I’ve been thinking a lot recently about where I’m going with my life, the changes that I desire, and the places (inside and out) that I want to be. Some days I hold on to an amorphous fantasy in my head, a castle in the air of planetary proportions, a benign death star that would prove the infinite potential I (sometimes) feel peeking through the cracks in my chest. I tell myself that even if I...
Editor's Note: This post was found in 'Draft' mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 26/11/2015. I had never experienced any form of yoga before a week. Now I have a week’s experience of a daily habit of a Pawanmuktasana series that focuses on joints. Practically detailed, I have conducted 30min daily, which is...
In a mute house behind a lethargic door on a shelf dressed in dust sits a box. To the box was a key given to a girl who swam in the ocean and chose to sleep in it too. In the box was a tawdry ring given by an Aunt who had not forgotten that plastic can glow like an emerald and be worth its weight in whispered secrets. The ring was found by a sad man making up a couch because he could no longer...
Newton’s first law prophecies a character’s story; the past predicts the future. The changes associated with an existing momentum are to be expected. In which case the path of a man becomes the story of a calculator surfing a leaf buffeted by external winds. But novel changes can occur, as by accumulation of minuscule effects that might be called the strata of maturity and experience...
Editor's Note: This post was found in 'Draft' mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 20/11/2015. This is a variation-on-a-theme. Where I previously wrote on reading Talmud with Levinas, here I revisit the issue, simplifying some aspects, and expanding on the concept and role of will. There is one idea I wish to take for...
I meditate to transform my experiences. What does it mean to know transformation? I have become more familiar with the subtleties of the breath’s sensation – this is the most communicable transformation. It is easy to imagine an increase in awareness in nuances of sensation: the spectrum of a painting, the textures of a carpet, the timbre of a violin. The words point to the distinction: “green”...
The Jews revere the Torah as the word of God inscribed, and the Talmud as the word of God made explicit. Explicit in the sense of ‘made tangible by engagement’. The Talmud is a series of discussions, predicated on the memories of an oral tradition (Mishnah), and the rigorous obsessions of rational minds seeking perfection. Emmanuel Levinas was a post-war French philosopher, operating in the...
I intend to attend to the sensation of breath at the nostrils’ rims. I begin with counts, and if the mind settles down so that the numbers are perceived as distractions then I abandon the counts. Every session is different. But some features are familiar. I am familiar with some variations in the breath. I am familiar with some variations in attendance to the breath. I may grasp and direct...
Editor's Note: This post was found in 'Draft' mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 13/02/2015. The following paper was brought to the attention of the Royal Society of Exploratory Studies on a Tuesday. By Thursday all three committee members owning right of veto resigned, resulting in an emergency meeting that night...
Editor's Note: This post was found in 'Draft' mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 26/01/2015. Meditation reveals an inner landscape as rich and detailed as any tapestry illustrating a battlefield from afar, and beneath the microscope’s lens, a mesmerizing complexity of topologies and geometries. Familiarity...