of my life, no matter what I do, I am looking out of an empty space. 

If you don’t follow, point at where your face is supposed to be, where you’re looking from. In your actual experience — not what you think you should be experiencing — is your finger not aimed at an empty space?

You’re always looking out from this same empty space. Things happen in that space — walls, people, computer screens, sunsets, movies, books, your arms and legs — but it’s always just a space. It’s always open on your end.

This is a super helpful thing to notice, because it’s a way to return to present moment reality at any time. You look at something out there in the world, then you direct your attention back the other way along that same line, and see the space you are looking out of. Suddenly the world seems bare again, and you have the sensation of losing a huge weight, because have ceased investing everything out there in the world with its relationship to your story and your needs. You are empty for the world again.

...

Most importantly, the space is always here. It’s the only thing that’s always here. If you notice it, you’re here. Welcome back.
...

Ordinary things sometimes become strangely hilarious. I can’t describe the intrinsic hilarity of watching a spoonful of cereal come closer to your space until it goes blurry and disappears, then becomes replaced by an explosion of invisible taste, sound and tactile sensations. Then an empty spoon comes back into focus and your hand puts it back in the bowl. You swallow, which is another invisible but obvious set of sensations, and you want to do it again.

One-on-one communication becomes profound. You feel instant affection for the faces you do see. There seems to be nothing in the way of them. Rather than face-to-face, you experience these conversations as face to no-face, or face to space. Your space is a perfect place to put this visiting face. It’s much easier to understand what they’re getting at, because you’re no longer trying to keep track of how what they’re saying relates to your little third-person diorama of your life. Almost everyone is adorable when you’re face to space with them.

Perhaps the most profound insight from practicing this is that none of that diorama needs to be sorted out at all anyway. It’s an impossible mess of thought with no solution — most of it is just thoughts about future problems that might actually happen — and when you return to the present moment the whole thing seems like a foolish side project you were working on.

Any of those thoughts that represent real things will be dealt with in their own time, once they are actually real, right here in front of you in the space, because life simply doesn’t happen anywhere else. Life is much smaller and more intimate and more interesting than we ever thought.

How to Fuel the Internal Engine of Learning - Brainpickings

From Don't go back to school - How to Fuel the Internal Engine of Learning - brainpickings.com

Independent learning suggests ideas such as “self-taught,” or “autodidact.” These imply that independence means working solo. But that’s just not how it happens. People don’t learn in isolation. When I talk about independent learners, I don’t mean people learning alone. I’m talking about learning that happens independent of schools.

[…]

Anyone who really wants to learn without school has to find other people to learn with and from. That’s the open secret of learning outside of school. It’s a social act. Learning is something we do together.

Independent learners are interdependent learners.

Modern Stoics

Excerpts from From http://philosophyforlife.org/philosophies-for-life/stoics/


Who were the Stoics?
The founder of Stoicism was Zeno of Citium (pictured on the right in Raphael’s School of Athens), who lived and taught in Athens in around 300 BC. He and his students taught and discussed philosophy under the Stoa Poikile, or ‘painted colonnade’ in the Athenian market-place. Stoicism became very popular among the Roman ruling class, and most of the surviving Stoic books were written by Roman Stoics, particularly Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. You can access many of the Stoic texts for free here and here.
What did the Stoics believe?
Stoicism originally emerged at quite a volatile period in Greek history, when Athenian city-states were being conquered by foreign empires. It developed as a way of staying sane amid all that chaos. An important part of the therapy of Stoicism was to remind yourself at all times of what you can control and what you can’t. We can’t control geopolitics, we can’t control the weather, we can’t control the economy, we can’t control other people, we can’t even control our own bodies, not entirely anyway. The world is beyond our control. It’s a rough and unpredictable environment that is constantly changing. The only thing we can really control are our own thoughts and beliefs. If we remind ourselves of that, and focus our energy and attention on our own beliefs and opinions, then we can learn to cope wisely with whatever the world throws at us.
...

Epictetus: ‘Men are disturbed not by events, but by their opinions about events’. This inspired Ellis’ cognitive therapy of the emotions, which became the basis of CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). It’s based on the idea that our emotions follow our beliefs and judgements. If we change our habitual beliefs, we also change our emotions. We can use this technique even to overcome chronic emotional disorders and severe traumas.
...

It’s important to understand that Stoic therapy doesn’t involve suppressing your emotions or denying them beneath a ‘stiff upper lip’, as the popular understanding of ‘stoic’ might suggest. In fact, Stoic therapy involves exploring the beliefs and opinions that give rise to your negative emotions, seeing if those beliefs are irrational, and if they are, challenging them and replacing them with new beliefs. So Stoic therapy involves dismantling the beliefs and habits that create an emotion, rather than simply denying an emotion.

CBT may have been inspired by Stoicism, but there are some big differences as well, aren’t there?
Certainly. I discuss some of the differences and similarities in this talk . The biggest difference is that Stoicism wasn’t just a set of therapeutic techniques. It was a spiritual philosophy, the end of which was bringing the self into harmony with the Logos.
What’s the Logos?
The Stoics followed Heraclitus in believing that the cosmos is connected by an all-pervasive intelligence called the Logos, which you can translate as the Word or the Law. It’s a form of divine providence that guides all things. It exists in all things, but it vibrates particularly strongly in human consciousness. For the Stoics, the meaning of life, the goal of human existence, is to develop our consciousness and bring it into harmony with the Logos.
How do we do that?
By overcoming our attachment and aversion to external things. Nature is constantly changing, nothing is permanent, so if we become attached or averse to external things, we’ll often be unhappy, insecure and anxious, because the world will not be the way we want it to be. By focusing not on external goods but on the inner goods of virtue, we can become one with the ebb and flow of the cosmos, accepting whatever happens to us as the will of the Logos.

Spinoza

From http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Spinoza

Spinoza contended that everything that exists in Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe) is one Reality (substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which surrounds us and of which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality,[76] namely a single, fundamental substance (meaning "that which stands beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is understood only in part. His identification of God with nature was more fully explained in his posthumously published Ethics.[1] Spinoza's main contention with Cartesian mind-body dualism was that, if mind and body were truly distinct, then it is not clear how they can coordinate in any manner. That humans presume themselves to have free will, he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites which affect their minds while being unable to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do. Spinoza has been described by one writer as an "Epicurean materialist,"[76] although to call Spinoza a materialist (as the Epicureans were) would be misleading as he treats both thought (the realm of the mind and thought) and extension (physical reality) as derivatives of an ultimate, infinite substance (Deus sive Natura, or God) which expresses infinite attributes and modes. To use an example, human experience is but a single drop of water in an infinite ocean which constitutes existence.
...
Spinoza contends that "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") is a being of infinitely many attributes, of which thought and extension are two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as intertwined, causally related, and deriving from the same substance. It is important to note here that, in Parts 3 through 4 of the Ethics, Spinoza describes how the human mind is affected by both mental and physical factors. He directly contests dualism. The universal substance emanates both body and mind; while they are different modes, there is no fundamental difference between these aspects. This formulation is a historically significant solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. Spinoza's system also envisages a God that does not rule over the universe by Providence in which God can make changes, but a God which itself is the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. While it could be said that this still accounts for Divine Providence, as Spinoza argues that "things could not have been produced by God in any other way or in any other order than is the case,"[83] he directly challenges a transcendental God which actively responds to events in the universe. Everything that has and will happen is a part of a long chain of cause and effect which, at a metaphysical level, humans are unable to change. No amount of prayer or ritual will sway God. Only knowledge of God, or the existence which humans inhabit, allows them to best respond to the world around them. Thus, according to this understanding of Spinoza's system, the universe humans currently live in and experience comes from God. God is completely impersonal to existence because, not only is it impossible for two infinite substances to existence (two infinities being absurd),[84] God - being the ultimate substance - cannot be affected by anything else, or else it would be affected by something else, and not be the fundamental substance.

In addition to substance, the other two fundamental concepts Spinoza presents and develops in the Ethics are attribute – that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance, and mode – the modifications of substance, or that which exists in, and is conceived through, something other than itself.
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Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs through the operation of necessity. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things should necessarily happen that way. By forming more "adequate" ideas about what we do and our emotions or affections, we become the adequate cause of our effects (internal or external), which entails an increase in activity (versus passivity). This means that we become both more free and more like God, as Spinoza argues in the Scholium to Prop. 49, Part II. However, Spinoza also held that everything must necessarily happen the way that it does. Therefore, humans have no free will. They believe, however, that their will is free. This illusionary perception of freedom stems from our human consciousness, experience and our indifference to prior natural causes. Humans think they are free but they ″dream with their eyes open″. For Spinoza, our actions are guided entirely by natural impulses. In his letter to G. H. Schuller (Letter 58), he wrote: "men are conscious of their desire and unaware of the causes by which [their desires] are determined." [85]
...
This picture of Spinoza's determinism is ever more illuminated through reading this famous quote in Ethics: ″the infant believes that it is by free will that it seeks the breast; the angry boy believes that by free will he wishes vengeance; the timid man thinks it is with free will he seeks flight; the drunkard believes that by a free command of his mind he speaks the things which when sober he wishes he had left unsaid. ... All believe that they speak by a free command of the mind, whilst, in truth, they have no power to restrain the impulse which they have to speak.″[86] Thus for Spinoza morality and ethical judgement like choice is predicated on an illusion. For Spinoza, ″Blame″ and ″Praise″ are non existent human ideals only fathomable in the mind because we are so acclimatized to human consciousness interlinking with our experience that we have a false ideal of choice predicated upon this.

Spinoza's philosophy has much in common with Stoicism inasmuch as both philosophies sought to fulfill a therapeutic role by instructing people how to attain happiness. However, Spinoza differed sharply from the Stoics in one important respect: he utterly rejected their contention that reason could defeat emotion. On the contrary, he contended, an emotion can only be displaced or overcome by a stronger emotion. For him, the crucial distinction was between active and passive emotions, the former being those that are rationally understood and the latter those that are not. He also held that knowledge of true causes of passive emotion can transform it to an active emotion, thus anticipating one of the key ideas of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis.[87]

Ethical philosophy
Encapsulated at the start in his Treatise on the Improvement of the Understanding (Tractatus de intellectus emendatione) is the core of Spinoza's ethical philosophy, what he held to be the true and final good. Spinoza held good and evil to be relative concepts, claiming that nothing is intrinsically good or bad except relative to a particularity. Things that had classically been seen as good or evil, Spinoza argued, were simply good or bad for humans. Spinoza believes in a deterministic universe in which "All things in nature proceed from certain [definite] necessity and with the utmost perfection." Nothing happens by chance in Spinoza's world, and nothing is contingent.

Spinoza's Ethics
Main article: Ethics (book)
In the universe anything that happens comes from the essential nature of objects, or of God/Nature. According to Spinoza, reality is perfection. If circumstances are seen as unfortunate it is only because of our inadequate conception of reality. While components of the chain of cause and effect are not beyond the understanding of human reason, human grasp of the infinitely complex whole is limited because of the limits of science to empirically take account of the whole sequence. Spinoza also asserted that sense perception, though practical and useful for rhetoric, is inadequate for discovering universal truth; Spinoza's mathematical and logical approach to metaphysics, and therefore ethics, concluded that emotion is formed from inadequate understanding. His concept of "conatus" states that human beings' natural inclination is to strive toward preserving an essential being and an assertion that virtue/human power is defined by success in this preservation of being by the guidance of reason as one's central ethical doctrine. According to Spinoza, the highest virtue is the intellectual love or knowledge of God/Nature/Universe.

In the final part of the "Ethics", his concern with the meaning of "true blessedness", and his explanation of how emotions must be detached from external cause and so master them, foreshadow psychological techniques developed in the 1900s. His concept of three types of knowledge – opinion, reason, intuition – and his assertion that intuitive knowledge provides the greatest satisfaction of mind, lead to his proposition that the more we are conscious of ourselves and Nature/Universe, the more perfect and blessed we are (in reality) and that only intuitive knowledge is eternal. His unique contribution to understanding the workings of mind is extraordinary, even during this time of radical philosophical developments, in that his views provide a bridge between religions' mystical past and psychology of the present day.

Given Spinoza's insistence on a completely ordered world where "necessity" reigns, Good and Evil have no absolute meaning. The world as it exists looks imperfect only because of our limited perception.

The secret art of inviting happiness

The five Reiki Principles
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The secret art of inviting happiness,
The miraculous medicine for all diseases.
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At least for today:

Do not be angry,
Do not worry,
Be grateful,
Work with diligence,
Be kind to people.
Every morning and evening, join your hands in meditation and pray with your heart.
State in your mind and chant with your mouth.
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For improvement of mind and body.
Usui Reiki Ryōhō.
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The founder,
Mikao Usui.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki

Make your soul grow

From Lettersofnote : http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/10/make-your-soul-grow.html

Back in 2006, a group of students at Xavier High School in New York City (one of whom, "JT," submitted this letter) were given an assignment by their English teacher, Ms. Lockwood, that was to test their persuasive writing skills: they were asked to write to their favourite author and ask him or her to visit the school. Five of those pupils chose Kurt Vonnegut. His thoughtful reply, seen below, was the only response the class received.

Transcript follows.

Transcript November 5, 2006 Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don't make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula.

Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow.


God bless you all!
Kurt Vonnegut

The Four Agreements

Excerpt from http://www.raptitude.com/2013/02/five-self-help-books-that-actually-helped/ The Four Agreements – Don Miguel Ruiz

In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz characterizes personal beliefs as agreements, which is right on the mark; nothing is true to you unless you agree that it is. If, in your eyes, you’re no good, you have agreed at some point that you are no good. You will live this truth until you stop agreeing. We typically don’t realize we’re constantly making these agreements, yet they define your personal world, which is the only world you’ll ever live in. Ruiz advocates identifying and challenging all the agreements you’ve accumulated, and toss them out in favor of agreeing to four commitments:

Be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best.

If you make those agreements it’s almost impossible to let yourself down, feel guilt or give in to fear. They short-circuit virtually all self-defeating human behaviors. These days, rather than trying to be perfect each day with each agreement, I work the agreements backwards when things seem to be going wrong. Any time I feel stuck, it takes about five seconds to identify which of the four agreements I broke to get there. Either I’ve been untruthful in some way, I’m making assumptions, I’m taking something personally, or I’m cutting corners. I don’t know if I’ve ever gotten myself into trouble in any way other than those.

A Good Grip or Our "Reality" Tenouchi

What makes a good grip? It's not a too strong either a too soft grip. A good grip applies an amount of energy equally proportional to the thing it wants. The harder the thing, the stronger the grip. We do it unconsciously with all the things we handle every day. And ideally we should do it also with bigger things like everyday attitude to problems or life goals. This is what tenouchi, the martial art holds.

The next fragments are from http://earlyretirementextreme.com/tenouchi-and-appropriate-action.html

Within the martial arts tenouchi is a fairly high level concept which literally means “inside of hand” (te/hand no/of uchi/inside) and which can be translated as grip. Understanding grip is obviously very important. What I offer here are just some general observations as they pertain to two-handed cutting weapons and how those observations translate into a couple of “life-lessons”. However, it should be clear how understanding grip is also important to the archer or in hand-to-hand combat; in particular in the latter understanding your opponent’s tenouchi will be important. The grip must be appropriate for what the sword is doing. When it is striking, the grip only need to be strong enough to hang onto the sword. (This leaves room for a quick reversal without working against yourself). Only when the sword hits must the grip be strong. Again, this is very awkward because a sword is a strange thing to handle. However, we do it quite naturally when we pick things up. Go ahead and pick something up. You’ll note you use exactly as much force as you need to to pick it up. No more no less. You aren’t squeezing the object despite not even thinking about it, nor is the object slipping out of your hand. Now move the object around from side to side or up and down. Note again how you subconsciously apply a little bit more force every time it changes direction. This is actually a tremendously hard thing to do. Humans can do it with a fragile thing like an egg without even thinking about it. Programming a machine to do the same is hard. It is the same for a sword. If we had been born with swords in hands and we spent as much time cutting things as we did picking things up and moving them around, our tenouchi, our grip on the sword, would be appropriate as well. The important thing to remember is that when the sword is “powered up”, it is my understanding that you’re committed to the motion. The key then is to only apply the minimum amount of power to get the job done—with a sharp sword, that’s astoundingly little. Yet, when considering “real life” our “grip” on things is often surprisingly inappropriate. Often too much force is applied. We build our houses too big, our transportation too fast, our food to full of fat and sugar. (We don’t seem to go about things in a way that is too small or too weak so I’m not going to comment on that problem.) When too much force is applied it is impossible to remain nimble or reverse course in the face of counter strikes. The worst part is that we are often the ones working against ourselves thus preventing us from action. This is a problem with our “reality”-tenouchi so to speak. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t have a good grip on reality—it is after all where all of us have spent all of our life(**)—yet it seems that this is not actually the case.

Real Wisdom - Rousseau, Tolstoi

Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this,the most important knowledge. (Jean Jaques Rousseau)

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/15/a-calendar-of-wisdom-tolstoy
A Calendar of Wisdom: Tolstoy on Knowledge and the Meaning of Life by Maria Popova “The most important knowledge is that which guides the way you lead your life.” On March 15, 1884, Leo Tolstoy, wrote in his diary: I have to create a circle of reading for myself: Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, The New Testament. This is also necessary for all people. So he set out to compile “a wise thought for every day of the year, from the greatest philosophers of all times and all people” — a florilegium five centuries after the golden age of florilegia and a Tumblr a century and a half before the golden age of Tumblr, a collection of famous words on the meaning of life long before the concept had become a cultural trope.

In romaneste disponibila aceasta carte: http://www.humanitas.ro/humanitas/despre-dumnezeu-si-om-fragmente-din-jurnalul-ultimilor-ani

A Calendar of Wisdom (Russian: Круг чтения, Krug chtenia), or Path of life or A Cycle of Readings or Wise Thoughts for Every Day is a collection of insights and wisdom compiled by Leo Tolstoy between 1903 and 1910 that was published in three different editions.... The book, which title is literally translated as "Life's Way", was described by Tolstoy as "a wise thought for every day of the year, from the great philosophers of all times and all people" which he himself would consult daily for the rest of his life. Wisdom from such luminaries as Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Lao-Tzu, Buddha, Pascal, Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, Emerson, Kant, Ruskin, Seneca, Socrates, Thoreau and many more prompted Tolstoy to write in the introduction, "I hope that the readers of this book may experience the same benevolent and elevating feeling which I have experienced when I was working on its creation, and which I experience again and again when I reread it every day, working on the enlargement and improvement of the previous edition.". http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Calendar_of_Wisdom