Brain Candy: On Meditation

Recently some friends asked me for some pointers about meditation, and here's what I said...

DISCLAIMER: I am nowhere near an expert and still have a shitload to learn. What I've written below are just a few things that have helped me get started.

First and foremost, I would begin familiarizing myself with meditation as a whole. There are a bunch of great books out there on the subject by authors such as Sogyal Rinpoche, Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hahn, Lama Surya Das, and HH the Dalai Lama. I like the book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche (not to be confused with "The Tibetan Book of the Dead.") This book covers much, much more than meditation, but the section on meditation has been instrumental in the development of my practice. Those of us in the West have a lot of ideas about what meditation is supposed to be (i.e. that there is some result that we should aim for specifically), and this book is a great place to begin learning about true meditation. Plus, if you're interested in learning about reincarnation, samsara, and the bardo's, this book is invaluable in that regard. You will get a crash course in Buddhism, but this is not to be feared or judged, and the effortless way Rinpoche explains some very heady concepts will leave you thirsting for more. If you're anything like me, this book will change your life.

Here are some things that have helped me:

The use of a mantra. I'll chant the mantra of Padmasambhva (Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Siddhi Hum) or Avalokiteshvara (Om Mani Padme Hum). The Padmasambhva mantra is roughly the equivalent to the Catholic Hail Mary. It feels weird at first, but that is just your ego fucking with you. Stop judging and get over it. If you can do this, after a while all else will cease and you'll feel like you're in space. Again, I got this stuff from "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying."

Diaphragmatic breathing. Breathe through your mouth. You don't want your jaw to hang to the ground like you've just opened up an email and it was a video of a donkey show. Think mild sinus infection mouth breathing, not holy shit I can't believe people do that. We don't realize it, but often times we are not breathing properly. In order to take a fully restorative breath, we must breath from our stomach, not our chest. If you aren't quite sure what I'm talking about, lie on your back before you begin to meditate, and rest your right forearm at the top of your stomach below your rib cage. Watch your arm rise and fall, rise and fall. Your stomach will be pushing your arm out as you inhale. This is breathing from your diaphragm. This technique can be applied anywhere at any time, and for those of you who may suffer from anxiety/panic disorders, this technique is a hell of a tool to help you calm down.

Keep your eyes open. Contrary to popular belief, one should keep his/her eyes open and fixed upon an object/picture while meditating. Once again, I took the book's advice, and stare at a picture of Padmasambhva. His eyes are hypnotic, and at first I was a bit freaked out at the picture because he's pretty intense. But then I remembered he was a Buddha, and there is no hate there, only love.

Don't try to achieve anything. The most important part of meditation is showing up. At first, I began with 10 minutes in the morning, ten minutes at night, and have upped the time as I've grown more comfortable. The biggest thing you can try to remember when meditating is to practice non-grasping. Allow your thoughts to come and go, let them run through your mind like the waters of a mountain river runs over rocks. If you have a negative thought, acknowledge it, but don't latch onto it. Simply let the thought be born, and die. All thoughts return to the same place they were born: your mind. Eventually you will have moments when something truly magical happens, and you will want to prolong the feeling. The minute you try to do that is the minute you will lose it. Think of it like sex: when your girl says, "right there" she's not saying "go faster." Just keep doing what you're doing, because it's working.

You don't have to sit in full lotus postion. If you are flexible enough to chill in full lotus, then by all means, do it. Don't force it, though. A certain amount of uncomfortability is expected when you begin to meditate, but do not confuse uncomfortability and pain. If need be, you can use a chair; any book on meditation will cover this in depth. This is a mental workout, not necessarily a physical workout, although you may experience some soreness during the first few weeks as your body becomes accustomed to this position.

All of this is just a scratch on the surface, but I hope it may have helped in some way. The benefits to developing a daily meditation practice are massive, and after a month of consistent daily meditation you will feel like you are becoming a different person. You are. The mind is as vast and infinite as the universe itself, and the first time you get a little taste of this, you will experience a bliss most people believe to be a myth. The key is to carry that bliss into your life through mindful actions, speech, thoughts, etc. To learn more about that, see the 4 Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

You can, of course, add a bit of the sticky icky to your practice, but try to do it without herb first. I'm a huge proponent of cannabis use and the benefits of such a wonderful plant, but you don't need to be higher than a cat's back to go deep. Your brain will do that for you. If you must smoke, start out sober and smoke when you're done. If you have one of those blissful sessions I was talking about, smoking afterward is often a great way to carry over that state of mind, especially if combined with yoga.

Be well and good luck. Namaste.

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We're all on this rock floating through space together, stuck in one of an innumerable number of galaxies. We inhabit a miniscule portion of the infinite universe, and every time I pause to look up at the sky I am bewildered by how completely insignificant life is. But, this is why life is so precious. We're entering a period of solar activity that can, at any moment, wipe out all the electronics on earth, and plunge us back into the dark ages. To some, that is a most depressing thought. To me, it's the beauty of creation. It's never been more important to share and spread love than in this moment, right now, today. Bask in the light of the truth, and never forget that you are not alone; you will always have the stars. All you have to do is look up, and smile.

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"So, the teachings tell us, if we do not assume the fullest possible responsibility for ourselves now in this life, our suffering will go on not only for a few lives, but for thousands of lives to come." - Sogyal Rinpoche

Farm Flies 2: Revenge of the Fruit Fly

"I don't know why I ever come in here. The flies get the best of everything." - Otis Criblecoblis

Ah, yet another summer of shortened fuses thanks to my arch nemesis the Farm Fly, and this year, they seem to have quadrupled their numbers.  Once again I have boldly stepped onto Farm Fly turf, and having learned from my missteps during last year's battles, I am now strapped with a wider whacking device (See: two rolled up issues of News 4U), a lighter, and a travel size bottle of Garnier Fructis hairspray. Surely they don't stand a chance, right?

Wrong.  These rotten bastards have not only increased their numbers, they seem to have gone through some type of intensive combat training combining the brutality of Jiu-Jitsu with the speed of Formula 1 racing. The larger flies have noticeably altered their attack strategy from the previous year.  Instead of using the Kamikaze style of fighting they had become so annoyingly known for, the large flies have been hanging back, allowing armies of Fruit Flies to swarm any given area with unparalleled chaos in only a matter of seconds.  Compare this to the amount of time it takes for me to go from "holy shit, flies!" to striking my lighter and letting the hairspray rip, it's easy to see that we've got a bit of a problem here, folks.  

Equally as disturbing as the Farm Fly's change in battle tactics is their change in dietary preferences.  It's not so much a change as it is an addition, as this year, no food is safe from instantaneous attack.  Due to their massive numbers (which put the populations of China and India to shame), a 20 second skirmish with these minuscule monsters can result in the loss of 12 blackberries, an entire peach, or, as was the case during one of the more intense battles recently, HALF of a rather large tomato.  The devastation is so horrifying when these soulless fiends find an unsupervised cantaloupe that I dare not even speak of it here (RIP Molly McMelon).

I have made headway in learning the origin of these Fruit Flies though, because I can hear buzzing choruses of "Za Rodinu" (For Motherland) swirling around my head as I desperately swat the air in vain.  This leads me to believe the ferocious hunger of the Fruit Fly was born during a long, hard winter spent in the Siberian shithole called Novosibirsk.  Known for vodka so strong that it often doubles as tank fuel and temperatures that can give a polar bear hypothermia, Novosibirsk is exactly the kind of gritty and impoverished place that produces talented fighters looking for ways to avoid experiencing love.  My trusty mag-whacker and poor-mans flamethrower are going to ensure that they are unequivocally successful in that pursuit.   

Gone is the beauty and appreciation for the Farm Fly's aeronautical grace.  What was once a marvel of physical impossibility is now, simply put, a monumental pain in the ass.  Where there is one, there are ten someplace else, thus engaging me in an infinite game of cat-and-mouse that often leaves me more bloody and bruised than the flies.  Another impossible factor to deal with is the rapid rate at which the Fruit Fly breeds. Rabbits, dogs, the Octomom- all pale in comparison to the frequency of birth and amount of offspring these Commie pricks produce.   

At the moment, I fear I am outflanked and outnumbered.  My limited talent for espionage and total inability to refrain from cursing loudly during stalking sessions has delivered me to an area of Hell known in Souther Indiana as "Summer".  With another chapter of this war in the books,  I am reminded of those who came before me, and the sacrifices they have made during their valiant efforts to protect produce.  "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother; be ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition," Shakespeare wrote, and with the way people smelled in the 17th century, I'm certain he must've known a thing or two about fly flagellation.

My condition has yet to be gentled, but with each successful eradication, I find a moments peace in the satisfaction of fighting for such a noble cause.  The war may never be over, and assuredly, more produce will be lost.  But, as long as I can continue to Google ways of inducing mass genocide on Farm Flies, the epic saga of Man versus Farm Fly will rage onward.

How Many Times Do I Have to Tell You?!?

As I entered the library today, I noticed two things: a new photography exhibit lining the western wall, and a kid being bitched out by his Dad. This poor pre-pubescent kid was enduring a public barrage of "you need to learn respect" and "no more video games" due to some nefarious (and likely anti-Christian) offense he had committed with some friends. The father's argument was, as much as I could piece it together, that the son had decided to "play the video games" with his friends instead of helping with some bullshit around the house. Couple of thoughts I had on this...

1). Where's the kids mother? She's probably one of the pill-popping wino suburbanites who play Christian to appear socially-upstanding. Clearly, she drives an SUV of the large and obnoxious variety, the tailgate of which is peppered with all the 99-cent patriotism one can afford. Three books on her nightstand: Sarah Palin's autobiography, Twilight, and a bible that has pretty flowers etched into a protective leather cover. She'd never admit it in public, but that Ann Coulter makes a lot of sense. She's not happy that a black couple moved in three houses down, but boy oh boy can she whip up one heckuva pecan pie.

2). What is this guy trying to make up for? What is he so afraid of letting slip away? His lack of vocabulary to describe the video games he was bemoaning leads me to believe his lecture was more the result of peer expectations than his own true feelings on the subject. Why donate all that money to church if they weren't giving sound parenting advice, right? Perhaps there was even a six-part series recently, a post Christmas, start-the-New-Year-on-the-right-track oeuvre of lectures that promised a renaissance of family values through strict parenting while focusing on the dangers of technology and, of course, porn. Lots and lots of gooey porn.

3). I don't have a family, so I could be totally full of shit.* However, I do have parents, and I can identify the source of our mutual discontent, and it all stems from a lack of communication. The inability to understand doesn't have to be a precedent for anger or an imposition of one's will. When a kid screws up and needs to be disciplined, well, that's life. But to publicly embarrass and berate your child to prove how good of a parent you are- I'm thinking the problem isn't the child, it's you. Not to mention, kids who are good at video games these days have legitimate career options, and these careers are ten times more lucrative than going door to door selling vacuums.

I wanted to say something, I wanted to tell the kid, "save your money, go to college as far away as possible, and don't ever, under any circumstance, allow your parents to drive you away from the life you want to live." But, I didn't. It's not my place, although I don't think I would've been hurting this particular kid in any way. I don't know. What's the proper course of action when you see a resentment being born in real-time? Oh well. Poor kid got an earful and he won't be playing video games for a while, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The part I have a problem with is what happens next: does the kid evaluate what is important in life and use this experience to his benefit, or is he going to withdraw into his own world of fantasy even more, slowly shutting the doors of parent/child communication...

Anyway, yeah. I'm not a parent for a reason(s), obviously...

P.S. Ann Coulter looks like the byproduct of an anorexic llama who banged one of those hooded horseman from "Fellowship of the Rings." I bet it coughs and lets out a puff of white smoke when you touch it...Kind of like when they elect a new Pope.





*It's true.

Together, One

In the literal and figurative wake of the tsunami/quake in Japan, millions of people are now facing unimaginable chaos, destruction, and uncertainty. Regardless of geography, political allegiances, or religious affiliations, this moment is an opportunity for the World to stand in solidarity with the people of Japan. It takes more energy to hate than it does to show compassion. Great moments in history are not shaped solely by an event. They are shaped by the will of ordinary people to come together, declaring loudly with one voice, that they will overcome.

Perseverance is the gift of humanity; there is no other cheek to turn when innocent victims are involved. Don't be a bystander. It is the civic duty of all who are capable to take their condolences further than YouTube and Twitter. Whatever you can do to support to the millions of people affected by this tragedy, do it. Why? Because it just as easily could've happened to you.


The writing on the flag is the Kim Ga Yo, the Japanese national anthem. It reads:

May my Lord's reign,
Continue for a thousand years,
Eight thousand generations,
Until pebbles
Grow into boulders,
Covered in moss.

Text REDCROSS to 90999 to send $10 to relief efforts in Japan.