True after two thousand years ...

I read this story a few days ago:




A friend of Diogenes visited him and found him eating a dinner of lentils.
The friend was a courtier in the court of the king.
He said to Diogenes, "If you would learn to flatter you
would not have to eat lentils." Diogenes replied, "And if you
would learn to eat lentils you would not have to flatter."

I loved it! It still make sense today even if the king would be today's consumerism. Modern times have their own slavery ways, but it is so true that whoever learns to live and be happy with what they have, is free from slavery.

Just coincidences or Instant fullfilment?

Maybe it was just a coincidence ... this one and all the other coincidences that happen to me incrementally over my playful experimental life ...


The other day standing in front of the cashier in a one of the best chinese/asian restaurant chains (Pewei) I got very undecided about having chicken lettuce wraps or having Kung Pao Chicken. Rationally I decided it made no sense to have an appetizer plus a meal for a quick lunch so despite the voice in my head craving for the lettuce wraps I ordered the meal instead. As soon as I order the cashier looks at me and says: 'you got lucky today, you have a free lettuce wrap for your next visit". I was really surprised, like, are you kidding me? are you reading my mind? are you offering this to everybody? once I got over the surprise I moved and let some space for my co-worker to order. Of course I payed attention to see if he got anything. He wasn't lucky, he didn't get anything ...

So, I thought what I always think in these circumstances, which indeed do happen to me more and more often. Was it just a coincidence? If it wasn't, it looks like somehow my unconscious desire got transmitted into the universe and came back fulfilled instantaneously.

All of the suden, chicken lettuce wraps become very unimportant and I'm here just enjoying life and it's little funny coincidences. Then, with a smile in my face, I moved on to the next game ...

Paragliding temptation

Yesterday by pure coincidence I ended up in San Diego Torrey Pines glideport where they practice hangliding and paragliding. It was an awesome spectacle to see all the paragliders in the sky, probably more than twenty of them as the wind seemed to be just perfect.

It reminded me of my honeymoon times in Rio de Janeiro where each of us got to do hangliding with an instructor over the beautiful "morros" and beach. The experience was so worth it, scary I have to admit, as the photos show, but nevertheless amazing. It was the closest I've ever been to being a bird and it really felt that way. When I landed happiness emotions were so strong that tears ran over my cheeks.




Paragliding seems like a softer experience, probably less risky for the untrained person and even posicionally it looks like the feeling should be more like you're back in the old times when humanity is discovering flying for the fist time, plus of course it seems to be a very unusual pleasant experience in itself.

This could be the perfect anniversary present for Edu and me, we'll see if we have the guts this time around ;)

Highway buddies

Every once in a while when driving on a highway I find another car that is in the same frequency that I am. Little by little as I go from line to line trying to optimize my driving (which means going as fast as I can without getting a ticket) I start to notice another car that finds the same strategies that I do and we start switching places in alternatively leading the way. I call them highway buddies, someone whom I know nothing about that makes me company for some time in the highway sharing the same driving patterns as well as driving goal. The funny part is that finding a highway buddy can make me experience deep happiness. Of course this is specially true when I'm driving under the California sky all blue and shinny, between the soft mountains that surround Temecula with no major worries in my head ;)

I guess the same thing is true in life itself, there's these friends or known people that just go along some periods of life, you don't know them much, you don't talk much but you share some time together and you're in sync. Temporarily you share a common goal and your strategy is similar so you feel this empathy and they even make you happy as you go around. Sometimes as in the highway case because of situations this is the most you'll get of some relationships and I still think it's worth it.

Still so tribal ...

I'm amazed to see how tribal we still are nowadays. If you're in my tribe then I care for you and I have all the patience and love in the world, I feel for you and I sympathize with your pain and happiness, but, if you're in the tribe from across the street I most likely will judge you harshly and won't go the extra step to help you.

I find this to be true in many different levels that range from the individuals to societies and countries. I see it happening in my family and friends circles as well as in whole communities when it comes to politics and wars.

This is so animal, so primitive, that it is really time for us to realize it makes no sense at all. We're all persons and the person walking by in front of me has the same human nature that I do, they'll feel pain and excitement in the same way I do and I need to feel compassion for them all the same I would for someone on my tribe as my kids or my best friend.

When in my Buddhist meditation class I heard my teacher talk about equanimity and this universal compassion feeling I felt so relieved that I wasn't totally crazy for thinking like this.

4th Dimension: Arrow of time?

When I was 15 years old, and I had infinite time to talk to friends, I had one day a great insight into the nature of time. That day my friend Italo and I ended up somehow talking about what was time in reality. After thinking deeply on what time was for a while and brainstorming from different angles to try to shed some light, it came right up to us. Time only occurs when there are changes in space (3D world). If all was unchanged time was stopped. Then sooner or later we concluded that time was the 4th dimension as it occurred as an effect of changes happening on the 3rd dimension. For the time being that was enough an explanation and I left it at that.

Time went by but there's always been something bugging me about this 4D. Why is it an arrowed dimension? why can we only go into the future advance one second at a time into the future and not to be able to go in reverse way? Why would this 4D be different than the rest of the dimensions which would allow an object to go in two directions? Or, as it might make more sense, maybe we need to start thinking of the limitation being only in our human mind?

I think for now I just wanted to ask the question ... Where is the arrow limitation? is it in the time dimension itself or is it in our human brain/mind? I could even go further pinpointing the place in our mind where it could be getting lost, could the limitation be in our consciousness only?

My gummy bear

My little 3.5 years old girl is so sweet and sticky that she's just too much and that's why I call her "gummy bear".

Thanks to her I could have an incredible experience that was totally lost back in my very early years of life. This experience is the simple exercise of worry-less all-immersive playing the way only kids can. Holding her hand I could stay on those eternal moments in which we're repeatedly hiding below the bed sheets in order to avoid the big tiger in the outside, and as soon as the tiger was gone an extraterrestrial friend (interestingly enough with a hand like shape) on the outside of our tent would try to establish contact with us until the tiger would show up again and again ...

I even as a kid was the rational type and lost all interest on these kind of games early on. That's specially why this is such a great and enjoyable gift that I can hardly describe but I'll just keep holding on to for as long as I can.

What do you go to meditation class for?

Today my daughter surprised me right before my weekly meditation session. She asked me "what do you go to meditation class for?" and right away proceeded to add "you only need to sit like this (criss crossing her legs) and you put your hands like this, then close your eyes and you go to your happy place inside".

I was really surprised ... she kind of knew what she was talking about. I was curious as to where the happy place inside came from, but the only answer I got was "I just made that up".

Pretty easy and nice way of describing meditation, although obviously it can be much more than that.

New Mysterianism

I came across this philosophy called new mysterianism (this word must be new as the computer auto correct does not even know it).

This phylosophy basically states that some problems can't be explained by the human mind at our current evolutionary stage. One example of such a problem is human consciousness. In this case their thought is that the human mind does not have enough power or intelligence to understand itself.

I personally don't adhere to this thought, I choose a more optimist thought that we can understand our own consciousness, mind and intelligence and even improve our hardware/software/biology as well as produce entities that are more intelligent than ourselves originally were.

About yoga and stuff

I've been practicing yoga on and off for quite some years now (don't say exactly how many, today it's my birthday and I have some sensitivity with the subject ;).

The Sanskrit word yoga means “union”. Through yoga, union is first created between body and breath, then breath and mind, and finally between mind and spirit. When union is achieved, we are able to maintain a healthy, peaceful, balanced state regardless of external circumstances.

If you never tried it, give it a chance next time you have an opportunity. If you tried and you discarded it because of being too slow, give it a second chance. Try to find a vinyasa yoga practice. Its flow is faster if gym and sweat are synonymous for you, but it still has the "spiritual" connection and stretching and relaxing properties.

After all this time I'd like to summarize some tips and stuff about yoga:

1. How do you know if you're doing your yoga/meditation practice well? I heard the best answer right from a yoga swami years ago: "You know because of the changes and results you experience in your life". I was very impressed by this answer as it's a self answering system and it's a strong affirmation of what yoga can give you in your life.

2. How do you know if your yoga poses are right? The answer is simple again, you know because it feels right. Each pose has a specific stretch that you need to feel. Knowing this, when you're on your practice instead of looking at the teacher you can evaluate your body feeling and once you feel the stretch you just take it one more notch in that direction. Then you can feel the deep stretch and you know your pose is right, you got it!

3. What's the best place to practice yoga? Any place could be suitable for a yoga class. I had the opportunity to practice yoga in the beach while living in Chicago (during summer obviously). It was very nice. My most exotic yoga class, I found by pure chance, was in the San Francisco's south coast, on the first floor of a light house with lots of big windows where the water was hitting the rocks.

4. How to rate your yoga teacher? You'll know mostly because of two things: symmetry and flow. Yoga needs to be symmetric. You do a pose and you do the counter-pose. You do things on the left side and you do them on the right, etc. Symmetry is something you just expect. The second thing is flow. I found the best teachers to be those that propose a set of poses in which the flow from one pose to another goes easily and gracefully with the least amount of movements.
Creativity is a plus so you never know what to expect on your next class and no class is the same as the previous one.

Welcome!

Hi, this will be my space to share things about my personal life and "spiritual" world.
Mostly my life is about learning and experimenting. One of the things I love to experiment are "highs". I'll share here the natural highs I encounter in life.