How I bought my own coffee It is not until I went to UK that I learned coffee is so f....g expensive. Here in tropics, I rarely use it although it is produced here. But the aroma it has in the coffeehouse combined with the culture and the shitty weather mandated me to do so in UK. So, I drank my fair share of coffee with my own money. But this is not about real coffee. This is about that website called "Buy me coffee" and "Catch me if you can" Frank Abagnale Jr and maybe about cat crap! Most expensive coffee Before moving onto the proper matter of bread and butter with coffee, I want to show you a fact. Which is hilarious and unexpected at the same time. The most expensive coffee in the world is kopi Luwak. Which comes from Indonesia and the other name for this is "Cat crap coffee" because it is made from partially digested poop of palm civet. If you do not like how it's made you can use the next best thing which is called black ivory coffee which is from Thailand. Guess what, it is coming from elephant poop this time. Ha ha ha. Am I making you feel disgusted over a coffee. Yet sometimes animal poop is not disgusting specially if it is dry. I know this for a fact as I used to play with dried up rabbit poop in a nearby playground when I was a kid. I can't remember exactly what I did with them, but I know it wasn't disgusting at all. Just dried up grass balls. Civet: https://unsplash.com/@crespo_photography101 Buy me coffee and Frank Abagnale Jr. Let's move to coffee. I added a button for someone to buy me a coffee, as I have no visitors yet to monetize the blog. Yet even if I did, I really want to run this ad free as long as possible as I know how disgusting scrolling and reading through those disturbing ads feel like. It's worse than rabbit poop! So, I created a profile on buy me coffee and I could not help myself donate a dollar. What I have done was actually losing some of the cents to "Buy me coffee" as I do not get full dollar in return when it comes back to me! Yet I felt like Frank Abagnale JR. If you have watched this masterpiece featuring Leonardo de Caprio in the movie "Catch me if you can" there is a scene where his father Abagnale SR gives an empty checkbook to Frank Junior. Who is played by young De Caprio. And this empty checkbook was a potential, just a symbol that he would earn and fill his bank account with loads of money in the future. So, he could write cheques spending it. And this checkbook was a gift for the teenager who became a runaway from home, and a self-made thief, of international variety, a true master in cheque fraud. Oh, you might get the wrong impression that I am planning on becoming a millionaire from donations! Not at all. I know it is never going to happen. What are the odds of someone truly value the workings when I write mostly on valuelessness . It just makes me feel like a street performer, not a thief. Civet Coffee beans: https://unsplash.com/@hdbernd Why I am a street performer, in the Google station Have you seen street performers? They play the piano or sing a song. And just because they enjoy doing that. I have never seen a street performer become a millionaire not until AGT became a thing. It makes me realize there is no quitting now. I have committed myself to be a writer for the rest of my life. So, it doesn't matter how many read these articles. It doesn't matter how many visitors google brings. I love the experience of creating another illusion with words. So, I can live one more day longer before being executed by the boredom and depression of a monotonous life. So, I can spread the message of truth called mindfulness, which was very very hard for me to find, that I struggled years thinking. Now I know a little, so I spread it free. Part time for now as long as I can buy my own coffee. So let me write a poem, like that street performer so you can feel better reading it healing any wounds created by ghosts of the past Wehrmacht's Gun: https://unsplash.com/@we_the_royal In the hours of darkness when no-one is left To give comfort of a warm hug when you needed it the most When the loneliness is unbearable like walking on a country road When glasses cut deep into your bare feet while your enemy smile When you cannot rest when you cannot run, as the shackles of life tighten around When you are cornered on a wall facing Wehrmacht's gun When you know God would not appear whom did not all this time I will be there for you a friend if you feel me then, my deed is done

Observing banana leaves. I was looking at the banana leaves, creating some happiness for myself. And I am going to teach you how to. It doesn't cost a cent to be happy if you do not believe me try this. Banana Leaves: https://unsplash.com/@rishal1123 The mindfulness exercise Quit whatever you are doing right now. Just after reading this passage. You do not have even to come back to complete the reading. Just go out to an open space where there are trees. It is raining. Doesn't matter, even better. It's sunny? Find some place shady. Sit down on a bench or grass. Happy grass. And then watch the leaves. I have banana trees. I'm sure there is a maple or an oak tree nearby you. Maybe you are in most unlikely place in Madagascar then you will have Baobab trees. It doesn't matter which tree you are looking at. Just look at the leaves. Like you are looking at them for the first time. Do not try to think anything, do not try to not think either. Look at it like there is only you and the leaves are there in the universe. Just that, you and leaves, you and leaves. And this will make you realize there is only single observation happening in your mind. There will be happiness, but you would not realize this as you are just focused only on one observation. The happiness will be apparent only when you compare this experience some other day with something else. And this memory will be there till you die, the first time you saw the leaves. It is a simple exercise of mindfulness, yet I will illustrate how it works. Oak Leaves: https://unsplash.com/@evgenslavin Personal Experience. How do I know right? Well, I have done it in the past and I do it still when I see my boat is drifting too far to the left. The mind is an amazing machine. It doesn't need anything to lean on, as long as we do not disturb the process. Sometimes we are doing too much, with the pressure from the external world. We believe in things which are not there and chase these illusions all our lives. We make ourselves messy and loud to show that our lives matter. Without asking the question from mind who is living? And what is living? If you haven't done the mindfulness exercise, you can do it now. Or let's just imagine you did. If you can imagine I am sure it is even better as you know what to do next time on your vacation. I am going to show you little intuitions about life from this exercise. Intuitions from the exercise When you just keep the attention first you will notice the leaves are outside and you are looking at them. That is only what there is. Leaves and you, and you already know this. Think about it. All the burden of the past is not there in this moment. Burden of guilt and regrets. All the burden of future is not there now. Burden of anxiety unpredictability and dreams. Your mind is observing the leaves, and you are observing this observation. The mind and the leaves. And if you do it correctly you will notice they are no more two things. Leaves appear when mind disappear. Mind is there as long as you observe it. One time you observe the mind, one time you observe the leaves. And what is there is only an observation. And that is what I call singularity of life. The two worlds that we see ourselves are inherently a same lump of clay, molded into different shapes. Maple Leaves: https://unsplash.com/@telliottmbamsc Implications of the exercise Implications of these observations are really different and subjective than the reality we believe in. For me when I realize these facts I felt so lonely. As I knew I have been living in this lonely sphere created by my own mind. I do not possess the power to reach outside to see what creates the ripples in my own world. As an example, I see the reflections of banana leaves created with information from my past, yet I do not know what exists in the so-called real world. The sad truth is there is no vehicle to get there. When I touch, I will feel with my past memories. When I listen, I will hear what I already know. When you read you understand what you understood from your past experience. So, the prisoner of mind is the best analogy. I am sure this is the allegory of the cave what was mentioned by Plato. So, with mindfulness I am trying to explain how we can imagine the outside world even when we know we will never be there in time. When I know liberation is an illusion when I know nobody has been outside from their own caves, I do not expect to die with a dream, so the process of creating dreams would cease to exist. And I know all the lies, I tell you as you know I have never seen the sun, beyond my prison walls.

Hammering the nails. It was twenty years ago, when my parents built our home. I never liked it, the dirt dust and the constant noise, the pollution was too much for the wheezy chesty kid like me. Sometimes I would help, out of necessity. Sometimes I was given task of hammering the nails. Have you ever done that? Have you ever hammered a nail and strike your own finger? Well, I have, not once, but many times. Nails are a Scarce resource. They are reuseable, however. When they built temporary boxes for concrete beams, after it was hardened, the nails were removed. And when they come out of the wood, often they would bend in the middle. Like a crooked old man. These rusty old nails need straightening before being reused. And there were thousands of them. Often, I was given the task of straightening the nails. A bucket full of them. Forging Success: https://unsplash.com/@supergios I would sit on a bench, taking a nail on my left, keep on a piece of wood and hammer it with my right. Several times, rotate it a bit here and there, and Vola! The rust is gone, and the nail is straight, as new as straight from the shop. It is good feeling to do it a dozen times. Yet, the bucket of nails would never finish, as everyday crooked nails appear in the bucket from Nowhere! And the rate I am doing it is not at all going to keep the bucket empty. The best Sisyphean punishment I can imagine. Success of a Nail is defined by the Hammer. Now I realize however, it is not at all about hammering the nails. Having been climbed the tallest trees in the jungle of life in mindfulness , now I realize the lessons I learned from forging nails were the ones which took me where I am today. To see the horizon above the canopy of the internal jungle of thoughts in my head. It was about resilience, endurance, innovativeness of the boring task of hammering nails I face in life. And like good old days, when I look at the bucket, I see the rate I am hammering them is never fast enough to keep the bucket empty. The bucket keeps of adding, its own nails out of nowhere. Not giving me a second to spare. Yet I see myself, sitting on the good old bench, hammering them one by one. Occasionally rest, to have a cup of tea. What am I expecting. This is life at its best, the happiness is created by the hardships of life. Would you not agree? If all the nails are straight, where is the fun in it? What would I rather do if it wasn't for the nails I am hammering. I realize, I am defined by the nails, just like my success. Forging Success Blacksmith's way. Because I have been to the blacksmith the other day, I know thing or two about forging success in life. You can either blame that the metal is too strong, or you can start heating it today. You can sleep in a corner like the blacksmith's deaf dog, or pull the bellow to generate more heat, from your left hand, while hammering it from your strong right, while it is hot and shiny. And little by little it will shape into something valuable, a knife, a nail or an axe to kill your enemies with. Ha Ha. Hammer it with mindfulness, and hammer it with creativity, hammer it with experience, hammer it hard, long and strong with all you might. Because every crooked nail can be straightened, and every metal will melt with enough heat. And I know this by experience. However, when you are tired and sweaty, drink your tea, or Coca-Cola . Do, not forget your lunch. Take a walk in the garden through those beautiful rose beds, that you planted last year. As, nails would never stop filling your bucket, and blocks of iron always appears on your door. Life is about hammering nails. And Life is about resting in the Garden of Eden at the same time. Do, both in mindfulness, and wisdom of a blacksmith. "You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."– Martin Luther King, Jr. Nail being Hammered Poem

Stopping by the woods or Shawshank Redemption I was driving through the mist today. Yet again for the 100th time to work. The misty mountain road was an absolute retreat for the eyes. Yet my mind was not at rest. I could not stop and watch the beauty. Not because I did not have five minutes to spare. Maybe I could have written a poem like Robert Frost. My little horse must think it queer    To stop without a farmhouse near    Between the woods and frozen lake    The darkest evening of the year.    Misty mountains are Magical I wasn't brave like Robert Frost, as I know if I stopped to appreciate the beauty, I would feel more miserable at work. So, I did not. I did not stop my car; I did not open my window and took a fresh air. I did not reduce the speed in those misty mountain roads. You can call me a coward. My eyes are made up to see the beauty like Robert Frost , and my mind is made up to see the logic like Jane Eyre . And fortunately, or unfortunately both are still working at their best. I'm sad I do not have a free mind of a wild horse or a backpacker. Maybe I am jealous after all. This reminded me of the Shawshank redemption. This was one of the greatest drama films ever made. And somehow, I have missed it when I was in university. It was only a couple of weeks ago I had watched it, so I still can remember the plot. The Plot. A middle-aged banker Andy Dufresne, who went to prison accused of killing of his wife, adapts to prison life. He spent years and years like a victim to bullying and harassment by other inmates and prison guards. And finally, because of his knowledge and experience becomes a respectable member, expanding the prison library and giving financial advice to officers. Even helping them to avoid tax and keep accounts neat, all those illicit money. But he has been dreaming secretly of freedom. As he had broken the prison and left seeking freedom after years and years of struggle. Nobody had a clue, not even his close friends inside, until he had escaped. With a little rock hammer, he had taken all the years to build a tunnel of freedom. I am sure he ended up in a beach somewhere in Mexico. Away from all the burden that he chose to carry. Wow? What a retreat. Mountains Drawing. Watch me draw in YouTube . My excuse for Monday Morning driving through the mist Now, you should excuse me for being cowardly driving in the morning, and did not stop by the woods, instead await redemption from Shawshank. I know nature is the place where I must rest. And it seems inevitable that I will be with nature when I am a grandpa like Robert frost, Yet I am still Mr. Andy in his Prime. My rock hammer is my words, with it I softly strike. And this blog you are reading now is my tunnel for freedom that I create with it. And day by day, I will dig a hole in my prison wall, ironically built by my Ghost of the past with greed. So, I can be free one day and there would be no rush through the misty mountains then, indeed. So I would be that backpacker laughing at some idiot who drives past me in 80kmph, with closed windows. And I will write, One day on a Monday morning While I was walking through those mysterious misty mountains Breathing fresh air humming like a bird Listening to water splashing in Brooks While the sun is still weak, to break out the tapestry of mist With ferocious beams of golden light While pretty birds still rest in their nests frosted Due to the chilling air in the scary dark forest While I was tying shoelaces, dripped With dew from the wet grass. I saw an idiot in a white Civic driving 100 kmph to work, splashing me And I took a photo to add to my album of February fools. Forgetting that was me in youth. Thank you for reading this. You may like Prisoners of mind.

Dramatising documantaries. I have been watching some history documentaries and noticed how the language is used to dramatise even otherwise boring uninterested things. I am going to expose some of the tricks here and you can be mindful about these in your next documentary.  As an example often they talk about the biggest, massive, colossal things. They would give the height of the ruins in feet, not in meters. They would talk about deepest points of the ocean or compare with tallest monuments in the planet. Or else they will talk about smallest things. Smallest mamal, smallest bird, tiniest creatures shown in macroscopic details. Sometimes it is about fastest punch, strongest bite and loudest noise. If it is about climate that they are talking about its a hurricane, a tsunami or a mega earthquake of the century. And we cannot stop getting hooked to watch the documentary to identify the mistery. And sometime the story that they dramatise not even there! I would feel like cheated. Monuments : https://unsplash.com/@ancientwanderer Nothing is about normal. Did you notice that nothing is ever about normal things? Its not about normal waves, normal weather which is there 360 out of 365 days. Nobody talks about an average human being. And I can say this is the life of vast majority of humans on the planet. But I rarely see a documentary on a daily paid workers life. True account. Maybe it is not interesting, when it is not in the either side of the spectrum. Nobody would raise their eyebrows when numbers are not more than eight figures long or atlease beyond few decimal points of zeros. So I need you to observe when these documentaries creators do play with your feelings. When watching a documentary you are not only a spectator, but you are a victim to the narrator of the story. It is what happens in your brain physically or chemically which makes you a victim of information. I am not saying you should stop watching them, or you cannot learn anything from them. It is the exact opposite. I am showing you how to make it an opportunity to practise your mindfulness while watching these.  Watching walruses- a documentary in mindfulness This article has perfect timing, as I was watching frozen planet by Sir David Attenborough. Started smooth, normal hunting of polar bears, and orcas. And at the end of the program, a gathering of walruses shown. And they were in thousands in a small island, packed due to lack of ice caused by global warming. And some of them climb 100 meter high rocks for space and eventually fall to their own death in dozens. And somehow it caused me to think that I am responsible for their deaths. What happened? I was wondering it is only part of the story. Walrus: https://unsplash.com/@francesco_ungaro We have seen mass extinctions of animals in planet earth history. What about dinosaurs . They perished on earth In a matter of years, totally wiped out. Leaving only cockroaches to carry on life. What about ice age? When polar bears flourish, other animals would freeze to death. No humans were responsible for that! Wildfires? Hurricanes? Landslides? It seem for vast majority of deaths in nature, humans or you are not responsible. We can think about global warming in some other ways. I am not sure about you but not a single atom in my body is artificial. They all are natural. Just like every animal in the planet I posess a weak body, like every dictator . So I create a shelter, and help all others in fulfilling my selfish need for survival, which was planted in me as morals by the nature. Just like a bunch of crows . So whatever I have done for the global warming last year is just natural. Of course that may be our own apocalyptic ending. Yet it is natural right? Can you see? There is an opposite argument for everything we hear, every truth that they show us. Even for a mathamatical question so obvious like answer to 1+1. These conter arguments are not obvious at first, but it teaches important lesson, to question everything that we see for ourselves. And you would be suprised how much absurdity is there in your everyday boring life. And that is how mindfulness makes a documentary more interesting to watch. What documentary have you watched lately?

This is a great story of subjectivity. I have included it as a final message in the book " What is time? " However, as it is a concise book on time, I did not include any explanation. Here, I will narrate the story and we can then look into the message of it. Saving Seashells. Once upon a time there were two friends. One of them lived in the cost. And the second one lived in the mainland visited his friend one day. As it occured previous day there had been a storm and rough sea had brought lot of sea animals washed ashore. And hundreds of seashells were lying across the shore. When the boy visited his friend, he was on the beach. Noticed him far away getting down to pick up something and throw at the sea. After watching sometime and approaching him he noticed that the friend was picking up seashells to return them to the sea. And it looked absurd, there were thousands of them. He spoke, "Hello friend, what are you doing? this fine morning?" I am saving seashells. He replied. Do you think you can save all of them? There are thousands of them! nomatter how fast you do it doesn't matter, you would never save them all. That is true, he answered and yet again bent down, picked another shell and threw it at the sea and said, "It mattered to that one though!" Seashells: https://unsplash.com/@erin1592 Morals of the story -On changing the world. In Act of charity Obvious moral of the story is, we do not have to worry about end results when we start doing something in changing the world. As long as our intentionas and attitudes are pure, the action how big or small would not matter. And obviously the gates of the heven is not opening to anyone depending on how many seashells we would save. So, when we talk about charity, one seashell matters. One dollar of donation matters. One act of kindness matters. In Action in general We can also, derive some better rules for anything that we do. Again, it doesn't have to be charity. "One step at a time" is a good rule to follow in anything that we do. And I have wrtten about this in Mike Posner article, how he took one step at a time, when he walked across america. Anything that looks monumental, mega scale, is started with one step. It may be a single idea in a isolated peaceful mind, most of the time. Winter : https://unsplash.com/@drosie Subjectivity of the world We can also derive another meaning from the story, and it is to look at the world from the subjective aspect of it. Imagine you are a shell, waiting to be saved by these higher powers of the God, called humans. And it doesn't matter thousands of similar ones who are waiting on the shore. The God's would not even have time to reach you. Yet what matters for you is your liberation. Not your neighbours, not your daughters, not your parents. And this can be labelled as selfishness. But I like to label this as a will, a will for survival . And this is the most likely source of the driving force for the life itself. What is more important to understand is, the world obviously is not something created and persist outside individual seashell consciousness. As for individual seashell, the existance would cease to exist when they are dead. We are just like individual seashells waiting to be saved on the shore. Have you ever thought about this?

500 miles. If you miss the train I'm on.. You would know that I am gone You can hear the whistle blow, a  Hundred miles... This is a song first I heard in the film by the name Inside Llewin Davis. I cannot be sure of the plot exactly. You are welcome to comment if you remember, as I am too lazy to check it out and write here, not because I cannot but because I have plenty of interesting things to write about. Let's focus on the core message instead. How about mindfulness and philosophy for a change? Rail Roads: https://unsplash.com/@profwicks All the roads lead home.  I have spent significant amount of time travelling. Not on world tours, taking same road again and again to the school, University and now to work. And I do not think it will change. We cannot avoid travelling as it is essential for our survival. In Fact if you stop you might even get sick fat and die. And in these significantly boring travelling I have thought about many things. And obviously one is about roads. Have you ever imagined all the roads are connected? Maybe it was not the case 100 years ago. But it's true the moment you step out to the street you are connected to this vast network of transportation called roads. In Fact this is a good analogy to understand life. Imagine you travel 500 miles away from home from your folks. But do not worry do not fear or feel isolated, as when you step on the road you know it leads to your home. That there is the connection to the place where you want to be if you prefer that. Isn't that dreamy? Interconnectedness in Generic roads. There are many ways to look at this phenomenon. Although the above is true when we look at roads as specific, we often forget it is the case. As we have separated roads as highways and country ways, bridges underground. And naming every street. It has made it easier for us to locate exactly where our house is. But if we limit our vision to this narrow space we will miss the big picture. I am sure there are engineers who look at our road systems in a more generic view of this network. And if you went to visit the chief engineer of transportation In your estate he would have a map on his wall with this generic form. And everything is connected to everything ! Just like the interconnectedness of mindfulness which Thich Nhat Hanna talks about. Interconnectedness is not the only wisdom we can gain from these roads. In Fact there is no limit. As you can see everything  is connected to everything. I could talk about materials used to build roads. Or the machines. Biggest and most difficult roads. But that is not our focus in Magical Mindful living. We will look at the mindfulness example. Home: https://unsplash.com/@scottwebb Returning home. Imagine you are far away from home. This time the home represents something that you seek. It may be eternal happiness or connecting with God. It may mean self discovery of yourself. But you have travelled far into the wild of the concrete jungle and you haven't found the answer. Now you are feeling lost and stranded without anyone for you to show you the way home. But guess what. Every road is connected to home. As long as you are willing to accept, you are stranded and willing to turn back. Like a true seeker, navigate back to the place where it all started, travel back even up to the mothers womb . There is risk going backwards. But if you understand the analogy you know there is still hope as no road is isolated. Even roads which lead apparently to nowhere, you can turn back and return. Learning the lesson. Just like a funa reaching for sunlight, you can slowly progress to the eternal peace that you seek. Obviously I am being a little dramatic here and making another illusion out of nothingness . But most of you would not understand as likely you haven't observed what your mind does day after day.  In summary I can say that if you look at the world in mindfulness you would see the connections and links that everything  and everyone has, with the self. And you might even capture this idea in a universal function like I just did the other day !

Why become mentor of yourself? If you compare  50 years before to today, we can see information is available freely more than ever. The second world war had left a huge gap, that nations were forced to appriciate peace and development more than stupid wars (except Zelenskyy). Which had revolutionised the human history with new scientific discoveries. Not only science even art and social and financial sciences have advanced that we are able to create gigantic dams which would even slow down earth's rotation. In this modern world and fast developing information system it is essential that we update ourselves with new knowledge hence becoming mentor for yourself is the best option. And I can give you more than hundred examples of such individuals from tip of my tongue who climb the ladder on their own. And adult learning is all about that right? On the other hand consider what it means. You know about yourself best. More than your father, more than your mother, more than your teachers. So once you know how to read and write you can use any source, mainly world wide Web to Access to free materials to expand this basic knowledge base. Or you can plough a field instead if you prefer. But I suggest it is a shame not to use your spare time to enjoy expanding boundaries of human knowledge and hypothesise about things nobody has ever thought before to return the favour, as it will make you feel good just as farming. Microscopic world of information Highway: https://unsplash.com/@polarmermaid Self learning is easy. Self learning is getting easier and easier. I can see more and more self learners and free youtube videos teaching life skills. I can see some rubbish knowledge as well. But it doesn't matter, as the values we give is relative it is relevent for you it is relevent. It is not difficult like Sirinivasa Ramanujan often considered a great mathematician ever lived in the begining of the last century. He was a self learner. And had only one summary book on mathematics (Elementary results in pure and Applied mathematics), for him to work out his own mathematics. I am sure you and me do not posess IQ enough to read and understand such advanced deep subjects. But I would not say we cannot either. As human mind is just a potential and creating things is its fundemental function. So any information you feed into this amazing machine can come out as a new theory from the other side of it as output. It is natural. And I can prove this to you just now. Fishing from ideas from the universe in mindfulness For a moment, for few seconds I invite you to go to a peaceful corner of wherever you are living and close your eyes. And try the doing nothing trick . I am sure from the morning of today, you have been trying to feed your machine with new information. Even if you did not know it yet. But now when you close your eyes and breath in relaxed manner and focusing on nothing you will start to witness the thoughts start to dance in the arena of your mind. They creep in one by one like a group of young ballet dancers to a serene music of the environment and if you do not disturb, you will be able to enjoy and witness the workings of your mind. In this crude from you can often grab one thought or two which have the ability to sparkle and ignite your life for a brighter future. If that is not the law of attraction you are seeking I am not sure what else qualifies as such.  Or becoming an annoying orange Annoying orange I prefer the mindfulness way. Listening to it feels more natural and effortless. However if you do not mind the trouble and exhaustion. You can also try becoming an annoying orange. Not exactly the orange but the baby orange which cannot stop asking the question why? I am sure you have atleast come across some picture or a video of annoying orange as this is one of the most viewed video series on YouTube, which goes back to late 2000 era. Exactly ! the show is two decades old and still running. In this movie baby orange is just annoying as the father that it could not help asking the question why? I do not have to elaborate more on here as I have written entire article on why we should start with why in the first place . And like all the roads leads home if you do this consistantly everytime when you see a knot in your life, you will start to see patterns. Patterns that end up to the roots of all your problems which is called self. And then only you will realise the plato was true when he said " first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself. " And at this point we can use same tools of mindfulness to investigate the phenomenon of life and this blog will help you with pieces of wisdom to kick start engine of your clogged up old Bentley which is called mind !

Well it sounds silly if you haven't you should as "Did you read the question?" is an excellent advice I have twice heard from two different teachers in my life decades apart. And I am going to talk about both, and at the end of the essay, you will also gain the wisdom it provides. First exposure In mathematics. Maybe I was eleven or twelve years old when I first heard my late Math teacher, used to chant the above mantra. Whenever he gives a math problem he reminds students to read the question. I am not sure whether everyone in the class payed attention to what he said, but Me being a listener, I always remember what he told us to do. Read the damn Question! Mathematics is all about answers right? -> Wrong! Mathematics is always about the question. If you start jump into soving the problem I am sure you will end up with some answer, yet it may not be the correct answer, as you haven't read the question. Read it once, read it twice, read it as many times as necessary till you understand the every word of it. Every puzzle of it. Sometimes starting with the answer helps, yet atleast at the middle of it you should read the question again. Even after answering the question correctly you should read the question again. Sometimes I used to do that. When I got the answer which seems to be correct I would plug in the answer to the question again to see whether I can come to conclusion that it is the answer, and the Question is correct! Maths : https://unsplash.com/@gmalhotra It may be hillarious to think, but a profund wisdom, if you have not got the correct answer to your math problem, maybe you have read the question wrong in the first place. After all in math if you follow the rules you are gurenteed you will end up with correct answer 100% of the time. You just have to master the art, just like an artist. What about life? What about the problem of life? Have we read the question correctly? Second exposure In mindfulness Second exposure to understanding, or reading the question, came from a Monk. As you guessed it, as the blog is about mindfulness , this time, after so many years I couldn't help but notice the similarity to the solving math. So, many answers to the life I have got wrong, and I have kept piling up wrong answer after wrong answer, to problems of life. And during this time, and in between mindfulness, a teacher asked me to read the question again. And it is same wisdom from mathematics. Let's look at how we can understand the problem of life. Remember not to focus too much on answers, as we will get it wrong, if we do not know what question we are trying to answer. I want you to remind yourself a problem you face. Something you are trying to solve, and try to understand the question at the end, following examples. Did you read the question? Example Imagine you are trying to do some creative work, while there is a lot of noice. That damn construction is going on in the next apartment is all you have is feeling of irritaion. That is a problem right? Traditionally we will start looking for answers. We either try to stop the sound, block it with a headset, or we will run away. We might even get angry and blame the noise. All we want is to stop it. But mindfulness is all about the question. Observation and answers doesn't matter, we have to investigate the question. cat on the wall I hear a disturbing noise. I want it to go away. Who is hearing the noise? Who is this person who wants this thing anyway? It seems, every time when we try to answer the questions of life, we will end up asking the question who we are in the first place. And that is a good way to look at life. Then we can understand, it is the being that creates the problems of life. It is not you, living in a world full of problems, and you are getting stressed. It is more like you are the creator of these problems. If you are the creator of all your problems, answers are there in the problem itself. Within yourself. No matter how much we try to change the enviornment, we would not try to solve the root cause of all problems, unless we look at the question each and every time. And that is how mindfulness can gain momentum. Like any other skill, this method will help us to be at peace with the chaotic universe. Then you will understand, it is not about solving mathematics problems. It is asking about who is this guy who wants to solve mathematics and why? Otherwise maths problems will keep comming back. How are you going to solve problems in your life? What is the latest question you have got? Have you read the question correctly?

As a great admirer of silence, I have only gratitude towards it. This is yet another discussion on power of silence . If you admire the silence just like me, following articles would help. Lately I find that it does not matter what Noise is out there, a mind at peace is just a mind at peace when you understand the fundamental nature of sound. Hence in this article we will focus on understanding sound. Because of the duality of the nature, silence exists only because there is sound. https://unsplash.com/@othentikisra After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. - Aldous Huxley Music is not Noise. If you know something about spectrums of nature , you will understand the sounds we hear also come in spectrum. We can reorder them in pitch, and loudness or even according to our preference to hear them. Obviously, the spectrum of sounds with our values in it is more important. If I ask you the question What is the most preferable sound you want to hear, immediately something would come to your mind. Maybe a song which you heard a long time ago, within a specific context and personally affected you. Or it may be a sound of a someone dearest to you, who is no longer there. We do have preference to sounds. For someone like me, the silence also takes some important preference over the music or Noise. Of course, nobody would want to hear the sound of a metal crusher, or pigs in a farm. But the idea of this thought experiment is to look at the full spectrum at a glance. So that we get the big picture. (This intuition comes from Charlie Chaplin who said, life is a tragedy when close up, but a comedy in a long shot ) Once you know the spectrum of sound, at one end silence, and at the other end loud, Noise, everything else is in between. And you can see, the sounds are sounds, the values are a separate spectrum. Which is unique for yourself. Hence, when you hear a sound, it is wrong to attribute the values are inherently in the sound. Of course this goes with the silence as well. A world with people, liking music and some others liking, silence makes a total sense. Some, loving Jazz while others loving folk music, when another just want to admire a painting, in silence in a museum, makes a total sense too. There is no argument over the other, as sounds are a different spectrum than the spectrum of values of sounds. Hence, If I say silence is better than music, that is wrong. For mindfulness and meditation, it does not matter. And it should not matter. https://unsplash.com/@jasonrosewell Mindful listening It is a so unique piece of wisdom to see the sounds as a mental object . It made me realize; I have been wrong in wanting silence. It did make me uneasy when there is no silence, which is most of the time of the day. Constant chatter of people haunted me until I knew, silence is just the other side of the Noise, but it is just a same spectrum. Hence, it doesn't matter at all to the mindful listening as long as you are aware of it. Just like what you see is not what it is but who you are , what you hear is not what it is but who you are. Why should I be angry or upset over same thing which makes me aware of my being? If you can see, my previous articles, I have written about the value of silence and importance of how to embrace it. But, now in this article I am writing about losing the value of the same silence. You may ask why? Answer is it is relative. Yes, in my spectrum of values silence is above everything, which gives me intuitions about life and living, hence, previous articles. But as you would also know the most valuable thing in the world is to know the valuelessness of things . Which will stop the rat race of wanting more. And silence is also a thing which I crave for. I will end the article with the following quote. “ It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. ” -Seneca

Well, there was a Rubik's cube in some corner in our house, and like everyone else I used to turn it and see whether I can solve. Boy! it was hard. All I could do was to mix it some more and maybe just a one side of it. Maybe you have the same experience. Now and again, I have seen Rubik's cube come to my life again and again and this is about my Rubik's cube journey. First time I saw it when my Late mathematics teacher who brought a Rubik's cube to our class. He said something about it and maybe about complexity. I never understood and I just forgot the fact for some time. Then in the movie, the "The pursuit of happiness" it came back again. When Will Smith tried to solve it. And by solving the Rubik's cube in front of his future employer he declared the fact that he was smart than he looked. If you haven't watched the movie I greatly recommend as it is a great story of struggle of a man. https://unsplash.com/@fletcher_pride During same time, you tube randomly recommended me to speed cubing videos. I saw young men and women old over the world in competitions on fast solving, using one hand using a single hand and even juggling. Nowadays often we see Rubik's cube come out in X factor. Do you know why you cannot avoid Rubik's cube? It's because that is the most sold toy in the world. So far about two billion toys were sold. And there seems a boom of Rubik's cube back again thanks to internet and various organizations. So, because it is unavoidable I decided I should learn to solve Rubik's cube and I did it in two days. My Rubik's cube journey. First to solve Rubik's cube in our house was my father. And he used his own methods combined with some help from the you tube. He knew only a couple of algorithms. So, I knew struggling to solve it myself is time consuming. And after watching speed cubers day after day, it seemed better to learn some algorithms. It took only memorization of six algorithms, and I can solve the Rubik's cube now. And often I can do it within three to four minutes. I know it is nothing to brag about at all. As anyone can do it if they know what they are doing. Following is the link to the site from which I learned the Rubik's cube . And once that is learned the mystery goes away. I know if I put some more effort to learn more algorithms, I would be able to solve it faster and easier. As I am not expecting to make a carrier out of it this is good enough to impress some who are lot lazy to learn to solve it. https://unsplash.com/@linusmimietz Few facts I learned from my Rubik's cube journey are as follows. It is never necessary to reinvent the wheel. When we have some problem, it is likely that someone else had a same problem and there may be plenty of guidelines and rules out there to help us with. Like my teacher said, this little toy in my hand holds 43 quintillion possible combinations of the Rubiks Cube (43,252,003,274,489) with only one solution. If just a simple toy with 54 colored faces have this much complexity, imagine how much complexity is there inside our brains, inside our bodies, inside our houses and in this universe. How can we make sense of such a vast complexity? Can we ever even think about solving our problem of life? What manual is ever going to work. It seems every guru who claims themselves that they know the answer to life are just stranded on their own. As there cannot be a single solution to complexity the life holds. Maybe that is the massage my teacher wanted to give us holding a Rubik's cube in front of our class, which was not in the syllabus at all. https://unsplash.com/@barkiple Fun facts about Rubik's cube Original Name : It was first known as the “Magic Cube” or “Bűvös Kocka” in Hungarian . Inventor’s Challenge : Ernő Rubik, the inventor, took about a month to solve the Cube after creating it . Speed Cubing Competitions : The first-ever World Championship was held in 1982, and the winner was Minh Thai from the USA with a time of 22.95 seconds . Most Expensive Cube : The “Masterpiece Cube,” worth US $2.5 million, was created for the 15th anniversary of the Rubik’s Cube . Young Author : The first guide to solving the Cube was written by a 13-year-old, Patrick Bossert, in 1981 . Robot Record : A robot named Sub1 solved the Cube in just 0.887 seconds . Best-Selling Toy : In 2015, the Rubik’s Cube was the best-selling toy in Walmart with over $111 million in retail sales . Cultural Icon : The Cube has become an icon of intelligence and has influenced pop culture, including street art and tattoos .

Pattern recognition. This is a topic I would come again and again to talk about. As it is such an important phenomenon. The importance of observation was initially taught by my father. He used to say, "Watch and learn boys, watch and learn." He used to tell how just by observation how someone can learn something. I know we are more focused on practice, when it comes to learning new skill. However, I still believe there is a lot to be learned just by observation. Even when you are practicing, if you do not observe your mistakes, you would not learn anything new at the end of the day. So, in any learning environment i just focussed on keeping my eyes and ears open, learning could be that simple. Even if I did not understand anything It helped to connect the dots later on. https://unsplash.com/@birminghammuseumstrust I have seen this phenomena talked by many over the years. In fact I have written about this here in my own blog. Steve Jobbs talk about connecting the dots in life , charlie chapling talked about the same, looking at the long shot of life to see its commedy . Justing sung talks about blooms taxanomy and importance of higher order thinking and guess what, he ask us to think about connectivity or relationship of concepts to learn better. Barbara oakly talks about how diffuse mode of thinking leads us to develop dèep learning by just doing the same. It cannot be random that these people talk about the same thing at the same time. And when I was in grade eight my late maths teacher said "Maths, is all about pattern recognition" with a little rubik's cube in his hand. Now almost at his age I can only agree and reprase that, "life is all about pattern recognition" In mindfulness we recognise these patterns. And they leave us with a better understanding of our own lives. And you will start to notice the similarity of a spider stuck in a web and a man stuck in his web of lies all his life. You will appriciate there is a lot more common facts are there with a dung beetle rolling a dung ball agin and again in the field, and a farmer rolling hay after crops were harvested. And appriciate although we try to seperate ourselves from the environment it seems we are inherently part of it. Although we name the buildings and cities we build are artififial they are not. Even a plastic bottle is a natural phenomenon when we take out the element of our judgement from it. I am sure you have doubts at this time. How come someone argue a plastic bottle is natural and do not cause environmental pollution. I am not. I am just showing it is not absolute truth. Because when we start to choose a one side over the other there wil be clash. The mind will choose one over the other and buildup an eternal argument over it. This is another pattern i have observed in many aspect. Peace or war, happiness and sadness. Rich vs poor . These seems to be positive and negative values we give to otherwise neutral environment. And that is why at some point I have argued the peace is the highest form of happiness that we can achieve. Interconnectedness . This is not an argument which is true, only partially true. As anyone who needs to see the truth should see it for themselves in their own lives. There are many more patterns in nature that we can observe. I am sure ones you have observerd are unique to yourself. The more you observe the nature with mindfulness, more you will understand the interconnectedness of it. Interconnectedness of the nature is a topic by itself. The trem is used in Thich nhat hanh's book on mindfulness. I have seen this same observation discussed in different trems by different teachers. Some say its oneness, some say it is change , some even talk about God being living in everything . More importantly when you look at this from a distance I see the pattern. They all talk about the same thing . Obviously it seem they talk about some truth they have seen in the nature and within themselves . It is same as saying someone to be the mountain when you see a mountain. It is a joke, like asking a monkey to be a concious banana. But the truth is, everything we see and taste and hear are what there is and not, yet connected and presented to us in an understandable way by our own conciousness . In the form of sensations . https://unsplash.com/@borisworkshop So when you say you are angry the mindfulness will let you see the truth as well as the lie in it. Unlike many articles I have written before I am sure you would not understand any of this unless you have dots on your own to connect. I am sure I can help with that as this would be one of the most linked articles I have written so far. After all this is about interconnectedness. Hence, I invite you to follow the dots provided and see where it leads you to.