Tag Archives: mind

Enlightenment in Four Bits of Shakespearean Wisdom

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If you’re looking to attain Enlightenment, you may have turned to someone like the Buddha or Epictetus for inspiration. But I’m here to tell you, if you can put these four pieces of Shakespearean wisdom into practice, you’ll have all you need to uplift your mind.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

william Shakespeare, Hamlet

Through Yoga, practitioners learn to cultivate their inner “dispassionate witness.” In our daily lives, we’re constantly attaching value judgements and labels to everything with which we come into contact (not to mention the things that we merely imagine.) As a result, we tend to see the world not as it is, but in an illusory form.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

William shakespeare, julius caesar

In Psychology class, you may remember learning about the self-serving bias, a warped way of seeing the world in which one attributes difficulties and failures to external factors, while attributing successes and other positive outcomes to one’s own winning characteristics. Like Brutus, we need to learn to stop thinking of our experience of life as the sum of external events foisted upon us, and to realize that our experience is rooted in our minds and how we perceive and react to events.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

william shakespeare, as you like it

A quote from Hamlet also conveys the idea, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” If you grasp this idea, you may become both humbler and more readily capable of discarding bad ideas in favor of good. It’s common to want to think of yourself as a master, but this leads only to arrogance and to being overly attached to ineffective ideas. Be like Socrates.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

william shakespeare, julius caesar

Fears and anxieties lead people into lopsided calculations in which a risky decision is rated all downside. Those who see the world this way may end up living a milquetoast existence that’s loaded with regrets. No one is saying one should ignore all risks and always throw caution to the wind, but our emotions make better servants than masters. One needs to realize that giving into one’s anxieties has a cost, and that that cost should be weighed against what one will get out of an experience.

There it is: Enlightenment in four bits of Shakespearean wisdom.

Midnight Circus [Free Verse]

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The Midnight Circus
was not as it seemed.

It was bright colors:
motion-blurred.

It was the tinny monotony 
of music box-style 
tinkling tunes
&
organ tones.

One could even make
out the scent of fried foods
and cotton candy,
among the many other
[uncircus-like]
odors.

But there was also the story
a mind wrote to
dance sensory facts 
into sensory fictions;
that was where the falsity lie.

If one opened one's eyes,
letting them focus:
there'd be sparking wires,
&
 flames licking ever closer.

The shrill organ tones would 
become screams.

The summer night's 
humid heat would become 
third degree burns.

The circus smells would
become dust and death 
and acrid burnt combustibles.

So, he didn't open his eyes
to war or his impending demise,
but let his mind march
into that big musty, canvas tent,
surrendering to its irreality.

Slant [Free Verse]

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They told it slant,
but not all the truth,
and it rolled into the ears
of the willing
and into the minds
of the faithful.

And in those minds
it was built into 
a swift machine,
one of great power -- 
if little reality.

But deaths never required
reality of motive,
only 
reality of matter.

So, the wild stories
became wild ideas
that were the bane
of us all.

Endogenous High [Free Verse]

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hot-injected molecule -
squeezed into my bloodstream,
shooting me into bliss

& 

i ride that tide,
rising
&
rising
on the swell

breath jagged,
mind rapt with nothingness,
& 
brain firing 
in electric tangles

i'm seeing,
but not attaching
i'm being,
but nothing in particular

in time, my ride will be
at an end,
and I'll be back 
to the world
of strange disasters

Beautiful Scum [Tanka]

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the algae pond -
dappled with leafy fractals,
 patterns shift.
what moves: water or branch?
or, perhaps, just my mind

Cold Shore [Free Verse]

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Was it a lifetime ago,
or was it a dream?

I remember it being a 
long drive to a cold shore.

And I sat alone
on that shore,
and I sought a shark --
not out in the waters,
but within myself. 

Finding nothing,
I felt the thing to do
was to 
rattle in rhythm with
the twisted hustle of
pounding waves,

and I awoke, 
shivering under piercing
points of light
that somehow felt cold,
& 
made me feel cold -
deep inside.

Avalanche [Free Verse]

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One false footing
erases the screeched blackboard
writing that'd formed in my mind
& 
everything becomes a blank, white
emptiness --

Not a good empty.
Not a good quiet.
The emptiness of blinding pain.

That's the slow, cold death
of falling into a drift
and then cascading,
tumbling,
tumbling,
in an avalanche.

Wrenched asunder -
or so it feels -
and left to go numb in a
silence so total 
that i know 
it's my first experience 
with true silence. 

We all fall down?
That's what the plague rhyme says,
isn't it? --

Madmen & Holymen,
and those who take this fall
and are twisted into a 
grotesque blend of both.

Which way is up?
Tiny seedlings can tell,
but I cannot.

I'm lost --
50/50, I dig myself deeper
into my own doom.

My life trickles in a file of hours,
dripping into that dim distance 
of non-time. 

I'll stay lost until the spring thaw
when I'll ride the glacial runoff
to complete my tumble
as a gray and bloated thing.

On Intrusive Thoughts & Shoving Someone in Front of a Train

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The other day I read that a man had pushed a person onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. 

The week before that, I'd read in a book by Robin Ince that a person who -- having had a baby thrust into his hands -- has intrusive thoughts of throwing said baby out of the nearest window is [believe it, or not] the best person to ask to hold one's baby.

The argument goes like this, the person having these intrusive thoughts is being intensely reminded by his or her unconscious mind that under no circumstances -- no matter what unexpected or unusual events should transpire -- is he to throw the baby out the window (or otherwise do anything injurious.)

I've heard that, at some point, virtually everyone has some type of awkward intrusive thought such as the thought of pushing a stranger in front of a train. 

Most never do it, nor truly want to do it.

Then this one time... someone did.

BOOK REVIEW: Move by Caroline Williams

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Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind FreeMove: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free by Caroline Williams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

This book presents a pop science accounting of some of the more interesting scientific literature on the benefits of moving one’s body – be it through dance, martial arts, walking, or otherwise. That being active is an important element of maintaining a healthy mind and body will come as no surprise. Still, there are a number of specific points this book makes that may come as a surprise to many, such as that those who do an hour of intense exercise a day but otherwise live desk warrior lives may not be as well off as they think.

As the topic (and the scientific literature from which the book draws) is huge, the author focuses specifically on the mental benefits of physical movement, both attitudinal / psychological benefits and cognitive benefits such as improved creative thinking or memory. I found the book’s organization to be beneficial, and – in particular – believe it was a smart move to include chapters on breath and rest – topics that are integral to a life of movement, but which might not spring to mind. Particularly, the chapter on breath discusses findings on synchronization of breath and movement more than does many books on breath or movement, as well as offering extensive discussion of the benefits of 3 and 6 breath per minute (bpm) breathing.

There are a lot of books out there on this subject – though usually they focus either on exercise or on a particular approach to movement. Those who read extensively on the topic may not find much that is new in this book. However, I think “Move” holds its own, and also distinguishes itself in some of its fine points of emphasis. Certainly, if one is looking for a book to introduce someone to the benefits of movement, this is a prudent choice.


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