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.

Something simple you can commit to

Just now I was in the midst of one of my `eat junk while watching junk' episodes..

it's a deep neural pathway carved in me - more the watching junk than eating junk. It's so addictive being in zombie mode. Occaisonally I take a long break when the fear of throwing my life down the drain is strong enough to wake me up for a little while; but usually I am in zombie mode fantasizing about how from tomorrow I will dedicate every moment of my life to worthy causes.

I love the idea of finding something small you can actually commit to - rather than fantasizing about a revolution and feeling guilty about not being able to follow through.

So I asked myself `can I press pause on this movie and stop eating Doritos for the next 5 seconds?'

That was what my mind could commit to at that moment; anything more seemed inconceivable. I think when you are in the midst of a deeply rooted pattern, even a 5 second pattern interupt can really rattle those neurons.

A daily hill climb

I sit and work at a cafe in a shopping mall. I do everything with alarm clocks. A 3 hour work session and then it is time for what I call a `pick-up meditation'. I set the clock to ring an hour or so later. For the next hour, my focus is on talking to girls I am attracted to. It seems completely impossible to me to talk to a girl I don't know. It seems everybody hates me and I am the outcast, the pathetic loser of the shopping mall, trying desperately to get a few crumbs of attention from the people who are `set'; whose life is in order and have a good fulfilling social life.
I don't want to go on with even trying - as the trying is what evokes this negative thoughts. I want these thoughts to stay buried inside, not to feel them.  But a part of me knows already - there is nothing wrong with you - this is just the process you go through when taking a step out of `the matrix' - we are kept tightly inside it not by electrodes stuck in our head, but by deep emotional conditoning: You take the smallest step outside the social norm - and acute emotional pain is triggered.
I take a very gradual approach inspired by Eric Disco. At first just get comfortable walking around, noticing girls. Don't be afraid of small steps thinking they are pointless. Just get near girls you are attracted to  - just get into the flow of taking action when you feel attraction, rather than being paralyzed\hypnotized by useless thought. Every small bit of action , as opposed to the regular state of hypnotized paralysis, accumulates and helps more than you can imagine.
After 10 minutes or so, I see a nice girl. I think `am I able to just ask her where the train is?'.
After standing there like an idiot for about a minute, I manage to do so.
I feel really stupid, but together with that feeling of akwardness that has arose, something has opened up, has warmed up.
Walking around for another 10 minutes, the thoughts keep coming `I feel stupid.' `There are not too many girls now here. Maybe it's better to do this later. Maybe this is a good time to have lunch'
Then I see her. The way she walks, so sensual, so elegant, so delicate, the archtype of femininity.
I am hesitant as usual. I just casually walk behind her. I try to feel my urge to talk to her. Get to the point where I feel that desire, that anticipation..that desire for fun of spreading that energy, strongly so that it overrides inhibition. I feel it pile up. I think `I am just going to give her that energy. Given her an energy boost. I am not concerned with looking stupid or getting anything out of it'. Of course, as a fanatical believer in Karma, I believe strongly that if give her a mood boost I will get a kick-ass reward! (In a time and place only the universe knows). I say `Hey, do you speak a little english?' `Yes.' `This will sound a little weird..' (when I say that that makes women really comfortable - like they assume I must be incredibly normal and not weird if I acknoweldge that)
`but..some honest complement that she inspired me to give her at that moment'
After a minute of chatting she says she's in a bit of a hurry, she has to go back to work soon.
I just say bye, nice meeting you.
After that thinking I could have asked her to meet after work.
Then again the process starts same thoughts same doubts,
but now more energized from that interaction.
After 20 minutes, I find her, something about her walk, her attitude, makes me notice her.
I start to walk after her, occaisonally seeing someone else and thinking `maybe she's cuter?'
but focus now.. I focus now thinking again, if nothing else I will give her an energy boost for the day.
This time the chemistry is stronger and when we shake hands , hands stay connected for a while, with electricity in the air.This time when she says she's in a rush, I remember to get the number first.
Knowing you daily overcome your limiting beleifs, your negative emotions, builds confidence like nothing else.

For a long time, I was sure my family thought I was crazy, or at least a bit weird, for trying to eat vegan.

Until one day at dinner, just before flying abroad for a few months, my brother tells me at dinner he's been thinking about it for a long time and he's going to try to stop eating meat (precluding fish).

Coming back from abroad, my father tells me he has reduced his meat consumption to at most twice a week. Amazingly, after only two weeks of this, blood tests show his Cholesterol and Thyrod activity, which were too high, have gone down dramatically. As a consequence, he could significantly reduce the amount of medicaiton he takes for these two problems.

Through the darkness of winter, and the beauty of spring, our love grows.
It was destined to grow through fear, pain, loving glances and sounds,
creating a flower never seen before, gentle, with small traces of bitterness.
A combination of a wounded child, a spoiled princess, a narcissist and a queen,
together with 2 infinite spirits, sharing this journey.
It grows stronger and stronger. Your presence echos in everything I do.
It is inevitable. Everything I do, even if it is getting away from you, is for you.

Hanging on a thread,
always a moment away from both euphoria and pain,
on the edge of a sharp knife,
having glimpses of true peace,
and then, with the momentum of the mind overwhelming,
the world cuts you again.

The beauty of small details, keeping you away from large worries,
only pain gives enough motivation to stay alert, in the razor's edge of the Now.
Where bliss, where refuge, where protection are always present.

Vipassana and Inception

In the movie Inception, the Japanese guy gets shot. The way to save him is
to send him into a very deep dream within a dream within a dream, where things progress very slowly.
where that wound is not an overwhelming solid event, but manifets in a slow sequence of subtle hints.
Last night, I felt a wave of sadness coming (related to some girl issue as are all my eupohria\sadness cycles in the last 2 decades:-) ). I knew it was going to overwhelm me into doing something stupid.
So I felt this strong motivation to go deeply within with Vipassana,
to a level of conciousness where this solid emotion, breaks down into a multitlude of small events in the body, a tingling here, a small pressure there. It's like going deep into the bottom of the ocean and waiting for the storm at the surface to pass.
I felt like the fear of sufferring from being caught up in that storm was so great,
the memory of pain of being caught up in similar ones so many times,
that my motivation to stay in this deep level was stronger than ever before.

Buddha says to his disciples in one discourse:  The amount of blood that you have shed by
being caught as thieves and beheaded by an order of a king, is more than the water in all the oceans.
This sounds ridicolous: the amount of blood we have shed, not generally, but *for that specific reason* being  that great? Perhaps just an exaggeration to make a point, I usually think.
But today I think, maybe not. It seems my lazyness, my impulse to look for perfect answers outside rather than inside, even after I have the tool to go inside, is so strong that maybe that is the amount of suffering you need to go through to truly relinquish finding a perfect life by adjusting external circumstances.