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You must have heard about the big bang at some Pont in your life. At least that is the name given to the popular science comedy series "Big bang Theory". According to the theory the universe started to expand from high density and pressure about 13.7 billion years before. And the time scale is so massive that we as humans only stayed on earth only for a fraction of this time. So, what was there before the big bang? According to some views nothing can arise from nothing. It seems an obvious true fact. So, before the big bang it is unlikely that there was nothing. Scientists have shown that even in a vacuum, there are fluctuation of energy which can give rise to particles. Even vacuum may have not been an example for nothingness it is something. So, if there was something what was it before the big bang? What more is there to support the idea that nothing can arise from nothing. Is light nothing? Surely not. Light although it can pass through a vacuum is a form of energy. That is why photosynthesis happens and all the life prevail on the earth. However, from Einstein equation E =mc*2 energy and mass is interchangeable. So, it is rational to believe even light is transferable to mass, as we have already shown the other way of the equation is correct. So, there is a concept that matter can actually be a form of condensed light. So far we have not come to this level of describing matter as condensed light. However, in quantum physics there is phenomena where light in certain states showing properties of particles in 'super particle state' The concept is called Bose-Einstein condensation, and which is not science fiction. So, in conclusion whatever we have seen so far on our planet seems to be interchangeable. They have their own state at time with time they tend to convert into another state, provided unlimited timescale nothing seems to be permanent. Let's look at this problem in a philosophical point of view. Let's imagine there has been some 'X' type of condition with 'Y' properties before the big bang. Obviously when science expands it is likely we would end up identifying such condition existed before the big bang. Now, still there would be our question, this time only that we ask, what was there before 'X'? As you can see, simply answer to one question, will give rise to similar problem, only with some change in the context. Do you feel familiar? It is the chicken and egg problem applied to astronomy. But why? Why can't we get a definite finite answer, which can stop our hunt for information after all? Is there another way to understand these kinds of problems? Let's look at our number line. A number line of all rational numbers (Positive, negative and 0). If you can imagine this, as you can see, it goes from negative infinity to positive infinity. Now if we represent time as a number line and events as numbers, there would be events going back to negative infinity if we take 0 as 'now' time. By definition, infinity is undefined. If this comparison is true, there would be no answer to, 'What was there before the big bang?' type questions. So, there is no correct answer to chicken and egg problem either. It is hard to get our heads wrapped around this type of uncertainty as minds always look for closure. So how can we wrap around this idea, that there is an infinite past, and infinite future? So, what is really there? What is constant? Simple answer to this is there is change. "Change" itself is constant. Thank you for reading: What was there before the big bang? Infinity You may also like to read: Happiness paradox and stoicism Mocked by a rock- geological time

As considered one of the most rare and valuable type of element, Gold has a special place in lives of human beings. Gold places far more important role than you can imagine. If you are using any electronic device, such as a smart phone or a television, it is likely it contains some milligrams of gold in it. So, the next question you might naturally get is "Then there must be a lot of Gold out there" Which is far from truth. It is estimated so far, all the gold we have mined will only fill three Olympic size swimming pools. Yet it seems that there is lot of gold in the world than it is. Gold is one of the materials which is commonly reused. So, although we hear about stories of gold in every human history book, it may be the same gold which travelled through the time, recycled by us. Although the owners have changed, Gold remain the same. When I was a kid, I liked to read about the stories about those brave men who went on a gold hunt into the far west. Some succumbed to the natures forces and others came back triumph. It had made a separate culture around gold in 1850 in California that a millennia later we themed it for our movies and songs. But that gold minded in good old days and even today has a bloody story behind it. So, whatever the Gold neckless we are wearing has likely had soaked in blood at some point. Let us deviate from these sad and mad stories of gold rush. Where do they actually come from? Do they come from Stars? Yes. That is a correct answer. Gold is considered formed when stars bigger than earth gets destroyed. Hence its rarity and value. Of course, value comes with the potential use. As I mentioned before it is used in everywhere other than Jewlery as it has other properties like conductivity and reflectivity etc. But what will happen if we run out of Gold? I would like to see a world without Gold. Will there be less death and destruction? Will there be less stress and containment? Will there be no smart phones, but more friends? Will there be no way for me to convey this message? Of course, there is nothing wrong with Gold. It's not the Gold who is the enemy. It's the human mind which Greeds over it. Thank you for reading: A world without Gold You may also like to read: Mocked by a Rock, Geological Time. The angry monster, Happiness paradox

It all starts with why. What is the most important question to ask? Without further explaining: the answer is "Who am I?" Rest of this article is about explaining why that is the most important question. Before proceeding I recommend you read about "why a question is a missed opportunity to question itself" In summary here I describe a method to question the problems in your life. Without trying to solve them like we were traditionally taught. Sometimes, questioning the question is a good way to think in different view and it leads to root cause of all problems. Which is me. One thing common to all your problems in life is, they are there because of you. It is not a fact which can be taken for granted. If you want to solve all your problems in life, it is rational to solve the problem of yourself. Every problem from basic (hunger thirst etc.) to advanced (how am I going to learn a new language type questions) all started when "I" was born. These problems were not there before I was there. And I have been solving these problems ever since I can remember. But there is never a day without new problems, and same things comes back again and again. So, the approach of solving problems is not a good one. It seems wise to try to solve the root cause of all my problems. Which is me. I have never come across a person who have a direct answer to this. Everyone has their own theory of this. If I ask a random person, who are you? he will either tell his name. Or point out things he does, like I am an accountant, a clerk or a driver etc. However, these are all things which "He" has, or "He" does. Even if he says ok, "I" am a being with a mind and a body, I can still ask if the mind is yours who are you? Or if he says I am a mind and a body I can ask, if you are a mind and a body, you are just two things, a mind and a body, where is "You" in it (What imaginary numbers teach about life). A singular thing called you is not there by that definition. As you can see answering the question who you are is a philosophical ocean. Where we can see no land to save us with answers. But as I have explained it is utmost important, we get this problem solved. Otherwise, we would be following blind instructions of past generations into the future. If there is a true science (read about science of nature), I believe it should answer this fundamental question of observer, without merely solving problems of what is observed. After method of exhausting every way to answer this question, you may wonder whether really is there 'I' exist. Or whether it is also just an illusion of the mind. What is the most important question you have? (Here in this poem the other day, I included the most important question in one of its lines. It is really unrelated to the problem. See whether you can figure it out. When you do, see how all the other questions in the poem magically vanish) Thank you for reading: What is the most important question to ask? You may also like to read Happiness paradox Statue of David and mindfulness

It seems a wise advice. But have you ever thought about it or just took it to be true as you felt it is true in the first instant. In what depth can we Analyse that statement. If you haven't already the poem - To catch the Happiness before it hides, is a good starting point. Once you grasped the idea, let's go deeper. Why it is a good idea to think about life as a journey not a destination? It seems, when we think about life as a destination it contradicts happiness as we will never be in that position until we reach our goal. In general, we spend more time trying to reach a goal than the time we savor the triumph of victory. Imagine a person training hard to win a cycle race. If he do not enjoy training, he is going to suffer a lot before even the race begins. And it is true only one winner is going to be in victory. If everyone enjoys the training, at least they all can enjoy even before the race begin. Even if you lost, the defeat is only going to be short lived. However, there are some occasions, that we will have to think about destination as well. This applies to places where you work as a team. You can read more about this in Nash equilibrium. Now we can question the above statement in more detail. What is the difference between a journey and a destination? Or what is the true meaning of a journey? Destination is some place, or a status. Which is a fixed in time or space. But a journey is something which moves. We are really speaking about a process. The nature of a process is that it is continuous. But when we think about a journey, in reality we can never think about a continuous process. At least our minds are not capable of understanding continuous nature. (understanding time) Let's understand this before we move on. Imagine you talk about the last trip you did. You went on a hike with a couple of your best friends to a top of a mountain. Now think about this journey. How does it feel like? You will have some photographs, you will remember some special places, and some special incidents clearly in your memory. However, is it the whole journey? Even if you videoed it continuously from the beginning to the end, still it would be only 60 frames per second. Our minds are not capable of understanding a continuous process at all. So, when we say life is a journey, it is erroneous as well (as we are talking about destinations with short intervals compared to a real continuous function). As we can never know a real journey (which is continuous process). No matter how we tried, it will always come as frames, of ideas, thoughts and feelings. But it is not what is really happening. Even if you try to describe something like a ball rolling on a slope. We will fall into the same trap. (arrow paradox) So, next time when someone says, "Life is not a destination but a Journey." Just don't argue with them to show you are wise. Just smile with them and enjoy your fixed frame. You may also like to read : Dual worlds and Plato's allegory of the cave.

In previous article I described about dual world solution to prevent myself demotivating to peruse targets of the world. I also mentioned there are separate rules of the nature which governs each of these worlds. Here I would like to describe some more details of these dual worlds. First for who are unfamiliar to philosophy I will briefly describe Plato's allegory of the Cave. Imagine a cave where there are several prisoners, they were prisoned in this underground world ever since they were born. Only things they would see are the walls in front of them. There is a fire which is unseen to them, and guards of this prison cast shadows on the prison walls, using some silhouettes of common things otherwise on the planet. They cast shadows of birds, trees, sun and moon, animals on the walls from time to time. Only things the prisoners know are these shadows and they have their own names to these shadows. They have their own theories how they work and about meaning of these things. Now imagine one day one prisoner escaped to the outside world. With surprise, he comes to understand nothing he seen in the prison are real. Instead, there are just shadows of the reality. Now he sees, hear and feel things differently. He thinks of going back to the cave and as an obligation try to explain the prisoners that those real things, they have seen are not real at all. What will be the response of the prisoners, if they have no ability to escape the prison? Now let's look at Plato's dual worlds Plato's dual worlds. It is obvious Plato tries to describe how difficult it is to explain ordinary people what he believed to be true. The prisoner escaped like a Seeker, Plato himself. He believed that there are "Forms" or ideas which are perfect by nature. Although we see copy of these platonic ideas, what we observe are not real. What we observe are just imperfect reflections of platonic forms. He believed by thinking about these forms and not getting too much involved in ordinary things he could achieve some form of immortality. (You can read about platonic forms here) Imagine that these platonic forms are also not real. When the philosophy evolved more and more intellectuals questioned the pure nature of these forms and some even did not believe that they are the building blocks of the world. What if everything is just imagination. Although we all can think about a perfect circle, that doesn't prove there are perfect circles. And it doesn't prove there are circles. What if we all are in some kind of a dream? What is a good candidate for this second kind of the world? If there is such a world what the rules of such a world are? Rules of dual worlds. Rules of illusionary world are difficult. These are the rules we are taught by our teachers, our parents and our society. These are the rules which we read about and learn about and graduate about. These are the rules scientists do experiments about. Causes and their effects. We have to learn these rules to live and survive a world. Mathematics, chemistry geography, languages. Rules of Form on the other hand are easy. Everything seems to be ever changing. And change is the only constant thing which is persistent in the real world. There is no place to stop. So far this is the best explanation I have come across. What about you? Have you come across better rules of Form? Thank you for reading: Rules of Dual Worlds and Allegory of the Cave. You may also like to read: Deterministic world and free will.

I await my vacation tomorrow to fly far away from the foreign land. I wonder why I fly? wonder why in my sleep tonight. Is it because, The seats are booked paid upfront, already as I desire to fly to visit my home, family and friends? The plane has a pilot and a crew to take care of me on flight, to make me home, safely through the clouds and turbulences? The owners bought the company a new machine to add their fleet, to raise more capital, to spend on luxuries? Or the engineers attended in endeavoring task of perfect assembly of it, for the salary, they are paid by the hour by their employers. Why do I fly? Why do I fly? Is it because, It is faster than a ship, and I am not old enough yet to travel on a cruise until the retirement? Or else is it the wind which lift the metal up against all odds, which makes me fly tomorrow in the skies? Do I owe Wright brothers, or the people who died trying to build a marvelous machine of our times? Or the greed of the man, who wants everything to be conquered and controlled before he perishes? Why do I fly? Do I fly? Is it because, There is still plenty of oil to burn in the sky and the hole in Ozon is not big enough for the governments to make it banned? There are no missile launches scheduled tomorrow used in ballistic kind of wars? Or there are no storms, smooth running engines, well maintained craft and ground by crews? I fell asleep without no answers as too many variables were there for me to count. Thank you for reading: Why do I fly tomorrow? You may also like to read: Cockroach Ethics. Nature is beautiful- Robert frost

I was walking in the garden When I stumbled upon a rock. Shouting in pain and anger I Picked the rock in a shock Before throwing it away, I took Another closer look. This is what it had to say, In silence I could hear I was mocked. Little boy, little boy I'm sorry to hurt your pinky toe But watch where you are going, let this be a lesson for you although I have seen you watch and grow, since ever I know I can't imagine why you are angry with me, you are same as the people before. You are same as who came before, you are same as before. I have seen your uncles, parents and more I have seen your fathers of fathers ages ago I have seen your ancestors and knocked them also Once you are gone, I will live on to knock your pinky toe of generations to come. Story of a rock. Let's Imagine a small rock, you picked up in your garden. How long do you think it had been here on earth? If you are a geologist, you would know that it is in thousands of years. If you are not, let me explain it to you. If it is not a sedimented rock freshly from the bottom of the sea, or your house is on a volcanic site, it is most likely the rock you picked up is at least 500 million years old. (correct me if I am wrong, geologists are welcome :) ) So, it means, the rock you just picked up have seen things, that you can't even imagine, if it had eyes! ( Read about rock cycle - wiki link ) Things a rock in your garden have probably seen and gone through. (geological time scale of a rock backwards ) All your family tree, even untraceable ones Ice age. Birth of mammals Age of dinosaurs, roaming freely in your garden All five great extinctions ("Big five") Earth with no animals but with only microbes Earth before microbes. So, as one of my friends' words it. "We are just a blip in geological time." It is time for us to think seriously about our existence. We are just in no position to be proud of ourselves. Even when we look at our garden, we can see, nature which outlives our lives. Even as a human race we cannot be proud of ourselves, if we could speak to a simple rock, who would know better than us. I am quite aware that this is an exaggeration mixed with a sense of dramatic, poetic argument. Yet, it is quite a thought. Imagine yourself a hundred years into the future. The rocks in your garden will still be there. And your grandkids will be there to witness it. Or will they be? How sure are you there is no extended killer variant of covid is not there between you and 100 years into the future. Maybe next time some humans see a rock in your garden may be it's beyond another billion years. So, let's be humble and pay the respect to nature, as we are just children, no more valued than a rock. Let's pay respect to rocks like they deserve it. Thank you for reading: Mocked by a rock - geological time. You may also like to read Story of a gentle giant What will happen if I am immortal?

Have you ever wondered why there is still philosophy prevail and even flourish in the era of science? Undoubtably science have advanced in the last few centuries beyond earlier predictions and expectations giving answers to many of our questions, yet philosophy which is just imaginators science of humans still prevail. Why? From Aristotle to Plato to Friedrich Nietzsche, from western to eastern, philosophy still flourish. What function does it fulfill which science cannot? As a great admirer of science, I would go back to the scientific method to bring about answers to this question. As the scientific method is the tool which we use to build up our knowledge about the truth of nature. In science we deal with facts. Scientific method can be summarized in following steps. You find the question or a problem. Gather current information related to the problem to develop a hypothesis. Conduct an Experiment. Observe outcomes. Analyse outcomes and develop new conclusions to accept or reject hypothesis. It seems pretty clear. But when we do this kind of analysis there is a fundamental problem. There is a built-in error on the scientific method which science cannot answer and that is the why philosophy and religions still exist. It is not a scientific "error" as we find in experiments but an unavoidable problem. If I attempt to word that problem, it will be like following. The core part of scientific method is observing the outcomes. These observations are made by humans. Science assumes that observer is fixed when we measure outcomes. But the observer is never fixed. Observer is unique to each and every one of us and even animals. There is no way we can get away from this problem as we are separate from each other. Imagine we are measuring outcome of an experiment as Height of a cohort of people. Science assumes that the measurements made by a 'meter' is correct and that represents the true height of each person. But now think about two people thinking about a 'meter'. Clearly what length is meant by a meter is different for these two individuals and there is no way we can compare these two as we would never know they are thinking about the same thing when they talk about height. We can only assume they are talking about same thing. By definition scientific method assumes this is true, hence there is the problem of scientific method. "Scientific method itself include an assumption." By convention we are agreed about these scientific norms that nobody find this a problem to have a normal conversation. But when it comes to deeper level of understanding philosophy try to answer these questions and Will flourish and even take over science at some point in the future, when science starts to turn its experiments into human nature. Thank you for reading: Role of Philosophy in the era of science - scientific method. You may also like to read: How new inventions are made a philosopher's point of view. Nature of our greed and jealousy.

Angry Monster There is a monster, who is an angry big ugly looking one. He is coming to attack you. When you try to fight back the monster gets stronger and bigger, because it is growing out of your anger. If you continue to fight this monster at some point the monster will destroy you forever. So, how are you going to defeat this? It is by doing opposite of fighting, you practice kindness, and care, treat the monster with love in heart. The monster will soften each and every kind act and will become a lovely kitten at the end. Harmless being. Good story for a child, right? But exactly this is the kind of story to explain happiness paradox. Happiness paradox Let's change the characters of the story. Let Happiness be -> the victory you get. Monster be -> the pain you feel trying to acquire the happiness in the process. Your effort to find happiness -> the effort you put in to defeat the monster. The more you try to find the happiness, bigger the monster will become, and you will feel more pain, and farther the victory will be. That is the essence of the happiness paradox. It is not an uncommon thing to lose happiness in the battle of per suiting it. And it happens too often. This can be a reason more and more people are unhappy. Imagine yourself trying to get your salary increased this year, trying hard to impress your boss, and failing at the end. Or you fail your exam after months of hard work. How can we overcome such situations in life. Overall, how can be happy and content with our own life? So how can we get over with the problem? Solution to a happy life. Not surprisingly the answer lies in our little Monster story itself. If you stop the fighting with the monster, you will get the victory at the end. Hence, less you search for it, more you will have it. As happiness looks like a byproduct of a virtuous life. Happiness is a byproduct of a virtuous life. This is a root principle of Stoicism. For Stoics, living a virtuous life filled with wisdom, courage, justice and Temperence, will lead to happiness itself. Instead trying to tackle with the monster, they try to weaken the monster. In summary what Can you do? Only thing according to the happiness paradox, we can do is not focus on happiness itself when we do something. Instead, we can focus on peace, relaxation, serving others, gratitude etc. This will lead to happiness itself at the end. I will end the article with another story, which I read in a book by Ven. Ajahn Brahm. In a war, there was a commander who had a small platoon under his command. Battled by the long marches and tiredness, they had penetrated deep inside the enemy territory. One morning, as they camped inside a forest, his spotters came up with a very bad news, that they were surrounded by a big army of the enemy of several thousand of them, heavily equipped. It meant they were doomed. Commander looked at the worried faces of all his men. They were prepared to fight, and die for their country, Yet the wise commander had other plans. He gathered all men and asked them to prepare some tea and have breakfast. And they did it in silence. And half an hour later, spotters came back again, and said that enemy just marched without spotting them. At least, they didn't die in a futile battle on that day and some of them lived to see the end of war and go home. Thank you for reading: Happiness paradox and Stoicism- Story of the Angry monster You may also like to read: How are we different from a dung beetle? How to understand platonic love.

Have you ever heard about imaginary numbers? Following is a definition for imaginary numbers. Imaginary numbers were formulated to explain square root of negative numbers. I am quite sure you are not someone who is interested in mathematics. So, do not even try to understand these imaginations. We will start our discussion with REAL or even NATURAL numbers. Something we all love to do, count them. definition: Imaginary number (from Wikipedia- image) Skip the following! "An imaginary number is a real number multiplied by the imaginary uniti,[note 1] which is defined by its property i squared = −1.[1][2] The square of an imaginary number bi is −b squared. For example, 5i is an imaginary number, and its square is −25. The number zero is considered to be both real and imaginary." We all know how to count. We counted them with fingers, sticks, pencils, later with symbols. Although they are called natural numbers, if you think about it carefully, Numbers does not mean anything themselves. If it is difficult to grasp, consider the following example. If you said an apple, you could point out to an apple. If you said a tree, you could point out a tree. If you said one? you can point out to "number" one which is a symbol. but not the real "one" in a sense number are platonic (you can read about platonic ideas here) So, to speak the truth All numbers seem to be imaginary even Natural ones! Here is some magic Now let's imagine a watch. You had this beautiful Swiss watch which was a gift from one of your most valuable friends, who inherited it. Imagine it stopped working and you had to get it repaired. You gave it to a professional and next day when you go there you see he dismantled the watch, and all the pieces are placed over a white cloth on his table. Where is your watch now? Can you call the collection of pieces on the table as a watch? You can name each part if you try but the "watch is not there anymore." Following day, you come back, and you have your watch as re-assembled before. Working and fine. And wait, it is the same heap of metal and glass and everything else, but when at specific configuration there "appears" a watch. "A watch" is not a real thing it is still a mental object. Who is the magician? Can you see the magic of your mind? You can apply this to anything you know. More you see more you will understand how much magic we are living in. You will see even Atoms and Subatomic particles are mental objects. Would you like to know characteristics of these mental objects? If so, read: Objects of mind- mental representation You may also like to read: Definition of mindfulness Thank you for reading. What can imaginary numbers teach about life? - mental representation.

Imagine a typical day of yours. Since the start of the day, getting up from the bed up until now you have done hundreds of decisions making to give certain outcomes. Tiny decision makings. You have no doubt that you have made those decisions for yourself hence you would blame no-one but yourself if something goes wrong. Would you be surprised if I say some of the philosophers think otherwise? Some of them think, that whatever we think are not really our "free will" in action, but rather determined by the nature. Even before you were born! What would this so-called determinism do to our way of thinking? If such determinism is true, Everything which happened in the past and will happen in the future are pre-determined- there is no point of blaming anyone, not even yourself if something is not working properly. There is no true will for us. there is no way you can change the outcome. Although you think you are changing the outcome, that is already pre-determined by the laws of the nature. If we understand the fundamental laws of nature, we should be able to predict the future. And it appears it is not true at least for most of us. We really feel that we can change the outcome by conscious decision making. Imagine, in a world deterministic theory is considered true. A lawyer can argue his client, killed or raped someone solely because it was determined by the nature for it to happen. And the perpetrator can walk free. Such as society would be insane to live in. There are some observations in the nature to show that deterministic world may not exist as per se. As an example, in quantum physics the outcomes of a same experiment can be differ each time even if the conditions of the experiment are the same. Outcomes can vary and can be only given as a probability. What determines of these outcomes are not yet known. (some deterministic argue that still there are layers which we haven't explored hence, quantum physics itself doesn't argue that non-deterministic nature of the universe) Example: Imagine a physical experiment with certain x conditions are met, the outcome will be only A in a deterministic world. In a quantum experiment, although the certain x conditions are same, the outcome can be A, B and C with certain probability without clear explanation why that is so. Determinists (such as Einstein) argue there are certain rules we haven't yet understood to explain outcomes of a quantum experiment. Let's think that deterministic nature is not true and there is true randomness which effect, the causes and effects of the nature. It seems that when we lean towards non-determinism and true randomness, we can explain some of the phenomena we naturally see. Life seems to be a more of a random walk rather than a deterministic one. Even though some of our life events seems to be disastrous, they may eventually be the best things happened to us and vice versa. It is really unpredictable to determine what happens for you tomorrow depend on what you determine to do today. Yet, deterministic and non-deterministic both of these argue that we cannot have a true will. Determinists argue that our thoughts and actions are determined by nature. Non-determinists argue that our thoughts and actions are subjected to randomness. Both these arguments don't agree with a free will, outside the nature and randomness. It is chilling to think that there is a possibility that free will may not exist. What are your thoughts of a free will? Thank you for reading deterministic world and free will. You may also like to read the boy the dog and the mathematics A game of chess AI and life

If you asked me how to practice mindfulness. I would definitely say I would not give you set of instructions to follow. I am not capable of doing it as I am still a humble student of the great wisdom. Then you would think what the point if so, writing this article. I would say, 'wait- listen -my friend- I know I am not capable, but I know people who are capable. And this is the link to such a simple and complete guide to mindfulness. First for you who do not like to read beyond this point check out the link. It is a great guide by Ashin Tejaniya who has practiced and prepared the guide for people who are interested. You can download the PDF guide and follow it in your own time. Don't look down on the defilements, they will laugh at you. Once one of my teachers said, there are two kinds of knowledge. One type of knowledge you memorize. Other type of knowledge you memorize where to find. In essence these second type of knowledge we do not use routinely and yet we know, where to find if such a need occurred in the future. Above book by Ashin Tejaniya was a one such book I kept in my mind that I needed to access when I have time. So, keep it in your memory if you think one day you would start thinking about food for your mind to have a look. Here I will summarize few concepts presented in this book. Mindfulness practice presented in the book is not to be done one specific time of the day but throughout the life. It should be effortless and relaxed. Objective is to observe the mind without judgement. (judgements are defilements or values we give to mental objects) If there is stress and pain, doing this, something is wrong with the method. Such smooth mindfulness should gain momentum over time. In the land of thousand rivers, one day I walked onto a bridge. Alone, by myself. I can still picture the green mountain tops and trees covering each bank of the river. Majestic tropical trees shading parts of the massive water which runs down the river. I can remember the clouds and the reflections of them on the water. I looked down below. Water from upstream flew downstream passing under the bridge. And I continued to look, second after second, minute after minute, I could see new water replacing old water, still flowing downstream. It was continuous. There was no end to it. And I know the bridge is still there, water would be still flowing, if I went back and look at it tonight. There is something similar about the mind that these great teachers try to teach us about. Maybe one day It will occur to me. By writing about this wisdom, I have given you the power to change your mindfulness practice hoping it would help you the way it helped me. Thank you for reading, how to practice mindfulness - defilements. You may also like to read: fisherman and businessman story and life lessons. How to understand platonic love