Posts in the “personal” category

“Hello Peter, this is me ... your father ... Walter Bishop.” (From one of my favorite tv series)

About half an hour ago I was a passenger in a car in Poland. I was debating with the driver about what to do, because we had already checked out of our hotel, but we were running late, and we had planned on getting to another country. Because we were so late and things were unfamiliar, I was saying that we should go back to the hotel. I think we were in Krakow and talking about where to go next, but maybe going to Krakow was part of the plan.

In front of us there was a car, and then another vehicle that looked like a dump truck. Suddenly the truck exploded. It was a huge explosion that obliterated the truck. Inside the car, my ears were ringing.

October 26, 2019, in a meditative state:

As I return from the blackness of meditation, I see a very old man with long white hair and long white beard sitting in front of me. He’s wearing a full-body length white garment that I would call a dress if a woman was wearing it. (The garment has another name that I don’t know.)

He’s seated in a full-lotus position, with his eyes closed. I admire his posture, with one foot on each thigh, one hand resting on the other in a mudra in his lap, his shoulders back, and his chin tucked.

Not knowing what to do of whether he even speaks English, I whisper, “Hello.”

His eyes open gently, and he looks at me with a small, pleasant smile. “Welcome,” he replies.

One thing you learn when you really become dedicated to mindfulness practice is that every moment you aren’t being mindful, you’re feeding your ego. Any thought about the past or future solidifies this “ego-cage” you have built up in your mind.

(Note: I saw the term ego-cage in a book, but I don’t remember which one.)

October, 2024: After Donald Trump recently stated that he hated to pay overtime and would try not pay it, almost every union in the United States has come out in support of the Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

This includes the UAW, AFL-CIO, IAM Union, IATSE, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, United Steelworkers, the Teamsters Union in many states, the Machinists Union, the AFSCME, and many more. I’d link to them all, but the page where I found this image shows many of the unions that suppported Harris BEFORE Trump said he hated overtime pay.

As I read this NY Times article about What ‘The Apprentice’ Gets Exactly Right About Trump, these lines from Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” ghostwriter really stick out:

“The first lesson is that a lack of conscience can be a huge advantage when it comes to accruing power, attention and wealth in a society where most other human beings abide by a social contract. The second lesson is that nothing we get for ourselves from the outside world can ever adequately substitute for what we’re missing on the inside.”

This is a short collection of quotes from Rumi:

My religion is love.
Love is the bridge between you and everything.
Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.
Be a witness, not a judge.
You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.
I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.
Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.
Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire.

Here are some Northern Lights, as seenin Louisville, Kentucky, in October, 2024.

If you’re interested in mindfulness and meditation, this scene from “Star Wars: Rogue One” demonstrates mantra meditation at its best: Belief, total commitment and single-mindedness, and practice in action.

A few related quotes:

“You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair.”
~ Zen Master Taisen Deshimaru

A “Love” sign you might find at a rest area somewhere in Virginia.

“Swami Vivekananda says that if you have ever felt the urge to stretch out your arms in trying to embrace the universe, you have felt the truth. Not one atom in this universe, not one insect, not one life here is different from you. It is you yourself. It is one life and one consciousness. It is a joy, an enormous creativity of the consciousness which shines in all these ways. When you experience the universe, you are tasting yourself!”

~ Swami Sarvapriyananda, Dissolve into Infinity

“Just as water wears away stone over time, daily practice thins the veil of illusion.”

~ Ram Dass, in Polishing The Mirror

Pete Rose was Charlie Hustle. All these years later, and the the game hasn't seen another player like him. RIP, Pete, October, 2024.

Last night I passed out for the 10th time. As usual, I woke up in the middle of the night, and knew that I felt really bad. I ran to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, and knew I was going to pass out before I could get the Benadryl open. So I got back into bed and passed out.

Of course, when you pass out, you never know if you’ll wake up again, but so far I’m 10 for 10.

A unique thing about this event is that I was hit very hard in the top-right part of my head in the afternoon, and still have that pain today. I suspect that it had to do with this syncope event.

As a little yoga/savasana tip, here’s a collection of 50+ phrases you can use to help relax and focus, both before and during savasana.

Please note that I don’t know the original source of all these quotes. I had a few yoga instructors back in the day, so I got a collection of the quotes from them.

I came across two quotes recently that seem related ... and not necessarily just in a spiritual/religious way:

“The devil doesn’t come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns. He comes as everything you’ve ever wished for.”

AND:

“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”

Lately I’ve been thinking about how some people get to a certain point and then never mature any more. It’s like maybe they get everything they ever wanted, and they stop there. They become comfortable or complacent, and in doing so, they create their own prison.

October 5, 2024: When I started to wake up this morning I clearly heard two men talking.

It started when the first man — who turned out to be an older man — sighed pretty deeply, and then the second man asked him what that was about. I assumed that the second man was his son or grandson.

The old man replied, “Do you ever notice that when you sigh, you’re doing the right thing?”

The younger man said he didn’t know what that meant. I thought the same thing.

So the old man said, “Well, you’ve been thinking about something, and now you’re about to do the right thing, but for one reason or another you don’t want to do it. But now you’ve decided to do that right thing, so you let out a sigh before you do it.”

I tried to stay there to here more of the conversation, but I could not, because I was waking up too fast.

I can’t find the original source of this image and product, but I have always liked the “Live Brave” saying, which I first heard on the excellent Eli Stone tv series (which stars Johnny Lee Miller, who may be more well known for the movie Hackers and of course, Elementary).

“What you allow is what will continue.”

(I found this at a url that is no longer available.)

“I love everybody, that’s what’s killing me.” Cloris Leachman was outstanding in the movie Spanglish, and this is one of my favorite lines. I’ve written about this line and loving everyone from a Buddhist perspective before, and if you’ve ever loved two people and seen them fighting with each other, or loved two people and had to disappoint one person because of something related to the other person, that’s what this reminds me of.

In 2024, it also reminds me of war, and what a waste of life it is when people who are in charge ruthlessly kill other people.