Wall Street Tax

I t seems lacking to me that there isn't already a tax on financial transactions.  We have taxed everything else.  As Europe passes legislation imposing such taxes, the markets threaten that trading will move elsewhere and their markets will suffer.  However, if Britain, the US, and other savy governments follow suit to help their own struggling economies, their would not be a significant migration to other markets.  This way the only market left will be in some small middle eastern town, and they can't all go there.  Anyway, I do think it is time to support our expenditures with a few more $$s from the rich getting richer.

Once the budget is balanced, then for every $ revenue raise above and beyond, a matching program should be re-funded, it's only fair (if only).  We have cut cut cut, we need to build build build.

Austerity is not the way.

Doing Nothing

I keep telling my yoga students to try to do nothing - even just for 5 minutes.  Here is a great TED video, telling us the same thing  Meditation is a much simpler thing than we all make it out to be.

 .http://www.ted.com/talks/andy_puddicombe_all_it_takes_is_10_mindful_minutes.html

Hot Flashes

Yeah, really about Hot Flashes.  So I have them, but not in the debilitating way.  I don't sweat unless I am in tip top condition, you know aerobic workout 3X per week plus all the other exercise that I do, so right now I don't sweat.  Even when I get a hot flash.

When I get a hot flash, my skin does not get hot.  I want to rip clothing off or open a window, but when I check or have someone else check my heat level, there is none.  How could that be?  I have seen many women drenched in sweat when this occurs to them and we all feel hot and want to feel cooler.

Here's my theory.  Since these apparent flashes are caused by changing hormone levels, I don't think there is anything going on at the skin/nerve level until after a response happens in the brain to whatever is amiss with hormones or the byproduct of reactions going on inside.  Our brain registers a response similar to feeling hot.  In normal women that  sweat, they follow with that reaction which brings the heat to the surface so that it can be sweated (evaporated) away.  The heat/sweat comes after the perceived "warmth"..

Our natural reaction is to try to cool ourselves.  In my body, as I try to cool down, my cool sensing nerves do respond, but it does not change the "warmth" that I feel.  So I am feeling cool and "warmth" at the same time.  And I note that the warmth that I feel, is not the same as feeling warm when I am in a sauna, or in the sun on a hot day.  There is definitely two different things going on.  Someone should figure this out.  What is happening in the brain?

Does anyone really care?

Well, I have been running an experiment.  I always run them on myself.  I did yoga daily for 25 years, (except when I was having kids - my body did not cooperate). And in the first 2000 decade I started meditating everyday.  Although I didnt live in a cave and devote all of my time to sacred scripture reading, practicing yamas and niyamas, but rather lived a life with kids, relationships and much material success, I found my consciousness quite expansive, my awareness very present, mindfulness always there.  The sense of ego was diminishing and I experienced life as if the "I" was just part of the "one".  As I surrendered more and more to what was, my ego (sense of individual self) had less and less to do with what manifested in my life, and yet life manifested quite a lot.

At some point a decision was made to not continue so strong a practice, perhaps mind won a small battle, and I lessened the meditation practice and lessened the yoga practice.  I even stopped the practice altogether for many months.  Although there was still the sense of less I and more one, the change in awareness and expansive consciousness had been quite extreme.  In other words,
No Meditation = No Awareness.  Over time the state of presence and mindfulness decreased more and more.

All of that led me to consider that this really is a function of neurons in the brain, .and not some potential spiritually induced enlightenment.  The more I practice(meditation/yoga), the more the neurons in my brain become wired in a spacious, unreactive, surrender leaning way.  The less I practice, the more stressed I react and less open and spacious I feel.

It take 7 years to replace all the neurons in our brains.  In this 2nd phase of the experiment I hope to locate the happy medium range of awareness and functioning on this plane(t).

lifes lessons

There are no lessons, only life!

Illusion as Entertainment

Today, the name of this blog changed to Illusion as Entertainment.  I thought the previous Blog title might offend some people so I have mellowed out the name.  The illusion refers to my perception of reality and the entertainment is what I get from writing and hopefully on occasion you get from reading.

Everything we believe is,... wait,... let me own this and not project it on you.  Everything that I believe is true is based on my experience of all prior moments through the retaining and processing of that information and then applying it to the present moment.  My experience of prior moments is based on the perception of that experience filtered through a brain that has been formed by prior experiences, ad infinitum back to my birth (some might think to previous lifetimes).

When humans perceive something in the senses (nerves get stimulated by an outside influence), the nerve signal is sent to the brain.  The neurons, in the most complicated computer know to us, processes that information and somehow projects a concept on the screen of our awareness and our mind says "aha, a cat, or a crisis, or rain".   Emotion, reaction, response or filing for later recall (memory) ensues.   All of these processes in the brain are effected by prior memories, beliefs, reactions and experiences. How a brain puts together actual sense perceptions into recognizable forms (light, sound, feeling into objects, words and known sensations) also depends on how a brain has developed and how well it is functioning at the moment.

So, everything that I think is true about this world has been influenced by my parents, siblings, teachers, spiritual influencers, education, friends, weather, neighborhoods, that guy/gal next door, illnesses, jobs, emotional reactions, and probably the emotional reactions and global consciousness of those around me at previous times and present times

What does any of this have to do with the absolute reality of the moment now?  Absolutely nothing.  The filters or rose colored glasses that the structure of my brain provides, creates the illusion of this present experience.  I "think" this is reality.  Or perhaps it is absolutely everything - perhaps this is "my" reality.

Another human being standing right next to me, may perceive a situation completely differently, due to their filters of life, hence a different reality.  I wonder if these are the infinite realities of the present theoretical physics quandaries.   But I digress. 

Is there a true reality unadulterated by my mind/brain?  I suspect that there is and that it can only be known when the egoic, reactive, neo-cortical mind slows down enough for awareness to shine through and simple "be" in the moment.  I miss the moment, when I live in the constant thought waterfall of the mind.  I experience reality more purely with an awakened mind.  But "being in the moment" is a subjective bit of popular lingo from the latest pop culture dictionary.  What does it really mean?

How did we as a species (I am projecting this on all of you now) get into this illusory way of experiencing the world?  Does it need to be different?  What is "being in the moment"?  What is an awakened mind?  What is an awakened brain?  Is mindfulness all it's hyped up to be?  I will ponder these and more questions as we go along.

Remember:  Don't believe anything you read.
                     Don't believe anything you think!
lisa

Here is a great panel discussion on Yoga and injuries.  William Broad wrote the controversial book The Science of Yoga.  Here he is with the widely known teachers of Forest Yoga, VinniYoga and Ashtanga Yoga.  An excellent discussion on yoga injury, teaching yoga and how it is perceived.

Yoga Shouldn't/Doesn't Hurt