A True Story Recently underwent a minor outpatient surgical procedure (nothing serious, thankfully!) that was going to involve some amount of physical discomfort. I was informed that the standard protocol was to administer a sedative cocktail—featuring the uber-potent opioid painkiller fentanyl—which induces drowsy relaxation as it masks the pain-sensations. While the sedative/painkiller …
Practice Notes
Verses
Fifty Verses For twenty-seven years I've carried around a stack of fifty-one 4×6" notecards, bound together with a small piece of white rope, tied off neatly in a shoe-lace style bow. The card on the top (now a bit tattered) reads "The Fifty Verses on the Manifestation of Consciousness, by Thich Nhat Hanh." And each of the remaining fifty cards hosts one of the fifty verses, carefully …
Mindfulness & Recognition
Concentration Practices: Yes or No? Illustrating the ever-applicable maxim, "well, it just depends"—in relation to the practice of concentration (aka mindfulness aka shamatha)—are the following passages from the Avadhuta Gita of Dattatreya, translated and annotated by Swami Ashokananda. Even though this is one of the most quintessentially direct of Advaita scriptures, in one of its early …
I Was Jesus In A Past Life
Recently overheard, in the recreation center's weight room: "I was Jesus in a past life." Words In The Wind I've always loved these sorts of randomly overheard snippets—words or phrases intended, apparently, for someone else's ears. From the point of view of the people involved in the conversation, no one else is supposed to hear what they're saying. But we could easily reason that: from the …
Gödel’s Kōan
Just finished reading the 2001 edition of Gödel's Proof by Ernest Nagel and James Newman, edited by Douglas Hofstadter. This is an excellent introduction to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, written in mostly non-technical language—which means that you don't have to be a professional mathematician to (at least mostly) understand it. Though still a challenging read, I'd say it's well worth the …
Practice Notes: Magic Trick
Imagine ... taking your son or daughter, or niece or nephew, or younger brother or sister to a magic show. One of the acts performed by the magician is the well-known "sawing a lady in half." You and your child-friend watch as the magician opens the coffin-like wooden box, and helps his lovely assistant to lie down in it—with only her head and her feet protruding, on opposite ends. With The …