vipassana

LAYING THE GHOSTS TO REST

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The concluding chapter in this serialization of Kicking Dogs.

Asia Times edition (out of print)

Some previous editions
Current edition

Selections from Arno Petty’s Intelligencer and Weekly Gleaner

  • UNIDENTIFIED FALLING OBJECTS. This past week a rogue construction crane dropped a 10-ton steel bucket through the roof of the headquarters of one of this country’s most feared ‘dark influences’. The operator subsequently fled the scene, which no doubt seemed a good idea at the time, given that the building belonged to
… Read more

Second & third thoughts re. scuba wisdom

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This week I’ve been reading On Dialogue, by the late, great physicist-philosopher-neuropsychologist David Bohm. In this book, he presents, among other things, a useful notion he describes as the “proprioception of thought.” I now see that, once again, I’ve reinvented the wheel, though my scuba-wisdom version is pretty primitive compared to Bohm’s.

Never mind that Bill the Mathematician had already asked me how my stop-breathe-think fix differed from counting to ten, an idea that has been around awhile. So here … Read more

Seawater to go, scuba wisdom to live by

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Consider the following.

Terrestrial umbilicals. Scuba divers, e.g., carry bottled atmosphere underwater, taking a bit of our terrestrial environment with us.

Marine umbilicals. Whether on land or under the sea, meanwhile, we always bring along some of the marine environment from which, about 375 million years ago, we vertebrate land-dwellers first emerged. That’s right. We veteran fish-out-of-water types have internalized the seawater that gave us life in the first place. Our blood now comprises part of what is essentially a … Read more

Pay attention: Mindfulness and gravity

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“‘Next,’ Guru Bigoati announced, ‘I want you to practice mindfulness of something else altogether. Wait, not yet! Aw, damn.'”

The fishermen downstream were happy. The fish hadn’t been biting, and curried goat made a nice change.

That’s my caption (though it’s possible I’m channeling Gary Larsen). Hypothesis II: This wasn’t a class in mindfulness meditation; instead, these European ibex commonly graze moss, lichen, and salt on the Cingino dam in Italy.… Read more