Showing posts with label counting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label counting. Show all posts

Friday, March 13, 2026

Friday 13th? Remove 13, ruin calendar

Earth's calendar timekeeper, the Moon (Luna, Soma, Chandra) over Los Angeles

Wednesday, June 26, 2024

A magic trick for deep meditation


These breakthrough salesmen can get irritating. Everyone is offering a get rich scheme, rarely with any substance. But finally a longform commercial came across our surfing with some substance.

This trick offers real possibility. It was developed by mind expert Silva of the famous Silva Mind Control Method.

He is no longer with us. But his discoveries are being carried on by spiritual entrepreneur Vivek Lakhani of Mind Valley/ He shares this easy to grasp method to produce astonishing results.

Serene tranquility meditation is learning to let go and relax. It is close to the sleep state, but it is not sleep. The difference may be defined in terms of brainwaves. The conscious mind is very active, characterized by an alpha brainwave pattern. Beta is deeper and slower.

But if we cross our legs and sit to meditate, good luck letting go of the "monkey mind," thinking, distractions, the Five Hindrances (lust, annoyance, sleepiness, agitation, and skeptical doubt). Meditating soon becomes little more than the "chore" of bringing the mind back and beginning again and again.

Done incorrectly, we build up resentment, anger, and try to control things too much. Or we drift endlessly in discursive thoughts and fantasies. Or we pass out, particularly if we are sleep-deprived in our regular life. Nearly all of us are, and it never becomes so apparent.

If we persist, things get better. If we stay regular, it pays off. But good luck doing either. What we could use is a trick, a shortcut, a hack. Meditation instructors will say, "Don't bother with that. Stop grasping, setting up expectations, or thinking of it as a chore."

"Just sit. Just breathe. Just be." These things are easier said than done. Luck starts seeming like a real component because, due to past karma in previous lives, a few people are naturals. They take to sitting the way a stone duck in the shape of the Buddha takes to the mantle.

They let go, relax, and go deep. If the reader is such a person, carry on. There's no need to do anything more other than to persist in the practice, making it a twice daily habit until sitting for an hour at a time seems natural and comfortable.

If, however, the reader is not so luck, does not plunge into serenity, and is losing patience, what to do? Give up? Never. Try harder? No! That's a worse idea. Try easier. And the way toward that could be aided along by Silva's discovery. Fathom this.


When we wake up, most of us rush out of sleep, and this is done by checking our phone for our addictive dopamine hits.

Here is the fact. When we awaken, if we do not rush out of bed, we are still in a deeper brainwave state than our waking life, which is busy and exhausting. We awaken in beta.

The practice or self-training is this: When awakening, stay in bed for 5 minutes, emerge slowly, stay relaxed and quiet. But from now on for the next 30 days, sit up slowly into the meditation pose in bed. Stay in that pose for 5 minutes, while counting down (backward) from 100, 99, 98...all the way to 1.

The brain has something to do so it won't fall back asleep. Continue this for 10 days. On Day 11, count backward like before but this time from 50, 49, 48...all the way to 1, at the rate of about one count to one breath.

On Day 20, count down from 10 to 1: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Do over and over for those first five minutes after arising. What will happen?

A miracle will happen. And that miracle is this: We will have trained our minds -- in just 30 days -- to associate counting down from 10 to 1 to immediately put us in that relaxed beta state.

Now when we sit for meditation, we begin with a deep breath and counting down. By the time we hit 1, we are in alpha. How long did it take us to get there? Less than ten breaths. Now we can really enter a peaceful meditative state at will, effortlessly (or all the effort has already taken place during those 30 days of counting for five minutes in our waking calm). CONTINUED IN PART II
  • Part I: Meditation Instructor Seven, as told to Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Jen Bradford, Moon, Wisdom Quarterly, based on a Mind Valley commercial by Vivek Lakhani based on an idea, insight, and teaching by Jose Silva, author of Silva Mind Control

Thursday, June 11, 2020

How many trees are there in the world?

ScientificAmerican.com, 9/9/15; Pat Macpherson and Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
The Buddha's life is replete with trees: He was born under a sal tree, entered meditation under a rose apple tree, had his life saved by the women Sujata and Punna under a banyan, became enlightened under a pipal (all buddhas have a special tree), passed into nirvana under twin sals.



All those trees thriving on carbon (Getty)
How many trees? It’s a simple question, but as Nature Video describes it, getting the answer required 421,529 measurements from 50 countries on six continents.

The answer is that the world is home to over three trillion trees — with almost half of them living in tropical or subtropical forests [mainly in the Amazon and Siberia]. There are roughly 400 trees for every human.

Tropical and subtropical trees in climate chaos
But 12,000 years ago, before the advent of agriculture, Earth had twice as many trees as it does now [nearly 7 trillion]. Currently, the planet is losing 10 billion* trees a year.

Researchers represented the number of trees across the globe using bars that are taller for denser forests. This report was published in Nature on September 2, 2015.
  • *Editor’s Note (11/27/18): This sentence was edited after posting to correct the statistic.

Friday, March 9, 2018

Wanted: California Bald Eagle Count (March 10)

Los Angeles Times); Xochitl, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly UPDATED
Careful! Those are my babies! - Stop nagging. The cam is on! (Friends of Big Bear Valley)
Humans would be willing to help birds?
WANTED: Volunteers ("citizen scientists") to help count the number of bald eagles wintering over in Southern California. No experience necessary.

Bring warm clothes. It's the 39th year that the U.S. Forest Service and California State Parks have organized the seasonal count to monitor how many eagles come to visit.

Afraid of the weather? Watch a pair of eagles with two eggs in their nest with the Big Bear Eagle Cam operated by Friends of Big Bear Valley from the comfort of home.

Big Bear Eagle Cam: Bald eagle nestin
Volunteers should show up at one of a number of lake (watch out for Sasquatches if it's Big Bear) with binoculars and a watch. This final bald eagle count is scheduled for March 10, 2108 between 9:00-10:00 am... More + DETAILS

UPDATE: More bald eagles spotted!

Monday, January 15, 2018

Baby BALD EAGLES, California (live video)

There are no baby Bigfeet at Big Bear, kids.*
Last week a bald eagle [named Lucy, who is mating with Ricky] near Big Bear Lake laid two eggs, just in time for the public January bald eagle count Saturday, Jan. 13th.

The eagle and her mate are year-round residents of the area. The eggs should hatch after about 35 days, around Feb. 10, 2018.

(Bald Eagel Cam) LIVE Nest Watch from Big Bear Lake, California
 
“This is part of the story of bald eagle population recovery nationwide,” said Robin Eliason, a U.S. Forest Service biologist.

“We think these are the first eggs laid by this young female. We do not know for sure because she’s not banded, but some of us are convinced that the female is the first bald eagle recorded to be hatched in the San Bernardino Mountains [east of Los Angeles], which was in 2012.”
 
Big Bear Lake is a small city in San Bernardino County, California, located in the San Bernardino Mountains surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest (wiki).
 
*We don't exist, so don't worry if you see us.
Because bald eagles will abandon nests if disturbed, the Forest Service has closed the area to all public entry through June 22, the duration of the nesting season. “We’re very concerned about people trying to get close for photographs, viewing, etcetera,” Eliason said.
 
Better viewing can be found from the comfort of one’s home, anyway. The nonprofit group Friends of the Big Bear Valley installed a livestream camera on the nest in 2016, which is still active.
  • The Big Bear Bald Eagle Cam streams live on YouTube.
Four eagles, including the nesting pair, were spotted around Big Bear Lake by 35 citizen scientists at the Dec. 2017 bald eagle count. More

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Buddhism by the Numbers


Buddhism so influenced the ancient world that even money felt the impact among the Greeks (see Greco Buddhism).

Buddhists around the world
Vipassana Foundation (thedhamma.ocm)

The number of Buddhists around the world is grossly under-estimated. The statistics found in nearly all encyclopedias and almanacs place the number of Buddhists at approximately 500 million. This figure completely ignores over one billion Chinese people who live in the People's Republic of China.

While China is officially "communist" (although many free market conditions are already in place), it does not keep records on religion statistics. Another problem is that many Western reference sources refuse to accept that a person can belong to more than one religion. In Asia it is quite common for one person to have two, three, or more religions. In China, it is extremely common for a family to have a shrine in their home with statues and icons from Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.

Currently there are about 1.3 billion Chinese living in the People's Republic. Surveys (Gach-Alpha Books, U.S. State Dept. report on China, Global Center for the Study of Contemporary China, BBC News, China Daily, and a report by Christian missionaries in China) have found that about 8% to 91% identify Buddhism as one of their religions.

A percentage near the upper end of this estimate, or about 80%, works out to there being about 1.1 billion Chinese Buddhists. To ignore over one billion people as if they do not count is a terrible miscount and very misleading in the reporting of adherents. A Chinese Buddhist forum (bskk.com) currently has about 60,000 registered members and over 2 million posts, which is about double the amount of the largest English language Buddhist forum (which also has Chinese Buddhists participating in the discussions). But to be above reproach, a more conservative estimate is also shown (see below).

The following are links to studies that have analyzed or counted the number of Buddhists in China and the percentage found in their studies:
The counting of Buddhists in America is also a little problematic since the U.S. Census Bureau does not ask religious affiliation. There are studies that suggest the percentage of Buddhists in America is More>>