More cultural appropriation. Vipassana anapanasati and pranayama are mumbo jumbo until a lab in a western university has observed your amygdala, made a podcast on it and built a career out of it. As my rinpoche said when I questioned my reluctance to follow up with my PhD/MA: 'do… https://t.co/JSVqGeqj87twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

https://twitter.com/hubermanlab/status/1682828153989758977

By all means use these systems. They are meant for everyone and the Buddha was the original open source code. But since it is the western system that invented ipr patents citations and makes money & builds careers off them, then admit nothing you're selling is your own

Whichever startup founder/VC needs to hear this: there is dire need for a hospital buddy aggregator. As more and more people live alone, someone to go with them, hold their hand as they wait for results, fill forms, contact kin. With more difficult illnesses impersonality helps Often friends get overwhelmed and make it about themselves, patients don't want to tell family esp parents or relatives older than themselves, there is an obligation to keep saying 'im fine' when one is not fine. And yet, it would be nice to have someone practical and firm around

you'd accept status quo for many situations. It can be easier to feel tired, comfortable, remain in a vacuum, rut. pain however, the moment you feel pain you need to change something. no one wants to feel pain. you start working to reduce it.
Therefore pain is an agent of change and therefore dukkha is a Noble Truth. It is inextricably built into your experience of the world, an entrapment, that leads you to the Truth of Impermanence. And thus to Truth. Pain becomes the impetus by which you gain the View.

everyone's all excited about the 'most romantic day of the year' (tonight/tomorrow morning) but in the sidereal, Jupiter & Venus conjunct in Pisces w Saturn's aspect on them, which is the significator of war/natural disaster because the benefics are *malefic to each other* here Shukra, Venus is advisor of the asuras, and Jupiter, advisor to the gods. Pisces is Jupiter's sign but Venus is exalted here. So basically your enemy gets into your house when you're chilling and is in charge of it. So naturally, you're pissed off. This is the state of affairs

but seriously, #janhitmeinjari focussing on an emotion strengthens it. if you want to not grow an emotion (like anger), you have to not give it a source of resonance within you, response. when the provocation doesn't meet a hook, it falls away. focussing on it cultivates the hook twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Buddhist systems: dont give the anger or thoughts of anger a peg to hang its hat on. dont invite it in and serve it tea

emotion/thoughts focussed systems: oh anger, come in, come in, stay for dinner. oh you want to stay over? sure. oh, wait, what, you're moving in now?

some people come into your life to birth things.
a project. a job. a connection. a hand when you need it. the bus guy who drove you to school every morning. and poof! they're gone. you dont even think about them.
they are also soulmates. from some lifetime, another mother. this is what we refer to in buddhism when we say 'All My Mothers' (there are also other philosophical meanings).
It's deeply comforting. nothing we do, we do alone. also, those you have loved in any lifetime have never entirely left you. like energy, they linger to protect & aid

there is a terrifying-ness to the freedom that the great Masters describe. meditation and its fruit only brings up an approximation, an image of the real thing. we think we want that kind of vastness, universality, but it is unsettling, even when limited. in the Gita. when they describe Arjuna's vision of the Universal principle, his first reaction is fear. It is terrifying. what he sees. If you have seen a tiny fraction of that, you understand why.

Most of us are selling ourselves out in order to fit in. We label ourselves abnormal and sit with the shame of how our mind works willingly, which prevents sunlight from reaching the deepest parts of us. one can either be authentic to one's inner life or live a borrowed normal revel in who you are. in shade and light. in awkwardness and cringe. in oopses and ouches. your mistakes. your repression. your animus. your subconscious impulses and biases. your concealed self. your irrational self. is also you. you have to love it for it to emerge.

Every methodology that exists in the world is an *instrument* of you finding your answers. Every practice, prayer, therapy, healing, asana, meditation, philosophy, belief system is an *instrument*. it is not the answer. only you can give yourself the answer you seek. so dont be afraid to use it as much as you need, but also grow beyond it and discard it when you need to. the evolution is in you. it is for you. it has no purpose beyond that which it serves for you.

Halibu the burkitshi, or the Falconer, in the Mongolian tradition of eagle-hunters, is the Knight of Cups for the #MarsDirect today, marking the end of a retrogradation that began Oct 30. Knights are action, sometimes brash, but the Knight of Cups is markedly different. He waits. As Mars goes direct, it will remain in Taurus until March 13, when it will shift back into Gemini (sidereal). a 30 degree movement in 60 days. but it has not begun at 0, it's begun at 13°57’. Point being Mars forward movement will be painfully slow. things move, but incrementally

people are always claiming they want equanimity, balance. what they mean is they don't want to be low. they don't mind going high. here's the thing, equanimity is neither high nor low. the higher you go the lower you will fall. you cannot gain equanimity by avoiding the lows and claiming the highs. you either avoid both or claim both. if you hit the lows, you brace for the highs. this is also equanimity. or you completely ignore both. turn away from heightened joy, exhilaration as much as grief, rage.

it's very strange when people ask 'if they could see it coming do you think they could've avoided it?' when time and again the histories we are now creating show us we often do, and we don't. we are every day choosing history. in this moment. by our silence. by our absence. by our participation and not. and if that applies to the past also, it is horrific (more often than not) to think we as a species chose the entirety of human history. we chose those mistakes.

many people in therapy mistake becoming aware of the source of the problem for having resolved the problem. becoming aware is simply the first part, and it can come early or late. showing up and doing the work of resolving it takes patience and work. that's where people drop off remember: awareness is not resolution. resolution is working on the awareness and grappling with the source of pain, discomfort, suffering.

think of it like a dam that has sprung a leak. to know there is a leak is one thing. to fix it such that it doesn't occur again, another.

the mars-uranus-rahu conjunction in taurus kicks in today. the last such conjunction was 2300 years ago (those who have done the calculations say, my skill set doesn't extend there yet). at best we know it will be disruptive and surprising in earthy ways. should be interesting China really needs to not do what it is about to do.

That Swedish people don't share food thread is wild. the other day I had to stop to pick up a friend (to go somewhere else) and I had to eat tea and snacks for half an hour for fear of offending their mom. India will feed you to death even if they have to pull their last rations when I was a journalist researching Kamatipura, any sex worker I interviewed would insist on buying me a Mangola. The bottle cost rs 10 each. Their rate per hour was Rs 20. I have never been more conscious of imbibing the most expensive drink in the world.

Your work is not relevant only when it is quantifiable. Your work that is not quantifiable is not irrelevant.
You are just defining your work by a measure someone else assigns to it. Income. Designation. 'Productivity'. the work you have done for the last decade or two that creates the conditions ripe for the recognition of that work, or its quantifiability, in income, recognition, or sometimes not, is not a waste. it is what your real work is.
your work is your most purposeful self expression

I have a neat #protip for freelancers courtesy my financial expert sister. If you are a long term freelancer, register yourself as an MSME (valid for 1 person). If you're a small biz, by *law*, a company cannot neglect to pay an invoice beyond 45 days. It comes up in audits. You know that form they send you to say you are *not* an MSME? Don't sign it. It allows companies to *not* pay you on time. Set yourself up as a small MSME and raise an invoice in that company (of 1) name. You will be paid in time.

see, rahul gandhi is undoubtedly a nice guy. id ask him to babysit my kid and my dog. and send him a copy of my book and discuss vipassana with him. but he is not a politician. what is good about him is also what prevents him from rising. this is the nature of duality. the manipulative power plays of the others are what make them politicians. people said they lost faith in Kejriwal, he changed, he turned out to be no different. yes. what changed about him is what kept him in the game. this is the nature of duality.

In March 2019, I went on a 10-day #vipassana course. It concluded on Holi, the Phalguni moon that was in the sky when the Buddha attained his enlightenment. The journey since then has been path altering. Do read about my bumbling foray as a novice here.
amazon.in/dp/9389253551/… By the time the pandemic hit, I was, as Tenzin Palmo put it, in a boat pulling people out of the water.
#Anitya is a work that applies counselling with the lens of the #Buddha's Four Noble Truths. It tells you how to use the changes you have to face.

bit.ly/BuyAnitya

to be truly 'one with' is to become the base unit by which the universe is built. a character-less, feature-less, identity-less atom. the more you distinguish yourself the farther from that you move. if your interconnectedness anoints you, you have not understood oneness the problem with humanity today is we are a universe in expansion, each moving away from our cores as rapidly as we can. each seeking a certain distinction. which is attainable. but in attaining it you forget what is born must disintegrate.

I think the rise of women in white collar crime (Chitra Ramakrishna, Chanda Kocchar) is a far greater indicator of women's equality than women achievers. It's only when women are free to be as culpable as men we've got somewhere. discard the goody two shoes woman boss trope. women try too hard. this whole women achievers thing is a set up so you quantify in terms of profit why you should be given some respect. if a woman says eff your respect. im going to live as I choose to, she's sidelined. wake up. you're being rewarded for complying.