While any individual’s ability to substantially change the world is minimal, one’s ability to change how one experiences the world is vast. Cultivate the dispassionate witness. #Sakshi Bhava
Also, how to swim, change a tire, and juggle while riding a unicycle.
What is your favorite form of physical exercise?
I’m a big fan of them all. I like to move it, move it.
Each in its time.
Though the less special equipment I need access to, the better. I’m a firm believer that one needs only the body and mind to keep a fit body. It’s all a matter of how, how often, how intensely, and how safely one moves one’s body. Gadgety fitness can become too fetishist, and not build integration of the body as much as is ideal.
Do lazy days make you feel rested or unproductive?
Rested. Like Mondays, they never get me down. [Or is that “rainy days?”]
What principles define how you live?
Before traveling, empty my cup. Before returning home, empty my cup.
Collect experiences, not geegaws.
Wishing for the world to be some other way is a grand waste of time.
If there is a river flowing toward where I want to be, surrender to it.
See humor everywhere, especially in myself.
Be content with who I am at the moment, while struggling to be a better version in future editions.
Strive to find the non-adversarial path.
Keep looking until I see what is beautiful in all things and creatures.
Don’t attempt to construct anyone else’s list of principles to live by.
Feel the sensations that arise without letting the mind amplify them out of proportion.
Seek only simple pleasures, enjoy them fully, and then move on.
What details of your life could you pay more attention to?
Mental states and somatic & emotional sensations. Sakshi Bhava is good stuff.
Tai Chi, Chai Tea, the usual suspects.
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
Seven Animal Postures by JeogunDaily practice of feeling gratitude. (As opposed to being grateful that one November day a year and wallowing in how horrible everything is the other three-sixty-four.)
Feel them, but don’t feed them. By that I mean take time to be aware of the feelings, but do not let the mind go into its default mode of fixation upon the object informing these sensations and worst-case scenario building. Give the feelings your attention but recognize that you influence your experience of the world and don’t give the mind free reign to build an illusory scenario that it accepts as its reality. (i.e. Remember what Mark Twain said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”)
The biggest problem with negative feelings is that the go-to modern strategy is attempted distraction (by vice, by entertainment, by activity, etc.) this leads the body to turn up the heat. If you give the sensations your attention without adding value judgements, it becomes impossible to obsess. For yoga practitioners who’ve done Yoga Nidra (Yogic sleep) the experience will be familiar. One often begins by being attentive to sounds, by giving the sounds attention without judgement, your mind starts to lose interest and it becomes harder for those sounds to distract you throughout the practice. This approach to negative feelings is much the same.
Also, breathwork that extends the exhalation component of breath will shift the balance toward rest and digest activity.
Ultimately, realize that these feelings are just sensations your body and brain use to turn your attention in certain directions. They have no more power than that, other than what one grants them. They are not identical to — or inextricably linked with — the events of the world that triggered them, and — therefore — you get to be the master of, and not the slave to, your feelings.
The next time you find yourself getting bogged down by a negative feeling, give the feeling a minute or two of pure undivided attention, and then think, “This is a wonderful opportunity to learn how my body and mind work.” See what happens.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 