Obama

I just finished Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. And I loved it! I especially loved the parts about him growing up and scenes from his everyday family life. Unfortunately there wasn't too much of that.

In the book, he mainly talks about many of the problems we all (as Americans) face and on ways to resolve them. And some of the solutions he suggests deeply connected with me. It opened my eyes to what could be possible. And so really did give me hope on things I had kinda given up on. I'm glad that he is our President now and can't wait for the next book he'll write...

Unstuck!

It is hard being stuck to an idea. It becomes the center of your universe. And all you other thoughts converge towards it. When this goes on long enough, it probably becomes a belief, which defines the way you live your life and the experiences you have in it.

But by questioning/inquiring (the hard part), you can remove the idea from the center and consider it to be just another one of your thoughts. And then, Poof! - the idea lets go of you.

Henry David Thoreau

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. --Thoreau

Books

Lately I've been reading 101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married: Simple Lessons To Make Love Last by Linda and Charlie Bloom.

It is quiet wonderful: each lesson is 2-3 pages long and contains a mini-story about a key principle. Some are obvious (like #30. Expectations set us up for resentment). Others are surprising (like #38. Vacations are necessities, not luxuries & #44. If you think, "You're not the person I married," you're probably right.) Overall, it is fantastic book on how to cultivate a great marriage. And not only do the Blooms' share stories about their patients, but also about their own struggles in their marriage!

A few other books I've found very interesting, but haven't bought yet:

• The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life
• Get the Life You Want: The Secrets to Quick and Lasting Life Change with Neuro-Linguistic Programming
• The Gift of Fear
• Work Hard. Be Nice.: How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America -- this one was recommended by Bill Gates during his inspiring TED talk (if I remember correctly)

Recent books

Here are some books that I've read recently:

• The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi - very enjoyable; I read Sci-Fi books while on my exercise bike, and so I don't even notice the time go by...
  
  
• The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus Into Your Life by Thomas M. Sterner -- Sterner prepares & maintains pianos for concerts, which requires long hours of concentration. So he talks about how to get to that level (basically, by living in the Now) and what it takes to be an expert in something (basically, deep, intensive practice). I noticed something similar when I first started playing basketball back in high school. There was a difference between practice and playing, and those who started playing, without practicing the fundamentals, never got very far. And, also, when you have the choice between practice or play right in front of you, it is easier and more fun to go play with others than to practice.
  
  
• Love is Letting Go of Fear by Gerald G. Jampolsky -- this book is kind of a summary of A Course in Miracles (which is extremely popular in some New Age circles). Jampolsky lists 12 principles and illustrates them with personal examples. Here are the 12 principles:
  1. All that I give I give to myself
  2. Forgiveness is the key to happiness
  3. I am never upset for the reason I think
  4. I am determined to see things differently
  5. I can escape from the world I see by giving up attacking thoughts
  6. I am not the victim of the world I see
  7. Today I will judge nothing that occurs
  8. This instant is the only time there is
  9. The past is over -- it can touch me not
  10. I could see peace instead of this
  11. I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt
  12. I am responsible for what I see

• Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects by Dmitry Orlov -- Orlov paints a frightening picture of what would happen to America if its economy totally collapsed; like what happened to the Soviet Union in the 80s. He believes that things would fare much worse in America.
  
  
• Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran. Easwaran's writing is brilliant, poetic and moving. Here are some quotes from there:

  (p42) Artistry in living begins with learning to be flexible for the sake of those around us.

  (p44) A big ego has sharp angles and corners that stick out everywhere; we cannot get near such a person without getting hurt

  (p51) "Do what brings pleasure, avoid what brings pain." To act in freedom, we have to unlearn this basic reflex.

  (p98) [Quoting Ramanuja] "What we seek as our highest goal depends upon what we believe ourselves to be."

A Deepness in the Sky...

Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep; it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Favorite books

1 Man's Search for Meaning
2 The Anatomy of Peace: Resolving the Heart of Conflict
3 Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box
4 The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life
5 Zen and the Art of Happiness
6 Take Your Time: How to Find Patience Peace and Meaning
7 Your Inner Awakening: The Work of Byron Katie: Four Questions That Will Transform Your Life
8 The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
9 A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
10 The Practicing Mind: Bringing Discipline and Focus Into Your Life
11 Autobiography of a Yogi
12 Tibeten Book of Living and Dying
13 One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
14 Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
15 The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance
16 Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment
17 Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance
18 The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battle
19 How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling
20 Mad Bear: Spirit Healing and the Sacred in the Life of a Native American Medicine Man
21 How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis

Naikan & the ToDo Institute

Quotes:

To me, grace comes from an examination of one’s life in which you realize that you don’t deserve what you’re getting, yet you’re getting it anyway.

We’ve gotten into the habit of seeing only the problems, because they are more dramatic. That’s what gives a story value.

It’s hard to imagine compassion in the absence of attention. The people I think of as being the most compassionate also tend to be the most attentive to others. It’s a great shock to realize how much of our attention is constantly on ourselves and how rare it is for us to focus our attention on someone else.

Research shows almost every psychological disorder is associated with self-focused attention. That doesn’t mean that self-focused attention causes tbut it’s an important element of the problem.

A beautiful interview (Many Thanks, Gregg Krech on the Revolutionary Practice of Gratitude - PDF link) with Gregg Krech, founder of the ToDo Institute.

Naikan practice is based on 3 questions, focused on a single person:

1. What have I received from THIS PERSON?
2. What have I given to THIS PERSON?
3. What troubles & difficulties have I caused THIS PERSON?

Truth

From the wonderful Ted talk by Jonathan Haidt:

If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease. -- Sent-ts'an, c. 700 CE

Derek Sivers

Derek Sivers speech to Berklee College of Music from Derek Sivers on Vimeo.

Lama Anagarika Govinda (Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism) on Modern Physics, etc.

The ultimate concepts of physics may lead us to a greater understanding. It is very interesting, for instance, that in modern physics the more logical you are, the more wrong you are. This shows very clearly the limits of our logic. Actually, the universe often seems unreasonable to us because we apply our own logic to something which is not of the same category. We never can say where a particle is and what it does, and so we can only guess, or define it as either particle or a wave. Yet it is neither one nor the other, but both. You may ask, for example, about the "logic" of reincarnation. I don't feel we can reduce the idea of reincarnation to pure logic. Since our beginnings are infinite, and the causes are also infinite, the combinations must necessarily be infinite. It is impossible to explain such things with our linear logic since the cause and effect, from the universal point of view, are multi-dimensional. For instance in the Lankavatara Sutra, I was impressed by the description of karma as "habit energy." Having done something once, we are impelled to do the same thing again under similar circumstances. Karma is indeed habit energy, and the moment we get out of the habit of something, it is gone.

--Lama Anagarika Govinda (Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism)

The illiterate of the 21st century...

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. -Alvin Toffler

Time for Something Different

I like re-inventing myself. So it is time for something different. Bye!

Zen & the art of Happiness

I just finished Zen and the Art of Happiness by Chris Prentiss. According to the book, the main key to happiness is to just be happy. (Yeah, that sounds weird!) But how do you go about doing that? Well, whatever the situation, just adopt the belief "Everything that happens to me is the best possible thing that can happen to me." And no matter what situation you are in, look at it from the viewpoint of that belief. When you do this, you not only are more happy (with less stress), but you open yourself up to solutions to the "problem."

Now you might have a hard time taking up this belief -- especially when things aren't going so well. But, Chris gives an amazing insight into how this can be true. He states that the above belief is really an Universal law. And that all Universal laws "are in favor of the continuation of the Universe." And since the Universe want to keep going, to keep expanding, it'll only allow the best possible events to happen -- only the perfect events to happen. Because, once it allows an imperfect event to occur, they that event might lead to two imperfect events and so on, and the Universe might come to an end because of that. So anything that happens to you, is really the Perfect Thing that can happen to you!!

So some inspiring quotes:

The Zen of doing anything is doing it with a particular concentration of mind, a calmness and simplicity of mind, that brings the experience of enlightenment and, through that experience, happiness. [p 10]

A situation only becomes favorable when one adapts to it. [p 88]

How you conduct yourself along the path that is your life determines how your life unfolds. [p 94]

The Universe always strikes you at your weakest point because that's what most needs strengthening. [p 116]

Events are the language of the Universe. [p 134]

What good will come from this? [p 141]

In the middle of the book, Chris talks about his son's addiction to drugs. He narrates a difficult story of the ups and downs of this son's life during that time -- and his (the son's) inability to break the addiction. Finally, the story ends abruptly -- Chris states that his son had a reason (an underlying cause) to use drugs and only after the reason was discovered, was he able to stop his addiction. Thus father and son, with their experience were able to open up Passages Malibu, a holistic addiction cure center. I was kind frustrated by the fact that Chris doesn't really give the crux of the solution -- what his son's reason was and how to go about finding that reason. Instead he refers readers to his other book, The Alcoholism and Addiction Cure: A Holistic Approach to Total Recovery. Well, after reading the book -- I'm not frustrated by the above -- its the best thing that could've happened -- now I have a great opportunity to read a book on addiction & its cure. I wonder "What good will come from this?" [p 141]

Update: Here is one other thing I got from this book -- my thought: "Pretend you have your dream Job (or dream Life) and do the things you would do if you actually had that Job (or Life)."

Catching the Big Fish

Tonight, I picked up a copy of Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch at the local Barnes & Noble. And I finished reading it in about 2 hours in. Lynch is a Hollywood director (Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks) who practices Transcendental Meditation. And he talks about how you have to dive deep within yourSelf to catch the Big Creative Ideas. And meditation helps you do that. You become more conscious and more aware of things.

He also talks a bit about teaching kids meditation in schools to help them deal with the stress of life (after all, kids probably have as much stress as their parents!). Quiet interesting. He calls it Consciousness-Based education and funds schools via the David Lynch Foundation.

Here is a quote from the book:

[page 5] I have never missed a meditation in thirty-three years. I meditate once in the morning and again in the afternoon, for about twenty minutes each time. Then I go about the business of my day. And I find that joy of doing increases. Intuition increases. The pleasure of life grows. And negativity recedes.

For sometime now I haven't been good and buying a book, finishing it and moving on to another book. I have at least half-a-dozen books that are half read! That's going to change in 2008!