Andy's Mind

While I sat zazen yesterday the battle with thoughts begun again. Then, after a long while, I realised that in fact it’s not thoughts I’m against, it’s my internal judge. It’s a process of my mind which is there all the time evaluating my sitting and reprimanding me for not doing it right. I know this part of me pretty well, it comments most of what I do in the same way. No one can judge my actions harsher than part this part of my ego. But once I realized it and focused on relasing my judgements, once I denied them energy it all became much easier.

I won’t go as far as to say that I won or that meditation is a breeze now. Nothing of this kind. But I’m just a tad, a bit closer to just sitting. A bit closer to waking up.

OK, I already knew Americans can sell strangest things and make business out of practically any conceivable activity. But these two sites are beyond anything I imagined.

The first is a company apparently selling plastic replicas of man’s balls to be hanged at the back of the cars. Or bikes, they have a smaller version.

The second are fecalgrams, or sh*t in a (fancy) box. Be sure to read the about – it contains the company’s history, which is even more astonishing. It turns out fancy packaged turd is a kind of family tradition. And, read the small print before you call the postal services to denounce them for sending bio-hazardous materials.

I continue to be amazed by the ingenuity with which (some) Americans earn their living. Before you laugh out of the heights of your respectable jobs notice that it’s exactly the same attitude (go ahead with the idea, turn it into a business) that helped build most of the IT industry for example.

All alarms I’ve ever used fall into two categories – they ones that are new and the ones that do not wake me up. It is so because I very quickly develop the ability to either ignore their sound or switch them off without waking up. Thus all the new ones inevitably get degraded into the second category.

This morning proves beyond any doubt that the one in the cellphone that I use currently has fallen into the second category. It was set to ring at 8:30 but I woke up at 9:45 with the cellphone in hand. I have only a vague memory of something ringing, but clearly it was not enough to wake me up. I was able to sleep more than an hour, pressing the snooze button (it means any button on the phone) unconsciously many times.

This has a strong correlation with the cold weather we have now. The colder the weather the less I’m willing to wake up, thus the more resistant I’m to alarms. Now, I just wonder whether the Clocky could be a solution…. hm… Naaa…. I think being woken up by a human, preferably a blonde female is the only way that actually works for me in the long run.

With the recent rejection of the Constitutional Treaty by France and all the discussions about it that followed I can’t resist the temptation to add my opinion.

I think it’s good that this treaty is now done with. The French have at last done something that makes sense, saving other nations the trouble of shooting it down. Now we only have to see what would come next.
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