Craig Constantine

Zen and the brain

I picked up this book off someone’s bookshelf, thumbed through it, gave it the page 88 test, and decided it was interesting enough… and borrowed it. (It is vanishingly rare that I borrow books. I normally just buy my own and hand the potentially borrowed book back to its owner.) Over a year passed with the book untouched.

I picked it up again and spent an hour with it hopping around and again decided I did want to read it. So I bought my own copy and returned the loaner. Then one day I was preparing for some podcast conversation and (as I often do) I thought about what books I might have which are related… and, for the third time I landed in this book. I dove into the index, found something interesting related to the podcast conversation I was preparing for and got lost reading for an hour.

Okay, fine. Apparently, it’s important that I read this book. So the other day, I cracked it open at the very beginning. I find that while I often skip chapters in a book, it’s always useful to read the introduction, preface, foreword, etc. Below is the literal first paragraph in this book, which I’d not seen in my first three visits.

During rare, spontaneous moments, experiences of very special quality and great import emerge from the depths of the human brain. To each person, these awakenings seem awesomely new. What they convey is not. It is the simplest, oldest wisdom in the world. The message is that ultimate meaning is to be found in this present moment, infusing our everyday lives, here and now. But one can’t predict such major peaks of enlightenment. Their insight-wisdom is next to impossible to describe. Even so, these fragile events inspired our major religions in ways that still shape our cultural development.
~ James Austin from, https://www.librarything.com/work/65668

If you see the book, you’ll think it’s going to be some left-brain, hyper-analytical, what forest? …it’s just trees, sort of thing. At least, that’s what I thought, each of those first three times I visited. Turns out, it’s actually 850 pages of, “Woa! That’s interesting…”

Hunger

December 20

I’m intrigued by the word hunger. It can convey so much more than the simple hunger for food. It’s power begins to show when deployed as hunger for nourishment— Hunger for freedom— Hunger for power. For as long as I can remember I’ve struggled with body image. I feel like that’s a better way to convey the feeling instead of a more surface-level, “struggled with weight.” Only a precious few times (in my 50+ laps around ‘ol Sol) have things around me lined up, juust right, and I’ve found myself in a shape to my liking; Found myself in a shape that enabled me to do what I wanted.

Hunger isn’t in your stomach or your blood-sugar levels. It’s in your mind—and that’s where we need to shape up.
~ Michael Graziano from, https://aeon.co/essays/hunger-is-psychological-and-dieting-only-makes-it-worse

slip:4uaeea2.

The word I’ve been meditating on recently is ease. To avoid hunger (not just hunger for food, all the hungers) I must be in ease. Easy to say, impossible to do, but just maybe it’s be–able.

Don’t try so hard

October 19, 2022

If you talk to someone about “relaxing,” they will usually think of that as the opposite of “trying hard.” They think of lying on the couch, muscles relaxed, not doing anything. “Relaxing” is equated with “laziness” for a lot of people. So “trying hard” and “relaxing” are seen as two opposite things. What would it be like to try hard while relaxing?
~ Leo Babauta from, https://zenhabits.net/dao/

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I’ve long known I have a bias to action. So trying hard used to always look like activity—often physically strenuous activity. Eventually I came to refer to that as my “bashing” mode. Imagine the Hulk working on anything; Bashing. But this leaves a trail of destruction more often than not. As I’ve worked to value recovery, rest, and relaxation—because, hey, why couldn’t one’s life be mostly peaceful relaxation?—I’ve gravitated towards “work” that can be done in a relaxed state. If any of this is news to you, as always, Babauta does a great job suggesting ways to get into it.

Oblivion

June 27, 2022

So begins her obsession with dominating the mind by dominating the body, which would follow her throughout her life in various guises — running, karate, yoga, cycling, skiing — always ambivalent and self-conscious, until it finally resolves into a glimpse of the larger truth beneath the mechanics of illusory perfectibility: that we exert ourselves so violently on keeping the package of the body intact in order to keep it from spilling its immaterial contents — the soul, the self — into oblivion.
~ Maria Popova from, https://www.themarginalian.org/2022/01/01/the-secret-to-superhuman-strength-alison-bechdel/

slip:4utete3.

Ah yes, “oblivion.” Good stuff. Popova is referring to a graphic artist, and midway through the article is an exquisite cartoon example; the author drawing, figuratively and literally, a metaphor for life involving a hill and a bicycle. Reading that cartoon brought to mind my beloved practice of meditating on death. (Try this explanation.) Closely related I often call to mind the impermanence of things. Sometimes I mix the two, thinking…

This is my last sip from this [my favorite, morning coffee] mug. (Knowing it will one day be broken.)

This [regularly scheduled weekly] conversation with this person is our last one. (Imagining when priorities change and we’re no longer working together.)

This conversation I’m recording for a podcast is my last one. (Because I will die.)

This dinner with this person [my mom, my spouse, etc] is my last one. (Because one of us will die first.)

The goal is not to be morbid and depressed; The goal is to maintain a realistic perspective to enable wringing the absolute maximum enjoyment and appreciation from every single waking moment.

Flexibility

August 10, 2020

One of my hobbies is rock climbing. (Outdoors, “trad”[itional]—where you climb in pairs with the lead climber “putting up” safety gear, and the second climber “cleaning” up said gear as they climb.) Climbing outdoors is generally, hot, sweaty, dirty, and rocks are hard—bumps, bruises, scrapes, are par for the course. Then there’s the “walk” (anything not climbing rocks is “walking”) to/from the climb which can sometimes be an hour+ of bush-wacking terrain. Sometimes you get caught in the rain. Bug bites are a foregone conclusion. O’dark-thirty early starts, long drives [unless you’re lucky to live/camp very near the “crag”]. There are things I like about rock climbing—but the pro’s/con’s isn’t want I want to write about today.

Rock climbing is best done in tune with the seasons and with the weather. So there’s a zen quality to having all your gear ready to go, keeping yourself [as best I can] in reasonable shape, talking with climbing friends about when we’re next going… and then simply waiting.

And then, “hey! tom is last good weather day this week,” shows up via message. Yes please!

P.S.: The etymology of “Craig” is alarmingly on point.