This is the second attempt at answering the same question, 1 year apart. And with more wisdom gained it is going to be comprehensive. Let's dive in. Mindfulness, is it meditation? It is a yes and no answer. Mindfulness by definition invites us to be aware of our awareness. Or in simple terms, let us observe the observer. In meditation we focus on some object. Outside or within us. To calm ourselves which is a form of sustained awareness. Of course we cannot do that without being aware of ourselves. On the other hand, as Mindfulness let us observe ourselves during which we might see ourselves focusing on different objects. Hence it is yes and no. In meditation object matters, in mindfulness any object would be fine. Mindfulness is kind of meditation, and not at the same time. meditation Little bit of history Meditation is a common practice in Eastern and western spiritual seekers. They saw the benefits of it and taught commoners how to do it. They taught us how to be happy just looking at drifting clouds , or flowing stream . So, most of the time meditation is seen as a solution to a problem. Just like any other solution. Let's look at some problems to understand pattern and what is the problem meditation try to solve. When you are hungry you search for food. When you don't have food, you buy some with your money. When you don't have money, you do a job. When your job doesn't pay enough money to quench your cravings, you learn a new skill When you don't know which skill you want to learn you try few of them When you get stressed, you watch TV or binge eat When you are more stressed, you run a marathon or exercise When you are even more stressed, you go to a therapist, or do yoga and mediation And when you are broken, you take medication. That is the traditional approach to any problem. In life this is what we do. But sometimes it becomes overwhelming for unknown reasons. And we need to calm down. More than ever when we are detached from the environment, we feel the need to connect. We need to look inside ourselves to identify what went wrong with our judgements in right and wrong. So, meditation have evolved as a method to close this gap between our expectations and reality. In fact, meditation is considered a solution a lot of human problems and it seems to be working! When you struggle with sleep When you are stressed or anxious To control anger Just before landing a plane, or pull the trigger to kill a terrorist Meditation can improve your brain function. Food on the table Epidemic of meditation. More problems we have which are mental in nature, more and more people are seeing the meditation as a solution. It's because of benefits of meditation. But there is another school of thought about meditation. It doesn't answer to fundamental questions that Eastern and western philosophers and even common men like you and me tried to answer. What is the meaning of life ? Who am I ? What is happiness ? Why anything is a thing ? What happens when we die ? What is living ? What is time? Can you answer these questions with meditation? I don't think so. Not even if you started meditation from the day 1 you were born till you die. So, meditation is not a solution to some problems. That is where mindfulness is different. It is the solution to every problem! It is the art of investigation the problems of life itself. Mindfulness the solution to every problem Mindfulness is the tool we use to answer such simple yet fundamental questions about life. As we are stuck in our own subjective realities , there is no other option as the knowledge about a single self cannot come from another self. It's like tasting salt. You know what salt taste like right? But can you ever know what it tastes like for me? Or anyone else? Similarly, we are stuck in our own realities, hence investigation of life depends on one person and one method only. And that is called mindfulness. And mind you it is not pseudo-science. It is true science at its best. It's just using scientific method to investigate self. As all the problems arise from things, mindfulness is the tool to understand things about things. So, mindfulness is not watching the breath. Its investigating what is breath. It is also investigating who is breathing, when and where all these phenomena of watching the breath is happening? Is it happening in the last second? Next second? Or this second? If then what happens, when this second becomes next second? What binds a second to the next? Is it same breath or new breath? And who said time is measured in seconds anyway? Observing the banana leaves wave in the wind can create more happiness than a million dollars. Paradoxes of life. : https://unsplash.com/@maite11 Can you see the problem? And the depth? Let's tap into mindfulness today, to investigate phenomenon of life

Understanding nothingness - part 2 In the previous article we discussed why nothingness is not, absence of a thing . Closest explanation we can give for nothingness is, it is something which never have been there. As this is a difficult concept to grasp, and also a wonderful thing to know we will try to understand this with more and more examples. Nothingness Is in everything. Empty : https://unsplash.com/@haleytruong You would admire nothingness, is something which is present in everything. For that matter we need to know workings of the mind. One important question to ask is when and how a thing became a thing in your mind? Imagine you take a walk, on a country road which you have never been before. And you see houses, and people, footpaths and trees you have never seen before. Forget about the perspective of others. When did these things became things in your consciousness? When I look at this question in mindfulness, I see they became things in my mind only when I was aware of them. Until I took the Christmas Walk , a nude oak tree was not a thing for me. This nude oak was not a thing for me every second I was not aware of it. Only when it comes to my consciousness that it becomes a thing for me. This observation leaves us with a fundamental rule. Our minds are simply mechanisms to register and observe things in the so called outside and inside world. We can call them mental object s. However as, we cannot separate ourselves from the things we observe someone can argue it is even singular like a lump of clay . Then what is the duality of the nature? It seems duality of the nature is nothing but the imaginary place where things are not there which is another thing. However, the problem is this also is not the nothingness itself. If things in the world becomes things only when I am aware of them, for vast majority of the time, individually they behave as nothingness. So how can I see the nothingness of a thing when it is a thing in my mind? Did you get the question? Nothingness always there hidden behind things: https://unsplash.com/@beccatapert There is no point reading further if you do not understand the question. I know if you have just landed to this page by a random Google recommendation, I suggest you follow at least some of the simpler articles I have written before in links. As it took me 1.5 years writing 350 articles to ask this question. It's unfair by you if I expected you to understand. Back to the question: How can I see nothingness of a thing when it is a thing in my mind? And that is called mindfulness. Mindfulness is not just another meditation to teach you how to focus on your breath to make you sleep better. Mindfulness is a path to wisdom, to identify true nature of things we see hear smell touch taste and think about all our lives. Mindfulness is the practice to observe how things arise from nothingness and go back to nothingness when you are no longer aware of them. Mindfulness is the investigation to question things that you observe and identify nothingness in them. So, our strong attachments to the materialistic and imaginary world gets loosened day by day, until we are liberated from all the suffering arise from things. If you ask me a question, have you seen nothingness? I would say, no, it is not something we can see. I just try to see the lie, which is present in everything that I see. Including nothingness itself. Then only we can reach what is unreachable. I try to understand how, a life which can be cornered to a fraction of a second makes sense. How can I get a meaning out of a millisecond called life? Who is this mad man called me, creating things out of nothingness? What about you? What is your way to nothingness?

Synonyms. You may have come across the term nonexistence at some point in your life. If you are a spiritual seeker more often than the others. If you are an ordinary man or women, like me, you may have heard the same term with synonyms like, emptiness, nothingness, nihilism , null etc. Nonexistence or nothingness is a fascinating concept for me. Here in this article, I am trying to understand nonexistence myself, by explaining it to you. Let's get started with flying tortoises. Flying Tortoise and A room without tables Flying tortoise Have you seen flying tortoise? Well, you may have not. Ha ha ha let me know if you have as I just created them in my imagination just like the pink elephant . But as you can see clearly in our physical world flying tortoise are non-existing, like a real chimera . Yet we just created them in our minds. Just when you read the term "Flying Tortoise" they are existing in our minds. As you can see this is a big problem when we try to understand nonexistence or nothingness. We tend to always try to create nothingness from a thing. Imagine you have a table in your room. What is the nonexistence of the table? Is it a room without a table? Then I suggest we just created a room with a table and compared this against a room without one. In true non existing world, there have never been a table. Not even in imagination, not even the concept of it hence we even cannot express such a world. Can you imagine such a room? It seems no matter how much we try true nonexistence is somewhat out of our reach. Like it is in fourth dimension . Is nonexistence really non existing? Why the hassle? At this point I suspect you have questions on my sanity. Questions on my sanity why I write this stupid argument in the first place. Yet I cannot emphasize more, that it is fundamental in understanding the true valueless nature of our relative world . Nothingness do exist like a statue of David hidden inside our consciousness. Until we started to cover it with first things as toddlers. Then named things when we were kids. Now we are lost in our own jumble of words, we cannot understand it. Nonexistence is touchable only by natural wisdom of mind. Yet it is essential to do so. Otherwise, we will fall into countless traps, agendas, and evils of the thingy world every day. We might get depressed, or start to cry, laugh like mad people and kill for a penny, and that is the outcome of not knowing nonexistence. Mountain : https://unsplash.com/@fabulu75 Let's try to tackle the nonexistence in a different way. Not having a bottle in your room doesn't prove its non-existence Not having a dream doesn't prove its non-existence Not seeing a mountain doesn't prove its non-existence. Even breaking something into small parts doesn't prove its non-existence as we broke something which is there. Can you see a pattern? It's all about patterns in nature . We can derive a general rule for nonexistence from here and that is following. Nonexistence is not the thing that you think of. What is not there is not nonexistence, but what was never there is. : https://unsplash.com/@lishakov That is the best description of non-existence or nothingness so far. If you think of something that is not it! So true nonexistence cannot be described by words. As when we describe something from words, we have to create it first and then it would be a thing . Not nothingness. We cannot show it as a picture as a picture or a diagram is a thing. We cannot show it with a sound or a smell or a taste or even a touch. As all these will create things in our minds. As you can understand seeing nothingness is almost an impossible task. But here is a simple truth that you should be contemplating when you do your mindfulness. And that is nothingness is the only thing which there is. Everything else in our relative worlds are built upon this inherent nothingness. And moment we realize this fact, we can start looking for nothingness in everything we see and that will, make you feel like you are freed from the dimensional world. Do you have better explanation on non-existence?

This is a saying which appeared in the novel "The brothers of Karamazov" By Fyodor Dostoevsky the famous russian novelist. The statement stands on itself. A rare gem of a sentence and today the article is about a detailed explanation, to why this statement itself harbours the meaning of life. First we will introduce you to a story to illustrate how it is applicable to charity and other good deeds, when it is hard to figure out subtle nature of our selfishness which hides in these acts. Then we will expand more to The Sisyphean suffering of rolling the perpetual wheel of self or life. perpetual Motion : https://unsplash.com/@dmitriielj Understanding charity, Is there a lier? Once upon a time there was a king. He was a good king and as all other kings of the era, from time to time he went in disguise, in the kingdom to see how his people were doing. Maybe they did not trust their own news agents for that matter, so kings wanted to see themselves how their governance were at work. He disguised himself as a commonor and left the palace, and plan was to come back in a week. However, on the way, in a far corner town, he was robbed by some gang and severely beaten. Without all his armed gurds, the king was left to die helplessly by the road. Like a begger, he could not even speak or beg. Nobody looked at him except a one man who walked by. His heart melted looking at the poor man. He got down on his knees and took him in his arms. He brought the poor man home and treated him for a good couple of weeks until he was able to walk and talk by himself. The king thanked the good man and went to his palace. Regained the throne. And first thing he did was summoning the good man, and gifting him with unimaginable wealth and status. And the news spread rapidly throughout the kingdom to what happened. And from the next day, the beggers in the country did not have trouble atleast for a good couple of months, as there were plenty of good men who would help. Some even went in trouble of looking for such disabled people. Some even started works of charity, in the name of their parents to help poor people. The question at this point is who had good intensions? It appears, that only the first man who did not know about any good or bad consequences of his act, did it anyway from the kindness which appeared from the bottom of his heart. Others were just cheaters! how much they tried to appear good, their faith was blinded by the potential benifits. Acts of heart : https://unsplash.com/@designecologist Philosophy of charity Now we can answer some philosophical questions about charity. How about the following? How many charity organisations would prevail in the world, if there were no stories about heavens and hell? How many people would spend their time saving children? Animals? trying to help diseased and poor, if guranteed nothing good or bad will happen to them even if they did or not do these things. What if we make the return value of charity 0? Not even a "feeling Good"? I am sure we will be straight away looking at a society like in a jungle. It seems even acts of charity, or acts of good deed are still harbouring our selfishness at its core. I am not saying we should not involve in such acts. It is exactly the opposite of it. I am trying to show you how to do charity properly, like a good kind hearted human, without getting stranguled in the process by the demon of greed. 0 return charity is the best charity out there, and like the good kind hearted man who treated a poor man, not a king. This is why a donation of a penny by a begger can be a bigger act of charity than a million dollar donation by a wealthy CEO. I am sure gates of heaven if at all is there will not open depend on the amount of coins you put in, but by inherent purity of the act which doesn't depend on the culture religion or our believes. Investment: https://unsplash.com/@nampoh Above all do not lie to yourself. Not only in doing charity, we sometimes lie to ourselves more often. Even in day to day activities. Think about love? What is love ? Is it not a kind of deeply rooted greediness to satisfy our needs from someone else? Do we lie to ourselves we love someone purely from our heart? Can there be exist some pure platonic love outside our imagination? What about frendship? What about happiness? Do you lie to yourslef about happiness? Do you lie to yourself about a happy tomorrow and suffer yourself today by cheating yourself promising a dream? What exactly do you need to be happy at this moment ? Nothing? If you look at your thoughts a day, with mindfulness, you will witness, that the mind does lie to itself, from time to time, more when you understand simple truths about life . And realising this fact might make you ashamed of yourself. But do not be disheartened. After all it is all nature, and nature is a neutral phenomenon. Feeling ashamed is just a negative value which we give artificially to our own thoughts, which itself is wrong. Hence that is excessive. Just being aware is enough.

It's about a pair of spectacles. Let's start with boiling some water . I had my first pair of spectacles when I was in the university. We never were addicted to phones when we were kids, as we did not have any. Yet, at latter part of my teenage years I got a computer at my house, and I played 18 hours straight staring at it. My eyesight became bad within months, and when I went to university, I used to sit in front row, so I could see the projections clearly. When I was in the bus stop, I was staring at the buses, trying hard to see them clearly before they come closer, as I could not see the destination boards that they displayed. And it came to a point, I haven't seen anything further than few meters clearly for a long time and I got my first spectacles. Error was not that bad, but doctor told me I am in for a surprise, as I have never used them before. Boil some water: https://unsplash.com/@henrykobutra I can remember walking out from the Opticians wearing my new spectacles. I could see everything! from the birds in faraway trees, to the sand grains at the tip of my toes. Nothing was blurred anymore. And I walked in joy like a kid, found it difficult to step on, as the world seemed to be different. Have you ever seen someone try hearing aids, or spectacles for the first time? Or even walking after a long-term coma? If not, you will have to imagine. I am sure you have some similar experience. What changed? Let's add some vegetables , and spices to the boiling water. I knew exactly nothing changed in the outside world. What changed was the projections which were created in my brain. Better clarity. We can say what changed was the information which I received about the world. And that is the starting point of our argument. Who gives you spectacles? Some salt to make it a little tasty. Well, for a start it was my optician. But if we consider information, I will say many more. It started with my parents, Television, Teachers, Newspapers, Lecturers, politicians, friends, Neighbours, preachers, strangers, and even my own imagination. And from your birth up to the reading of this sentence, you were given information from everyone around you. Some are good, some are bad right? (We can agree on this judgement for now) What we do when we get this information? We contemplate on them; we judge them and either we discard or mark them important. We might take action or refuse to act. We might react aggressively, or cry sadly, or smile joyfully. Now, we will stop there and add some wisdom to our pot. Add some vegetables : https://unsplash.com/@alyson_jane The man with the spectacles. Wisdom in the pot. I want you to imagine a man, who is wearing a pair of red color spectacles. These are the ones; this man was wearing since he was born. And he is arguing with everyone that the world is in fact red. And it seems he is right from his perspective. How can anyone teach him otherwise? I let the task in your hand. All we have to do is sneak into his room when he is sleeping and make him wear a blue color spectacle. And from the moment he wakes up, he starts to doubt his previous idea of the red world and now he is thinking the world is blue. And yet again you try. You try another day when he is sleeping this time you put him on green spectacles. And ah the nightmare! he is now in a green world. You try yellow, and yet again this stupid man tries to prove the world is yellow. Imagine you try different shades every day, and you use all the colors in the f*****g rainbow in a year. Yet he does not understand what is happening. Because he did not think about what is happening in the first place. And that there is the wisdom in your pot! That is the one thing that your parents and teachers and environment did not teach you. Because we are the f******g idiots in the first place not knowing we are wearing spectacles on our own, we were sleeping when the information just change our spectacles. Let's revisit the analogy, for those who did not understand it. It's simple math. Explanation: That one thing your parents and teachers did not teach you. The man with spectacles is you. The spectacles you already have is the previous information you received. And every day you get new spectacles from your parents, teachers, and everyone and everything around you. And with this new upgraded spectacle you start to look at the world tomorrow and say, well, the world is Pink! or Blue! or Black! From your birth to death, you live in a dream of a colorful world created by your own spectacles. So, I will tell you a secret now. The true secret, that you are eager to hear, that will change your future forever. Can you see the idiot in you move when I put it like that? Contemplate on it. That is how I can sell you a pair of spectacles, which I call mindfulness. And that is truly colorless, ha ha ha! (Hope you are wise to understand the irony of this) BTW your pot is ready, it' s time to have lunch. Lunch is ready! : https://unsplash.com/@vdphotography

Jumpers. Disclaimer: Following article discuss jumps, this is philosophical. There is no jump without any risk. Hence, if you feel like, seek professional help. We hold no responsibility of the meaning you would derive reading this, which anyway is impossible to predict. Have you ever, bunjee jumped, sky dived or taken a free fall into a pool? I am sure you have atleast watched a video of such. I have seen neumerous times people jumping from buildings and even planes, with the parachutte on their backs. With popularisation of Red bull challanges such videos are not rarerity in my daily dose of internet. I am sure only very few ever have attempted a free fall entirely, and did not expect to survive. Infact, latest I can remember were the jumpers of 9/11. In one such lonly afternoon in the comfort of my bed I went into a jumpers mind and wrote the following. Jumpers Poem. What makes a jump interesting. There are different kinds of jumps. What is the most important aspects about a jump? Can you summarise? Think about following. Any jump has a start, a flight and an ending, A bottom. Which is Either a happy landing or a Crash landing. We are heros, when we take a jump, only if we make it to the bottom safetly. I am sure if you do a google search today, you would find many such triumphs and faliures. From Franz Reichelt 1912, who fell to death jumping from the effel tower to test his parachutte, to jumpers from latest Paris Olympic games lading perfect tens. If the safe landing is our objective, we have to have faith that everything should go well. If not, no faith is needed. Why is a jump from a top of a tower, is different from a jump from a table top? Both have start, both have ending yet, there is little to no risk from jumping from a table top. The risk for a jump from a airplane is inherently associated with a big risk. Hence not everyone is capable of doing it. We can compare this to any risk that we take in our life. More the risk, generally more the adrenalin rush and if landing is successful, better the satisfiction we feel. Important question we should asking ourselves is who gives a value to a jump from a sky? life as a free fall Life as a free fall. However there is a different kind of a jump. It is hypothetical, and imaginary. And that is a free fall. Imagine a free fall? Can you do that? We simply cannot, as we are so much used to jumps with a start to finish. The free fall is just an impossible dream. I cannot give you a definite example from the physical world. But I can help you with imagination. Imagine you wake up one day, and you are in a fall. You cannot remember, when and how you started to fall. Unlike other jumps you have seen, you know there is no end to this fall. You are guaranteed that there would be no crash, although you do not wear any parachutte. Can you imagine such a fall? If so, that is a free fall. There are some important observations we can make, when we compare our lives to a free fall. Generally we assume life to be a normal fall. With begnining, which is called birth, the flight, which is called life, and the ending which is called death. Philosophy and religion and countless others try to get a meaning of life , from within this framework of life. Sometimes they compare it to a journey , yet, it is not a free fall they are talking about. When we call life a journey we also assume there is some ending to it. Now try to compare the life to the idea of above free fall. Infact, there are lot of similarities if you looked at it with mindfulness. We started to fall, through time, and we did not know how we started to come into this journey. We cannot remember the begining. We assume it is our birth, but how can we be so sure? What if we never land? Will there be a thrill? Of happiness ? Or Sadnesss?: https://unsplash.com/@arstyy We enjoy laugh and cry in the free flight, sometimes fearing about the doomed end that we all have to face. We forget to feel the wind, and enjoy the golden hour view of a sunset because we are so afraid of the crash landing, as we do not have a parachutte to save us. And within this fall, some similar free fallers, try to sell us things. They try to sell us news , retirement plans and caskets to keep our own dead bodies. Some even try to sell us a meaning of life, secrets of love, and ten things we sould be doing to be successful before our crash landing. But mindfulness suggests otherwise. If you want to be free from the crash ending, you have to shift the framework. And really start to look into yourself and ask the question, again and again. What if life is a free fall? Within this free fall, there would be no meaning to the death , no value to the objects of mind , which others try to sell, and maybe one day we all will just enjoy the free fall as it is.

This article is about perception and mindfulness. Supermoons and the Moon Illusions Have you seen a moon so big that it almost fill a half of the sky and you cannot take your eyes away from it? Then what you have observed must be a super moon. Scientifically speaking a supermoon occurs when the moon is travelling closest to earth, and it is a full moon at the same time. Out of all the 12-13 full moons per year 2or 3 can be super moons. However, there is another phenomenon which makes the full moon appear bigger. For that matter even the sun appears bigger, when it is the golden hour . When it is near the horizon. That is called moon illusion. The theory behind this observation is fascinating. One popular explanation is the relative size hypothesis. When the moon is at the horizon, it is seen against the trees and buildings far away, and our minds perceive this as the moon is bigger than when it is relatively isolated in the mid sky. If you look at the following illustration it captures essence of this idea. Which is called Ebbinghaus Illusion. Ebbinghaus Illusion- The moon on the right appear bigger although it is the same size as the left I am sure, you have tried to capture such a moon and once you take the photo, it doesn't appear so big. Infact the moon which you have caputred may even seem relatively small. And I am sure you stopped trying to capture this and just look at the moon again to experience it. But photographers who are experience do know how to make this optical illusion, and with their gigantic cameras they zoom in so the moon is visible massive against the buildings and trees far away. Another way to break the illusion is to look at it upside down. We are so much used to see the world in correct orientation that the illusion only happens when we are in our natural position. Which means standing from our legs. Yet if you turn around upside down the illusion breaks as the data on distance is valueless, in this position, as we are not used to it. And this is the main entry to the following discussion. Golden hour : https://unsplash.com/@maazphotography Upside down world. Previously I have written about upside down view of the world and how, this unique perspective makes us to percieve the world different. We are so much used to what is called normal, that a man is not a man to us if we see a picture of a man upside down. We are thinking so much to our capabilities that we are proud that we can drive and we know the roads. But, I am sure nobody has driven a car upside down. The other day when I drive I noticed that even for a fraction of a second if I tilt my head, the car will drift towards the edge of the road. Surely I can drive, but I can drive only in vertical orientation! Well, that hurts my ego a little bit. You can say a Jet Pilot can do that, and a rider on a cycle in the carnival, in the Wall of death, can do it. But it is not possible, unless you train specifically to do that. This is why driving reverse in high speed is almost impossible for most of us. It is just another perspective of the world through a mirror. I can give you loads and loads of examples of the relative nature of things that we see, but let's not exhaust ourselves. Instead, I will add to the story of colors another day. Here will I summarise the importance of our observation. The wheel of Joy: https://unsplash.com/@hannahmorgan7 Mindfulness. As you can see, the things we consider true in the world sometimes, appear different when we change our perspective. Like looking upside down to the moon, or driving a car in reverse. Even the act of closing your eyes for a period of time as illustrated by the blind person's world . However, in each case we cannot argue what we see is not real. The question is how come the moon be so big and not so big at the same time? What is correct? Which one is real and which one is the illusion? If one is taken as real, the other should be wrong. If the world with our eyes open is with colors real, then the world when your eyes close must be false. If the eyes closed world is real then eyes open world must be wrong. Only way around this problem as I can see is to consider both are relative. Both of the world upside down and correct side up and countless others in the past and each and every consciousness are just relative worlds. And the real quesion is can we ever grasp the reality through this momentary relative world?

Background: plot of crime and punishment (This is not essential to understand the crime and punishment) Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment dives into the psychological and moral descent of Rodion Raskolnikov, an impoverished student in 19th-century St. Petersburg. Driven by a nihilistic philosophy that justifies killing for the greater good, Raskolnikov murders a greedy pawnbroker but also accidentally kills her innocent sister. Haunted by guilt and paranoia, he faces the relentless scrutiny of the perceptive investigator Porfiry Petrovich. Ultimately, driven to the brink of madness, Raskolnikov confesses to his crime. Through suffering, imprisonment, and the love of Sonya, a devout Christian woman, he embarks on a long and arduous journey towards redemption and acceptance of his punishment. The novel explores profound themes of good and evil, the psychological impact of crime, social injustice, and the enduring power of faith and human redemption. Crime: https://unsplash.com/@nampoh What is a crime, and what is punishment? Well, you can say anything you do against the law is a crime. But as you can see in any court, we have to prove a true crime is committed without doubt. And mind you lawyers of either side would argue that a true crime has never been committed, which even can be taken as true. Imagine a true faithful friend of yours, committed a crime in front of you. And you witnessed this. He is a very good friend. Except for this crime. He had saved your life countless times, and you know he regret this day he had committed this crime. And confessed will never do it again, and you have no reason not to believe. Now after years and years later, both of you are in court. And you on the witness stand swear to tell truth, nothing but truth . And the lawyer questioned you whether you have seen your friend commit this crime or not. And you choose to lie. And your friend walks free as there is no other eyewitness and no punishment given. It seems obvious that justice has not served, and you committed a crime by not saying the truth. The question is when did your crime occur? Following discussion about this crime is purely hypothetical and there is no intention to attack normal laws and moral grounds of an ethical society, yet to deepen our knowledge about the world that we live in mindfully. Crime and Punishment : https://unsplash.com/@lorencutler Roots of the crime It seems obvious a crime had occurred when you choose to lie, in front of the court. And you will definitely be prosecuted if a third person had taken photographs of you there when the crime occurred. In this case you will do a crime against the one who is disadvantaged because of your friends' deeds. And to the society which demands justice. Now imagine you decide to tell the truth. And help the system to prosecute your friend. Despite knowing that he had followed the good behavior and kept his promise of not committing another crime. Yes, you are free from a crime against the society. Yet this time you have the guilt towards your good friend. You have broken that trust and the promise to keep a secret. Surely there will be only two people happy if you lied, and many will be happy if you tell the truth. But as you can see nobody in the other side has the obligation of yours towards your friend. In fact, as you can see a court is a place where humans judge other humans. We artificially frame it as law. Basically, what you have done is become the judge yourself. Why can anyone argue that is not good. After all, the actions of your friend were irreversible. Yet he has been better since then? Nobody cried after the crime. This also leaves the question when did the true crime occur. Is it at the time you decided to lie in the court? Or is it all the years you decided to keep it a secret? If the latter is true, then what about the times you even did not think about it consciously? What about the times you were sleeping? Obviously, there is something wrong when we argue in this way. We cannot exactly pinpoint where it is. Justice : https://unsplash.com/@snappint But there is a place where we can exactly point out. And that is the time you were witnessing your friend. I'm going to tell you what happened in detail. And trust me it is interesting. First you saw your friend and you identified him as your friend. And you judged him a good friend. Then you saw his action, and against the norms of the society you judged his action as a crime. Next you weight his crime against his confession and made a decision to keep a secret. And someone can argue that is the true crime. The true crime occurred when you judged something you observed. Every time when we judge things, we value against our likings. Or the likings of the society. Yet, the observations are neutral. I can give you a simple example from the nature. Understanding punishment Imagine you see a snake, trying reach chicks in a bird nest? What will you do? If you save the Chicks, good you will do good to the birds and mind you these birds will eat plenty of butterflies in the future. And also, the poor snake will have to go hungry another day, and its unborn eggs will not get nutrients. If you do nothing great, the snake will eat the chicks alive. And I am sure it will come as a nightmare to you that you did do nothing. Of course you let yourself witness a nature's crime. And kept silent? You will be prosecuted or pardoned as the snake is your friend? Can you see the problem? Either way you are at nowhere when you consider your moral obligation. How can you get away from this problem? Now you can understand when I say this is the meaning of " Sisyphean suffering of rolling the perpetual wheel of self" Punishment occurs exact moment you value something. As the pain from negative values, and as the risk of losing from a positive value. What is real is another reflection : https://unsplash.com/@puregeorgia Mindfulness solution And to understand it, we have to be knowledgeable about our mind. True mindfulness lets us to see it different. What you observed in the snake and bird was something neutral. The problem only occurred when we judge it and give it a value according to our parameters. And it has nothing to do with saving or not saving either. The witnessing is not the true crime. True crime is not knowing what you witnessed. Not knowing what you witnessed is a just a frame, an instance of a continuous universal function of nature which has no meaning. Here I will stop the discussion and divert you to my article on guillotine of Crabs to show you how to apply this wisdom in a practical setup. Thank you taking your time to read this mind clogging crap 😀 Five sentence Summary: Crime occurs when we Judge something, witnessing is not the crime Positive values create happiness, risk of losing is the punishment Negative values create sadness which is the punishment Solution is not to judge, leave it as valueless at the level of observation Mindfulness is the key, which is another valueless observation.

The Merchant and His son Once upon a time there was a wealthy merchant. He was rich beyond imagination. But nobody knew where his wealth came from Like the Count of Monte Cristo. He lived in a mansion in a vast land which was so big, that it extended either side as eyes can see. As everyone with a life, his life approached zero . Awaiting inevitable he wanted to give his wealth to his only son. His son however was a little egoic arrogant idiot. After all he was the rich kid. Yet, the merchant did not want to make him prouder of so much wealth. Near his death, he whispered into his son's ears, on his last breath. Mansion: https://unsplash.com/@mitchel3uo "Listen to me son, listen to me carefully. I think you are worth to have all my wealth. I have hidden it in my land. Don't tell this secret to anyone. " The son was eager. And the merchant continued. "So, to get this wealth you have to go to the right-hand side entrance to the palace, with a bow and arrow. And from there you have to drop an arrow facing East. You will find my wealth where the arrow is fallen." And after revealing his secret the merchant died. With dreams of becoming a wealthy man, his son started to search for merchant's wealth. Even before his funeral! He went to the right-wing entrance of the mansion with his bow, faced east and shot an arrow. It flew past the fence and tree line into the barren land. He started to dig, with his men. They dug for days, so deep a hole that it started to fill with water. But there was no treasure. He became desperate and came back to the entrance and shot another arrow. He dug a hole and yet again found no hidden treasure. He dug his land like a mad man. Day after day month after month and within few months, he did not have money to pay for his workers. He sold pieces of land. One by one, for even cheap prize as he thought he would find the treasure one day. Yet he did not. And after some years, only thing left was his father's old mansion. He was seen often in local taverns, cursing the wise merchant for ruining his life. His secret was no secret no more, as everyone knew there was no hidden treasure. One day a wise young merchant came to town for some business. And he met the Drunkard son of the wise deceased merchant at the tavern. Knowing he is wealthy, merchant's son wanted to sell the old mansion to this new guy. After discussing the deeds, inspecting the property. Young merchant agreed and closed the deal. He well knew the old merchant, who was wise was never a liar. So, he wanted to try his luck. By that time everyone in the town knew about the story of bow and arrow. Bow and arrow: With a new bow and arrow the wise merchant went to the right wing of the mansion; he faced east and dropped his arrow. And it fell right between his feet! And that was the only place that there was no hole, as far as he could see were mines! He started to dig the entrance and soon found a secret door to underground tunnel, where the old merchant's wealth was hidden. And this wise man, wasn't greedy at all. He gave what the arrogant son deserved and helped him to be better of himself. Mindfulness wisdom from the Story of the Merchant For someone story of the merchant can be about being wise. You can ask a kid to be wise like the new merchant and be clever. You can ask a kid to not to become like a grumpy son of the old merchant. Yet there is more deeper meaning to the story. I think this second meaning have practical value to the mindfulness. Remind what the old man said. He said, "When you are at the correct place drop the arrow. And find your fortune." Drop the Arrow to find the Gold: https://unsplash.com/@sharonmccutcheon In mindfulness practice we tend to carry information that we gather from master's and teachers, dig ourselves holes everywhere in our gardens. If we compare the information sphere to the arrow, to know the truth, to gain wisdom we have to drop everything we have learnt. Drop the past, drop the future, and investigate the so called now. The one who looks outside dreams one who looks inside awakens , yet again. You might have read previous articles in this blog, maybe this is your first. If I tell you that, everything in this blog is not going to give you wisdom, and in a way is a web of lies, that wouldn't be a lie either (this doesn't mean it is not helpful in anyway). As always you have to drop and look at yourself. And for the one who drops everything, there is a prize. And true prize of nothingness will be there.

Most important asset a man has is his set of problems. Passenger on Duality of nature Well, you only need the light when it's burning low Only miss the Sun when it starts to snow Only know you love her when you let her go Only know you've been high when you're feeling low Only hate the road when you're missing home Only know you love her when you let her go Only miss the Sun when it starts to snow Hunting a meaning in life. Have you ever thought what is the most important thing in your life? You may have, and if you haven't you can just do that now. Write down five or ten or one, most important thing in your life? And I would say that is the biggest problem in your life. And the answers are variable. For a mother it can be her kid. For a singer it can be his biggest hit. For a astronomer it can be a memory of earth seen from space station, or his space suit. For a student it can be the final year grade. Mental or physical, it is a thing . And what is common to all these things? When we look at this with mindfulness we can understand, this is the most important problem in our lives. First we need to gain this most important thing. Once we gain we need to maintain this. Sometimes gain is hard, sometimes maintain is hard. Yet we do not even feel this is a problem as we are so much attached to this one thing and even thinking about it gives us pleasure. So if someone asked what is the most important thing in your life, and you have an answer I want you to know that is your biggest problem. Negative or positive Frame doesn't matter You may ask me why? Why we should frame this thing with negativity? Why we cannot frame this with positivity. Yes we can, and there is no harm doing it. Problems are positive things. Even sadness and horror is a genere on its own. We enjoy (but call it empathy) watching california fires . And horrible floods watching people being washed away. We do watch brutal crimes being commited. Why? Are we insane? No, we need to identify things, we need information, we crave new experience, and problems provide us opportunity. Identifying things itself is a plesure on its own. Perspective of life A world without problems is boring i.e. most important thing in life is your problems Case of a Prisoner Imagine a prisoner . That is someone with no problems. Literally, he is given food. A place to live. Nothing to do. And for someone who is constantly used to stimulation of problems, it is going to hurt so much. He is going to suffer only because he is loving his problems in outside world. Someone can say it is freedom that he is lacking. But imagine for some reason you put a monk, or a yogi in prison? Is he going to suffer? I don't think so. He is used to live without problems, so a prison is not going to hurt this man. There is nothing to explore. No information. Just bare self. Can you imagine what will happen if you are given immortality ? I bet being in a prison would be better. Case of a film Imagine you start to watch a film. Action animation drama. Any genera for that matter. If you look at this from a back I can say every film starts with characters, and in the begining they start to face a problem. A ****g big problem that you and me might never face in our lives. And they struggle with this problem for 125 minutes and finally they either win or lose. And guess what the film ends there. There is no enthusiasm for anyone to continue another half an hour of their normal lives. It is the problem made the film watchable. Imagine someone make a movie about normal two hours of your life. Do you think it is going to make box office? It would if you cracked 3n+1 during that hour. But I bet you would not 😁 Case of a mother. Lets say you are a newly married or a parent. And you expect a baby. You wish to make this kid help him herself to become successful beyond imagination. Lets say you want him to be an actor. And there would be lots of difficulties and milestones. You have to cry and laugh the entire 20-25 year journey. And you may or may not be successful. Lets assume you did. You did make your son the most attractive successful person you wish him to become.  Now lets go back to the day your son was born. And a fairy appeared in front of you and grant you a wish. You can either go through all the trouble of 20 years of painful endurance of life's hardships or she can just give you end product now! She can drop you from that moment directly to the place where you are successful at the end.  If you are an athlete you can imagine you are given a chance to have the medal on the podium, but you wouldn't have the memory of how you ended up there. Will that make you happy?  I think maybe a little but as you can see, it reduces the value. Although we think that the plesure is in the goal, really speaking plesure is in the hardships, or in your problems. This again is evidence most important things you have currently in your asset basket is your problems. Not the money or the Mortgage. flood Fundementals of problems. I am not going detals of how the fundamentals of problems are created. That is why the blog. This whole effort of my past year is to let you understand fundementals of your problems. But, if I put it in a one scentence it would be following.  Begining of any problem is identification of its variables. Mindfulness is the investigation of self for us to understand how it really happens in real time. Some fundamentals of this process is duality of nature , objects of mind , and values .

What is procrastination? I confess, I am a procrastinator myself. Then I learned mindfulness and knew I do not have to be. So If I would be brutally honest, and you wants the truth I would say there is nothing called procrastination. There is no thing as such when we look at the world with dr Seuss eyes, as an example what you felt yesterday about postponing your work was, procrastination number 43278 and today it is 43279 it is not even the same feeling and not a little bit of yesterdays procrastination is there today. Have you thought about this? If you really want to pull out the procrastination tree from your garden, it will be a long journey of self discovery to its roots through mindfulness, which might take years. But we do not have to do that, as I am going to tell you one important fact to beat the procastination. For this we can stick to the norms and we can assume there is a thing called procrastination and your are stuck with this. Let's start with why? How to eat a Frog? : https://unsplash.com/@pookadook How to eat our 🐸 frogs? I can remember when I read the book by Brian Tracy About eating the frogs. The concept is, if your tasks are frogs which you are procrastinating about, you should eat them. They are not going to be tasty I know. You should swallow it whole like a snake, first thing in the morning when you are at your most productive self. Just like me now. And you should not even think about it. And once you swallow your biggest toad rest would be easy. And there are hundred odd tips in the book for you to try. Patagotitan Mayorum But over the years due to chronic procrastination my toads have grown into  African Bullfrogs. Like  little bison calves, and I am sure its going to hurt if I tried to swallow them. Then I thought, why I should eat frogs. I am not a f**** lizard. Maybe I am just a herbivorous innocent deer. Did you go to a safari lately? Even herbivorous animals grow into gigantic size. There is potential to growth, even if you do not eat toads everyday. You can grow into a Patagotitan mayorum, a huge dinosaur that they discovered in 2014 just by eating grass and leaves . And that is the wisdom I gained by reading the book. Its not about eating toads, 😕 when you do not like it, but asking the question whether you are carnivorous or herbivorous. The main reason for anyone to procrastinate is that they are inherently disgusting. Like frogs. And also you are not a snake! There are so many tasks that you do not procrastinate. Atleast in your mind you know what you can eat! It doesn't matter it is grass or honey or leaves that your prefer than toads. You have to start doing that instead of trying to eat frogs. Imagine anyone doing something they do not like inherently, and they are going to suffer. If a teacher doesn't like to teach shes going to procrastinate. That doesn't mean she is not procastinating on writing a poem and reading. She wouldn't procrastinate if she was in a library! Herbivorous: https://unsplash.com/@sgreer How to defeat Procrastination mindfulness way. There was a nice post shared on this subject sometime ago. And it was about our education which ask us to climb trees when all of us are not monkeys. Some of us can fly, some of us can swim, some can run and some can just think. If we all race to mars nobody would be here to drive us to work. So if procrastination is a problem for you lately, I suggest you contemplate your life holistically. Maybe a walk on the beach and a dopamine detox would help you to just do that. Imagine the progress we can gain if we are in just optimal place which suits our character. And that will end the endless hours wasted addicted to our screens. That is the secret to defeat procrastination mindfully. Question is are you ready to eat your bullfrog? Or you want to throw that away?

How to tune a Violin? Before coming into creativity let's observe how a violin is tuned. I have to confess, I do not play violin. Not because I like to, but because I cannot. The ability to create music is not in my bones. However, I have tried to play a violin and observed how experts do it, on and off stage. Before playing in the finest orchestra, violinist first tune their instrument. They adjust the tension in the strings by tightening the nuts. Not too tight, or not too loose, they repeatedly check the note while doing this. And until everything sounds perfect. The violin: https://unsplash.com/@xingchenyan Not too tight, not too loose. Is the mantra, that anyone who needs to be creative should focus on. Infact there are so many examples I can give you on being moderate in effort. Imagine a painter, drawing a master art. There are plenty of videos online nowadays. More than art, the process of creating an art is fascinating. And one thing to note is, the moderation in effort. Even the grip of the brush, even the brush strokes, are not tight. Not too light. Effort is optimal. Even when cycling, if you ask Tadej Pogačar how he won the Tour de France this year, he will tell it is the moderation of effort which won him the title. Not at all about the last-minute sprint. It sure does matter final few seconds, but as you can see, to get to the point to be in top at least to give it a shot, someone have to be endured hardships and preserve energy. Life is a marathon, and you do not have to win every stage. Have you seen, players in Olympic games , they inhale and exhale deeply before even step on the sprinting for a long jump. They calm themselves down. Have you seen, snipers when they shoot, they inhale and exhale and take a deep breath and calm themselves down, before they pull the trigger. I am sure these are not the only ones. There are many more examples, where we can learn from, that it is not at all about maximum effort. Not always. Tour de France Let's get back to our problems of how to be creative. Have you not found your creative spark lately? The life feels boring, and you just even do not want to do it anymore? Maybe, your effort is not optimal. If you had been trying so hard previously maybe it is time to slow down a little bit. Time to take a deep breath and contemplate your life. Time to go to beach, or on a vacation, to empty the clogged-up mind. And while there just listen to it without trying to extract meaning so hard. If you watch long enough, you will empty your cup, that there will be enough space for new creative ideas to sweep in. Maybe it is time to do what you have postponed doing so long. I am not sure what it is, but you know exactly. For me it may be going to the movies, or stopping the car by the road and walk, reading a book, or looking at the sky with a blank mind. Something which is opposite of being productive yet will be so productive when you keep mindfulness as your friend. Obviously, answers to your complex problems, can be really there in the coffee cup. Or in a dirty pile of garbage . Maybe if you are just mindful your intuition will grow, like the wisdom in a fruit salad. Wisdom in Strawberry: https://unsplash.com/@philippe_collard Your willingness to be creative will work around the clock in the background and you will strongly come back for another productive day. Even if not, you will be wiser about yourself. Really speaking nobody knows where our creative intuitions are coming from. And if you fail to find the creative spark, maybe you are looking in the wrong place. And mindfulness will let you know what to do next, trust me as a friend and just listen.