Posts Tagged ‘Meditation’

The only true love is the joy of generous giving retreating in silence, without desire, nor expectations.
Who will empty his own joys giving them all, will be fullfilled by a renewed and glowing happiness.
Although it may seem absurd, this is the law of the Whole.
Those who remain full of himself, barricaded in the barrier of the self, is like a bowl full of food that goes bad slowly in a dark, inaccessible cave.
Not a single new drop of golden honey may be added.
Never again will still enjoy its sweet taste.

Money is a cancer.
It grows, devours us, as a metastasis.
Now completely detached from the value of life and its useful things, money is flooding in every body and mind with its putrid mud.
As in ancient religions, every moment, we sacrifice to this god evil our good food, clean air, drinking water, our lives, the lives of our children, and love and all the joy of our hearts.
In return for this wicked huge sacrifice, we receive back a handful of his useless black cancer that spews his desperate hatred in the world.

76. If you see an intelligent man who tells you where true treasures
are to be found, who shows what is to be avoided, and administers
reproofs, follow that wise man; it will be better, not worse, for
those who follow him.

77. Let him admonish, let him teach, let him forbid what is improper!-
-he will be beloved of the good, by the bad he will be hated.
(more…)

A beautiful girl in the village was pregnant. Her angry parents demanded to know who was the father. At first resistant to confess, the anxious and embarrassed girl finally pointed to Hakuin, the Zen master whom everyone previously revered for living such a pure life. When the outraged parents confronted Hakuin with their daughter’s accusation, he simply replied “Is that so?”

When the child was born, the parents brought it to the Hakuin, who now was viewed as a pariah by the whole village. They demanded that he take care of the child since it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” Hakuin said calmly as he accepted the child.

For many months he took very good care of the child until the daughter could no longer withstand the lie she had told. She confessed that the real father was a young man in the village whom she had tried to protect. The parents immediately went to Hakuin to see if he would return the baby. With profuse apologies they explained what had happened. “Is that so?” Hakuin said as he handed them the child.

Many scientist have explored the similarities between physics and oriental philosophies.
Fritjof Capra has written an interesting book: The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism.

One of the main ideas proposed by this book is about the so called “Holographic paradigm”.

The holographic paradigm is a theory based on the work of David Bohm and Karl Pribram and extrapolated from two ideas:

• That the universe is in some sense a holographic structure, proposed by David Bohm
• That consciousness is dependent on holographic structure, proposed by Karl Pribram

This paradigm posits that theories using holographic structures may lead to a unified understanding of consciousness and the universe.

One of the main points of this paradigm is about memory. Memory, and so consciousness, is not stored in single pieces of this universe.
Many scientific experiments shows that memory patterns, as in DNA RNA, human and animal mind, chemical properties and reactions, physical laws, are similar to intersections of many wave fronts that permeates the whole.

So what we think about the world, in the sense of real world, is just an illusion. There is not solid thing, 3 dimensional space and time.
There is a whole constituted by infinite waves (or strings if you like) that are playing together, in dynamic series of movements in this ever changing eternal present.

So our body, our mind and our consciousness are reflections, images and holograms of the real world we can not experience directly.

This idea seems crazy and strange, we are living, made of and experiencing an illusory level of reality, but latest experiments in physics and the best candidates as theories of the whole are figuring this scenario.

Some author simplify this idea suggesting that we are living in something similar to Matrix (the result of universal computer), but the real world is a little bit more complicated. Tao and Zen, are suggesting, more wisely, that we are only part of the whole and patterns capable to see and understand themselves in the mirror.
Tao, in particular, says that the whole is the only interesting thing, a cup full of energy in eternal movement. Scientifically: an ocean of interacting waves/strings/branes from which emerges levels and levels of sub realms.
We are living in one of them and we can just imagine how big is the real whole.

Dino Olivieri

God, Cosmos, the Whole,
call it whatever you like, it is a unfathomable hollow recipient,
full of endless and tireless work.
Lao Tzu

One day a young man asked to an old wise man which was the key to happiness.
The old man smiled, the wrinkles on his face corrugated for a lot of fun. Then he looked into the eyes of the young man, and he said: “The Gratitude, my son”.
The young man did not understand and so he asked, “Gratitude?”
“Sure”, the old man said, adding: “If you are not able to feel deep gratitude for every little precious gift that the universe makes you constantly, you will live only in the pain and suffering and you can never know happiness”.
The old man stood still a moment in silence and then said: “There is no awareness without gratitude, because it is not only a thought but also a feeling”.
The young man found enlightenment in those words. He embraced the old wise man and so he said: “Thank You”.

Acoustics Binaural Beats

Binaural beats or binaural tones are auditory processing artifacts, or apparent sounds, the perception of which arises in the brain for specific physical stimuli. This effect was discovered in 1839 by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, and earned greater public awareness in the late 20th century based on claims that binaural beats could help induce relaxation, creativity and other desirable mental states.

The brain produces a phenomenon resulting in low-frequency pulsations in the loudness and sound localization of a perceived sound when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each of a subject’s ears, using stereo headphones. A beating tone will be perceived, as if the two tones mixed naturally, out of the brain. The frequency of the tones must be below about 1,000 to 1,500 hertz for the beating to be heard. The difference between the two frequencies must be small (below about 30 Hz) for the effect to occur; otherwise, the two tones will be heard separately and no beat will be perceived.

Binaural beats are of interest to neurophysiologists investigating the sense of hearing. Binaural beats reportedly influence the brain in more subtle ways through the entrainment of brainwaves and can be used to reduce anxiety and provide other health benefits such as control over pain.

Brain waves

• Gamma waves > 40 Hz
  Higher mental activity, including perception, problem solving, fear, and consciousness
• Beta waves 13–39 Hz
  Active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration, arousal, cognition
• Alpha waves 7–13 Hz
  Relaxation (while awake), pre-sleep and pre-wake drowsiness
• Theta waves 4–7 Hz
  Dreams, deep meditation, REM sleep
• Delta waves < 4 Hz
  Deep dreamless sleep, loss of body awareness

The precise boundaries between ranges vary among definitions, and there is no universally accepted standard.

The dominant frequency determines your current state.
For example, if in someone’s brain alpha waves are dominating, they are in the alpha state (this happens when one is relaxed but awake). However, also other frequencies will be present, albeit with smaller amplitudes.

The brain entraining is more effective if the entraining frequency is close to the user’s starting dominant frequency. Therefore, it is suggested to start with a frequency near to one’s current dominant frequency (likely to be about 20 Hz or less for a waking person), and then slowly decreasing it towards the desired frequency.

Some people find pure sine waves unpleasant, so a pink noise or another background (e.g. natural sounds such as river noises) can also be mixed with them. In addition to that, as long as the beat is audible, increasing the volume should not necessarily improve the effectiveness, therefore using a low volume is usually suggested.

Links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats
• http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_binaurali

My daughter, my son.
Traveling, look in the eyes of foreigners, listen and learn their languages, walks in their shoes, open your eyes and your understanding to each new horizon in front of you.
When you’ve seen a lot of what you consider outside of yourself, then you will have the knowledge that everyone is the whole universe.
Dino Olivieri

“Irrigators guide the water. Fletchers shape the arrow shaft. Carpenters shape the wood. The Wise control themselves.”
Siddhārtha Gautama Buddha