Archive for 2023-08
Summary and highlights
- Thinking about self-compassion and self-acceptance.
- Thinking about the non-separation of subject and object, make notes from a bunch of Waking Up sessions.
- Read a bunch of poetry.
Thinking
Collections
- Countdown grips (added 2023-08-20)
- Self-acceptance (added 2023-08-13)
- The six mantras of Loving Speech (added 2023-08-02)
Longer form
- AI and ethics (added 2023-06-23, updated 2023-08-11)
- Process / Approach / Big Ideas (added 2023-07-22, updated 2023-08-05)
Posts
- Following the breath will always bring you back to the stillness within.
- The feeling of self is a (diffuse) contraction. Just relax, allow it to soften.
- We are in and of the world, not separate from it.
- Ask questions to sustain wonder and curiosity, not to uncover facts or answers.
- Become less attached to your pains and pleasures.
- Being distracted is not a problem but staying distracted is.
- Choice is just an interpretation of an experience.
- Don't recall, don't imagine, don't think, don't examine, don't control. Rest.
- Emptiness means not independent, not separate, not unchanging.
- Four Ps of knowing: propositional, procedural, perspectival, participatory.
- Learn to sense the feeling tone (vedana) before you become entangled and start to spiral.
- Listen to others' needs, know your limitations, then act compassionately.
- Love takes us out towards the world, opening to what's in front of us.
- Making yourself an attractive object doesn't help you be happy as a subject.
- Not analysis, but unthinking absorption.
- The experience of choice: we hear the question; we choose; we think "I chose".
- The freedom is in the not-(becoming).
- The knowing and the object arise as a pair, distinct but not separate.
- The problem is the reactivity, triggered by the underlying feeling tone, creating a compelling narrative.
- The self is just a concept, coming from identifying with what's arising.
- The self is like a constellation. It exists only be convention.
- The task of the meditator is to care for bad feelings, like an older sibling.
- To be able to provide help we need a little calm, a little joy, a little compassion.
- Watch for the change from river (flow of impermanence) to eddy (contraction, resistance).
- Wait for a better question to arise from loose and open attention.
- Develop a healthy relationship with your imperfections.
- Would you ever treat a friend like this?
- You are partly right (whether it's praise or criticism).
- We (subsconsciously, contextually) edit out the qualities that don't match what we want to see, good or bad.
- Nothing to gain, no results. Just the process.
- Binaries are an essential quality of reality.
- A mirror only gives not-mirror. But it also only gives it in the mirror!
- Knowledge can be articulated, but understanding is inhabiting in nondual space with the question.
- Look for the dividing line between contents and context.
- Reality is not given to you twice.
- The sense of self is just another thought.
- The witness and the object are two sides of the same experience.
- There's no need to start the day with productivity debt.
- There's no need to tie your self-worth to your To Do list.
- What will you say no to, even thought it's worth doing?
- Consciousness is already at ease. No effort, no push or pull. No doer, no one.
- Meditation is about resting. Not-doing, relaxing, refreshing, recharging.
- Notice how the thought of other's people opinions creates a self.
- When meditating, be very gentle with your concentration.
- Acknowledge how difficult you are, in some ways.
- Be as aware of your faults as your angriest opponent.
- Don't do anything except be open to the possibility of being more relaxed.
- Everything that exists is contingent.
- Form becomes a frozen memory of growth.
- Growth instability: the feedback process of (bumps) self-amplifying.
- Nature's pattern-forming processes come from being off equilibrium.
- Put effort into the fundamentals, not the frills.
- Seek, without wanting to change to a (transitory) state.
- Some truths are more complete, some are more partial.
- Take problems seriously, but handle them calmly.
- The potential infinite collapsing into the actual finite.
- The Tao is the source, the unconditioned prior to conditioning.
- The Tao precedes difference, is prior to everything with form or fixedness.
- To be noticed / perceived, something has to be different. We filter our sameness.
Noting
Book notes
Reading
- Super Model Minority by Tse, Chris. Read 25-08-2023, rated 4/5.
- Trouble with Lichen by Wyndham, John. Read 25-08-2023, rated 4/5.
- Revenge Body by Wiley, Rachel. Read 24-08-2023, rated 4/5.
- Middle Youth by Bach, Morgan. Read 20-08-2023, rated 4/5.
- Patterns in Nature by Ball, Philip. Read 20-08-2023, rated 5/5.
- Thornhedge by Kingfisher, T.. Read 18-08-2023, rated 5/5.
- Taoism for Beginners: A Guide to Balanced Living by Simpkins, C Alexander. Read 16-08-2023, rated 4/5. My noteson Taoism for Beginners: A Guide to Balanced Living .
- Translation State by Leckie, Ann. Read 16-08-2023, rated 5/5.
- Saga by Mettner, Hannah. Read 10-08-2023, rated 4/5.
- True Love by Hanh, Thich Nhat. Read 02-08-2023, rated 4/5. My noteson True Love.
Arting
2023 08 Sketches
Gaming
- Vampire Survivors on Switch. Rated 4/5.
- Pikmin 4 on Switch. Rated 4/5.
Musicing
Nothing this month.