"It was only life that pained." - Jack London

This excerpt really grabbed my attention. 

We are all on death's door given the right perspective. Life does hurt, yes. That's part of the hand we're dealt. Whether it's acute pain such as a disease, physical violence, or some other unfortunate malady; or if it's the dull, weary pain of overwork and other social stressors, the statement still applies.

Therefore, why not think of death more positively? The absence of pain. Is that not pleasure?

Too often we project, often subconsciously (even more sinister), that the pain of life will endure till infinity. London points out that this is inherently false. He implies that the trick to life is being ever aware that it ends, and in that way of thinking, one can truly live. One can truly love life.

Later in the story, he describes the ragged and weak protagonist, basically crawling through the Alaskan wild, starving with a mind full of near-death hallucinations, as a man whose life is outside of his body, clinging to the man by nothing more than a thread. The man had left hunger behind. He had dropped his gold to save weight, dropped his gun, too. All that remained were a tattered blanket and his precious matches -- purveyors of warmth and light, bringers and keepers of life.

Life itself is then what is important, not the material pleasures that we are able to find along the way (if we are so fortunate). So in the end, yes, death is the absence of pain, and it very well may be synonymous with pleasure, but life will soldier on, and that is a fact, a fact so concrete that we owe it to ourselves to suck the marrow out of life, just like London's protagonist sucked the marrow out of caribou bones (another item that he chose to carry over gold). We owe it to ourselves to live and love life!

Read London's books here.

Closer to the Birds

On Tangentially Speaking episode 393, Jeff Shipiro talks about hang gliding and jump suiting, and how they bring him closer to the birds, how he can feel a kinship with them as they fly together.

Chris then goes on to wonder why we dream of flying, what this connection to that experience really means. Some are drawn to the air, others to the desert, others still to water. Which are you drawn to?

Despite being drawn to differing environs, the constant that can be determined is the resetting of the soul. Arriving back at nature, like arriving back at your grandmother's kitchen table after years under the vise of societal life, is a meeting with our ancestors, a form of communication. It can refresh us and remind us what it truly means to be human.

This is what the surfer is chasing, not the endless summer nor the perfect wave, for both are impossibilities, unattainable perfections. This is what a runner cruising at high tempo has found: the place where mind, body, and soul merge and are given permission from which to be born again.

Chris's books:

- Sex at Dawn
- Civilized to Death

Two Minds

Click to Enlarge

Two minds coexist. One is the illuminating sun while the other is the obscuring clouds. Mindfulness is the best weatherman, the conjurer of clear skies and defender of the one orb that is at the center of you, me, and everything in existence.

Source: Zen Master Class

AJ Snook's Amazon Author Page

Lesson From Bankei

"Stay in the unborn for 30 days. Those who [do so] will realize that such a life is a necessity."

Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, 1622-1693

Gabor Mate in Seeing the Truth

The truth is that we are all in this thing together. We suffer, rejoice, trip and fall, and stand in awe as one. Not only are we responsible for our species, but we're responsible for life itself. This does not put us on a pedestal at the top of a hierarch. On the contrary, it demands of us humility. We have the know-how and the wherewithall to describe the energy of life through all the beautiful mediums of art -- prose, poetry, film, painting, animation, athletics, dance -- and science, but we also have the responsibility to preserve and extend life, to transport it to faraway planets, to record it accurately as historians, to remember how to cherish it like our ancestors did and all the living indigenous peoples do so well still.

Save the nihilism and live instead. Turn down the dial of depression. Run down the clock of scarcity. Laugh in the face of fear. Be full now. Be rich knowing that we are alive. Gabor Mate gets this. Most of us get this. Spread the word and don't forget to act.


There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Giving Birth Is A Psychedelic, Boundary-Dissolving Experience

Women, apart from the myriad ways you are discriminated against -- in the workplace, at home, in politics, in the media, in schools, in religious institutions, and on and on -- you do have one thing good going on in this war-on-drugs day and age, this 21st Century of repression where plants are illegal by the dozens.

 

"Several times in your life you're going to be melted down into this situation. And it's a very deep imprinting."

As long as everything is healthy with the old plumbing, you ladies have a psychedelic birthright, which is, uh, giving birth! According to old Terence (and from what I have been lucky enough to have witnessed once, and hope to once more) the childbearing experience is a boundary-dissolving as experiences come. I saw my wife enter the hospital a vastly different person than the woman who walked out five days later (no, it didn't take that long to give birth -- this is Japan where mothers aren't shoved back through the revolving door from which they came).

All Seeing Eye/Creative Commons

"In the absence of psychedelic plants or drugs, a male can go from birth to the grave and never have this experience."

So, in this seemingly male-dominated sub-genre of life that is psychedelic culture (authors, speakers, musicians, and figureheads of all varieties tend to be men), let the male psychonauts out there remember that they are outnumbered by all of the mothers of the world, and let the men influencing this culture also remember that the mothers and sisters of the world deserve a little more time voicing their interpretation and understanding of the state of being of Gaia and the signals she sends us. Be our interpreters, dear women of earth. Lead the way. Connect us all back to our one true mother.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Life Remedy: Add One Hour of Good Habits to Your Day

Photo: Adrian Alvarez (Creative Commons)

Life is a series of routines, a repetition of patterns that come to define who we are. For most of us who are tied to a job or to school, does one week really look all that different from the next. Sure, there are crunch times, times when we are really expected to rev up our engines and perform, but those periods come and go like storms. The day-to-day for many of us, is about cruise control and stability, about becoming one the rhythm of the waves, nothing more. If that's the day-to-day, then would it be outrageous to define those patterns, that adapting, with such grandiose vocabulary as "identity" or "worth"?

For us creative types it is common to fight the urge to be systematic, to kick and scream against formulas for living, against timelines and trajectories, against recipes for vitality. We know that a rich life lies within us all. We know that fulfillment occurs outside the box and from within the kindled spirit. We know that too much lulling with the tide makes us soft, stale. It is vividly clear to us that a choppy dose of salt and foam right to the kisser is an experience that can jut us off the rails and onto a newly discovered path.

We know these things, so why would we want to develop more habits, more ways of cruising down a nerfed bike path, destination death?

Why? Because some habits can break us away from thought patterns that are linked to the parts of our identity that may be bland, tired, and in need of an upgrade. Why? Because some routines may jolt our bodies awake, grounding us to the present moment a bit more consistently, tapping that vein that mainlines to the Spirit itself.

I propose a re-examination of our behavior patterns.

How many hours of your day are spent mindlessly scanning through the internet like a Roomba over a vast floor of graham cracker crumbs? How many hours have you heard the same podcaster ramble on about the same drawn-out points, but offering no solutions? How many hours have you turned off completely only to dwell on the past or the future, in turn shooting your self in the foot for not taking ownership of your own personal growth, a growth that can impact the lives of the people around you?

These are the questions that I've grappled with over the past few years, and for the longest time I was searching for a giant answer, a course of action akin to the elixir of life. Little did I know how much of a left turn I had taken when I first started searching. And although I have a long way to go, I am beginning to steer my vessel in the right direction, to alter my course to seas that are rough, yes, but manageable, and good teachers to boot.

Let's Get Practical.

One way to steer your life off into more aware and present-minded waters is to determine the routines that you have which are thoughtless and scrub them off the graffiti wall of your life, replacing them with habit that are thoughtful and present. For me, I found two times of day to attend to. First, I was sleeping longer than necessary. I now wake up at 5:15 every day and do 20 minutes of floor exercises or yoga (I can send you some great Youtube links if you're interested) followed by 10 minutes of breath meditation. Second, I found that the podcasts I listened to each morning were becoming harder and harder to focus on. If anything, they were more a way to block out the commuters around me than a way to learn and be inspired. So, for the 30 minute commute I decided to start reading a book instead, which has turned into about 100 pages per week that I wasn't reading before (that's 1 to 2 more books per month than before, 12 to 24 more per year, so much fuel to fuel the Muse's fire!). Third, instead of complaining abou
t the lack of time to edit part 2 of my novel, I spend the train ride home editing by hand.

Sorry Duncan, Joe, Jad and Robert, Ira, Chris, Danielli, and Lorenzo. I have less time for your shows, but life is better than, well, maybe ever.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Silence is a Mirror: In Defense of Meditation

Silence is a mirror. So faithful, and yet so unexpected, is the reflection it can throw back at men that they will go to almost any length to avoid seeing themselves in it, and if ever its duplicating surface is temporarily wiped clean of modern life's ubiquitous hubbub, they will hasten to fog it over with such desperate personal noise devices as polite conversation, humming, whistling, imaginary dialogue, schizophrenic babble, etc...

This is how Tom Robbins praises meditation in his novel Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. A recent Mindrolling podcast with guest Joseph Goldstein emphasizes this point by saying that the only way to know the mind is turn inward and observe it, and that it takes not effort but courage to do so. It's all semantics really, as words mean different things to different people, but to many of us effort implies striving for me, myself and I, while courage implies encountering the unknown with an open mind and an open heart, being reborn in every passing moment, opening one's metaphoric doors to let the rush of beauty that is existence come flowing in like long overdue deluge. Challenging for all of us, yes, but worth a try.

Robbins continues:

Only in sleep is silence tolerated, and even there, most dreams have soundtracks. Since meditation is a deliberate descent into deep internal hush, a muted stare into the ultimate looking glass, it is regarded with suspicion by the nattering masses; with hostility by business interests (people sitting in silent serenity are seldom consuming goods); and with spite by a clergy whose windy authority it is seen to undermine and whose bombastic livelihood it is perceived to threaten.

In short, meditation slows us all down and allows us to understand each other better. In a society that is largely still built on a hierarchy, bureaucracy, and an individual mindset that pits itself against 7 billion others along with Mother Earth herself, it easy to see how meditation gets shot down in social circles as wishy-washy or escapist. That said, it will take courage to defend it, to stand up to the nay sayers and refuse to allow others to remove this revolutionary practice from the intricate puzzle that is social evolution. Make it a corner piece. Make it obvious for all to see its value. This take courage. I think that Bertrand Russell said it best on how to have the courage to stand up to those that point fingers, to defend life's best practices against those holding us all back with a snide remark and a belly laugh. The following are his Ten Commandments of teaching. Pay particularly close attention to numbers 7 and 8, though all can really apply to this cause:

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Meditation Defined by Krishnamurti (And Prose on the Soulful Genius of Children)

I ride my unicycle as a form of meditation, feels the young girl. She feels it rather than says it because the genius of youth is its intuition. It need not be able to articulate wisdom in order to understand it. I sometimes play my handheld video game while I ride. My soul watches the road from inside my chest, inside my finite heart. She turns up the corners of her mouth in ecstasy. I know a secret right now, one that's only digestible in the present moment, like an untellable joke for the ages. Her meditation gets lambasted by adults as unproductive, solitary, weird, sometimes rascally. Child's play that will wear off its luster come maturity. I ride my unicycle as a form of meditation, she repeats from her heart, shooting her message into the hearts of others like laser beams. Join me if you're brave enough, courageous enough to live outside of time, outside of language, to be conscious forever in the singular peace of the moment.

She will one day develop amnesia about her youthful epiphanies, her former genius. She will don a cap and gown. Then a suit. She will judge others on their surfaces and forget that she has a deeper self. She will envelop herself in a mobile metal box that stands for her temporary opinion on all that's proper. But one day wisdom will all come rushing back. It will hit her in the heart. She will come to see meditation as a practice implemented with crossed legs and deep breaths, and she will forget that all she needs is a unicycle, an empty mind, and an open heart. Whatever gets me back here, she will say. And she will give fond looks to unicyclists everywhere, unsure as to why.



There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Learning to Be With Ourselves: Louis C.K., Ken Wilber and Reality Sandwich

Ken Wilbur / Meditation

I've posted together this article and the two videos below, all of which explain this idea that distractions allow us to forget our true nature, preventing us from knowing who we are and, I think, hindering the progress of our spiritual or consciousness-based (you pick the word that works for you) evolution. From comedian Louis C.K. to teacher Ken Wilber to the well-written piece by Darrin Drda over at Reality Sandwich, the topic, though rarely discussed, is on the minds of a lot of us.

Here's a great quote from Gabor Mate that was taken from Darrin's piece:

"Many of us resemble the drug addict in our ineffectual efforts to fill the spiritual black hole… where we have lost touch with our souls, our spirit—with those sources of meaning and value that are not contingent or fleeting. Our consumerist, acquisition-, action-, and image-mad culture only serves to deepen the hole, leaving us emptier than before."

Louis C.K. links the rise of handheld devices, notably smartphones, to the subconscious fleeing from our inner, quiet selves. He says we are afraid of sadness and pain and that we fail to see that past that pain (the Buddhists call it the dull pain of existence) we can find a form of pure beauty, light and happiness so powerful that it can bring the mighty to their knees and the callous to tears.

Ken Wilber says the same thing in a different way. He talks about the concept of Big Mind and achoring it in "I-am-ness" or the recognition of an ever-present Big Mind. He reminds it that our true self is always present. In fact, it's the only thing that is always present and, furthermore, it's always been present, even before we were born, even before the Big Bang. It's the Big Mind or the consciousness of the universe and the universe cannot exist without it.

Very cool stuff if you ask me. Let's all remember to be with ourselves at least for a little while each day. We'll be doing society a favor and we'll be giving the universe and its all-knowing consciousness the attention that it deserves. Peace.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link us to a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the Amazon links on the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Russell Brand Talks With A Quantum Physicist

Merging the virtually incomprehensible notion of unified field theory with meditation or spirituality is, to many of us, the beginning of a slippery ride down into loony land. Can Russell Brand help connect the mysteries of quantum theory with the mysteries of meditation? Of course, spirituality and science often mix quite well, as there is a wide body of research being compiled which studies contemplative neuroscience. And, also, there are numerous sociological studies that illustrate the benefits of having a still mind. Outside of unified field theory, much of this science can be explained quite clearly and believably in the amount time it takes to give a lecture.

Highlights from the Clip:

Unified field fulfilled Einstein's dream. The material nature of things is illusory to the senses. The act of meditation allow us experience simple and deeper levels of mind, slipping beyond thought (transcendental) and experiencing unity. We can pull the awareness within from the outward senses. The only way we can transcend the ills of society is to transcend our own minds. It is our only way. That meditative state is a fourth state of consciousness and the entire mind is engaged. Truth be told, TM comes from the wisdom of yoga and is designed to use the brain more fully. And stress melts away. If we are all one at our core but don't see it, bringing that unity to the surface will transform the world. It will be a changed world. We should build our societies around that unity.

Beautiful stuff, but for me at least, believing this requires a bit too much faith. When there is so much beauty and truth in this world that we can taste, touch, smell, hear, and see, how could all of us be convinced to take on such a behemoth, such a mountainous burden, the burden of faith? Perhaps this doctor is telling the truth, but until I can understand his explanation for the connection between meditation and quantum physics scientifically, I will continue to meditate with a much less complicated mind on top of my shoulders.

Is this all just poetry or is there measurable scientific truth to it?


There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link to us a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

The Futurist's Life Is a Positive Vision of the Apocalypse

It all comes back to the middle road.

A lot of us interneters spend too much time jumping from one lily pad to the next. The only problem is that the lily pads are only ever one of two things: utopia or apocalypse. We let our minds fly from fanciful to morbid destinations, while the truth lays lonely on the road like roadkill, ever-present and mundane, not worth our time.

What we seldom do is dive off of the lilies and into the liquid reality, that fluid stuff that's always changing us, towing us with its current. After a time, the temperature of the magic feels tepid. We get accustomed to its magic and, therefore, lose it. Once we pledge allegiance to a given model of reality, it dissolves all hope of moving forward, of diving in. At the same time, moving forward recklessly with tunnel vision and lack of perspective can be just as dangerous. It's why zen is so useful. It reminds us that every moment -- not every day or every hour, every moment -- is a balancing act, a stabilizing engagement with the truth.

It all comes back to the middle road.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support AJ. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link to us a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through the site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ

Singularity 1-on-1 With Peter Joseph

Peter Joseph: A social critic and founder of the Zeitgeist Movement poses solutions. More solution-oriented than sceptical, he says. A realist who talks about what is possible in this time frame within society. So, where should we put our focus?

Here's the path that led Peter to the moment that made him want to make his first movie: little intention, a musician in NY, always with a general interest in religion and society, always bothered by having to make a living -- he worked in advertising and trading -- and always despising that lifestyle.

Zeitgeist, a performance piece, emerged as a catharsis. It wasn't a film originally, just a work of art. It created an energy and opened up a conversation around the world. His second movie was geared toward solutions and so he started the Zeitgeist Movement.

"We are all being forced into certain positions whether we like it or not. Nobody is wrong in their actions. It will eventually self-correct," said Joseph.

"There's nothing good nor bad, but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare

He's not a specialist but a generalist, he says. We need to be more broad (or at least have a large cross-section of society that thinks and acts broadly).

It's very hard to conceive this future because we're all so locked into the present (and the past). Film can make the future more real and visceral, a look into what the future may hold. We have to begin to quantify the steps needed to transition into the future (a less scattered view, small points of basic understanding). He wants to create a road map for social change.

From here is where my opinion of Peter Joseph changes.

The end of the episode, the last 30 minutes or so, turned from a healthy dialogue to a jargon match. Peter Joseph, over all this time, hasn't seemed to learn how to resonate his position with an audience that speaks in everyday terms. I believe that what he's saying has a lot of merit, but I also can see that it doesn't resonate with the everyman. It's academic and general in its nature. As much as he talks, he doesn't provide a clear road map of how this whole thing will play out. He argues too much for this generalist viewpoint.

He does cover himself when he says that he is not trying to start an institution or a solidified group, but rather a change in ideology, a change in the view of reality that we people possess. I like this part of his rhetoric the best. He should stick with this. Why try to come up with scientific answers, even though he says that we're all deducing the world scientifically everyday? That was a bit of a contradiction, yes, but most of us agree that Peter Joseph's heart is in the right place.

In the end, I got the impression that he has been forced to defend himself so often, partly because of the controversies included in his first film surrounding religion and 9/11, and partly because of his anti-capitalist ideals, that he has built up an academic wall of language. Most Zeitgeist Movement fans, me included, are anti-capitalist only if it means we can support ourselves without capitalism. It is hard to see the transition from purely capitalist to purely resource-based without some confusion and struggle. And if you're a person in the developed world, why would you give up your comfortable life for an unproven system?

Peter Joseph would argue that you would give it up for two points: 1) You would risk it for a more sustainable world, a world that we can thrive on instead of die on or 2) Because you understand that you are earning more than you are putting in, that others on the other side of the globe (or just over the border in some cases) are putting in the grunt work. He, and the majority of his Zeitgeist movement, would argue for compassion.

Listen to the complete interview here.

There are a few ways you can be a hero and support the Mindloft. Free things are: try Audible or AmazonPrime for 30 days, link to us a social network like Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, or download and rate the podcast in iTunes. If you have a little spare money you can send a Paypal donation to ajsnookauthor@gmail.com, buy one of AJ's Kindle eBooks, or buy anything on Amazon by going through our site. Thanks so much for your support, AJ