Time

Time is so essential to our existence, we usually overlook it.

Dogen watching the moon.

Here I will present an interesting viewpoint from Zen-Buddhism. Dogen writes about this in his book Shobogenzo. What follows is my interpretation of it.

Time can be seen as fundamental to reality. Everything can only appear as moments in time. Time is what we observe as the pattern with which the present moment changes.

If everything exist, it exist as moments in time. Infinite possibilities are unfolding as a seamless band of individual moments in conscious experiences. This band we call time.

Interestingly, time itself only exists as a concept. The only real thing about time is the everlasting moment. Time is never experienced outside of now. The concepts of past and future emerge as functions of our minds, always in the now.

Truth is only found now. There are all kinds of different experiences happening in the now. One day there will be enlightenment happening in the now, where the human concept of individuality is seen through and is replaced by more genuine understanding of being. On the other hand, there are many moments, in which the flow of events has no knowledge about it's own nature. This is the ordinary human experience.

Time after enlightenment. After enlightenment, time is seen for what it truly is. The change of events in the moment are still going to occur, but the awareness will always stay in the now. Concepts of future events are recognized as such. Plans can still be made and memories are still useful and nice. But the present moment will no longer appear as a tiny sliver of time, in between the seemingly infinite past and future. Instead it will be the eternal now that it actually is. Time being a property of what happens in it.

There is only being-time. All time occurs as moments of being. Nothing exists outside of it. Time both encapsulates all of existence and does not exist at the same time. This is one of the paradoxes of reality.

Win-Win-Win Decisions - From The Perspective of Spiral Dynamics

When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you. - Lao Tzu

We know Win-Win-Situations. When we make a business deal or we buy something, it usually is a Win-Win-Deal. We get what we want and the other party gets what it wants too.

We buy something because it is more efficient for us than if we would have made it ourselves. We benefit from efficient mass production. The company usually offers the product at a price where they make a profit too. A classical Win-Win-Situation.

The result of our highest wisdom?

From the theory of Spiral Dynamics we know that, in order to deal with future problems and to be successful in the long-run, we have to consider the third "Win". What is the third "Win"?

In the context of business, the third "Win" emerges when at least the whole industry benefits or better yet, the whole economy. But really, the third Win represents a higher level of consideration. It means we have to take into account a larger picture than the immediate people that are involved in the decision. In the long-term, in order to fulfill this third "Win", we will have to take into account the impact on the largest system we can think of. The ecosystem of the earth that supports our very existence.

No longer can we overlook the negative impacts of egotistical Win-Win decisions of the past. To enable the sustainable long-term success of a company, decision-makers will have to take into account the environment that they unquestionably depend on. If we want to develop a society and an economy that is able to support future generations, taking the biggest view possible is necessary.

Otherwise we will have to attribute our failure to survive to our unwillingness to embrace human-psychosocial development past the point of adolescence where we are still unconsciously living from a state of avoiding basic fears and work to compensate for our lack of safety. Which is, at it's core, caused by our false believe in a separated, illusory ego that needs to be defended at all cost to cover up it's inherent emptiness.

One must be deeply aware of the impermanence of the world.  

- Dogen

Essential Spiritual Practice: Zazen

According to the Shobogenzo, which is the best resource of Zen-Buddhism, the practice of Zazen is the only real practice that is required to achieve the realization of truth. While we are sitting in the clear awareness in an upright position, we are cultivating the qualities of the buddha-mind or no-mind. The practice is simple yet effective. You sit with your legs crossed or with your feet under your butt. In both of these positions the spine stays straight without muscular contraction. These positions become comfortable for extended periods of time after the first few weeks.

Zazen is the only essential spiritual practice.

Then the whole practice is to remain as awareness, which is aware of itself. You could accompany this being aware with the question: "What am I?". This question emphasizes the empty nature of awareness and denies our commonly held believe that we know who we are, when in fact our true self has none of the qualities we attribute to our self.

Sitting in Zazen is therefore an exercise of remaining aware of the nothingness that it is. Over time this will increase our capacity to stay in this clear state of mind and detachment naturally develops. A detachment from the false self which we identify with.

Even though this practice sounds simple, it has many nuances and should be evaluated and discussed regularly with a teacher to avoid the various traps of wrong practice. For example, it is easily possible to do ones daily practice in a state of day-dreaming, where one is almost entirely absorbed in thoughts about ones life. Which actually achieves the opposite of what Zazen practice is about.

To start the practice of Zazen it can be helpful to choose an object in ones experiences to focus on. This will train the ability to concentrate without interruption for extended periods of time. In my own practice I have found constant objects, like sensations to be best to develop this concentration. I start out every meditation practice with about 10 minutes of concentration on the sensation of my hands which lie on top of each other in my lap. This concentration requires effort and silences the mind. When I feel that my concentration has deepened and lengthened, I shift over to concentration on awareness without objects. Remaining aware as awareness of itself, as mentioned in the beginning.

I wish you much success with your own meditation practice. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments, or book a Consultation with me, if you want to discuss your progress in detail.

Create your own best life

This is a list of a few concepts and action-steps that I have found to be helpful for personal development. This list has developed in my journal over time and is likely to change and grow in the future. But at this point in time is is worthwhile to share. Enjoy, adjust and implement!

Becoming your own success story is hard.

First, an example for why we should engage in continuous improvement and personal development:

• See yourself as the boss and the employee of your own life
• and then consider yourself to currently be the worst of both: you tell yourself strictly what to do but you never do it, right?
• how can you become a good boss and employee?
• by designing a negotiation-process for continuous improvement for yourself
• strive for continuous but step-by-step improvement
• Develop a profound routine:
• why? better to have a plan than to drift aimlessly through your life
• work on improving your routine over time, test different styles and see what works for you
• get up every day at the same time, even on weekends (more energy through solid circadian rhythm)
• do one hour of meditation daily. Suggestion: 40min in the morning and 20-30min in the evening
• pick the times when you work, when you exercise, when you study
• remind yourself every evening before going to bed what you are thankful for that happened that day. Maybe start a journal.
• set weekly goals of new things and challenges you want to do.
• Set a certain amount of time that you dedicate towards caring for your relationships
• Live your life as though you are already the version of yourself that you want to become
• Visualize daily, where you want to go and which goals you want to achieve
• Goals need to be kept alive. Ever wonder why you tend to forget about your motivation behind your goals? They die without constant reminders that keep you on track.
• Acting the way you want to become is the only way to get there. Change is inevitable.
• let your journey for personal development be guided by the best version of yourself
• constantly remind yourself of how you would think and act if you would already be that person and then, slowly over time, you will develop those habits and skills.
• In Buddhism they teach that you become free by letting go of your attachments
• Giving up materialistic possessions and attachments is only one side though
• Giving up attachments to who you currently are is the other side
• That means having no attachments to your current state of being because a lack of freedom is largely a conceptual limitation
• That is a tricky thing to do, because changing the self feels like letting parts of yourself die
• Seek out your errors
• Confront them in a way that does not crush you
• ask people of their opinion and listen with a non-judgmental, open mind
• When you feel fear, see it as an opportunity for growth
• Fear is the imaginary border off your comfort-zone, behind which, growth-opportunities lie
• Beyond that, the self imagines danger. Which feels very real, even though it usually is not

Why Conscious Exploration Entails Suffering

"The magnitude of the benefits of spiritual and personal development are equal to the suffering it causes."

This is the beauty of personal development. You become free to choose the degree of your happiness. If you are not yet fully present and content with existence, you are not enlightened yet. Than you know you have not yet gone through enough spiritual suffering. The suffering on the spiritual path usually comes up during meditation as distractions in the form of memories of your life.

In meditation you want to still the mind and turn awareness in on itself.

Step by step you are discovering that non of those things were ever actually you. You continuously detach from the identification with the illusory self. That means to dis-identify with what you previously thought was you. That is painful as it can feel like you are step by step dying. But at the end of that process or in an instant you will realize your true self and die into the whole of existence.

That process has an in-flexion point, where the emptiness inside turns into all of existence. A realization will happen where you see that you are in fact larger than the entire universe. But until then, the spiritual journey can feel painful, because it is a process of continually letting go of false believes, which make up who you currently think you are.

How can you enjoy this process of self discovery, if it entails so much suffering? 

Because suffering is the byproduct of discovering your own delusions, that are actually the root cause of your suffering. A deep interest in the truth will over-shine the falling away of attachments to the illusory self. Pulling out the illusions reveals their full depth. It will reveal to you how you are pushed around by their emotional force.

But, because delusion is what the false self is at it's core, discovering those very deep truth is a painful process of self-transformation. The self wants to remain as it is. You right there, you want to maintain the status quo of who you are. Revealing the delusions in yourself is like cutting away parts of yourself, with the intention to discover that you never were those parts to begin with. Or rather that you never were those parts exclusively. Finally you will come to understand that your illusory self is part of the mind of god, which is the unchanging ever present emptiness that you are. 

The Irony of Reasoning

The irony of reasoning is hidden in its own blindspots. Every line of reasoning has its origin in faith.

Maybe you remember the time when you were a child and it seemed appropriate to always continue to ask "why?" no matter the reason your parents told you.

I remember having that period in my childhood, where I wouldn't spot asking why and probably driving my parents crazy. I just never stopped asking for a deeper meaning and why things are the way they are. But at some point we stop and usually settle for some answer.
An answer that usually explains how some event is caused by some other thing.

To be practical we have to stop at some point of abstraction that is appropriate for the situation. We don't dig deeper. In our daily life, we usually settle for very shallow answers.

We settle for one or two levels of reason. If it fits into our model of the world, we are happy with the answer. Therefore reasoning is rarely practiced consistently to the deepest levels and is instead based on faith. One thing is caused by another and that is enough to satisfy our curiosity. But what is the consequence of this? 

I suppose that we hide deeper, uncomfortable truth about reality from us. To be a philosopher in the truest sense of the word means to be committed to the truth on a deep level. To love truth for it's own sake. To be a philosopher also means to be an advocate of reasoning, but not only at the shallow levels of daily discussions. Exercising it on the deepest levels is instead the way to apply reasoning in order to obtain true insights. 

This is self-inquiry. The exercise of applying curiosity and reasoning to one's own self. This can lead to interesting experiences and I find it worth exploring.

The Survival of the Mind

Psychological survival has become more important than physical survival and is the reason for most things we do. 

Modern times make it harder to become enlightened. Distractions are plentiful.

This is the hypothesis we are going to explore in this article and discover why survival is still the driving force behind most of our actions. Consumption, travel, entertainment and most forms of distractions beyond that which is demanded by physical survival is a direct extension of this drive to survive. Our need to survive indeed extends beyond securing physical survival. You might wonder what I mean by this and why this is the case.

If we dig deeper into the nature of reality, we find that all experience is an illusion. Including our physical body and the sense of separation between us and the world. By definition an illusion needs to employ some mechanism by which it becomes invisible to the one who is deceived. We could think of this illusion as a metaphysical entity with it's own drive to survive. In eastern traditions this illusion is called ego and is the center of our being. We are literally deceiving ourselves into being. How marvelous is that?

In our modern world, most work and most activities are far removed from immediate survival. And even though we have to earn money to survive, this is only partially true. Much of what we work for is not contributing to this end directly. Only to the degree that it feeds our own self-deception. 

But with that deception comes also a lot of trouble, suffering and the covering up of Truth. This illusion has an easier time to maintain itself when we are distracted of course. When we are not even asking any suspicious questions. When we are so caught up in what life presents us with that we are not bothered to take a closer look or become serious about discovering Truth for ourselves. From this point of view, all action could be considered distraction. There is nothing wrong with that, but we have to be aware that is also the root of all suffering in the world. With a firm realization of Truth there is no suffering. Fully realized beings perceive all experiences of life as the perfect manifestation of the infinite nature of reality.

To solve this issue I recommend following the practice of all-day-awareness. Training the mind to be fully present in every moment. With the full spectrum of sensory experience, without slipping into conceptualization and thoughts our mind is constantly coming up with. Over time this will quiet the mind and facilitate the state of no-mind. A state where the joyous nature of reality shines through in every moment. Beware though, there will be no you anymore. But then, you could say, there was no you to begin with. The veil of illusion will have been lifted.

Characteristics of a Total Illusion

In this article, we are going to explore the psychological process of an Illusion. We will discover how Self-Deception works in every one of us and how it arises from deep underlying mechanisms that are interconnected with reality itself.
With that understanding we will be able to make the connection to spirituality and what are the difficulties that make true enlightenment so rare.
And in the end, we will see why this is ultimately a good thing and how we can use this knowledge to our advantage.

The deception in video games

Let's take a look at the shallow illusion of video games. This technology offers an experience that many of us today can relate to. To discover the characteristics of a total illusion we will first have to define what makes an illusion shallow and obvious. The historic development of video games reveals that the illusion becomes more realistic the closer it is to what we are used to experiencing in real life.

Game designers work very hard at giving characters more life-like movements and the overall behaviour of real humans.

It is also easy for us to imagine that at one point in the future video games will have surpassed the resolution of our senses, eventually becoming indistinguishable from our real sensory experiences.

So what else would it take to make us believe in the illusion? If we might join with all of our senses into such a game of the future we still bring with us our memories. From that, we can conclude that a total deception must also include our own memories besides a perfectly simulated sensory experience.

If we ask what makes video games so popular, we reveal another interesting aspect of psychology. What benefit do we get from spending our time in those virtual realities while obviously achieving nothing of value in "real" life?
Their appeal may lie in their ability to trigger our reward centres without requiring exertion of physical effort. They reward/cost relationship is high.

On another level they have become so good at presenting a life-like scenario that some people may be able to completely forget about their life. Usually only for a limited amount of time though.
An additional aspect of the illusion of video games is their storytelling. Great games not only have great graphics but also a great story. Some goals are presented to the player that seems to be of value to achieve within the game world. The background of the characters become ever more complex. For the players to identify with them even more, in-game decision influence the development of the story and it's outcome.

If all these aspects seem to you as representative of real life, than now you can contemplate the difference between an obvious and a total deception. You may want to ask yourself the question: What is missing in these perfect game scenarios that we can still distinguish them reality? 

Self-Deception

In order to make the illusion whole and difficult to uncover, all of our own being must be included in it. Which, again, doesn't mean that this is a bad thing. It just means that reality does not work the way that materialism makes us believe. The very mechanism by which reality comes into being is through an illusion. That is how it works. So in a sense, we could also say that it is real. Just not in the way we previously believed.

In order for the self-deception to be completely convincing, our own thought process is part of it. If you tend to disagree with me here, then ask yourself, what are you listening to, when trying to find out about the illusion? The answer is likely, that you rely on your own reasoning and your own thoughts. But beware that you have no "objective" background against which you could compare your thoughts and then say that they match reality.

This is why waking up is so tricky. It is a long and difficult process to reveal all the self-deceptions of the ego. But the reward is incomparable joy and bliss that exceeds all human expectations.

Why would we lie to ourselves?

I want you to think about a past experience when you lied. What made you use a lie in that situation?
It's purpose was likely to serve you in some way. You felt threatened by something and lying seemed to be a solution to avoid that thread. So it served you or your agenda.

So why would we deceive ourselves?
First, who is deceiving who if the individual we thought we are does not exist? We could answer, that only god exists and therefore god is deceiving himself.

Similar to the Movie "The Game", we might say God became bored with resting in it's own infinite existence and wanted to feel what it is like to be a part instead of the whole. To have a limited existence and feel what it is like to identify with a part of himself.
So the ego came into existence and is believed to be limited to the human body. That very thing, the ego, must be deluded in order to become a limited thing when in reality there is only one infinite whole. If that thing wants to survive, it has to feed the lie and keep deluding itself to stay alive... 

The Philosophy of "To Have or to Be" by Erich Fromm

How is it possible that some people in our society feel an emptiness inside of them? Or a frustration with their life circumstances? That some are not happy?
Most of us don't have to struggle for survival. We are blessed to live in a rich world in which we have access to great experiences, technology we never had before and own better products than even the richest people could dream of only 100 years ago.

"To Have or to Be" by Erich Fromm

can give us insight into why that is.

On one level of abstraction, all experiences, whether through the use of some product or through a relationship with another person, are inherently unable to satisfy our deepest desire for unity and happiness.

Through a life-long conditioning we have been programmed to seek experiences to elicit the emotions we like and numb the ones we want o avoid. This misconception leaves us our ability to Be underdeveloped. While some people are naturally more present and in the moment, others are constantly caught up in mental stories, desires, fears and hopes. And therefore living disconnected from the only thing that is actually true. Direct experience. That doesn't mean, thoughts are not part of direct experience, but giving too much meaning to the realm of thought and concept can leave our ability to be present underdeveloped.

What does it mean to Be? 

Does that mean you have to become a monk and leave your life behind? No, that's a complete misunderstanding of what being present means.
Living in the Now, means to become a super-conductor for your experience. It means to grow your consciousness of all aspects of human experience. Including all of the negative emotions and experiences. Being completely present in each and every Moment without resistance is the ultimate goal. Life will then have become a seem less flow of experience in which nothing is inherently good or bad. No pain without resistance.

All day awareness

is the habit I have picked up years ago. The gaps in my ability to experience the richness of life has been growing over the years. Slowly but steadily. It is a skill. That sill, over time, lead to deep enlightenment experiences. Concepts about yourself and the world are slowly starting to fall away. They move from the center of your attention to the edges. And with this steady increase in consciousness and presence, a natural feeling of calmness and happiness seems to arise. Without it being the primary goal.
Setting long-term goal can and will still be part of your overall existence. But your happiness is no longer outcome dependent. Being is the state from which you can truly fulfill your Life-purpose. Indepence from outcome will become your new definition of freedom.

"To Have or to Be" will no longer be the question

At a certain level of consciousness you will clearly see that those are two different things. Whereas you were chasing waves before, you now have become the water. Waves and changes in what is going with the water are still nice, but can't fundamentally change what water is. So is happiness a quality that is on a fundamental level independent of any experience.

Which doesn't mean that your current manifestation as a human being doesn't have certain needs. In fact, those basic needs will have to be satisfied before your mind will even be able to transcend them and open up for higher States of consciousness. The model of Maslows hierarchy of needs still applies.

How to do a prolonged water fast

After having fasted for 7 days twice and once for 10 days, I became obviously very interested in the topic and studied the benefits and what it does to the body.
After having read several books on the topic and countless articles on the internet, here is my summary of how to approach water fasting to get the most benefits and make it as easy as possible.

Reines, stilles Wasser ist die Grundlage für das Fasten.

The Preparation:

A preparation is not essential but it can make your fasting experience much easier. The best tip I can give to anyone planning ahead for a water fast, is to eat a very low carbohydrate diet leading up to the fast for at least 5-7 days. During that time the focus should be put on protein intake and low carbohydrate vegetables. This will pull your metabolic shift from carbohydrates to fats ahead and out of the fast. That way you go into the fast somewhat adapted to ketosis. Of course not all cells have switched fuel sources, but wasting of lean muscle mass is greatly reduced in this way.

The water fast:

During the actual fast, it's best to consume only pure water. No salt, potassium or any minerals. Of course, depending on the length of the fast, you have to look out for any symptoms of electrolyte imbalances after a longer time period. But for hunger and the actual purpose of the fast, autophagy and to rest the bowels, you want to consume nothing that could stimulate digestion. Drinking herbal teas actually makes the fast more difficult instead of easier. The flavor signals the body to start the digestion process and it makes you more hungry rather than less.

You can decide if you want to use something like enemas or salt water flushed to "clean" out the bowels at the beginning of a fast. I have done with and without it, and both ways I had no issues. But I have found the salt-water flush to be uncomfortable and you run the risk that it does not work, which leaves you bloated and your electrolytes out of balance. Enemas are the most pleasant way to empty the bowels. If you had a lot of fiber in your last meal, an enema is a good idea, otherwise the stool might become hard over the fast if you were not able to completely pass it during the first days.

If you do the fast because you are sick and want to heal something specifically, you should rest and abstain from heavy exercise. I have found though that at least some outside walking daily is very beneficial. I have also exercised (running) during another fast and found it to be no problem. But you can only do that if you have enough fat mass and do not intend to fast as long as possible.

Drink according to your thirst. I actually found that to be difficult, because most of my life I drank a certain set amount per day. Therefore I have found the optimal amount to be when the urine remains only slightly yellow. This gives the kidneys enough water to deal with the increased elimination.
In case you experience pain in the kidney area, first increase your water intake and if that does not help, you can take half a teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water. This helps the kidneys buffer the acids.

Breaking the fast:

Breaking the fast can be done in several different ways. But in general it is important to start with a reduced amount and eat slowly. Expect to be back to full digestive capacity in about a third of the amount of time that you fasted. If you fasted for three weeks, slowly bring back up food intake over the course of one week.
Most fasting practitioners recommend to start with vegetable and fruit juices. I would only stick with low sugar vegetable juices as the sugar content of fruit juices can overwhelm the body. After vegetable juices I would go to steamed vegetables and whole fruits. After that cooked grains and lastly legumes and nuts.
Depending on which diet you want to follow after the fast, it is also possible to break the fast with high-fat foods. Starting with an avocado or raw nut butters is a good idea.
I have tried both approaches and both of them worked.

Interesting benefit of short 7-10 day fasts:

I have found that the greatest benefit of a 7-10 day fast, in practical terms, is that is completely resets your taste buds. That gives you the opportunity to follow any diet you want after the fast and if you consequently stick to the new diet, you can taste and enjoy foods you didn't like before.
For example, after one of my water fasts I chose to eat the diet recommended by Dr. Esselstyn. A low-fat, whole-foods, plant-based diet, without oil, sugar and salt.
For most people that diet is very difficult to stick to in the beginning. But coming from a water only fast, the taste buds are so sensitive that it is easy to avoid all oil, sugar and salt. You basically compress the adaptation period of about a month down to one week of fasting.