Monthly Archives: April 2009
Practice notes, these days • 29 April 2009
Relaxing the jaw and tongue Anna Wise found that even zen masters couldn’t take their beta waves down from active chit-chat mode until they relaxed their tongues. It seems that when the tongue is unrelaxed, the part of the brain that does discursive thought (i.e. spoken or unspoken speech) goes pretty nuts. However, zen master […]
You can’t have it • 24 April 2009
Good old commodities: iron ore, wheat, petroleum, labor power These are capitalism’s creation, the stock in trade of markets. On the market, unit of Wyoming petroleum = unit from Kuwait. The commodity is brought in to existence for the reason of sale. Its key qualities are uniformity and exchangeability. Gold from Potosí = gold from […]
Space • 19 April 2009
So it’s glorious here. Forgotten fruit in season, a bike valet at the farmers' market, friends happy together, people saying “President Obama” on the radio. Spring quarter on campus, deadlines that ask for integrity and not acts of sleepless masochism, actually good art everwhere, Wolverine looking intense on billboards, the most perfect weekend playing on […]
Fertilizer • 16 April 2009
It’s said that yoga—the practices and mind maps of the Ganges shamen and the northern cave recluses, and later the loinclothed attaches’ of Karnatakan princes—slows the aging process. If this were true, by what mechanism would it work? Though processes that increase the heart rate, speed breathing and generally put stress on the body? Or […]
Inverted World • 12 April 2009
(Post Heavily Revised. My mind seems to be in transit…) He is risen! He is risen indeed! For less Christian call-and-response, there was some kirtan in Santa Monica last night, but despite my claims to have conquered jet lag (perhaps with the help of my new titanium wrist band or a 22-hour tarry in London […]
It has been said… • 5 April 2009
Practice not changing: students forgetting. Everything is god. Lokhasamasthasukhinobhavantu.
Dear Blogosphere, • 2 April 2009
No lie: practicing here is heaven to me. The shala has gone from crowded to quiet; my practice has moved from 7:45 back to 6; the teacher was Sharath for three weeks and now is Saraswathi; the weather has gone from temperate to hot and mosquito-laden; some days it’s Mysore style and some days it’s […]