You feel despair, you feel there is no point in taking another step.
You feel you don't have the energy to take another step.

But then you simply take another step,
and meaning comes, energy comes.

Hard to kill this crazy love I have for you,
anywhere in Europe I can hear you cry out,
for what we shared.

It seems like it will be a miracle for a whole continent
when we reunite.

A brief history of the theory of computation

Somewhere in the beginning of the 20th century,
the notion of a computer was mathematically formalized.
(The name `computer' came from people whose job it was to perform mathematical
computations on a piece of paper - they were called computers)

It was asked first: Is there something a computer can't compute? Even
if it is given an unbounded amount of time and space to use?
Alan Turing showed that even in such a case a computer cannot solve the following problem:
You give it a code of some computer program and ask it: If I run this program will it go
on running forever? Or will it stop after some finite amount of time?
Turing showed that whatever program you write to answer this question, it will always
give the wrong answer on some computer program it gets as input.

But it seemed that pretty much any problem you would want to solve
you could write a computer program for.
So the next big question was: Out of the problems a computer *can* solve, are there problems it can't solve in a reasonable amount of time?
A good way to think of reasonable is : Suppose I give the computer an input to the problem that is 800 bits long. Then if it can solve the problem before the universe ends using just the resources inside the universe
then this is reasonable.

Using the Theory of NP-Completeness it was shown that the following problem probably cannot be solved in a reasonable amount of time:
We have a map with n cities. Between each 2 there is a train. We start in the first city.
We ask what is the fastest way to go through all the cities and return to the first one.
That is, in which way order should we go through the cities to minimize the total travel time.
This problem is called - The Travelling Salesman Problem - or TSP
But, alongside theory who said this problem is hard, on many of the maps and sets of n cities that people cared the problem was and is being solved in practice.
So, now the next big question: Characterize which instances of TSP can be solved in reasonable time and which cannot.
One example - suppose the n cities are located in log(n) different states that are very far away from each other. And furthermore, inside the states it is clear what the best route is. Then we can prove an efficient algorithm exists.

He was rational, open minded
but had the need to be a fanatic.

She would become his religion..
When they first met, they joked that she would be a cult leader
and he would be the most devoted member.

But it was no joke,
worshiping her was like a drug..
and he did not care about it's insanity..
as long as that feeling could make him do one more push up
work harder, run faster,
he thought.. as drugs go you could do much worse.

He wished she would become just as addicted to this insanity..
They would be so caught up into it, they would barely notice as their bodies
turned to dust..

It would not change for a moment the way they looked at each other..
even as only bones and skulls were left.

It's spreading like wildfire! A big Israeli coffee chain has added a new vegan menu to all its branches after a survey indicated 40% of its customers were interested in more vegan options.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=773717525976385&set=a.130957563585721.24388.126099790738165&type=1&theater

Most of the time we take for granted that Technology works..
and doing computer science research you take for granted most of the time
that mathematics works.
But there are moments when you feel how remarkable it is.
You look at a string of 0's and 1's.
For example (1,0,1,0,0,0,1)
And you look at all it's cyclic shifts (where you move all bits one place to the right and move the last one back to the start)
The first shift gives you      (1,1,0,1,0,0,0)
The second shift gives you (0,1,1,0,1,0,0)
and so on..
You would like to prove that the 1's of the different shifts intersect with the original string on at most one coordinate:
For example: The original string has a one on the 1,3,7 indices.
                     The first shift has a one on the 1,2,4 indices
       so indeed they intersect on only one place.
Can you prove the intersection is always at most of size one without checking?
It turns out the following thing works.
There are these things called Galois fields
which are groups of numbers that are different from regular numbers.
For example in the Galois field GF(8)  we have 1+1 =0. Also, as the name implies - we have only 8 different numbers in this field - rather than infinitely many as we are used to with rational or real numbers.
In this field GF(8) there are special elements called generating elements.
These are elements g with the property that when you take their powers g,g^2,g^3...
they will run over all elements in the field except the 0 element.
Now say we take such a generating element g and compute the polynomial
whose roots are the powers of g corresponding to the 1's of our string - 1,3,7
and also 0
That is the polynomial
(x-g)*(x-g^3)*(x-g^7)*x  
It's easy to see this polynomial has degree 4.
What will be the coefficient of x^3?
It turns out that whenever it is 0, the cyclic shifts of the string will indeed intersect at atmost one place.
in the case above the polynomial we get (when doing computations in this field GF(8)) is

x^4 + (g^2 + g + 1)*x^2 + (g^2 + g)*x 

Which indeed has 0 as the coefficient of x^3

You can try it yourself here:


http://www.sagenb.org/home/Ariel_Gabizon/1/


just plug in the powers you want when evaluating poly, and then press evaluate.

This corresponds to the fact that subspaces have an intersection size that is a power of 2 over GF(2)and polynomials whose roots are a subspace over GF(2) will only contain powers that are powers of 2.

It's so exciting how Veganism is getting into the mainstream in Israel.
Domino's Pizza are now selling a vegan Pizza..
too bad I missed it by becoming a more fanatic gluten-free vegan.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=578500882218402&set=a.366969066704919.78153.346896375378855&type=1&theater

What if before we were born God told us..
`I am going to given you exactly the experiences you need.. so that you can,
in the shortest time possible, reach a state of happiness and love.'

What if we knew this? How differently we would face each challenge.

I am happy when I feel each experience is a learning towards the union with you
that I dream about.

Something I find it hard to relate to is how people can claim
to do something they are not able to do.
You have these Java libraries
XStream and JSON-io where their websites claim they are able to save any Java object to a file,
doesn't matter how complicated it is, or whether it is serializable.
But it's not true.. and surely they noticed it if I and other people have run into examples where it doesn't
the first time we try.
Their claims make you spend hours trying to make their libraries work.. when you could  have written the program you need yourself in an hour - which is what you end up doing of course..

I was shocked to discover today that there is no generic way to save an object to a file in Java.
There is this thing called the Serializable interface, but it doesn't work well with complex objects -
like parameterized objects where the parameters are complex objects themselves.
My example: An instantiation of DirectedSparseGraph < Vertex, Edge >

Anyway.. while programming today, and thinking about search problems,
I was thinking how the universe from particles to atoms to molecules to brains
is now evolving, through the internet and search algorithms, to one big brain
where the individual neurons themselves are complex and self-aware -
knowing they are in this brain and able to change the way they connect to other neurons
when there is need.

And how this brain is evolving to be used to solve a new level of mathematical problems,
or explore the next level of musical compositions.

I am also thinking now that quinoa seeds are wusses.
If you put them in a pan of hot water with over things - like lentils or oats,
they will not take any of the water until the other things are done using it.

Two things I have discovered from trying to be gluten-free.

For the first time I have a consistent way to get the belly I have had for more than 20 years down.
Trying to not eat late, or too much, or fatty things never worked for me (partly cause I couldn't do it consistently). But now since I don't eat pastries and bread and pitas it's going down automatically.

Second - a great way to make wraps or sort of sandwiches - use this thing called rice paper.

Did I invent you?
Are you just my imagination?
It's been so long since we met in reality. By now I am like a religious fanatic, believing I am preparing for the day we meet again with no proof that it will come.. perhaps even with some evidence that it won't.

But that belief gives me an extra push of willpower throughout many small junctions during each day.

I come to the office. My instinct is to spend another 20 minutes browsing the web before starting to work.
I feel at first there is no chance I have the energy to avoid that temptation.
But then, sometimes, I think to myself: How will the decision I make at this moment affect how well things go between us if and when we meet in who knows how many years.
Amazingly to me, I find that if I feel making the harder decision will help things go better by 0.1% with a 0.1% probability, I can make the hard choice not only without effort, but with enthusiasm thinking about it as yet another small brick being placed in the construction of this future I dream about.

So sweet, for every taste of you
I walk a hundred years in the desert.
Your shining eyes assure me, time is not lost,
this is the road you must take.
Each day, in the afternoon, every cell of my body wants to be
closer to you.

What do you do with people in your life that just always want more?
More of your attention, more of your energy.
Anytime you feed them, instead of being grateful they just want more,
they are looking for the next bite.
Even if they don't say anything, you feel it. You are stressed, you feel like you
need to protect what you have.
Is there any solution except shutting them out completely?

I thought today of this analogy: You are stressed out about a friend owing you a few dollars.

Then, you suddenly discover that you have 100,000$ in your bank account that you did not know about.

At that moment, these dollars that your friend owes you seem like not a big issue.

Then again you forget about this money in your account and you are annoyed at your friend and stressed again.

Similarly, I have this feeling of being stressed about not getting enough, or not getting what I deserve.

I now meditate  2 hours in the morning sometimes -  the deeper effect starts only after the first hour so it's a shame to stop there.  After that, at random moments in the day, I have this feeling of having 100,000$ dollars in some spiritual bank account - this feeling of abundance and joy that is deep and independent of external events. And at those moments, things not being as they should externally - not getting the attention you want from a girl, someone in your office that can't stop talking, your room being a mess - are still things that preferably should improved, but are not reasons not to be happy.

Your brain tricks you,dozens times a day..
in the corridors full of professors and Phd students
you manage to label someone as the bully,
some people as the popular group that won't associate with you.

Someone makes a comment in a lecture
with a slightly condescending tone..
you find yourself  hearing `all that you have to offer is worthless'
you attack back : `well why don't you prove it if it's so easy'
For a few minutes you are on auto-pilot..
but then you wake up.. this audience is not your enemy..

In your dreams you kick them away without checking who
they are,
just assume everybody is a monster..
anything else takes too much brain power.

Unexpectedly you meet her,
you see the world has something completely new to offer,
if you are able, for a moment, just to wake up..

Be strong for me,
transform for me,
so that we can unite at a higher level than before.

That has always been my plan.
You resent it's not as easy as you imagined.
But you know it's worth it.
You know you have no choice.
You know no one can love you like this.
Dirty and real, voices playing with the energy they were born into.
Finally finding someone that can give them wings.
Growing in the ground full of dirt and rocks,
and water, giving life to everything around them.
Giving this present of their love to all that surround the
m.
I feel this  frustration inside me.
I wish I could scream and ignore all consequences.
But I am the one burdened with being the constant repetitious reminder:

Be strong for me.
Transform for me.
So that we can unite at a higher plane than before.

Finally, found a place I enjoy showing tourists in Jerusalem.
The old city itself has a kind of weird, maybe negative, vibe.
Gethsemane church just outside of it to the east,
where supposedly Jesus prayed just before being caught by the Romans,
has a very special spiritual feel.
Maybe indeed some special event similar to Buddha's enlightenment happened here,
and the vibrations are still influencing it; because the atmosphere is quite noticeably different
from the area around, even though the place itself is quite a noisy tourist hotspot now.

Spiritual wealth

You sit for an hour in the forest.. you walk a little.
 You tell your monk friends `I was thinking of sitting for another hour..but maybe I'll just go home'
 And one of them asks you their regular trick question : `so are you going to choose the way of folding, or choose the way of strong determination'
You meditate with them for another hour.. you're not really sure how much time passed.
You start feeling the pain, together with the emotional pain..
 you feel clearly the correlation between the physical discomfort, the emotional discomfort, and your behavior patterns in critical situations.
 You feel how every extra minute, is worth its duration in gold.
 Every extra minute sitting with this discomfort, increasing the chances that in those critical moments, where a situation can lead into disaster or happiness, you will make the less wrong decision.
You drive from Haifa to Tel-Aviv. Feeling this wealth you have built up inside.
 Just watching the view, listening to the same CD.. how in the same situation just a day before you felt like a beggar.

I'm always wondering about whether stopping to drink coffee will make my alertness more stable throughout the day. Giving up coffee is quite a sad affair for me. I'm happy I found something else lately that has an even more positive affect on alertness and clarity - cutting off gluten - bread, pastries, ect. been doing it just for a few days and feel great.

Looks like it will take some time for my program to harmonize Giant Steps in Bach style..
and not sure that is the most interesting direction.

Here's something cute, meanwhile. It has the ability to stick a user chosen chord in the middle of a piece and go back to the original line in a relatively smooth way.


Original beginning of Chorale from BWV 1.6:



Sticking an Eb chord in the middle:


So happy I know how to embed Soundcloud files now :)

So much he wanted to know,
what was in her mind,
what she thought,
what she felt.

But he had only his imagination
to keep him company.
Imagining it was not just his imagination,
that he could read her thoughts,
that he knew what she thought and felt.

He didn't know what to do.
He wanted her so much in his life.
He said to himself, practice staying positive, practice being emotionally independent;
so that when you have the chance to be with her, you won't screw it up.
Her image became his motivation. Suddenly it became easy to stay calm in a
traffic jam, to spend 4 hours going in and out of the house looking for keys
and then looking for something else he dropped while looking for the keys.
What did it matter missing this or missing that?
All that mattered was using the time to develop the qualities that would enable them
to be together.
Suddenly difficult, frustrating situations were a good thing.
He knew she was difficult and frustrating, but not more than many other things.
He knew he was spoiled. He built a life where he could set the borders.
He could kick out anyone that did not act according to his predefined rules and behaviors.
He was good at not getting lonely.
But a life without this magic.. he was not ready for it,
he would always yearn for it.

I think a lot lately of the analogy, that we are in a stormy ocean, an ocean of thoughts.
Most of the time we are drowning inside.. and like a fish in water,
we do not know we are in water, we do not know our consciousness is absorbed in this
stream of thoughts.
Once in a while, perhaps with the help of meditation, perhaps by `chance'-
where the Buddhists would claim this `chance' is a result of good mental qualities
developed in the past, our head is above the water.
We are with the reality of this moment, not panicked, not exhausted.
It feels we have `made it' for a second. But the ocean is stormy,
and a huge wave comes - a sexual fantasy, a thought of resentment about
a co-worker\friend\romantic partner that did not act like we wanted him\her to.
For the first second it seems we can keep our head above the water,
not get sucked in; but the pull of the wave reveals its strength more and more.
Like water it flows through any empty space you leave it..
it can come as thoughts about `hahh.. look how I am staying present
and not getting sucked into thought..hmm I am getting so developed..
next time I meet this girl she will feel how much more developed I am..
and then our meeting will go so much better, we will end staying at my place and..'
and after 20 minutes again you wake up for a second.

You get sick, and at the same time there is a clog in the pipes
and your house get's flooded after you take a shower.
You're tired, you're bored.
You start having thoughts like
`maybe I should have kids so my little sister won't have to take care
of me when I'm old'
You listen to the audio version of `the art of living'
by William Hart. A teacher in the Goenka school,
that you even had the privilege to take a course with.
You understand: Only the truth can give real refuge.
The truth of impermanence. The experience of the fact
that `you' are just a collection of a physical process and 4 mental processes
interacting with each other and changing every moment.
You feel the inner body. You see how it feels as good and alive regardless of the
state of the outer body. You see how the happiness of the awareness of impermanence
can be accessed at any moment.

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/ex8380-400
https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/360-380allvoices

A few thoughts inspired by an interview with David Cope

http://www.psmag.com/culture/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9puyNuMXkEw


The beauty of a diamond does not depend on whether it was reached by a human
with a shovel, or by a drilling machine.
Similarly, the beauty of a musical piece should not depend on whether it was `mined'
by a human or computer.
Here the mining is done in the space of all possible combinations of notes in space and time.

You would not compare a cellist and pianist and say `Oh the cellist is not as good because he could not play fast sequences of 4 chord notes' or `The pianist is not as good because he cannot control the nuances of  the volume and color of a single note'.

A piano is a tool created with technology: You have a machine that plays the actual strings for you. You lose some control over the details, and gain the ability to play more complicated combinations of notes.

Similarly, music mining technologies will be a tool with it's own disadvantages and advantages.
They will not eliminate the need for creativity and talent of the user. As pianists are compared to each other,
users of these new tools will be compared to each other on how well they use them.

A bit of topic, now that much of the world is secular, people are looking for things to deem sacred.
One such thing is human creativity.
And there is always the question: Was this musical idea\physics law\technology` invented\created' or `discovered'?
I tend to view things more on the discovery side..like exploring a new land,
we are exploring the lands of sound combinations\mathematical notions\ect..
which at a more general level are explorations of all possible manifestations of mind and matter.

'Write me', he heard her say.
He wondered if through channeled voices he was letting her voice out.
When she was tied by conventions and constraints, he would be her voice,
God's voice, in that small echo of God
s voice, that resonated in the air since their first meeting.

He could not tell the difference between mental masturbation, and wishful thinking,
and real, meaningful words.

She just pushed him to spit out, sentence after sentence.
He was drugged by the storyline.

Two fair away friends, working, developing, the ground for the time when
a war could be fought and won on it.

So much to do,
so many places to go,
create a new layer of thoughts and emotions.
Make it believable that you were just another fantasy..

but at a moment of silence,
it becomes clear..
you are underneath it all.

I was curious what would come out from a graph of bach transitions, under the constraint that the bass or soprano has to pass through all notes in an octave by order (chromatically) up and down.
https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/chromaticbass-370-410
https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/chromatic-soprano-370-410

Bach with giant steps

To not forget : reminding myself : next project is to make music with bach -chorale based transitions that passes through all chords of Coltrane's Giant steps.

With everything so pleasant.. the tendency to grasp at the impermanent arises..
but it is clearer by now.. there is nothing in that grasping but pain and tension

The threshold moment

I find that everyday for me has a `threshold moment' - a moment where, if I don't do my evening meditation now, I will not do it at all, or do it while being half asleep. There are thoughts - ohh so many things to do.. why stop now, can do it later. But from experience, after the threshold passes, you get caught up in all the events and tasks that come.
Need to remember - all the tasks you've completed and events you've attended will not give you anything in the end of this life.
All that matters in the end of this life - how much mental defilements you have eradicated. Your mental conditioning and karma - that is what you will carry onwards.

More random walks

these ones from a `degree-2- markov chain': each 3 consecutive quarters are from some Bach Chorale

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/degree-3-random-walk

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/deg-3-random-walk-using

Random walks on Bach Graph

A computer generated short piece, where each transition was chosen randomly from a set of transitions from Bach chorales. A friend of mine did an experiment playing it to musician friends without telling them the source. Reaction was `hmm.. it kind of sounds like Bach, but not exactly, some other composer'.
I wonder if that's considered passing the Turing test? Does the person have to know in advance there's a chance he's talking to a computer.. or needs, from his own initiative to say `something feels weird here'..
maybe the second version is kind of a weak version of the Turing test.
Anyway, my intention is not to complement the program (which is just a random walk) but more Bach - who is so precise that even taking a context of one step back, no more, produces coherent things.
I think more interesting than imitating Bach  is intentionally taking some elements fro him, while ignoring\modifying others, to generate new directions.

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/randomwalk

You are in love.
It is like a drug,
but by now you know to enjoy it like a cloud..
enjoy it's beauty.. but never make it into your refuge.
It's fleeting beauty cannot give you protection, but rather the awareness of it's fleetingness.

From a life fluctuating between enjoying and suffering,
you move to a life fluctuating between enjoying and spiritual practice.

S. N. Goenka passed away a few days ago. Below is a wonderful talk by him.

I find that life proves to me again and again, how good and relevant his teaching was. Mainly because it was not `his' - just a pure passing on, without interference, without adding and subtracting.

                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3wiVLYl_UU

F to E

Another experiment:
Bach would never transition from F Major to E Major.
It's totally unclassical.

But we let the computer search for a way to get from one to the other,
using only Bach transitions from BWV 1.6.
I found it works smoother than I would expect.

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/1-6-to-436

Chorale Salad

I've been experimenting with using a database of bach works to create tools for composers.
I'm just starting out, but here's a cute computer generated result:
Starts from Chorale of BWV1 and goes crazy from there :)

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/choralesalad

Faster example:

https://soundcloud.com/ariel-gabizon/choralesalad2

The meeting with her changed his DNA.
Like a deep reflex embedded in his system.
Any moment of any day if he would be asked
`Do you have faith that you will reunite?'
`Can you feel her presence?'
An instant `Yes' would come from deep within.

One of the best TED talks I've seen.
We get used to thinking of technology as finding faster ways
to connect my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram account.
We underestimate it and make it cheap. We should remember it gives us the power not to take anything about our current lifestyle for granted.

Changing, transforming.

Wow! It's fun when ideas have been in your head for a while, and then someone else articulates it perfectly, and gives you the missing pieces.

Relying on willpower for long term change, you see with people around, mainly leads to guilt feelings when it fails. (Though motivation\will-power can be an aiding factor - as explained nicely in the middle of the below talk.)

The key is tiny, tiny, and *consistent* changes.
The piece I  tend to forget - the *reward*: say `I'm awesome!' after you floss one tooth, or do one push up.

The piece I never thought of - the *trigger* - commit to doing a tiny thing, after something you are already consistently doing: this guy's example : 2 pushups after flushing the toilet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdKUJxjn-R8

This love hurts only if I resist it,

but I rarely do anymore.

I let it be my fuel, my engine,

moving me forward with every heartbeat.

Every moment getting more positive, more emotionally independent.

This love is that extra push for crossing the threshold from

`Let's try to be comfortable till we die'

to `Let's transform (and perhaps die on the way)'

Going deep

so easy to avoid, but so simple.

Just using the technology of an alarm clock, you only need to say,
for half an hour, I will only work on this song, and I will avoid the
familiar escape routes:
I'll play the song from start to finish, not avoiding the parts I don't know
what to do in yet.
I'll go through the parts I'm not happy with yet, and straighten them out like with an iron.
I won't start playing something else I already know when I get impatient.

Just 30 minutes like this, so easy to avoid doing once even in 365 days of 24 hours.
But just 30 minutes like this, guaranteed to bring you new discoveries every time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_8RacamlcQ

What is the east meets west path from dependence to independence? A step on the right foot: 'You can achieve what you wanted!', a step on the left foot: 'But you are also fine without it!'.

Souls break, hearts break,
pain is experienced beyond imaginary thresholds;
and yet life is not a fairytale, and the music does not stop
or miss a beat each time a tear is shed.
Life has its own plans to take us further than any Disney movie ending.

You always seem only a few steps away,
 whispering in my ear: 'move on! move on!'
 but you are a mirage always staying in the horizon,
 a trick I play on myself to move on, move on.
..and you whisper: '..getting closer..'.

Faith is required when the momentum of Karma in your mind seems infinite.
You can think of yourself, 5 years, 10 years back, and see, it is thinner, lighter than it used to be.
Constantly search for the feeling of progress.

People overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what
they can do in a year.
A year of using your mind, directing your mind.
A year of saying I will not be dependent.
I will train myself to draw state from within, to validate myself.
To not constantly look for outward validation.
A year of looking for what is fun, what has contribution, value,
and laying down a brick in the structure of such a life everyday..not just for her,
but just incase she comes, she will have a tempting place to stay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXCiv4sc5eY

You brought the ocean into my life.
I try to fit you into my rigid perceptions.
Each time, I struggle and feel `Now I have you under control!'
But the battle supposedly won, was just a wave that came and passed.
And always a larger one is coming,
shattering perceptions and rules.

You force me to strip all layers.
You are stronger than me, at least in a certain way.
You will not surrender until I meet you naked,
accepting the truth of you power in me.

regret of missed opportunities, of missed pleasures..
frustration at the unfairness of it,
torture a man..keep him running, keep him from breathing,
he cannot accept a world where his desire is not met,
it is unbearable.

He is in a nightmare, running away from a monster and chasing a beautiful princess.
The memory of her beauty and the ferocity of the monster keep him consumed in chasing and running.
He has the idea in his mind `The only real solution is to wake up!'.. but he does not know if he believes it right now.
To see if it is true, he must stop and sit, at the risk of losing the princess and being eaten by the monster.
Sit and return to the basics.. what are the basic realities?
There is pain, and freedom from pain.. at the depth of his experience those are the only options.

מה נשאר, 

ממילים שנראו כל כך חשובות?

הן נשכחו על ידיך ועל ידי.

ובידי לא נשאר שום סימן,

שהן אי פעם היו קדושות.

Memories, don't go easily,
they only pass to rise again.
How strong the illusion,
that times were perfect,
and could be again.

(picture from:

http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/film-tv-music/the-buddha-the-story-of-siddhartha.html

I just needed to add some picture, cause blogger can't upload just audio..this is a picture of the first discourse given by the Buddha after his enlightenment, after which it is said, the entire universe shook, and the wheel of Dhamma started rolling)

We judge each other,
for the faults we fear finding in ourselves.
There is no point in forcing polite conversation,
it would only be an insult.
But walking back and forth in the same corridor,
each with his own thoughts,
I know we are brothers.

How strong the reluctance to risk losing social value is.
You would expect that perhaps a girl would not want to kiss a guy
acting weird that she doesn't know.
But what's interesting in this video, is that also guys refuse to kiss a
beautiful girl, when she is acting in a way that is `weird', like she is one of the outcasts
they do not want to associate with (see e.g. 2:25 below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_65850&feature=iv&src_vid=YvupkMJWAaM&v=YkZav1m9oSI

We don't want to look at ourselves.
And what are we? Just a stream of thoughts, emotions, physical sensations.
We are very selective.
We are willing to acknowledge we are this stream, only when very
particular thoughts, emotions and sensations are there.
So we take a peek only in situations where we are guaranteed
to find those particular thoughts and emotions, like when we get a caffeine boost.
Like someone who is uncomfortable with a certain part of his body,
constantly tries to look away, and instead imagines the perfect flat stomach.
True peace, true confidence comes, when every moment you are aware and comfortable with the fact that you are this stream..containing positive and negative thoughts and emotions, pleasant and unpleasant sensations.
When you do not try to pretend you are something other than this stream, you feel comfortable with anyone, in any situation.

He knew he was still too weak,
he would keep losing this battle.
So in a deal with an angel,
he gave up his free will.
He voluntarily put himself in a prison,
with no stimulation, only his darkness appeared.
For thousands of years, he would repeatedly practice facing his sadness, facing his despair.
Time passed, he forgot who he was, forgot  there was any other place in the world besides
this dark hole,
that this was only a training ground.
He would become the diamond that is forged in the depth of the earth,
were only pressure and solid ground exists, no air to float in.
These minds who chose this path, were not regular diamonds.
They grew in a black hole where pressure gradually became infinite.

I close my eyes,
and imagine demons around me are angels.

I see the ball of light behind their eyes,
their thoughts and mine touch,
they go to battle in an ancient forest,
that we have never left.

Freed from all distractions,
the real battle of souls continues,
after falling a thousand times,
we march again.

Colors are sharp.
Spears are sharp, penetrating.
Stakes are high,
the cries of battle drown cynicism immediately.

Freed from all comforting illusions,
the battle for your soul desperately continues.
Fearing being imprisoned again,
you run, this time into your enemy, not away from him.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztzMII6T-U4

We have misconceptions about what is good for us and what not,
because we keep forgetting to ask the most basic question
`When I am in situation X, is what is going on in my body pleasant or unpleasant?'
In the middle of work, you get caught up in a sexual fantasy.
All your attention is in that thought, and none of it is in your body.
You assume it is basically pleasant,
but if you actually observe what is going on in your body at that
moment, you would feel mainly tension, contraction, discontent.
When you notice that, as you are not consciously masochistic, the
energy behind that thought automatically weakens.
This is how you can explore the natural law.
Whatever physical or mental action you take, see if it generates pleasant or unpleasant sensations in the body.

All is well,

no need to say you're sorry.

It's all OK,
there was no other way
it could be.

It's all so well.
It's waiting all for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwAVuFK_wds

On the galaxy circus,
the gods were watching him,
walking on the tight rope stretched from the moon to the sun.
His challenge was not to lose his balance as the heat grew.
It was the test they all passed to become masters of space.

It was a huge effort of mind over matter,
and with each step, the matter of his body
become lighter, less dense.

Though he met the Buddha,
who told him there was nothing but disappointment
outside of this narrow path,
that was not what drove him.

In the back of his mind,
the astral connection he once made
on earth was still guiding his steps.

He fantasized about having only his astral body left,
so that their union could be more real, more complete.

Perhaps it was a trick that the Buddha planted deep in his mind.
For by the time he reached the sun, he saw not one unique angel,
but millions shining equally as bright.

The universe does not give you what you want,
because it wants you to grow into something larger.
You have an idea in your head
`I will marry this girl. I will have this job.
Everything will be perfect'
You don't get the girl..or you don't get the job..
or you get both but also get some terrible disease with them.
You are forced to broaden your concept of who you are,
of what life is supposed to be.
You are stretched in every direction.
How much the stretching is torture, and how much it
is an adventure, depends on your ability to not resist.
How much effort it takes to not do anything!
Because it is so against your habbit.
You must choose your environment well.
Find the few beings who are already aligned with the evolutionary impulse of expansion,
who are engulfed in a deep positive vibration.
Be influenced by them.
It is a narrow path that leads to heaven.

Sitting for many hours in a meditation course,
you keep trying to find the comfortable way sit -
an extra cushion on your knee, another cushion to pull your butt up,
then you try less cushions.
Maybe the same thing happens in life on a larger scale -
you try to be with someone..you feel trapped, then you try to be with yourself..
after a while you feel lonely.
The basic sense of discontent always finds the place where it can
manifest.
Like when you sit meditating in a certain posture, there will be some point
on your leg, or behind, or somewhere where there is more pressure being put,
and the physical discomfort can manifest there.
As a friend recently said to me, we need to enjoy the imperfectness of life.
That imperfection always manifests somehow, in any situation, and it is always the doorway through which true dissolvement  of that basic sense of discontent can happen.

It is better to hear it from a master
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=341U2YUjaZw

They exchanged few words throughout many lifetimes,
but each word was a seed that was given the most fertile land,
abundant water and sunshine.
A tree with thick roots is growing.

Each time things become pleasant, we are tempted to think `Ahh.. I've finally made it. Everything is going to be perfect from now on'.

But life will continue to fluctuate between pleasant and unpleasant, until we fully internalize the truth of impermanence.

The liberating insight is that the slight irritation caused by someone slow in line ahead of you,
or an itch on your forehead, and the massive sadness caused by a girl who broke your heart or a loved one dying are different only in quantity, not quality.
Both are basically impermanent. Both dissolve with awareness.
Like a clean floor with a few cookie crumbs on it, and a floor covered with mud and food crumbs, the cleaning process is the same in both cases. The guarantee of success is the same: The more you have cleaned, and the less dirt you have added, the cleaner the floor is.

I keep listening to these corny pop songs while I work.. always
with headphones..
I just thought how funny it would be if what I was doing was broadcasted
to all offices on the floor..
and people were thinking `Ohh.. again Ariel is listening to Hall of Fame by The Script*'
Wouldn't it be funny if what you thought you were doing in private for a year,
you suddenly discovered was being seen by everyone.
You would want to bury yourself for a moment in some hole..
but a moment later you would stop taking yourself so seriously.

Suppose there are angels above that are really bored..
and anytime you are about to do something embarrassing like hit on a girl,
or masturbate.. a beep goes off. They turn on the screen. And they start rolling from
laughter.


*Which is of course an *AWESOME* song

This guy is so ridiculous it is funny
https://www.youtube.com/user/WeHateYouSoMuchMJ/feed?filter=1

Totally hopeless

On the surface of things, people don't want to try things that they feel have a low chance
of succeeding. Like it's not worth the effort and possible rejection to try to talk
to a beautiful girl, if you feel there' s only a 1 in 5 chance of a positive reaction,
and say a 1 in 20 chance of getting to a date or a kiss, and say 1 in 50 of getting further.
But I think it's not true. If you really believed that if you try to talk to the next 70
hot girls you see, one of them will have amazing sex with you, if that was tangible to you,
the motivation for talking to the other 69 would be easy.
Like in research, from experience I know that if I try to think of a good idea each day,
probably once a year, I will have a good idea.
And that is enough to motivate me (well.. and the fact that I get paid for it)
So the problem is that we believe there is a *zero*-percent chance of something like talking to a cute girl bringing a positive outcome.
Rationally, we know it's not 0%, but that's how it feels
Or.. at least.. that the prize of staying comfortable, watching TV or something, is much more tangible to our minds.
So what's the solution?.. I don't know.. I'm just a lazy bum.. I can't be bothered with even finishing to wri

Same thing every day, every year.
I chase you, and then I run away, run away.

Somehow it's a surprise every time.
I know you, then you're a stranger again.

This time I feel,
could be different.
Cause you know so well,
how to keep me in love with you.

Every time I see your face,
I know you're the demon
whose going to kill me!

I gave you my heart before I was born,
I know you're the arrow
that's going to pierce me!

This year something different I feel,
I chase you, and then you catch me.

Baby let me be your slave!!
Wipe your ass on my forehead after every meal!!!
Don't ever walk around with a dirty ass, Baby.
I'll be the dirty one,
and you'll be my pure angel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Q6eGUAICM

Our love cannot be touched.
You throw mud on it,
smash it on the floor,
ignore it,
starve it..
a moment later you check to see if it is still there,
and it reappears like nothing happened.

Like an enemy you keep thinking you've killed,
but then discover you have not left a scratch on him.
With time, you learn your best option is to make him a friend.

Baby, you're so deep in my heart,
I can't believe it could be.

Look how time passes by,
and I still feel you so clear in my mind's eye.

You're my perfect dream,
You're my biggest fear.
You force me to find a way out of my agony.

Baby, I can't help but feel,
you feel every word I sing so much more
than me.

It's just a shadow of me.. that sings these words.

Baby, I just live from dream to dream.. dreaming with you.

I really like the end of Matrix Reloaded.
Neo and the others did everything they were supposed to,
they overcame all difficulties and chalenges.
But still, the same problems are there.
Their ship is being attacked and destroyed.
 The centinels are digging, coming to destroy their city.
The same shit as before.
It seems for a moment that all efforts were in vain.
And then, for a moment  Neo stops running away and says
`Wait, something's different'. He sees he does not need
to run away from the centinels, he can  stop them with his mind.

I feel the same sometimes. The same negative emotions come.
Especially mid-afternoon - it seems to be the time of day were I
face the music, and pay emotional consequences of all my decisions.
For a moment it seems nothing has improved..
but a moment later I notice `wait.. something's different'
These emotions dissolve, through the meditation practice,
and through the surprising discovery that I always have you inside of me..
even at dark moments.

This journey, such an adventure when you let it be,
leading you to the places you constantly tried to avoid,
discovering they are so different than what you thought.

Your thoughts about me, are my fuel.

The night has come.
I've relaxed. I've come to senses..
but again this urge drives me.
I must write to you, agan and again.
Must write with you, again and again.
The seed of this connection, through what magic did it get so deeply planted?

Will we one day wake up from this dream, to discover we have been
sitting, crosslegged, infront of each other all these years?

He just let, he just let
his colors shine, even though they made no sense.

He just lived, he just lived
his fairytale, even though it had no promised happy end.

Just a laptop, infront of a running TV, not waiting anymore for
Israel to reach salvation. Salvation was just a pure child resting
inside of him. All colors were always protected.

Out of impatience, I turn my back on you.
Hypnotized and druged, I sit.
For an hour, 2 hours,
and then the feeling returns,
we keep walking, not all is lost,
we are blind and lazy and tired, but have already
been pushed in the right direction.

Out of wisdom, I turn my back on you.
Hypnotized and druged, the hours pass,
wisdom passes, addictions return.
It seems such a pointless life.
But at the right moment, wisdom and
pointlessness mix in just the right amounts;
poetry is created.

Out of time, I sit in front of you,
all that is left is two pairs of eyes, still staring at each other,
hypnotized.

The 4 noble truths become more tangible, bringing seriousness, motivation and enthusiasm..
you realize more and more that suffering is so real, perhaps
the most real of all illusions.
And it also becomes more and more tangible, that the eradication of
negativity, the dissolvement of negativities can really happen.
That the change in life with each negativity dissolved, is real and tangible.

I had an interesting conversation with a fellow meditator on the way back from a course.
One interesting thing he said was that the reason the Goenka school is so harsh as it evolved in
India, and you got to yell at these Indians or otherwise they will just walk around all day.
So westerners, with guilt complexes and perfectionism, taking the course who take this harshness too much to heart should remember the teachers just want them to work, not stress themselves out.

Evolution comes in waves, and you need to relax and enjoy the journey.
Indeed the first thing I did after the course was surf in my favorite porn site.

The connection of mind and body becomes so tangible.
You notice how the pain in the leg arises together with stress in the mind.
It comes as no surprise anymore that the quieting of the mental reaction dissolves
the physical pain.

The practice is so hard, but you realize more and more it is *the* practice. At almost the same moment I want to do a 20 day course and cannot stand the thought of sitting another 5 minutes.

It is our basic misconception that keeps us fighting with the world.
Nature keeps trying to take the defilements outside of us. But when they arise on the surface we
fill discomfort and try to push them back inside, rather than let them leave.

Just replying to an email,
it suddenly feels so right.. so meant to be
Like everything that happens is another indication, another step,
another lesson, leading you to this destiny that seems like such a
cliche fantasy that everybody falls for.
Dealing with an annoying friend, being bossed around by a crazy drugged girl,
all started with some breathing and looking, and stories of fat Rabbi and a
bloodthirsty gentile girl..used as tools for incarnated spirits longing to unite..
leading you to lying down in a parked car holding hands with the sits pulled all the way back,
listening to Sting and thinking .. I wish I could reach those notes! I will reach them
when I reach you.
Trying to be in the moment, enjoying this, and not be carried away by akwardness as a Rabbi and his son walk by on this strange scene.
I succeed for quite a few moments, and carry with me to sleep this full satisfying feeling, that you planted the seed for..

I cannot fight the urge
to talk to you,
even if it is infront of the whole world.
And say to the world,
I have never met anyone..
like you!

A guy and a girl

`Do you feel like picking up my friend and going to this place?'
`Yeah.. we can do that'
`OK.. do you really want to?'
`Yeah that's fine'
`You don't say anything clear. Just tell me what you're really thinking!'
`OK... I guess I'm thinking it would be nice to go to my apartment and make out,
and I'm not crazy about your friend either'
`What!! How can you say such things. You need to learn to speak with more tact!'

Everybody KNOWS you want to fuck,
Everybody KNOWS you want attention,
Everybody KNOWS you want validation,

So what's the point of all these stupid pretenses!!

Cause everybody is JUST THE SAMEE!

Hiding your thoughts all day..
your thoughts are anyway IN THE AIR

and you know Google KNOWS where you browse at 2am!!

Write with me..
what we have left is words through space,
a thin line connecting us through a thousand miles.
What does it matter?
You know I am already here,
Your tragedy and biggest hope.
Don't resist this process we both need.
You can deny it, say it's childish, unhealthy,
but it only comes back stronger..
Don't be afraid to be an attention seeking little child with me.
Love you..

The moments we shared,
are precious gems,
gems of memory.
With time and distance it is easier
to appreciate and enjoy them for what they were...
you cannot force magic to perform according to your invented schedule
..by now it is a little easier to just sit back and enjoy the show:-)

New morning.. opportunities are endless..
lack of faith prevents us from seizing them.
We think `All this will burn by the afternoon anyway'.
But all this will be rebuilt by tomorrow morning, according to what you are designing now!

Some girl are just egomaniacs.
They  go around thinking `all guys are such superficial jerks'
They're so much into thinking that that they pull you into it, and you find yourself
acting like a superficial jerk. You do it half as a joke, cause you cannot believe
that this girl really thinks this is all you are about.
But then you discover `wow! She wasn't in on my joke. She thinks I'm a complete idiot, and
is giving herself a stroke on the ego by thinking of me like  that'
Well.. it's your boring repetitive life.

Glimpses of light,
we were prepared for only glimpses.
Each drop we created fuels a week of searching,
we are instruments in a task so different  than
what we imagine to be doing.
The forest grows through our actions, while
we are preoccupied sitting at our desks, with our repetitive worries.
The fantasy of control, breaks down again and again.
What keeps us together I do not understand.
The master takes control once a day,
to make us build this house we will in our old age share.

We are creatures of habit and addiction,
that will not change anytime soon..
our best strategy is to use it to our advantage:
get addicted to peace, get addicted to freedom,
get addicted to energy, to fun, get addicted to socializing,
addicted to intense focus, addicted to clarity.

The more you taste them, the more your addictive nature works in your favor.

The art of letting go,
how good it feels when you do,
how confident it makes you feel,
knowing that it is a skill you can develop,
a healthy state you can get addicted to,
knowing you are heading towards a place,
where you do not depend on anyone..
Perhaps an empty place?
A small sacrifice of a fantasy for peace in reality.

constantly tortured by your own thoughts,
looking for solutions in repetitive cycles - a positive viewpoint, then a negative viewpoint,
`maybe it was a good experience? or maybe it was a tragedy? it will work out!... no, nothing ever changes!'

What joy there is in moments you break free..
then you can truly dance!

My Darling,

I am constantly surprised by the strength of this magnetic pull, drawing me to you;
looking for any reason, any excuse, any way, to feel close to you.
I am constantly in a dilemma: is that strength a sign it is my destiny to follow that pull?
Or is my challenge to learn how to not resist it, but let it run through the world, while I stay here in my peace.
Sometimes I hear you say to me `Don't resist, don't be in pain, just accept my love. Accept the world's love. Don't make the world into your enemy.'

In math, you are frequently faced with a problem that seems trivial, too trivial to even think about;
but when you think `OK, let's see how to actually solve this problem instead of just saying it's trivial and ignoring it'..  you see it's not clear at all how to solve it.

God said to the spirit: `I will send you with a glass of mediocre wine in your hand, to stand in the middle of a huge ocean made of the finest champagne. Some of the wine will spill from your glass. Your task will be to enjoy the champagne, rather than getting absorbed in frustration and resentment about the spilled wine. For starters, see if you can get to a place where you are not starting wars because you are so upset about the spilled wine. I give you an infinite amount of time to solve the problem.'

The spirit said `That's ridculous! Why bother?.. fine if you insist I'll show you how easy it is.'
..trillions of years later, the spirit is slowly, gradually, working out the solution.

Life is so beautiful. But you cannot experience that beauty when heavy
clouds are all around you. Anger, resentment, sadness - these are the clouds.
They have their own momentum that has been accumulated. You have to
let that momentum resolve itself. You have to learn not add to it, and not
to resist it. It is out of your choice whether the current cloud of resentment will be there for next 5 minutes, 5 hours, or 5 lifetimes.
You have to be aware when a cloud is there, of the fact that is not solid,
that it dissolves with your awareness.
You can watch it happily and enthusiastically, the more experience you have of the fact that you are getting lighter, happier with time.
When the clouds are too heavy I can read these words and they will sound empty to me;
but at a moment where there is a clearing of a cloud, I realize their truth.

Patience comes more easily, the more confidence is developed.
Confidence in the Dhamma.
Confidence that when you use this moment to plant seeds of positivity,
the things you wish for are bound to come, at a moment only the universe knows.
Confidence that the more positive seeds you plant, while ups and down continue,
while the same problems, the same negative patterns rise again,
your average moment, your average day,
continue to get better, happier.

The more you are happy feeling your own progress, the less you compare yourself with others,
the less you judge yourself for your own shortcomings, the less you feel insecure or jealous with others.

Be happy with small improvements.
Don't fall into the trap of imagining how from tomorrow
you will be the perfect person you fantasize about, while feeling guily about
what you are doing with your time right now.
Instead, think of how tomorrow, or today just incase you feel like it, you are going to spend at least 5 seconds improving your life.
Look at the history of the 20th century. Look to what extent people can be absorbed with causing themselves and each other pain.
Any moment where a person breaks the pattern of blind negative reaction, even
if it is just for a moment, is a miracle. It is beautiful.
Instead of feeling guilty for following your bad habits most of the time,
be happy for each moment you snap out of them.
Like each of them is a turning of the wheel of your car by a small angle;
they accumulate and completely change your destination over time.
This feeling of happiness and enthusiasm will make these moments more frequent.
Don't compare yourself to anyone else. We have such different karmas.
Look at your own development.
If 5 years ago you spent 2 years obsessing over a girl that was totally not interested in you,
and now you spent 1 year obsessing over a girl that was semi-interested,
that's progress!
Be realistic and optimistic as S.N.Goenka says.

A moment of purity almost brings a tear to my eye.
It is a comfort to know, that with all our sins, we can always return to it,
almost instantenously.