Waiting at Amsterdam airport for a flight to Bergen, Norway,
I am delighted to discover that Bikkhu Bodhi's book
The Noble Eightfold Path, can be found online
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/waytoend.html#ch1

I remember reading just the first one or two pages a while ago,
and feeling they resonated so perfectly with me.
I think of the analogy of having a really simple mathematical proof
of a theorem.
Then, someone finds a small bug in the proof.
You hope there is an easy fix.
But although you try to deny it, in the back of your mind you already know:
The path leading to the correct proof is completely different, deep and long.
So it is, with the issue of happiness and suffering.
You are not completely happy, and you are hoping there is a quick fix:
Oh, your career must be not what your real calling is.
Oh, your partner is not the your true soulmate.
Oh, you need to exercise and eat right and then everything will be perfect.
Of course - quick is `relatively quick' :)
I think a big problem, is that once you have a glimpse of the spiritual path
you doubt that these things will  make you 100% happy, but you are not sure they
won't make you 100% happy.
The only way you could be sure is if you had the job\partner you fantasize about,
and discover - ohh , I'm still not happy.
But since you at the same time doubt these things will make you happy,
your motivation to go after them is not as high as other people..
so you don't get them! and then you stay with this doubt..
you use half your energy for the spiritual path, and half for obtaining the things you fantasize about
and keep taking one step in one direction than one to the other.
If you are in this situation, reading the intro of Bodhi's book can really help :)
..well I'm not completely sure it will help but read the first page anyway. It's awesome.

I remember asking a meditation teacher: Does a cat generate bad karma by killing?
I expected the answer: No, it's just his instinct. He has no choice.

But instead he slightly smiled and said something like `It's hard to get out of being an animal'

It's easier to make money when you already have a lot.
It's easier to generate good karma at moments when you are experiencing the pleasure of previous good karma.

But when you are not. And you are looking around, envious. Why did he get the relationship he wanted?
Why did he get the job he wanted?
You find yourself wanting to be bitter.Wanting to be the victim and tell yourself how everybody uses and mistreats you.
You find yourself cutting people on the road. Not stopping when a mother with her baby wants to cross.
You have a day where you feel as miserable as you did as a teenager.
No hope, only darkness.
You go get some coffee to help you finish some work.
Or perhaps, you think of some work you need to finish to have an excuse to drink more coffee.
Especially soy-milk capuccinos can be watery and tasteless if not done right.
But you get a cup that is thick and tasty.
You wait for a second for the guy to end a phone call and say
`You guys always make the best coffee around!'
You feel better than you did all day.
For a moment, you are not poor or envious.

Suffering is like a beast inside you.
And ignorance is confusing the beast with the beast's food.
It's food - anything in the external world that is not pleasant to you
Even a thought that is not pleasant.
You feel the suffering inside you clearly only when it is feeding.
So you confuse the suffering with the unpleasant situation.
You think the unpleasant situation is your enemy,
You think the person causing the unpleasant situation is your enemy.
But practicing Vipassana, you reach a stage when you can feel
the beast inside you almost continuously.
You start to consciously fight the real battle.
Real in the sense that every small victory brings happiness.

Some amazing math

There has been a video on the net claiming that the infinite sum 1+2+3+4... = -1/12.
Initially I thought this was nonsense.
But just read an amazing blog post (in Hebrew) explaining the matter.

I thought it was nonsense because I thought we already know that 1+2+3+4.. is equal to infinity,
and infinity is clearly not equal to -1/12.

But it is not true that we know this.
What we know is that when embedding the rational numbers into the real numbers,
and taking distances between them as real numbers - for example the distance between 4 and 1 is 3,
then the sum 1+2+3+4+.. is just not defined! It does not `get close' to anything.
(For an example of `getting close', look at 1+1/2+1/4+1/8+1/16... we see that this sequence `gets close' to 2, and indeed you can prove in mathematics it is equal to 2.)

What they prove is that in any embedding of the rational numbers to a metric space such that
1+2+3+4+.. is defined, then it would have to equal -1/12.

A simpler example given in the post:
Suppose S= 1+2 +4+8 +16... (all powers of 2)
suppose we are in a world where S is really well defined.
Then we can write

1+2S = 1+ 2*(1+2+4+8+16..) = 1+2 +4+8 +16+32.. = S

So 1+2S =S and S = -1

The amazing thing is that there is  a mathematical world called the 2-adic numbers
where this sequence S indeed equals -1.

Those small moments where you override your habit,
and do something that makes you say `yes!! I Rock!!' inside.
The moment when you go talk to that cute girl instead of chickening out.
The moment where you go the gym at night instead of stuffing yourself and browsing the net.
The moment where you do that annoying complicated calculation you were afraid of.

The key to transforming yourself -- Robert Greene at TEDxBrixton

You get up in the morning,
you try to convince your self it doesn't really matter
if I start working or meditating now, or watch half an hour of YouTube before.

Then the YouTube video you end up choosing reminds you that
there are no fast and external revolutions,
that true change and improvement is from within, and not sudden,
but a day to day improvement of small patterns,
a day to day drilling deeper into your unique talents and tendencies
leading to the unique contribution to this world you were designed to make.

The most important lesson from 83,000 brain scans: Daniel Amen at TEDxOr...

You go to a job interview.. you know more or less where it is,
but you put on waze GPS to be extra careful. Since you know more or less
where it is you hesitate whether to listen to the directions.  You end up taking some `average'
of your route and waze's route, which leads you on the way to some natural reserve called hermon
rather than hermon science park.
You start screaming in your car .
Meanwhile you think to yourself, so disappointing that I'm screaming like this over
something like being late to a job interview after so much meditation. I'm supposed to not be concerned about death by now, which is at least as serious as being late (since you have no chance of arriving on time after you're dead)
You find yourself accidentally passing a red light.
Then you stop at a coffee shop to ask for directions.
The coffee barista is so smiley and calm, which makes you feel so spiritually immature
(I'm upset about petty things while she knows how to enjoy life)
Here your addiction helps, because the possibility of having a cappucinno completely overrides any concern about being late to a job interview.
Driving, sipping this coffee everything seems perfect.

Vegetarians are closer to vegans in intent, but closer to meat eaters in results

My translation from Hebrew of an eloquent reply someone gave to a comment titled `Why I'm a vegetarian and not a vegan':
 Vegetarians are closer to vegans in intent, but closer to meat eaters in results. The egg and dairy industry are tied 1:1 with the meat industry. Every time you eat an egg you kill a chick. Every time you drink milk you send a calf to the slaughterhouse. It must be like this even in a farm with the "best" conditions. Because you cannot let calfs drink your milk or support male chicks and stay within the bounds of being economical. Switch to veganism my dear. You will see it's particularly easy for you, cause you are already there in your
intent.

 תעשיות החלב והביצים קשורות 1:1 עם תעשיית הבשר. כל פעם כשאתה אוכל ביצה אתה הורג אפרוח זכר וכל פעם כשאתה צורך מוצר חלב אתה שולח עגל לשחיטה. זה חייב להיות כך גם במשק עם התנאים הכי "טובים" שיש כי אי אפשר לתת לעגלים לשתות לך את חלב או להחזיק אפרוחים זכרים ולהישאר בתחום הכלכליות. עבור לטבעונות יקירי, תראה שזה קל במיוחד לך כי אתה כבר ממילא שם בכוונתך.

He was always surprised,
when yet another thing that he took for granted,
could make him cry from its beauty,
when he saw it again at the right moment.

Walking for years in a dark desert,

everyday he left a note for his love on the rocks.

Meanwhile, his only companion,

a dark crow who seemed always waiting

for the moment where he could feed on his flesh.

He craved to be away from the crow, and with his love.

A hundreds years later he crossed the desert and met her.

She told him: I sent the crow. Only your fear of him could keep

you from falling asleep, keep you walking on this journey to me.

He told her:
You are the only woman I could marry.
The one woman I dream of having near me,
even and especially when she is old and wrinkled.

She told him:
Prove it.
Go years starving, having me ignoring you
and hating you.
Being lonely, frustrated, doubting your dreams, thinking this love is only in your head.
Then, spend years being surrounded by a thousand beautiful girls, distracted every moment.

And then, I will come to you,
weak, wrinkled, not glamorous anymore.
Then you will be tested: Is your heart truly mine.

He answered:
Sounds like a plan.
See you in 20/30 years.