Dreams

On my website, I have posted yet another new post describing my journey into the dream world and how fulfilling it has been so far and that I intend to keep having these dreams, as well as progressing to lucid dreams.  Here is the post:  Dreams

For my next post, I will most likely discuss dreams again, as this has become my current interest, at least for the past couple of days.  Enjoy!

Peace and Balancing Services….and My Private Beach

Another one of my off-key rants about a bunch of things that have been jarring my mind lately.  Something of a rant, something of a lucid experience, I really can’t say for sure….but here it is, uncensored:  Blog Post 170  Take a visit to my very own private beach. 

Please, Stop Complaining

Here is a post I wrote about how I don’t like people who complain and how it doesn’t really solve anything, and give a solution to those who have it rough, and need to put things in perspective or something like that.  Please, Stop Complaining…

Next, I plan on blogging about having  a sense of humor in all situations, even in the radiation room, as I experienced numerous times while going through cancer treatment.  Stay tuned!

Attitude, Gratitude, and Perspective

Hey, everyone, I have written another post on my new website entitled Attitude, Gratitude, and Perspective, which deals with myself and my philosophy about overcoming supposedly negative circumstances by focusing on more positive aspects of the situation.  A way of putting a good day in perspective, and realizing that good times and bad times are only temporary.  I really enjoyed writing it, and I wish for you to enjoy reading it.  Thank you.

Hard Work

Here is yet another link to my new website and my new post, entitled Hard Work, available at AndrewBrunelle.com. 

Note:  I really enjoyed writing this post, which examines how hard work doesn’t always have to be painful and that if you align hard work with your puprose, or provide some sort of extrinsic motivations, or external reward, you can equate hard work with fun and pleasure.  Enjoy.

Weeding Your Garden

In an attempt to usher the traffic over to my new site, AndrewBrunelle.com, I will give you a link to this blog entry on that website:  Weeding Your Garden.

Hope you enjoy!

Welcome to AndrewBrunelle.com!

You can check out my new blog entry on my new site:  Welcome to AndrewBrunelle.com!  Enjoy!

Equanimity

I recently came upon a term called equanimity, which means your mind is not swayed by external events and you do not let situations dictate the state of your mind.  It’s a state of calming balance, and inner peace.  The whole concept is that everything is impermanent, feeling good, feeling bad, feeling pleasure/pain, getting praise/blame, and success vs. failure.  That all are essential in human life, and none of them are permanent.  It is this realization that can put you on the path towards equanimity.  I believe this is a very strong goal to strive for, having myself remain calm even under stressful circumstances or when something does not go my way.

It is not a state of indifference, but a state of intense realization.  You do not have any stock in your current circumstances because you know they can change at any moment, and you are content with that.  You accept everything the way it is and don’t get caught by pressures put on you by society.  You don’t have to react.  You just don’t.

There are ten perfections in Buddhism, the first nine leading up to the coveted tenth, equanimity.  Here are them and a brief description of each:

1. Generosity:  Develop your capacity for generosity.  Make it so your disposition or nature is to be generous.
2. Integrity:  Develop your integrity, do not seek to harm any other living being.  Make it so the ethical foundation of your life is stable, solid, and unruffled.
3. Letting Go:  Develop the capacity to let go, for example, to let go of a grudge, because when you let go of the things that trouble you, you can do deeper thinking.  A simpler mind can do deeper work.
4. Wisdom:  Develop a capacity for wisdom.  Become a wise man, not a wise guy.  Be discerning, whatever that means.  I’ll have to look it up.
5. Energy:  Develop a capacity for overcoming laziness, procrastination, and interia, be able to put in the effort.
6. Patience:  Develop a capacity for patience.  If you are now putting in effort, it is possible to get frustrated, so this perfection is based on not getting frustrated when things don’t always work the way they should. 
7. Truth:  Develop a capacity to be truthful and know what is true to you.  Be in harmony with what you feel is true.
8. Resolve:  Resolve to do things and have the capacity to get behind it, no matter what external forces tell you.
9. Love and Kindness:  Develop a capacity for love and kindness and be kind and loving towards everything and everyone you come into contact with.
10. Equanimity:  The final step.  Develop a capacity of equanimity.  This is the culmination of the other nine steps.  All of these steps are part of your character building and this is the final step.  This is the pinnacle.  You are not ruffled by external events, as I explained above.

So, that’s the basic outline of equanimity.  I think it is a rather good goal.  I am striving towards it every day and it couldn’t hurt to do so.  All of these qualities are qualities I would love to see in myself, so there is no conflict in me doing this.  I listened to a talk about this, referred from a poster on Steve Pavlina’s site.  I really enjoyed the talk, and if I can find the link, I’ll get it to you.  Happy trails!

Edit:  I found this talk on equanimity very helpful.  Here it is, if the link does not work, I can refer you to this site.  It’s the Steve Pavlina discussion board, where the member Mike-2 brings this talk up.  I sure hope you enjoy it.  Thank you.

Minimalism

I read something yesterday that had to do with minimalist living, a form of decluttering, if you would.  Getting rid of things that are not necessary.  To tell you the truth, there isn’t even much to say about minimalism except that fact that getting rid of extra possessions allows you to have a more clear mind and remving excess thoughts from your head does the same.  It is a kind of simple living that allows you to appreciate nature and life itself, rather than having your enjoyment of life rooted in external possessions, like your fifty-inch television.  I think that this is a good philosophy to adopt and I am working towards it. (I started yesterday, but have been thinking about this for almost a year.)

I do not own my own house or apartment yet, so the best I can do is minimalize my room.  Yesterday I spent about two hours cleaning and decluttering.  It felt good to get rid of some of the old junk, but even some of it I could not dispose of.  Some of my old papers from school, some papers that people in my family would say, “What are you crazy?  Why did you get rid of your W-2?”  So I kept some things, but my wastebasket is full once again after being full the previous day with other junk.  I’m also planning on eliminating junk from my life, excess packaging, etc.  It is good for the planet anyway.  I wish they recycled down here in South Carolina.  I can’t believe they don’t have someone come around and collect your recyclables.  It shows that living in a more developed area (RI) and then moving to a place like this (SC) can have its shortcomings.  I just find it hard to believe these people don’t even really consider it.  Plastic bottles go in the trashcan.  I mean, it only makes sense to cut down on waste and recycle the things you can, otherwise we wil be in dire straits in the next fifty years.

I think the best thing to consider is to not get things you don’t really need.  I mean, if you really look at it, the only things that are pertinent to a human’s survival is food, water, and shelter, so I can see how some people could cut down that far, but not me.  I don’t need a laptop and internet connection, but it would certainly be beneficial to me.  I don’t need a desk to put my laptop on, but the damn thing rips my leghairs off when I put in on my lap.  I don’t really need a bookshelf, but I look at it as a shelter for my books.  I need a chair to sit in so I don’t develop scoliosis.  I need a bed to sleep in because sleep is very important to me.  Everything we buy is pre-garbage anyway, so everything else is really dust to me.  I don’t own much clothes, only two pairs of shoes (both sneakers), maybe 20 shirts, which I never wear anyway, except on rare occasions when I am not working.  I am going to strip down my life to as simple as I can get it.  That way I’ll have extra money and resources to pursue what I want to pursue.  And I almost forgot, I no longer have a television in my room.

So, I’m going to try this and I’m pretty enthusiastic about it.  Cutting down on the things I have and cutting down on the waste I produce from having those things is something I believe will contribute to making the world a better place.  All right, it is time for me to go eat a plum and an orange, part of my nutritious breakfast.  Have a nice day.

Something About Not Watching TV

The last couple of nights I’ve spent watching television after I came home, just to see if it still held any merit for me anymore. Here are some things I have to share about that experience and why I don’t plan on doing it for much longer whatsoever, excluding DVDs.So, after work last night, I decided to get back into my old nightly viewing habits, which consisted of King of the Hill, Seinfeld, Futurama, Family Guy, and the occasional Law and Order, and South Park, which all play within the same two hour window, so I spend most of my time flipping back and forth from channel to channel during commercials. There were two episodes each of King of the Hill, Seinfeld, and Futurama last night as well, so I was actually watching nine or so total shows. The time span was from 10:35 until about one in the morning. It was a very passive last waking hours.

I woke up today and had no thoughts of the shows I watched, although I could remember them with a conscious effort. I had seen all of the shows before, meaning that particular episode, in the past, barring the Law and Order episode. For some reason, remembering watching those particular shows did something for me. I guess it’s the fact that not all memory is perfect and we need to see things a couple of times before they really have meaning, but even then, they don’t really contribute to my life when I’m not watching them, unless we’re holding discussions about television shows. Which I rarely take part in.

I could have come home, sat down here at my computer and written a blog post, or even journaled about my day and my state of mind. But no, I figured, at the time I came in, that doing those sort of things would be too time consuming at the late hour, and opted to sit in front of the television, taking in nine shows in one-and-a-half hours. It was just convenient, but at the same time, relaxing. I’m all for relaxation, but after watching the Patriots-Colts game on Sunday with my family, I know that television can be more than just a passive activity. My mother could not sleep after the pathetic display the Pats put on.

Now I’m not really the biggest sports fan anymore, but when I was, the Patriots and Red Sox were a big part of my life. After moving to the deep south from New England, a region who prides itself in its sports teams, I became less interested in watching sports, partly because my teams’ games were shown so sparingly here. Not only that, but it seemed every time my team was shown on television, they lost. So it wasn’t really worth the time or the frustration. Sure, I’m still Patriots and Red Sox fans, but since they’ve both won the highest awards they could have in the past three years, I see no reason to watch them anymore with an attachment to outcomes. If I’m going to watch them, I have to do it in a less stressful manner.

I find that rather than watching television, I can use that time to do things that are more beneficial to me. I can finish writing my book or learn a new language, possibly talk with someone over the phone or in person. Watching television is something to do when you can’t find any other activity to pursue. That is something I have to stop doing on a regular basis. I hate having televisions in the house sometimes because if they’re on, you really can’t help but look. It’s the whole stimulus-response mechanism where the people who run the shows know just what images to display to immediately get your attention. Maybe I should walk around with my eyes closed. At least that way I won’t see the newest Geico commercial.

I was barely even awake last night while watching Law and Order, and my head was tilted to the side as my neck could no longer support my head, but I kept my eyes open, mostly, to watch that show. It took almost and insurmountable amount of willpower to turn the damn thing off. I ended up falling asleep in the chair in which I watched these shows, then, in the middle of the night, went into my bedroom. I ended up sleeping until 11:30 this morning and I was a bit discouraged because lately, I have been unable to get out of bed, possibly in correlation with the television watching. Maybe it sucks energy out of me. It’s definitely a possibility. All I know is that I definitely function better when I don’t watch it. So perhaps it is time to rid myself of it for good. Maybe not.