peace

14 Mar 2012 No Comments

Shamatha Yoga

Three years ago I completed three levels of Shambhala training levels 1-3: The Art of Being Human, Birth of a Warrior and Warrior in the World. There was no fighting but extensive meditating. I learned how to quiet my mind. I also enjoyed Shamatha yoga that you can do anywhere and it only takes several minutes.

Shamatha yoga is a simple series of nine yoga postures developed by Sakyong  Mipham Rinpoche during his retreat in India in Januray of 2002. They are designed to develop mindfulness as well as loosen the body during breaks from formal sitting meditation.

  1. Earth. Hands at sides, fingers pointed down. Palms inward, gaze down. Feel slightly separated, toes spread. Knees are not locked. Body scan: moving feet to head, relax each part of the body. Feeling of solidity.
  2. Greater Eastern Sun. Raise arms up outstretched, palms upward. Reach for sky, palms towards each other, shoulder-width apart. Look upwards.
  3. Gathering the Mind. From GES, bring hands together and down toward heart, to Anjali. Bodhicitta. Feel heart center.
  4. Offering. Forward bend from waist. Separate hands, arms circle slightly outward and down. Release. Stretch back and back of legs. Relax head and neck. Legs are straight and strong.
  5. Courage. From Offering, roll up through spine to standing. Hands on hips in warrior posture, as if to bow. Gaze forward.
  6. Warrior. Slide right foot forward, angle left foot out 45 degrees. Arms reach up, palms together. Look upwards. Right leg is bent, knee directly over front heel. Left leg is straight. Bring left hip forward. Step back to standing, hands on hips. Repent on left side.
  7. Four Directions. a. Hands on hips, legs spread and strengthened. Bow over, stretching to the front. b. Round up to standing. Lift up the heart, drop the head back. c. Return to standing. Turn right foot out to right, left foot turns in 45 degrees. Turn hips to right, fold torso over right leg. Keep weight evenly distributed in legs. Let head hang. Round up through spine to standing. Repeat on left side.
  8. Garuda. a. Begin with legs spread apart, toes facing forward. Arms extend to sides shoulder-height, palms down. b. Turn right foot out to right. Reach right hand out as far as possible, then bring down to right ankle or shin. Legs are straight and strengthened, palms face front. Look up to top hand. Come back slowly to standing, arms extended, palms down. Turn feet and repeat on left side. Come back slowly to standing. c. Twisting Garuda: Turn foot to right. Twist torso so left hand reaches for ankle or shin. Look upward to top hand. Strengthen legs and return to standing posture. Repeat on left side. Twists whole spine.
  9. Joining Heaven and Earth. Feet together. In one fluid motion: Raise arms out and up overhead, bring palms together, look up to thumbs, then hands come down, passing through Anjali to the hips, palms open at sides. Gaze is raised. Openness. Expansion.

See a demo of Shamatha yoga on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHiJLoLlBDw.

Note: As with many forms of discipline that involve bodily exercise, Shamatha yoga includes an inherent element of risk of personal injury. However you can prevent harm to your body by being careful at all times and avoiding or discontinuing any activity that causes you pain or physical distress. Individuals who have preexisting medical conditions must not undertake any exercise that could aggravate such conditions.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

16 Feb 2012 No Comments

What Do We Owe To Future Generations? (Part Three)

As we continued our discussion three main questions were at its core:

Where is the golden mean?  How much to consume vs conserve? Someone mentioned Jeremy Bentham, an advocate of utilitarianism, who argued that we need “to form laws in order to create the greatest good for the greatest number, and that the concept of the individual pursuing his or her own happiness cannot be necessarily declared “right”, because often these individual pursuits can lead to greater pain and less pleasure for the society as a whole. Therefore, the legislation of a society is vital to maintaining a society with optimum pleasure and the minimum degree of pain for the greatest amount of people”.

How do you know what to do? My personal opinion is that we need to raise awareness of what we know and make best decisions now in order to create the best possible society and environment today, no matter what happens tomorrow. So we don’t really owe to future generations but to ourselves and to current generation.

The concept of time is an illusion, everything is happening now. So we should learn about different perspectives to form a realistic opinion of the situation and do the best we can now. No one owns air but we are all responsible for keeping it clean. . That is why NGO s and Intergovernmental policies are important. If one part of the world suffers from pollution other parts of the world need to know that problem and do what they can to help and solve.

How to motivate people to act responsibly? In my group I was told that even when people know what to do, they often will not do it, as no one really wants to sacrifice their privileges and give up their comfort for someone else (whether existing or non-existing). My response is that we need to create incentives and rewards for good behavior and penalties for opposite (on individual, corporate and government levels). They could be monetary or not. One of the example, carbon tax. Beyond extrinsic incentives there are intrinsic ones, like feeling good that you do the right thing (example, recycling) because you live according to your beliefs…

There is an overlap between personal good and common good. Awareness of problems and solutions should help with motivation and building incremental changes in our lives.  We should find the balance between being content with what we’ve got and setting goals for what we want to improve. Deep inside we all want inner peace and be a part of this big ecosystem where we reside together with other species whether present, past or future.

We finally got back to our big group of four dozen people and shared our ideas. We voted on whether we think we, humans, are doing well collectively in preserving the Earth for future generation, and the answer was unanimous no.

Someone interjected saying that we should not worry about humans as they are adaptable; they will adjust to new conditions (no matter how dramatic they are). If we run out of natural oil, humans will invent something else. There is no other way to motivate but educate vs hard lessons. Say, if the US goes bankrupt due to its international debt, then it will have to review and restricts its consumerism and credit policy.

Another good point was on religions. Some go on saying that nature is a gift and we can use it up; others warn us to be reasonable and leave resources for other creatures. Several people were against procreating: “If only 1 billion humans could live sustainably on the planet, we should stop multiplying”.

At the very end someone concluded that the question should really be about what motivates us and what we are willing to do not what we owe. And what we should be focusing on and pass on to future generations is not technology, but knowledge of wellness and humanity. Speaking of love for humanity Eric invited all to the theatrical production of “The things we do for love and presidents” at Warszawa Restaurant in Santa Monica today, Feb 16th at 7:30PM.  

The most surprising closure came via email I received from one of the attendees several days later:

“My name is Mitch. Just one thought I didn’t share this Sunday, which you reminded me of with your mention of Kabbalah…

Rabbi Hillel famously tried to summarize ethics like this: “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?”

There are three parts, but I have almost always over focused on the middle bit, with the occasional admonishment to myself to remember the last part.

Well, Hillel went to the trouble of putting that first part in there. He even put it, you know, first.

It’s occurred to me that I, and many people I know and like, are inadequately selfish. If life is meant to be good, it’s not just meant to be good for people we don’t know, we’re responsible for making life work for the people we can help most – ourselves.

Which is how I think this ties back in to “What do we owe future generations?” I heard people say, almost apologetically, that it’s okay for us to use some natural resources today … but I never heard anyone say that one of our main jobs is to live well, ourselves, here and now.  (Hillel listed it first, and I suppose third too!)

The entire discussion seemed to be variations on “how do we restrict our inherent selfishness,”rather than “what do we owe ourselves, and what do we owe future generations.”

Resources: What a Way to Go Movie, I am Movie, Free Speech Blog Post, Creating a world that works for all Book, Home Free Movie, Intergenerational Justice Article, Is It Wrong To Wreck The Earth Radio Talk.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

15 Feb 2012 No Comments

What Do We Owe To Future Generations? (Part Two)

Brian distributed handouts with basic rules of conversational decency. We split into 5 smaller groups and had very controversial conversations about who owes who and what.

Among 8 people in our group we had a range of opinions – some thought that we owe nothing and are on the path of destruction; others – that we do owe something to future generations and our ecosystem, and should be consuming and polluting less but conserving and cleaning up more. There were also those who thought that our generation is mainly working on building technology and that is good enough to pass on future generations. But is that so? Is it really good to develop technology at odds with the surroundings? Check this out The Power of Technology. 

I want to quote Sharif Abdullah again and give you two more analogies from his book “Creating the world that works for all”. Besides the rabbits story, I also like the story about The Keepers, The Breakers and The Menders.

“The Keeper story is the original story of humans. Keepers are people who live interconnected with their local ecologies and all other beings. They keep the ancient ways of living, perfected over eons of coexistence. Their story is based on a thought, “Living in harmony with all I encounter”, and an assumption, “The land is abundant”.

Keepers do not have a concept of the Earth as a whole; they are identified with their local ecologies. Within those ecologies, they have, over the course of a million years or more, achieved a dynamic equilibrium with all beings, including human and non-material beings.

We are Breakers: The Earth and everything in it were created for Man, we have the right and the responsibility to place all of it under our control. Because there is not enough for all, the world must be conquered in order for us to exist. We do not live in the Web of Life; we live on top of it. Our story is simple wilderness is bad, human control is good.

We call ourselves by many names, most of them positive or benign; civilizers, settlers, pioneers, missionaries, explorers, industrialists. We will continue to control and dominate all life forms, including humans who are not like us, because control is good.

We are Menders: We believe the Earth and our fellow humans need to be healed from the excesses of exclusivity and we live our daily lives in accordance with this belief. We used to be Breakers, but are consciously turning away from that dead-end path, away from the glitter and allure of the Breaker society. Our goal is to live as a consciously integral part of a living, conscious and sacred planet, to catalyze a new era, the Mender era.

Our task is simple and profound: to heal the damage caused by the Breakers, those who act as though the Earth and all of her inhabitants were their property. We vow to stop Breaker destruction and begin to restore the balance between the Earth and humanity within this generation.

We Menders are Breakers in recovery. Breaker history is our history. We are not arrogant enough to think that our problems are someone else’s fault. We consciously reject all privileges that have come to us at the expenses of other’s lives, freedom or comfort.

The Mender story is in harmony with an ancient story, one as old as the Earth itself. We honor the Keepers, who show us the way of wisdom. We honor the Breakers, who show us the way of technology. We heal the damage. We are Menders.

Lester Milbrath speaks eloquently about the nature of this change in his book, “Envisioning a Sustainable Society”. He compares the story of our planet to a yearlong movie. If the movie starts in January and ends (at the present) in December, life itself shows up in March. He goes on to state:

“Compared to most other species, humans have lived on planet earth for a very brief time, (only 11 minutes of our year-long movie). During most of that time humans have lived in harmony with nature; their home was that environment in which they evolved. It is only very recently that our species created an unnatural home for itself as it set out to dominate nature. In that brief period (only 2 seconds of our year-long movie), we have built a civilization that cannot sustain itself”. Or can it?

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

13 Feb 2012 No Comments

What Do We Owe To Future Generations? (Part One)

“On Christmas Day, 1776, British explorer Captain Cook arrived on Kerguelen Island, a Connecticut –sized land mass covered with grass in the Indian Ocean. One of the things Cook did while he was there was release a few rabbits. He thought that rabbits would provide fresh meat for any sailors who followed. The rabbits, in a favorable climate with not natural predators, multiplied. And grew. And flourished. And overpopulated. In a short span of time, the rabbit population exploded into the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions.

Then, after eating every single blade of grass, they died. They died as they lived, by the hundreds of thousands. The old once died, the baby bunnies died, the pregnant mothers died. They died because that is how the Web of Life works. Biologists call it “overshoot and dieback”. No rabbit was immune.

If you go to the island today, you will see that no one rabbit or one blade of grass exists. Both rabbits and grass were rendered extinct by the rabbit’s success. The rabbits were killed by their own story.

Each rabbit had a story that governed its existence and behavior: “Creating a World That Works for Me”. According to this story, each rabbit maximized its position, eating as much as it could and producing as many offspring as possible. This formula for “success”, in the absence of competing owl and coyote success formulas, was fatal. The rabbits were disastrously successful. Exclusivity is death.

Think about how the rabbits must have felt when their population has reached a million and “only” half of their grass was gone. They were in Rabbit Heaven! All the grass you could eat (with no competition), half a million sex partners, and not a coyote in sight! Eat, sleep and screw all day! The only thing they didn’t’ know was that they were just one generation away from annihilation. Assume that, at this time, a more reflective-than-average-bunny wrote a book entitled Creating an Island That Works for All. In it, he said that if they were to continue to thrive, rabbits everywhere on the island would have to change their thinking. No more “maximum food, maximum sex”.

This strange bunny even went so far as to say that rabbits needed eagles, owls and coyotes! Without them, the rabbit population would outstrip the generative capacity of the island and it would die. In order for the island to work for rabbits, it had to work for coyotes also. The bunny writer called his concept “inclusivity”. He believed that if the rabbits consciously reduce their food intake, consciously restricted their sex habits, and invited in a few owls, eagles and coyotes, the rabbits and the grass would continue to flourish. We’ll never know whether or not the book bunny was right. We do know, however, that the others were wrong. Dead wrong.”

This analogy is mentioned in the book “Creating A World That Works For All” by Sharif Abdullah. And I thought of it during the Philosophy Meetup event yesterday. About 44 people gathered on Sunday to talk philosophy and in particular discuss the topic of “What, if anything, do we owe to future generations?” Brian, the organizer, who has been leading this group for 8 years, posed the questions:

“Nearly all of us care about and have moral regard and obligations to people around us (at least to some of them).  Does it follow from this, or from any other consideration, that we do or should have regard or obligations to people who live after all people currently alive have died?  Normally, we think of our obligations as being to particular individuals who actually exist.  How can we be obliged to people who don’t exist and may never exist?  How can specific persons who don’t exist have rights and claims upon us?”

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

25 Dec 2011 No Comments

Amazing Grace

There are many truly amazing inspirational movies and Amazing Grace about William Wilberforce is one of them. As a matter of fact, it is my favorite movie and I would like to share several quotes from it with you. Enjoy!

When people stop being afraid they find their compassion.

-It’s God. I have 10,000 engagements of state today but I would prefer to spend the day out here getting a wet arse, studying dandelions and marveling at… bloody spider’s webs.
-You found God, sir?
-I think He found me. You have any idea how inconvenient that is? How idiotic it will sound? I have a political career glittering ahead of me, and in my heart I want spider’s webs.
-”It is a sad fate for a man to die too well known to everybody else and still unknown to himself.” Francis Bacon. I don’t just dust your books, sir.

When I was 15 I almost run away with the circus. They said I could have been an acrobat.

We hear that you are a man who doesn’t believe what he is until he sees it with his own eyes. You are having problems whether to do a work on God or the civil activist, we humbly suggest that you could do both.

I wish I could remember all their names. My 20,000 ghosts, they all had names, beautiful African names. We’d call them with just grunts, noises. We were apes, they were human.

-You’re dressing very simply these days.
-I’m a simple man.

-I had heard your sight was fading.
-Well, now it’s faded altogether. I never do things by halves. God decided I’d seen enough.

 God sometimes does His work with gentle drizzle, not storms. Drip. Drip. Drip.

 -No one of our age has ever taken power.
-Which is why we’re too young to realize certain things are impossible. Which is why we will do them anyway.

It seems to me, that if there is a bad taste in your mouth, you spit it out. You don’t constantly swallow it back.

Trouble is, Doctor, he doesn’t believe he has a body. Utterly careless of it. He thinks he is some kind of disembodied spirit.

I find that the older I get, the more tender I become.

“Great changes are easier than small ones”. Sir Francis Bacon.

It’s only painful to talk about because we haven’t changed anything.

-Come, we’re late. 
-The water has been here a million years, how can we be late?

-Why is it you only feel the thorns in your feet when you stop running? 
-Is that some sort of heavy-handed metaphorical advice for me, Mr. Pitt?

-”I once was blind but now I see”. Didn’t I write that?
-Yes, you did.
-Now at last it’s true.

When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon – men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who’s achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more.
[Wilberforce receives a standing ovation from the entire House and the Gallery]

-Noblesse oblige.
-What the bloody hell does that mean?
-It means: my nobility obliges me to recognize the virtue of an exceptional commoner.

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

23 Jun 2011 No Comments

International Happiness Day is on July 10

I just found out about this website and International Happiness Day, which was proposed back in 2008 by a person from Portugal. On the website you can find a letter to the UN to promote Happiness and Peace on Earth. They will need 50 mln signatures. It is a cool idea and I put my signature on it. Check it out for yourself.
Hello,  

My name is sign now! and I live in sign now!. I recently found out about International Happiness Day on July 10th. I am writing to you because I see the importance of commemorating this worthy cause world wide.
Over the years we have come to take cause in the fundamental human experiences beyond technology and economics and have noticed there was an overlooking of important concepts like the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. We have Dr. Robert Muller, Former Assistant Secretary General for the United Nations, who saw the importance of holding a worldwide environmental conference. We also so the with the UN supported universities of Peace.
As the environment becomes more of a concern and our need for peace on Earth starts getting attention, it is imperative for our world to embrace simple human experiences such as happiness and love.
By acknowledging and supporting the cause of International Happiness day, it would help me know that happiness is my birthright and I was born here, that happiness is a state of being that starts with a choice to be happy!
It is your duty as my UN representative to take my request serious and know that as other countries have forged forward with their own happiness emphasis, i.e. Bhutan and Gross National Happiness, other countries are making headway as well. The reason why happiness is so important to me and everyone I know is because of all of the great benefits that come with it, such as better health.
By commemorating this July 10th, 2011 as an International Happiness day, I as a global citizen will practice gratitude, love, joy, optimism and forgiveness at each and every opportunity. Please embrace and support this initiative, it could be the greatest day our planet has ever experienced!

All my best in happiness,

sign now!

by polyachka in Happiness Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,