Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World
Yesterday, I learned the basics of the “Repulse Monkey” Tai Chi form. It is basically a way to gracefully retreat or walk backward, like a monkey would I suppose. While I certainly did not perform the move gracefully (I bumped into my chair a few times), after a few attempts I did begin to feel
Yesterday, I had an opportunity to put the Taoist advice I wrote about it in practice. In January, I submitted applications for grad school to study religion. I applied to two programs, (a PhD and a MTS – Masters in Theological Studies) at one school. I was rejected in February for the PhD program, which
My thirteenth ice bath was mostly uneventful. I did feel a bit hurried in the morning as I had a few errands to run and a dinner with a Jesuit priest to go to (more on that in a bit). The bath definitely had a calming effect. This could be a physiological reaction, or it
The ice baths are getting easier, but the post-ice bath shivering is getting worse. I’m not sure why. But the anxiety of taking an ice bath is mostly gone. There is a little bit of nervous pacing while the bathtub fills up, but I don’t dwell on it too much. Yesterday, a co-worker sent out
I’ve never really felt the need to be a part of a group. For example, I’m from the Boston area, which of course, means I’m supposed to be a Red Sox fan. Nominally, I’m a fan, but honestly, I don’t really care about baseball. The thought of going to a baseball game with thousands of
I consider modern American culture to be fairly hedonist. Our measures for success are largely material. If you are able to live in a fancy house or apartment, take luxury vacations, and eat gourmet food, you are successful. The more pleasures you are able to attain, the more successful you are. Though I am against
I’m still working on grad school apps so I’m holding off on publishing my “real” posts, but a question came to mind this morning that I thought would be interesting to pose to my readers. Much of modern advice is predicated on the idea that your current life situation is shitty, or at least, unsatisfactory, and
A few years ago, I was in the unfortunate position of having gained about 15 pounds of fat. I had been living in Portland for about 6 months and my workout program was…minimalist while my Portland food-cart indulging program was…maximalist? Not sure if that’s a word, but you get the point. Anyway, I moved back
For my first week of my Epicurean month, I successfully avoided watching TV (with the exception of Sunday, where I caught up on Homeland and Newsroom). Instead of watching hours of whatever is on, I’ve done the following: Read books, drank mint tea, and listened to Christmas music Caught up on a few work/project related
It turns out I was doing my meditation wrong. Apparently what you’re supposed to do is go through a set of stages that start with counting each individual breath, and then focusing on the breath, and then focusing on the sensation of the breath. For example, stage one requires you to count after each exhale.