On a personal level, I have found that it improves reduces stress, promotes mindfulness and helps my creativity. Others that I have spoken to at Buddhist centres have told me that they are less verbally aggressive and calmer. But all of this is anecdotal. It used to be that Meditation was something strange people did, I was even laughed at once when I admitted practising it! But today, those of us who sit are having the last laugh. People in all walks of life use meditation and benefit from it.  The list includes celebrities, business leaders and soldiers it’s not just for robed monks!

This article from Men Journal goes into more detail on a study into the use of meditation in the US Marine Corps to improve the ability to act under duress. The exercises detailed here are simple, but clearly powerfully effective.

That’s a recent study, but looking back we find a report in Scientific American on neuroscience work at MIT, Stanford and the University of Wisconsin, this certainly makes the point that meditation produces tangible effects on the brain. The study of meditators in an MRI machine is even helping to unravel new discoveries on the structure of the brain.

Frankly, there is now a growing body of research that supports the decision to make meditation a part of your life. The research points to changes not only in our conscious minds, but changes that we are not directly conscious of.

Surely the question is not “Why do you meditate?”, but “How can you not?”

Changes are:

• Added tool tips to sidebar items.
• Centre the timer window.
• Highlight the Acknowledgements section.
• Slight wording change to the meditation instructions. Added two more resources to the resources section and amended the format.
• Number input boxes allow multiple lines, fixed this issue.

As ever, I hope you find it a useful tool and should you find a bug or have any suggestions please let me know!

The article says a lot of things that ring true for me, that echo my own gym and Tai Chi experiences. I realised a long time ago that it was up to me to make things easy on myself, that I had to do this by realising and respecting my limits. Apply Wu-Wei, don’t do things at an inappropriate speed, don’t force yourself into exercises that are inappropriate for your body type or mental state. When growth in our abilities occurs it should be unforced and as a result of the “70 percent rule”, which I’ve talked about before. This says that you work to 70 percent of your potential, with the other 30 percent held back for growth and improvement. Eventually, your 70 percent is equal to what used to be your 100 percent, and you’re still only giving 70 percent!

My other observation is that practises like Yoga, meditation and Tai Chi are not performance sports. The wisdom of Wu-Wei and the Slow Movement comes back again to the fore, these things are healing arts without a doubt; but only when used appropriately and at the right pace! They can heal your body and mind, but will do so in their own time, to try to hurry things seems to me to be a mistake. One that can only end badly as well. We in the West seem to be bringing our own neurotic hurried flavour to these things, but in doing so I worry that we lose a lot of their essence and bring ourselves further pain.

I’ve found throughout my career, both in the gym and in the workplace that some people seem to have a disdain for the idea of limitations. This doesn’t just apply to themselves, but to the tools and technology around them. I remember after a server problem at a previous employer, the Managing Director asked the Head of IT how long the server would take to get back into service. As the database needed to be verified, the answer was “about 45 minutes”; to which the MD replied “make it 10 minutes”. This wasn’t possible, of course, things had to be given time to run their course; the job had to be done properly.

I have seen this in the gym before, I’ve done it myself. Do extra classes, push that bit too hard, then things start aching and hurting. Oops. Eventually, I discovered Tai Chi and Taoism and learned from these things and some very wise people that it was OK not to keep pushing the limits. There is more dignity to be found in accepting the limitations of our bodies, mind and technologies with simple realism, than in striving to do the impossible and cursing when meeting with failure. I also learned that you need to pay attention to your body and mind, that the warning signs of approaching limits are there.

When we fall into this trap, we all pay a physical and mental price for it. Stress and burnout are very real in our minds, they take an awful toll on our health and our bodies. We sustain numerous injuries, both minor and major, from refusing to accept that it’s time to stop exercising. But it is, through the practise of mindfulness and humility, possible to stop this.

I think that these are things that need more emphasis, as in this case they work hand in hand. Mindfulness helps us with our work or exercise and also lets us spot the warning signs; humility helps us put our egos aside and walk away unharmed.

It was a couple of years ago with a feeling of pleasant surprise, that I discovered the Slow Movement and decided to look a little deeper. This movement was inspired by the book “In Praise of Slow” by Carl Honore, and this movement has at it’s core the idea that faster is not always better and we should do things at the right speed rather than the fastest. In fact, that constant increase in speed does us more harm than good.

It goes without saying that I think they’re right on the mark with this. We have enough aphorisms and sayings that echo these sentiments “the more haste, the less speed”, “haste makes waste”, “look before you leap”. In the east we find the Taoist principle of “Wu Wei” one part of which is observing the worlds pace and doing things at the correct speed, neither too fast or two slow. Anyone who’s done Tai Chi or Qigong, as I have, will understand what I mean.  After all, you can’t make a tree grow by pulling on the branches; and as an IT example you can’t make a file transfer or disk check run any faster than the hardware or connection will allow, you must simply wait!

To rush things often leads to substandard results and problems further down the line that take up more time to sort out. So any time you may have “saved”, is now spent there instead and you’ve had the extra headache that comes with this as well! Still think it’s a good idea to rush? Better to take the time to get it right, “measure twice, cut once” as the old saying goes.

I will finish with a specifically British example “you can’t hurry a good cuppa”, and this is very true. Tea needs time to brew properly and a hurried cup of tea is certainly not a good one.  When asked how I seem to always make a good cup of tea in the past, guess what I say?

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – Lao Tzu

I see Second Life being used by numerous artists and other creatives. People the world over are able to tour art galleries and view works of sculpture. Further to this, Second Life makes art exhibits happen that are just not possible anywhere else. Concerts can be held and DJs can play virtual sets. I’ve listened to artists from across the world performing live from their own homes, so I know first hand that there is a live music scene in Second Life. All of this is available to you, as long as you have an internet connection. Remote location, or physical disability need present no obstacle to fulfilling Second Life.

Of course, my more usual field of comment is agnosticism, religion and spirituality. This area is most certainly catered for in Second Life. In my early days, I found a region called “Bodhi” which was well constructed and hid snippets of Dharma in gems around the landscape. Bodhi is now gone, to the best of my knowledge, but there are plenty of other places. The Skeptical Buddhists Sangha and Kannonji are just two such places with discussion and talks. Consulting the inworld search yields many more.  The odds are, if you enter your faith or lack thereof into Second Life search, it will be there.

In addition to this, there are many centres of learning, not just focussing on inworld skills but things of use outside of Second Life. You can also find support groups inworld for any number of things, and I find myself reflecting that if Second Life saves even one person through these groups. Or when it enables people to grow and reach nearer their potential through these classes, then it’s all been well worth it

Agnosticism is more than a simple “I don’t know”, when come at from the point of Buddhism that “I don’t know” gains a vitality and an urgency that is easy to miss. It’s not a wishy washy form of indecision, but a potent statement of humility acknowledging honestly our uncertainty in a world of constantly changing phenomena and events. When everything we try to grasp is constantly shifting and changing, how can we stand on a firm bed of knowledge? When we draw on the Dharma, we rediscover our Agnosticism from the knowledge that all the things we know are just mental constructs of a changing reality, not reality itself. They’re imperfect maps to a shifting and impermanent territory.

It’s easy to say that things are proven and settled, but consider the discovery of Continental Drift. The discoverer, Alfred Wegener, had to overcome the disbelief of his peers; in part due to the fact that some of their supporting theories were plain wrong and also because he wasn’t a Geologist. In fact, even though it was discovered in 1912, it wasn’t accepted until the 1960s. [1] They thought they knew, they were unable to see that they might be wrong, that’s part of my point

In the realm of belief and faith, things are always being interpreted differently by different people and groups. This isn’t limited to one faith, it has caused some fairly awful rows in the past and has even caused sub-sects and new faiths to bud off from existing religions. The differences can extend to every area of doctrine, from the nature of the divine through to . Now, this stuff was being argued over when the Buddha walked the Earth 2600 years ago. It’s not been resolved since then, to be honest, my feeling is that it’s not going to be. This looks like another area where people are refusing to admit that they just don’t know.

The solutions, I feel, is based on an honest acknowledgement of our limitations. The idea that some things may be beyond the ability of the Human mind to grasp is anathema to many, but it may well be more truthful than we’d like to admit. As the Masai wisdom says “One head cannot contain all knowledge”. In the light of all of this, how can our position be anything other then to step away from this constant bickering and engage with the mysteries of the world with an honest “I don’t know”?

[1] The Science of Discworld, page 128-129.

So, without further ado, Happy New Year to all of you! Better late than never. 

After a long hiatus for various reasons, the web browser based SitQuietly meditation timer has received an update.  This new version removes the dependency on Adobe Flash, replacing that code with HTML 5 sound code instead.  I added a short section on meditation, with basic instructions and the site also sports a new format and has a few fixed bugs.

I’ve tested it in Firefox, Chromium, Opera, Internet Explorer, Safari and Konqueror.  I also know it renders fine on IOS and Android but the sound is not yet working on those platforms.  I have a handle on what needs to be done, but I had no way of finishing the work before my deadline of 1st Jan.

Anyway, you can find it here, please let me know what you think!

This year saw us take another hit in the financial system, in truth the problems never went away, just glossed over with loads of printed money.  Of course, you can’t keep doing that; as a very wise man said “Ye cannae change the laws of physics!”  How very true, we are about to find this out.

We’ve seen the whole software patents story take turn after turn.  Apple vs Samsung, then Apple vs HTC.  I can’t shake the feeling that Apple might just have entered an arse kicking contest with a Centipede here, but time will tell.  But the interesting one could be Barnes and Noble vs Microsoft, this seems to be a far more interesting story as B&N take aim not at the patents but at the strategy of using them.  Clever, and also something that could be very disruptive.  We have the SOPA act still being fought in the US, this could easily wreck the Internet as we know it and the potential effect of freedom of speech and fair use is chilling.  A short video here explains things.

Finally, the Occupy movement.  This has been fascinating to watch, and eye opening.  In fact, just as bemusingly, the suicidegirls.com twitter feed turned out to have better US coverage than the mainstream media!  Outdone by a software porn site, hang your heads sirs, hang your heads. I except Al Jazeera and Russia Today from this, I consistently find some very good stuff on both those sites  Occupy has started to show the hypocrisy at the heart of some quarters of the Western establishment, tactics were used on American and UK citizens that were not in keeping with anyone’s idea of the response of a democracy.  Though the fact that it had to come to this speaks volumes.

For 2012?  Well, I’m not much with the old crystal ball.  But, I’ll give it a whirl.  I see us living more within our means, this won’t be such a bad thing as the alternative simply stores up more trouble.  Better to start now.  I can see the software patent system coming into disrepute very quickly, and I suspect that the tech landscape could look a bit different this time next year.  The patent war is to the death, and I wonder about how the current hegemonies will hold up.  For freedom of speech and SOPA, I recommend paying the Electronic Frontier Foundation (or EFF) a visit and doing some reading to see what can be done.  The internet is not taking this lying down however, and I think that the industry lobbyists and their pet politicians are going have more of a fight on their hands than they realise.

Occupy.. I can see more trouble on the horizon. Especially in the USA, the controversial Detainee Bill promises more grief for the occupiers.  I honestly can’t understand how Barack Obama let this one past him, I can only hope someone comes to their senses while there are still any freedoms left worth defending in America.