5 Sep 19. Not my friend.

Yesterday I meditated before leaving for work and after putting my kids to bed. Morning meditation was enjoyable. Evening sitting: one pointless anxious thought after another. This is my problem and the source of great suffering: anxious thoughts, worry about kids and work. So as I was meditating last night, my mind created one dreadful …

31 Aug. Everything is Dhamma. Don’t complain.

Last night I meditated in the bedroom: 15 minutes. Could have been 5. Could have been 1 hour. I don’t care. I couldn’t quite focus on my breath. My mind kept wandering off. And I suddenly realised: My God, I am not even able to focus on the breath for longer than 5 seconds. And …

24 Aug 19. More time.

The more time I spend meditating the more time I find to meditate. July and August have been so hard with kids being off school. Work has been very stressful and busy too. I rarely could find even 10 minutes to sit. But when I eventually did sit a few days in a row more …

17 Aug 19. The tyranny of time.

...And so we say: Running out of time. No time left. Lost time. Make up for the lost time. Time flies. Kill time. Living on borrowed time. Take your time. The time is ripe. Time is money. We consider the time the gauge of our effectiveness. The judge of our lives. How wonderful would it …

16 Aug 19. What monkeys think about.

I am listening to an audiobook by Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Last night in a dream a realisation triggered by the book arose in me: how many of my unskillful (e.g. lustful) thoughts are nothing but my genes just doing their job. No religion, morality, culture required. It was like …

15 Aug 19. Time.

...I also think that this is precisely our concept of time that is forcing us to look at passing things and people as if they were disappearing in the distance (Einstein would say: And rightfully so!). Where has my youth gone? Where have all my friends gone? Where are those who were before us? Where …

15 Aug 19. The fallacy of time.

When I am not longing for the past or worrying about the future, when I am not thinking anxious, angry or lustful thoughts I like to ponder about Dhamma, time, consciousness, and science in general. So I have always had this feeling that the concept of time is somehow connected to my meditation practice. But …

24 Jul 19. Annica on steroids.

Every year I visit my hometown in Poland. Being there only once a year gives me a unique opportunity to observe impermanence in action: how people and places change, getting older by a year in a split second when my ghostly memory is confronted by its ghostly apparition. A few days ago, while in Poland, …

5 Jul 19. Everything is Dharma.

A thought struck me: my quest to learn as much about Dharma as possible is not really practising. I am merely reading about the practice, collecting arguments, deep sayings and cute passages. Researching. Another observation came to me: When Buddha was teaching Dharma, he didn't teach every single argument to each and every person he …

15/6/19. Re-birth.

A thought popped into my head this week. "The endless distance separating reality and my thinking about it is bridged only with my ignorance." I have been very much fixated on Thereavadian sutras over the past few weeks. I felt that only if I was well versed in the Pali Canon I would be able …