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. 

Having a Sense of Humor in Bad Situations

Yup, it has arrived.  Take a look on my new website:  Having a Sense of Humor in Bad Situations

I don’t know what to write about next.  You’ll have to wait and see.  Peace to everyone.

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!

Life Without an Alarm Clock

I decided to, in light of me parting with my alarm clock over a year ago, write a post on how living without a real alarm clock has been.  It is available through my website and is available here:  Living without an alarm clock. 

I would like to comment on how the two sites are working in conjunction with each other.  I like it. It is like I can give a little commentary on the article I’ve written.  I enjoy doing this to a good extent, as it gives you an overall feel for what the article or post or whatever will be about.  Keep the traffic coming, I thank you.

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!

Deep Sleep

I think I may have figured out a great way to deepen your sleep if you tend to sleep in the early morning hours (6 a.m. until 10 a.m.).  Well, early morning hours to me.  I’m sure some of you are up around 6 and start your day with a nice morning jog.  Not me.  Anyway, I find that since our biological clock is usually tempted to wake us up at daybreak, since we can see the light through the windows, even if we have blinds, so it is something we need to fight against.  That sun is a powerful energy force that will do anything to wake us up, but I think I may have solved that probelm from my perspective at least.

Here’s what I do:  Let’s say I fall asleep around 2 a.m. or so and don’t want to wake up before 10 a.m.  I can do one of two things.  The first is something that I believe is less drastic, yet still can accomplish a similar effect.  If you are familiar with blindfolds that block out all light, then you know where I am going with this.  Before you go to sleep each night, blindfold yourself so that when you do awaken, you will still believe it is dark.  And if your eyelids sense darkness, it will perpetuate sleep.  The other method is the one I use that completely gets rid of the light, which is me putting all of my covers over my head.  I don’t usually do this all night, just if I wake up in the morning and it is too early for me to wake up, I decide to put all the covers over my head and simulate late night sleep.  It allows me to feel like I am sleeping at night, and when I wake up, I assume it is still early, but when the covers come off, I know that I am ready to go.

I don’t use an alarm clock often, unless I know I have to be awake early for something in particular.  That hardly ever happens anyway.  I am not sure if many people would ever want to sleep in later than they already do, but just in case, this is what I have to say about that.

Sidenote:  I haven’t been feeling very motivated lately.  For some reason I just can’t seem to get started on anything.  It’s almost as if I am in a rut of some sort.  I feel like I should write at least five posts a week for some reason, and maybe that is the porblem.  If I write so many posts a week for so many weeks, eventually, I will be out of things to write about unless I keep fliing my mind with more information, or write information about the same topics over and over.  I am going to take the rest of the non-work day to journal and reflect on how far I have come since last February, and move on from there.  Let me leave you with a quote: 

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and it could be the last.  Something about living life to the fullest, etc.”

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.