Imagine you have a cat. The cats name is David. David, is a good cat. A great companion to your lonly life. David will do all the nasty things that other cats do. It will drop the vass from the table, chase a mouse and knock a radio, or bring mud into the home. Yet David will be the first one to come and greet you when you come after a vacation. So you take a good care of David. But let's stop this hypothetical scenario for a moment and think about a bit of practical philosophy about cats. David Philosophy of cats You may wonder, is there any philosophy at all about cats? I will say good amount indeed. But non of that is labeled as cats. So if someone asked you who is David. You would point to your cat, not your husband Peter. As for you David is the cat. If I asked you what is a cat, you would again point your finger to David. Not husband, as your husband is a human not a cat. But have you ever thought why he is a human and not a cat? What makes a cat a cat? Now we can list out characteristics of a cat, without ever wanting to point out to any. What is a cat? So what is a cat has a definite answer. Well I asked chatgpt. A cat is a small, domesticated mammal known for its agility, sharp senses, and independent nature. Cats are commonly kept as pets for companionship and for their ability to control pests, especially rodents. They have soft fur, retractable claws, and expressive behaviors such as purring, meowing, and body language to communicate with humans and other animals. You may or may not have thought about everything which mounts to a cat. But the fact that I am trying to illustrate is that it is just an abstract idea. A cat is just an abstract concept. Abstract concepts do not exist outside human mind, yet you might disagree as David is in front of you. And everyone of the humans in the world would agree it is a cat. What you are seeing is just one instance or application of more general idea of a cat. Although cat is a collection of characteristics, individual cat is different from another cat. Further proving the point. If we had no prior knowledge about cats, we would never be able to see any similarity between two David's. They would be two things. Now we don't have to go far to see this phenomenon at work. It's just few decades ago that we were toddlers. And as a toddler we didn't know what is edible and what is not. There was nothing called food. It was just an abstract concept. But we learned that by experimenting by putting everything in mouth indiscriminately. A mouse How to know a cat? Phew... that was a lengthy discussion about hypothetical cats. As this blog is dedicated to philosophy and mindfulness, I will leave a message. At this point if you're confused to a level that you ask yourself "do cats really exist then?" I am glad. You have made progress. Yes cats do exist. But not in the form our mind says that they do. David is your cat, a unique one. Similar to David other cats exist, but they are just unique. As for cats in general it's just a concept. The reality is not a concept. To know what truly mounts to a cat, one has to forget all the learned concepts about cats and look at David. That experience you get while mindfully observing is the only thing which can be named as a cat. And the name even doesn't matter. You are just one step away from using this wisdom. We just have to generalise this thinking to everything else we observe through our mind. It may be a tree, a hen or anger or time. And that is a fine way to magical mindful living.

I was exploring the concept of universal truth statements vs conditionally true ones in discrete mathematics. And even before going through the first chapter I thought of putting this concept into practice by asking myself what is universal about a thought? Have you ever thought about it? Let's explore together. My first intuition is the knower. Every thought has a knower. There is no thought of a tree without someone who knows about it. And everything we observe can be funneled into a thought. These mental objects all has a knower. But there are some more candidates. Think about the following. Thought Candidates for what is universal about a thought. Every thought is unique. There are no two thoughts alike. Every thought is subjective, there are no two thoughts which converge into a one in two minds. Every thought eventually destroys, vanish completely from existence, no matter how hard you try. There can be many more. But I will only discuss about the first, here in this article. What are the consequences of every thought having a knower? This closely resemblance the duality of nature. If there is a knower for every thought, and it seem both of them arise at exact same time, then can we assume these are two different things? It's like asking weather a reflection is separate from the mirror. But there is a problem in this too, as a mirror would have nothing to do with what it reflects. If the circumstances are aligned it will reflect anyway. So, then there is the question of free will. If we are having a free will we should be able to create thoughts. But it appears, we can know only about a thought only at the time it appears. Technically speaking we are not the real reason that the thought is there. I know, we cannot function in the society if we are firm to believe in this as a theory. But if we examine ourselves and come into realisation about thoughts this way, our minds will have an opportunity to be liberated from the constant clatter of the universe. Knower Another way to explore the same phenomena is to ask the question is there a thought without a knower? I cannot point out to any. Book is just a valueless thing unless it has the ability to generate thoughts in a person. So, the value of the book is not in its pages, but in the thought of a person who reads it. Similarly, a thought which is not raised in a knowers mind neither does exist, nor does it has an inherent value. Knowing is the thoughts, thoughts are the knowing. So, living is thinking. Thinking is living. If you want to stop thinking we have to stop knowing, which is impossible and out of the question. On the other hand if we can observe and identify there is only knowing, that can liberate us from underlying value system. As value is a secondary phenomena unique to the knower. But most of our problems if not all of them are there is not due to knowing. But due to valuing what was known. Let's take a break. I do not expect 1 in a million to understand exactly what I wrote. That is not the objective. Thoughts are generated, because of everything which came before tracing upto the origin of the universe. Yet I have nothing to do with this. Let's observe life and note down our observations. Just because that is.

"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love, will lead to the good life." - Bertrand Russell I was thinking about life? Following are generally how people think about life. Just have a look at the list and note whether what you describe is there. Life can be. A good life. A successful life. A rich life A complete life. An exiting life. An adventurous life. A full life. A disastrous life. A poor life A pathetic life. A criminal life A Saint life. A spiritual life A peaceful life. An academic life. A simple life. A minimalist life. ... the list goes on. Life. Now look at the quote by Mr. Bertrand Russell. Without agreeing or disagreeing to his statement. I like to look at the statement objectively. We can argue all day, whether he was right or wrong about knowledge and love. To me it feels like a jumble of words, we can derive any meaning. Most importantly I like to ask the question "What is life?" If I ask you the question What is life? You wouldn't have a direct answer. Most likely you wouldn't even be able to comprehend what you feel the life is. Yet, whenever we talk about being successful, rich or spiritual, we embark on pathways thinking that these will lead us to somewhere. You can chose one item from the list given above and write a book about how to be that one and get there. Infact most of the books in our libraries are filled with thousands of those books. Yet, we miss the fundemental question. The good life Fundemental question being, "what is life?" Without satisfactory answer to this question. There is no point even thinking about " successful, rich or peaceful " as these are just adjectives. Not even worth focusing on. So, for a wise man or a women, the only thing which matters is finding out answer to the question, "who am I? What is life?". Rest is irrelevant. Don't get me wrong. I'm not asking you to stop working and be poor. But let it be, if that is what it takes to find answers to the fundemental question about life. Good life So, for me, a good life, is a life which is used to find the answers to the question, what is life? Even if we do not arrive there before death, that is a good life. As that is there to it. We are not animals, just to chase food and sex all our lives. We are intellectual pinnacle of nature. Let's not focus on mediocre tasks too much in our lives, that we have no time to examine our own lives. We can do them to survive just enough so that we get there. You should exercise, to be healthy, so you have few more years to answer the question about life. You eat and work for that same reason. Then my friend is a life worth living. I think Socrates is spot on this. "An unexamined life is not worth living"

Lately I had this problem of feeling guilty about my screentime. Although I did not understand there was some deep philosophy in it and I am going to uncover in this article. First of all, lets analyse the problem, without trying to search answers. Why do we feel guilty about screentime? Screentime Ever since, televisions were developped humans find themselves glued to these amazing machines most of their afternoons. Instead of spending some quality time with people. And, we even watch them in groups. We feel pleasure during the time we watch the movies or news, or anything on the TV. Yet, lately I have been feeling guilty of my screentime. When I look at my past I tend to think all those hours could have spent in some productive activity, Like, reading a textbook, solving mathematical problem to feel good about it, or even write a blog article. This feeling has escalated to a level, that when I open netflix I even feel the subtle guilt, that I am going to waste rest of my day. If you do not have this problem, there is no point reading the rest of this article, Hence, you should leave. But, the philosophy I am going to apply to anything, you think is a waste of time. So, you may still keep reading if it is interesting enough. Let's get back to the question and analyse deeper. While watching the televesion I am really feeling plesure. But, why do I feel guilty? It is only because my mind compares this activity with 1000 other so called "Good habits". Which were conditioned by the society into my brain to thinking as good. Consider reading a textbook. I can choose to follow some documentry on "Power law" and learn about it in real life so I can apply this into my everyday life, to make better decisions. Like I did the other day. That is productive right? How to watch television without feeling guilty? Television Wrong!. We must investigate further, asking then what? Until we reach some internal understanding of what is happening. What matters is the truth. Remember, we are just trying to understand, why we feel guilt when we watch television. Or should we feel guilt? And you can do the same about any guilt that you felt latelty. Now let's think, our initital intution was reading a textbook is better than watching a tv series. Because it makes, me do better dicision making. So I can end up in a bigger pile of money, ethically earned. And with a fame, and a label that goes "Mr.A, the knowlegeble, wise, successful person". And then what? This label I aquire will last, till I get dementia, or till I die. It can last for others, Till all about my existance vanishes from earth. Remember, I am just an ordinary person. Hence, it will vanish during lifetime of an Oak tree. As you can see, the so called success that I am going to achieve by reading a textbook, has no clear benifit, in the so called "Cosmic scale" timeframe. This fundemental understanding helps me to rationalise my mind, that watching TV is not inherently bad. Watching tv is not good either. It is just a neutral phenoma of the mind. My worry in this instance is both excessive and unnecessary. After all, the mind would not be watching something, if it is not the TV. I shouldn't feel guilty, watching the television as the success is an illusion of mind. Life is a strange affair. Isn't it nice to feel loosing yourself in the moment watching TV? Like there is nothing else you'd be doing to improve the experience? And that my friend is the secret to watch television without feeling guilty.

This blog's primary focus is mindfulness, there is no doubt about that. However, as you can see I deviate from the main topic, quite often. How boring it could be to listen to mindfulness all day, which is inherently dull task, which doesn't make you feel like progress, like your bank account. And that is correct! If you understand the mindfulness is about not expecting an outwordly experience but be submerged in current experience, in the moment until intution arises within, You re having the right attitude about mindfulness . If you have right attitude, you will progress anyway, even if you do not want to. Just like an avalanche starts from a tiny snowflake. Everest I was watching the Redbull Challange the other day, when Alveraz decided to ski down the mount Everest. It was a half an hour long vid, with nothing but breathtaking views of mount everest. With a guy solo sking down its slopes. And ooops, his footsteps created small avalanche. It not mount to a huge scale, but like every forest fire, every seed of every plant on earth, they had the potential to become one. This is an important concept to understand. If you do not know, some things in life are ment to be not normal. They follow different laws, than a "normal distribution pattern". There is something called power law, which describes these skewed events. You can see them as Fractal patterns in nature. Fundementally the idea is when a system is complex enough, triggers of a tiny event can escalate massively into a large event that has ripple effects through the entire system. Consider, a country with a poor economic condition, and political tension. A tiny event which can pass another day as just "news" can make a movement of people, and quickly can escalate into toppling the rulers. If you trace such revolutions, we can see exactly this, as seemingly insignificant spark can ignite into a fire and burn down everything. I can list you some other places where power laws govern. Following is not a full list. Earthquakes  – small ones are common, big ones are extremely rare. City populations  – a few huge cities, many small towns (Zipf’s law). Word frequencies  – a few words used a lot, most words used rarely. Wealth distribution  – a small number of very rich people, many with average incomes. Internet network connections  – a few websites have massive links (Google, Facebook), most have few. Volcano eruption sizes  – many tiny eruptions, very few massive ones. Forest fire sizes  – lots of small fires, few catastrophic ones. Stock market price changes  – most changes are small, rare crashes are huge. File sizes on the internet  – many small files, a few extremely large ones. War or conflict casualty sizes  – many small conflicts, few very large ones. Systems of Power law But how can we understand and apply this to our mindfulness practise. Mind is a complex system. I would say even more than the ChatGPT nowdays. Generally the outcomes we see, daily are the result of underlying thoughts. But throught the day, there will be average thoughts. Yet, what you consider average without investigation, can be the spark to transform entire future, for you and others around you. A tiny observation can create enourmous impact of your understanding of big questions. Big questions , which are labelled as insane to answer by some experts of philosophy, without proper investigation of phenomena of life. Avalanche - Lucas Leonel As you are still reading this I consider you are a mindfulness enthusiast thinking. And you value the truth more than anyone else. So, why are you waiting? Let's practice mindfulness, observe our thoughts and reactions, so we can reach some understanding one day. Maybe your mind is already primed for this and even this tiny blogpost can generate a spark for you to investigate more.

As a mindfulness enthusiast, I have been trying to improve my everyday observations. Following traditional and modern teachings. However, as the practice deepens only some of the subtle features come into play. One such concept is attitude. Here I will attempt to describe what I understand about attitude in mindfulness practice. Understanding before attitude. I am a strong believer in the fact that attitude matters in everything we do, if anything better than attitude is the understanding itself. Imagine a surgeon who cut open a human being, to operate a tumor. His intension is to save the patients life. However, that is different from a criminal who dance with a knife in front of the shop owner. If he cut, he is trying to kill. In life, even if you fail, the intension or attitude matters. Even if you have a bad outcome for your actions, that is fine as long as there is correct attitude. This is the common meaning to the life. Just imagine implications of this kind of attitude. Two friends Imagine two friends, trying to be rich. One is trying to get there fast, by brewing every ounce of energy from his employees. And the other one is doing the same, but he genuinely believes he is serving others by getting rich, so along the way, he does a slow progress, by letting his employees also grow under the circumstances. Who would you think will end up rich and stay rich? You might say, the first or the second. But it is unlikely we can tell exactly at this point as, this is just two broad scenarios. There are so many specifics that matter. As an example, the first one happened to hire a good CEO, meantime the second one failed to do that. Obviously things will change then. But we can ask a different question. Having won or failed at the end of 20 years whom you think will be happy? And content? If we consider happiness, a pleasure, obviously the one who got rich would be more happy. But if you consider being content, I can see the second person has more chance to reach peace even if he failed. If the first one failed his endeavor, he would be more dissatisfied as his path did not provide any wins, relative to his values. I can see we can argue that the first person would also have equal chance of being happy as he did not have those, other objective of serving the people in his mind. As long as he had been true to himself, [if he does know what is true and false not by societies norms, but as defined by nature.] Can both of them be wrong? if there is another dimension, that a truth lies outside their journeys to happiness? This is what we try to examine with mindfulness. Should we enjoy this moment, or watch the Joy? Lets get back to attitude in mindfulness practice. Let's get back with our mindfulness discussion. When we do practice mindfulness, we can see it is not just about watching our minds and body. The way I understand it is whenever I experience something my mind creates an automatic reaction to that object, whatever it is. I may be looking at a sunset , and the mind's reaction is something pleasurable. When I look at a plastic bottle on the beach , mind's reaction is some disgust. Similarly for each an every observation, mind creates an automatic reaction. This is kind of System 1 described in the book "Thinking fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman. The attitude, that we should be having is neutrality, as non of these observations are inherently good or bad. It is absurd trying to teach the mind that each and every sensation, observation is neutral. So, how can we have the correct attitude of neutrality, when the mind is automatically programmed to judge everything? It is by looking at the current attitude. If you just look at the whatever attitude and notice this long enough, you will see it disappear. And the correct attitude of neutrality will come eventually. It is not by force. But by understanding. As, if we try to force things, soon the effort will exhaust us and we would not be able to do mindfulness as long as we need to. This is my initial understanding, and I wrote it down as soon as I realized it. I am sure you may have different opinion on this. Please comment.

I'm a Spring I am a spring. Born In the hearts of a tropical rain forest, which harvest the true spirits of our ancestors. I was born in July.. between two Rocks in a misty mountain. Since the day I came to life I flow. Fed by other springs, Brooks and rain water. Flowing is my way of life. Its natural, its effortless, its a song sung in different tones. But essential to everything is I do not know why I flow like this, never figured out, never had time. In times of rain I flow faster, thicker, fatter, louder. These are the times of abundance. I do not feel the need to spare the bushes, or save the rocks. So I pound them all with all of my might. Until I rip off a Bush and make a muddy mess of myself. Yet o'I do not know why or why not. Its just a reaction within myself to the rain. You can blame the clouds for that, not me. Flow Other times when it's drought, I dry up. Sometimes just completely stop flowing. Just stagnate here and there I revisit old pools along the way. I spend hours and hours just reflecting the cloudless blue sky. Thinking. Watching the fish struggling to survive in the bottom of the pool. Then I am silent. Silent during the night as well as the day. Nobody even notice me whether I live or not. Times to reflect. Times to think about life. Time to think about nature which I am a part of. I'm a Stream Then there are in betweens. Where nothing specific happens. I just flow with moderate amount of water. Not because someone told me to, not because I just want to. Just because that is the life of a stream. Yes I do nourish all the flora and funa. Yes it's true I provide lifeline to all the birds wild deers and schools of colorful fish. But neither I have a choice, nor I have a will in doing so. Now, do not get me wrong, that I am non living. Just like you I can prove I am living. I move, every moment to moment I move. Down the stream, sideways I move just like a real human being. I'm a River Yes I grow, when it rains I grow just like a manhatton man living by McDonald's outlet. At times of drought I shrink. Just like a skeleton of a human being in saharan desert. I shrink. Yes I do die. Eventually, when the forest that feeds me with water becomes a desert In thousand years. Fortunately you will not be there to see me die as you will cry, as that will be the dooms day of many of animals, but I won't shed a tear. Through the rocks Yes I am bounded and limited by the forces of nature. I'm glued to the earth by gravity. Just like you are unable to lift off from earth without a force. I am unable to lift off unless thrown downhill a cliff to splash into a waterfall. Im sure you will also splash into pieces, if thrown 100meters down a cliff. Making a majestic waterfall, and never to be recreated. I'm not happy, or sad, I do not cry. I do not take pride in being a river. I do not feel cold when I freeze in winter, or be warm when I melt in the spring. Its never my intension to be this or that. And do not think it is better in spring than in winter. What is the point. I'm just the nature. Whatever the human values are not guiding complex decision making in my world. I just simply follow the rules of nature. Day in an out. Best thing is I do not have to worry about the past. Or worry about a future that did not come. For me just flowing is enough. How about you? Are you a river?

Hobbies I saw a post recently on twitter of someone who collected colorful rocks. She claimed it served no purpose. Yet there was a picture of a large collection of equally sized rocks ranging colors from greens yellows orange to red. The picture itself served a purpose. And it triggered to write this article. How can she claim it served no purpose, in my mind it did. Maybe it brought some satisfaction and peace to her mind. Hobby As I can see this is not only inherent to such actions. Most of the hobbies serve no purpose other than being inherently satisfying to the person who is doing it. It may be collecting feathers, composing poems or riding bicycle. On a superficial level there is no immediate benifit. Here in this blog we go one step further as always. That is the objective anyway. Think anything thoroughly enough until we find the bottom of it. So we can arrive at the truth one day. Let's ask the question again. Does anything you do today going to serve any purpose? Is there a purpose in doing anything? Yes! There is. You must be insane if you answered no. If you are building a bridge it serves purpose for thousands to cross it. If you are writing a novel it will entertain thousands of people. If you are cooking, it will feed your family. There is apparent purpose for everything we do. Even mediocre tasks like collecting rocks, and digging a tunnel in nowhere serves a purpose. That's why we do it. But here is a thought. Whatever you do serves the purpose only as long as human consciousness is prevalent on earth. Death Imagine after death. Anything which you have done for the purpose of yourself would not have effect on you, after your death. It might still serve some purpose to those who are living. Maybe even 10000 years if you manage to build something which last that long. Definitely it's not build from bread and butter. Perhaps some knowledge written on paper or carved on the walls of your tomb. It's upto you if you would like to make a legened of it. But I can warn you it will only serve any purpose to you only as long as you live. Is there a purpose in anything? Here we can widen our imagination more. Let's stretch our time horizon a billion years into the earth's future. If elon musk did not succeed, or even if we did succeed to make ourselves multiplanatory, most likely there would be no humans at that time. Like dinosaurs. Likely we are long vanished from earth. Relative to that future, which is most likely inevitable, is there any purpose what you are doing today? Even if you build something which lasts a million years, there would be no use for the future. So, this makes us know what is the essential component in anything which serves a purpose. I can summarise this into a one sentence. If something is not immortal, it doesn't serve any purpose in the infinite timescale of the universe. Just some candy Which means, things which decay have no true purpose which lasts. So the real question we should ask ourselves in life is, is there something which never decay? Is it gold? Is it money? Is it relationships? Is it happiness? Is it peace? If you find any of these interesting candidates, weight them against an infinite timescale even beyond yourself. You will arrive at a conclusion if you are wise enough to see. Now here is an interesting thought. Consider the truth that you learned by reading this and weight it against the same infinite timescale. What do you understand?

Lately I have been thinking a lot about truth. I have seen read and followed a lot of truth seekers in this life. Naturally as I have been born into a truth seeking religion. Obviously without my choice, but it has shaped me ahead of many others in the world who would not come across this unless they were driven by a natural instinct to know why to the every question they try to solve. But having observed many truth seekers and looking at myself I see there is a monetary value to the truth. But only in specific situations. Seeking truth Inherent value of truth. Truth has no inherent value. Let's say you are a leader of a jungle tribe. And having lived in the jungle, with your ancestors you know some truths about the jungle. You know every stream and spring where water can be found. You know where tigers roam at night, and you know where to find which medicine when someone falls ill. Let's look at one specific truth. Having to know all the water sources is a truth for yourself. It doesn't have an inherent value, as long as there is plenty of rain, everyone in your tribe has easy access to water. But when a drought hits your part of the country, everyone will be looking for water, and your truth will be valued as life. When the need arises you can even monetise your truth. Without giving them directions to the water source, you can start selling water. And even a little bit of marketing would make you popular even among other tribes. Wisdom Inherent value of truth is nill. And only the one who have seen the truth themselves would know this. For everyone else truth can have an enormous value to a negative value. Depending on their own judgement. I can give you some evidence for this. Evidence for the monetary value of truth. If there is no monetary value for truth, there would never be churches so big. In midevial times, in every village there was a church and it was one of the biggest buildings in the town. Mostly built by devotees with their hard earned money as for them truth has an enormous value. They haven't reached it. Did anyone bothered to tell them that truth has no inherent value? Once you achieved it the seeking stops and it loses all the value? What's true about church, is true about temples, kovils and thousands of shrines. I'm not saying being religious is bad and you should stop truth seeking. It's the opposite. I'm trying to tell you that what you are seeking is valuable then it's likely you will end up in some illusion, not the truth. And the opposite is also true. Path Easy path to the truth. The easy way to the truth is to seek the valuelessness of our experience. If you give enough time for your mind to understand the valuelessness of things you will end up in a truth which is unshakable. If I start to describe this truth as a thing, or objectify it as God, nirvana or peace, you will fall into the same trap. The value seeking mind will start to create paths and journeys without investigating the phenomena of mind. In summary. Truth has nill value Monetary value of truth arises when you seek it. Easy path to the truth is in seeking the valuelessness of experience. This blog is valueless to anyone with truth, but for everyone without, opposite is true

Ever since my existance have been modeled by the universe, I wanted. It started with simple things, like wanting to be hunger free, wanting to be warm. Wanting to be felt nice wrapped in warm cloths. And it was hard to figure out wantings at first, as there were no words. Wanting existed in its pure form, just as a wanting. Desires But as a neonate becomes a toddler, wantings started to appear with names. Wanting of mother, and father. As that would create fullfilment of many other unknown wantings. Wanting to walk, not to fall. Wanting to see colorful things. Wanting to taste everything from doorbells to hair. Wanting to pee and poop and play. Evolution of wantings. Gradually wantings started to shape themselves, with labels. Cakes, sweets, mangoes, puddings and pies. Lullabies, songs, melodies music and sermons. Feathers, tickles, smooth moisturised touch. And I could separae tastes of a dozon different types of coffees, and make preferences along with it. While all these weaved tapastries covered the core wanting, it started to be difficult to figure out where everything comes from. Instead of tackling wantings at its origin, The man started to chase after every end game. Wanting to be the first in a class of 30, to excel in the university, to win a field medal in mathematics or an olympic Gold in 100m dash. Wanting to be recognised by a million people on instagram and to become a billionaire. And it did not stop there. When it is too difficult, confusing and complex, the mind started to wonder into finding out peace. Persue meanings, and paths to heaven. Even wanting the death to be pleasent rewarding experience. Chasing views of nature, doubting the experience. I am not sure this is the journey of every human being. I see some stuck in different stages. I see some struggle with tastes, they cannot stop their wantings to eat, until they become diabetics and lose it anyway. Some cannot stop building muscles, until they become covered with wrinkes anyway. Wanting peace I see some struggle with equations, wanting to crack them before the next genious does it without a struggle. Some, want to row a boat. Drive an expensive car, and dine in a five star restaurant. The same man figure out the wantings doesn't stop there, he gives up everything to charity and seek a path to peace, just to be lost in an illusionary mental status in the middle of nowhere. I see that wantings which did not stop in a luxurious bed on a five star hotel would not magically end in a forest monastery, so they start building a kitchen in the jungle, this time with haystacks. Wanting to get rid of wantings. The mind which is wanting is the problem. The problem which should disspear, when identified. Not solved. So, now I just wait looking at my wantings. Right now it wants, the raining to stop and this article to be completed. What do you want right now? Let's do some mindfulness practise on our wantings.

Problems of Life Life is an amazing phenomena. When I observe it from a chair, on a Saturday morning I see the way we used to think about life have changed over the years. Throughout my school years and even during Higher education we were taught about problem solving. As an example consider long division. A simple mathematical concept. When we learn how to do in steps, we can apply this over and over again to come at answer to specific problem of division. This is a common way of solving problems. Let the mind sink in life Our whole system of knowlege is build up on these kind of problems. However this pattern is not just specific to mathematics. Imagine you want to change break pads of your car. You look at a youtube video which gives you sequential steps of doing this, even if it is not your model of the car, given enough time and practise you will eventually will be able to change it on your own. After that you can apply this knowledge as long as necessary. Baking a Banana Cake Consider a banana cake. If you want to make a banana cake for your kids, you can download a recipe with a list of steps. If you are not an idiot atleast you will be able to bake a reasonably ok banana cake. As you can see this is how we solve most of our problems. Sometimes these are not easily solvable. Yet most of them need thousands of steps. This brings us to the philospy of Prescriptions. Consider following list. How to become a pilot, or a train operator. How to use a backhoe to dig up a bunker in your backyard. How to scare away a Greasley Bear. How to treat prostate cancer How to write an article for a news paper. How to be a rich person. How to spend all your money in one week How to draw an apple How to solve 3n+1 question How to meditate How to be mindful How to draw an apple Philosophy of prescriptions Some problems in life have no specific answers, nobody can give you sequential steps. Consider the problem of becoming rich. I can write a book about this, starting from human values ending with How to build a skyscraper. Yet when it comes to applying, individual have to figure it out themselves. As we are stuck in different times, different places in different realities. Even if you succeed and then try to give advice to another person, most likely they will not be able to do it themselves, as the world is very dynamic. Big questions Now, there are specific questions that philosophy student is interested in. In my opinion everyone should be interested in these questions as these are at heart of our existance. Questions like "who am I?" "What is my purpose in life?" "What is the meaning of life?" "What is living?" "What happens after death?" If you look at philosophical literature, there are countless people who have written and tackled these questions. And written prescriptions how they arrived at answers. Consider any religious leader, philosopher. When we read and learn their teachings we tend to think that it is true. And we agree with them even before we try their paths. But for these big questions, what we need to do is figure out ourselves. Unless we do that we would never be able to reach eternal happiness and peace. Banana cake Let's go back to our Banana cake. Let's say you want a banana cake. (Eternal peace @ heven) . You download the prescription from God and think. Ah this is true. Banana cake made from this recipe is tasty. But you never even bake a banana cake. Imagine you started making the cake. And find out you cake was too sugary for your taste. Do you blame the recipe? No because the same cake is perfect for some other person. You adjust and learn yourself and understand what is wrong with the recipe. Maybe you are better off with an apple pie. As you can see the problem is not with the prescription. It is coming to conclusions even before you start following it. This is why, if you don't know answers that becomes the correct answer for progress. Anyone who behave like they have arrived are only fooled by their own ego.

I was having a discussion with my friend the other day about reading, in general. I told him that I no longer enjoy a novel, like I used to do in earlier days. I enjoy reading non fiction, as it creates more value to my life, anything from mindfulness, biology to geology, even little bit of mathematics, help me model a new world. On the other hand my dear old friend still loves reading novels. He deeply thought about what said and agreed that novels bring less value to life. But, that was irrelevent, as values are purely relative to ones own consciousness, novels make no sense only when messured in my yard of messure. So, coming to conclusion that novels are not valueble is totally not helping. We agreed to disagree on our values and that was a correct choice. Books, Why you should read them? Why you should read books? Common answers But have you ever thought about it before? Have you ever thought why you should read a book? Let's list some of the answers we can come across if we put the question in front of 1000 people sample. Why you should read books? 1. **Improves your focus and concentration** Reading trains your brain to stay with one task without distraction. 2. **Expands your knowledge** Every book teaches you something new — ideas, facts, perspectives. 3. **Builds a stronger vocabulary** You naturally learn new words and improve communication. 4. **Boosts creativity** Books spark imagination and help you think in new, original ways. 5. **Reduces stress** Reading slows your mind and gives you a mental escape. 6. **Improves emotional intelligence** Stories help you understand people, feelings, and relationships better. 7. **Strengthens memory** Following plots, characters, and concepts exercises your memory. 8. **Enhances critical thinking** Books make you analyse situations, arguments, and decisions more clearly. 9. **Helps you become a better writer** You subconsciously absorb structure, grammar, and style. 10. **Builds discipline and a growth mindset** Consistent reading develops patience, routine, and self-improvement habits. Of course this is a chatGPT generated list of 10 things. However we can say these are the common reasons why anyone would read a book. Or even read anything for that matter. Think about why you are reading this article now? You are looking for something right? Entertainment? Spark of knowledge? Some understanding about life? But here is what I think about reading.. Why you should read books expecting nothing? Take a little time to think All of the above and thousand others which you can come up are wrong reasons for reading a book. Infact the moment you are expecting something by reading a book you are not going to get it. As no any book is giving you everything you need to know. And remember this is just a metophor. You can still enjoy reading a novel. That is not the point. The point is when you have this pre-determined outcome of your reading, you are going to create a bar-for your own book, and after reading the novel either it will be more and less valueble than you initially thought and this will either create happiness or dissapointment. So if you want to avoid dissapointed reading books, do not expect anything from your reading, before you read. But, here is another thought after you read your book, it doesn't matter it is good or bad as you have already read the book. Expecting nothing from life - mindfulness lesson. Now, lets compare this with our lives. Everything we do in our lives we expect something. But, isn't it the wrong reasons? Just like reading a book expecting something, we go to the school to get good education, but not everyone gets it. We go to a new job expecting happiness and more money -> not everyone gets it. We go to the grocery shop to buy cheap stuff, not everything is cheap. If you want to stop disspointing yourself in life, there is one way to do that and you can do it today. Just now. Stop expecting your life would improve after reading this article. As, even after thousands of these articles you would still feel the same. Just to let you know this is my 531 such article. And the first one that I am quite sure I do not expect anything from it.