Peripheral vision
"it has generally been assumed that signals from the fovea determine the effects of vision on refractive development. However, experiments in laboratory animals demonstrate that ocular growth and emmetropization are mediated by local retinal mechanisms and that foveal vision is not essential for many vision-dependent aspects of refractive development. However, the peripheral retina, in isolation, can effectively regulate emmetropization and mediate many of the effects of vision on the eye's refractive status. Moreover, when there are conflicting visual signals between the fovea and the periphery, peripheral vision can dominate refractive development."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21747306
I was observing how I see with my eyes. I noticed that also my vision seem not know how "to open" to welcome the whole visual field. It's about awareness, it doesn't matter if the eyes are closed.
As the sight opened more, neck and shoulders followed. The dorsal-ventral wave.
And my mild myopia in the right eye is almost gone.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
You continually open yourself
"This is the absolute truth. And I want you to understand one thing very clearly. Although I have encouraged you to set out in the contemplative way with simplicity and boldness, nevertheless I am certain, without doubt or fear of error, that almighty God himself, independently of all techniques, must always be the chief worker in contemplation. It is he who must always awaken this gift in you by his grace. And what you must do is make yourself completely receptive, consenting and suffering his divine action in the depth of your spirit. Yet the passive consent and endurance you bring to this work is really a distinctively active attitude, for by the sinlessness of your desire ever reaching up to your Lord, you continually open yourself to his action. All this, however, you will learn for yourself through experience and the insight of spiritual wisdom."
"But when the joyful enthusiasm it will be abundant that it will follow you to bed at night and rise with you in the morning. It will pursue you through the day in everything you do. Moreover it will seem to occur simultaneously with that blind desire which, in the meantime, quietly grows in intensity. The enthusiasm and the desire will seem to be part of each other, so much so, that you will think it is only one desire you feel, though you will be at a loss to say just precisely what it is that you long for"
"A thousand miles would you run to speak with another who you knew really felt it, and yet when you got there, find yourself speechless."
The Cloud of Unknowing & the Book of Privy Counseling
"Questa è la verità assoluta. E voglio che tu capisca una cosa molto chiaramente. Anche se ti ho incoraggiato ad avviarti per la via della contemplazione con semplicità e franchezza, tuttavia ne sono certo, senza dubbio o timore di sbagliare, che Dio onnipotente stesso, indipendentemente da tutte le tecniche, deve essere sempre il capo nel lavoro di contemplazione. E' lui che deve sempre suscitare in te questo dono con la sua grazia. E quello che devi fare è farti completamente ricettivo, consenziente e subire la sua azione divina nella profondità del tuo spirito. Eppure il consenso e la passività che tu apporti in questo lavoro è davvero un atteggiamento spiccatamente attivo, dall'innocenza del tuo desiderio all'arrivare fino al tuo Signore, tu continuamente ti apri alla sua azione. Tutto questo, però, lo imparerai da solo attraverso l'esperienza e l'intuizione di saggezza spirituale. "
"Ma quando quel gioioso entusiasmo sarà abbondante ti seguirà a letto la sera e si alzerà con te al mattino. Sarà con te tutto il giorno in tutto ciò che farai. Inoltre sembrerà verificarsi simultaneamente a quel desiderio cieco che, nel frattempo, cresce quietamente in intensità. L'entusiasmo e il desiderio sembreranno essere uno parte dell'altro, tanto che ti sembrerà di avere un solo desiderio, anche se non sarai in grado di trovare il modo di dire con precisione cos'è quello a cui stai anelando"
"Correresti per mille miglia per parlare con un altro che tu sai ha davvero sentito queste cose, per poi, quando arrivi, ritrovarti senza parole."
"But when the joyful enthusiasm it will be abundant that it will follow you to bed at night and rise with you in the morning. It will pursue you through the day in everything you do. Moreover it will seem to occur simultaneously with that blind desire which, in the meantime, quietly grows in intensity. The enthusiasm and the desire will seem to be part of each other, so much so, that you will think it is only one desire you feel, though you will be at a loss to say just precisely what it is that you long for"
"A thousand miles would you run to speak with another who you knew really felt it, and yet when you got there, find yourself speechless."
The Cloud of Unknowing & the Book of Privy Counseling
"Questa è la verità assoluta. E voglio che tu capisca una cosa molto chiaramente. Anche se ti ho incoraggiato ad avviarti per la via della contemplazione con semplicità e franchezza, tuttavia ne sono certo, senza dubbio o timore di sbagliare, che Dio onnipotente stesso, indipendentemente da tutte le tecniche, deve essere sempre il capo nel lavoro di contemplazione. E' lui che deve sempre suscitare in te questo dono con la sua grazia. E quello che devi fare è farti completamente ricettivo, consenziente e subire la sua azione divina nella profondità del tuo spirito. Eppure il consenso e la passività che tu apporti in questo lavoro è davvero un atteggiamento spiccatamente attivo, dall'innocenza del tuo desiderio all'arrivare fino al tuo Signore, tu continuamente ti apri alla sua azione. Tutto questo, però, lo imparerai da solo attraverso l'esperienza e l'intuizione di saggezza spirituale. "
"Ma quando quel gioioso entusiasmo sarà abbondante ti seguirà a letto la sera e si alzerà con te al mattino. Sarà con te tutto il giorno in tutto ciò che farai. Inoltre sembrerà verificarsi simultaneamente a quel desiderio cieco che, nel frattempo, cresce quietamente in intensità. L'entusiasmo e il desiderio sembreranno essere uno parte dell'altro, tanto che ti sembrerà di avere un solo desiderio, anche se non sarai in grado di trovare il modo di dire con precisione cos'è quello a cui stai anelando"
"Correresti per mille miglia per parlare con un altro che tu sai ha davvero sentito queste cose, per poi, quando arrivi, ritrovarti senza parole."
Suppling the brain and the body
Training in the path of the channels "helps to eliminate defects from the channels, winds and drops, making them very clear and flexible and preventing us for contracting diseases associated with them. if these three elements are supple the body as a whole will also be supple. This is because the channels, winds and drops pervade the entire body. It is very important for a meditator's body to be comfortable and flexible because this helps the mind to became clear and lucid, and a clear mind makes meditation powerful."
"The peaceful method may take slightly longer but it is a much smoother process. When the winds are brought into the central channel in this way they enter very gently and smoothly, and without the mental and physical side effects that could result from disturbing the channels, winds and drops. Those who can practice this peaceful method successfully do not need to meditate on the body as being hollow because for them there is no danger of wind or channel diseases. Je Tsongkhapa explained that the peaceful method is superior to the forceful one."
"The four places where these knots occur are four of the six major channel wheels. At each of the six major channel wheels a different number of spokes, or petals, branch off from the central channel in the same way that ribs of an umbrella branch off from the central pole."
Clear light of bliss: the practice of Mahamudra in Vajrayana Buddhism
"The peaceful method may take slightly longer but it is a much smoother process. When the winds are brought into the central channel in this way they enter very gently and smoothly, and without the mental and physical side effects that could result from disturbing the channels, winds and drops. Those who can practice this peaceful method successfully do not need to meditate on the body as being hollow because for them there is no danger of wind or channel diseases. Je Tsongkhapa explained that the peaceful method is superior to the forceful one."
"The four places where these knots occur are four of the six major channel wheels. At each of the six major channel wheels a different number of spokes, or petals, branch off from the central channel in the same way that ribs of an umbrella branch off from the central pole."
Clear light of bliss: the practice of Mahamudra in Vajrayana Buddhism
Saturday, July 16, 2011
I did not know and I could not see
By the river's dark, I wandered on
I lived my life in Babylon
And I did forget my holy song
And I had no strength in Babylon
By the river's dark, where I could not see
Who was waiting there, who was hunting me?
And he cut my lip and he cut my heart
So I could not drink from the river dark
And he covered me and I saw within
My lawless heart and my wedding ring
I did not know and I could not see
Who was waiting there, who was hunting me?
By the river's dark, I panicked on
I belonged at last to Babylon
Then he struck my heart with a deadly force
And he said, "This heart, it is not yours"
And he gave the wind, my wedding ring
And he circled us with everything
Leonard Cohen - By the rivers dark - Ten new songs
I lived my life in Babylon
And I did forget my holy song
And I had no strength in Babylon
By the river's dark, where I could not see
Who was waiting there, who was hunting me?
And he cut my lip and he cut my heart
So I could not drink from the river dark
And he covered me and I saw within
My lawless heart and my wedding ring
I did not know and I could not see
Who was waiting there, who was hunting me?
By the river's dark, I panicked on
I belonged at last to Babylon
Then he struck my heart with a deadly force
And he said, "This heart, it is not yours"
And he gave the wind, my wedding ring
And he circled us with everything
Leonard Cohen - By the rivers dark - Ten new songs
Without a guide or light than that which burned in my heart
En una noche obscura,
con ansias en amores imflamada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
sali sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.
A escuras y segura,
por la secreta escala disfraçada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
a escuras y ençelada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.
En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me ueya,
ni yo miraua cosa,
sin otra luz ni guia
sino la que en el coraçon ardia.
Aquesta me guiaua
mas cierto que la luz del mediodia,
adonde me esperaua
quien yo bien me sabia,
en parte donde nadie parecia.
¡Oh noche que me guiaste!
¡oh noche amable mas que el aluorada!,
¡oh noche que juntaste
amado con amada,
amada en el amado transformada!
San Juan De La Cruz
con ansias en amores imflamada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
sali sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.
A escuras y segura,
por la secreta escala disfraçada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
a escuras y ençelada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.
En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me ueya,
ni yo miraua cosa,
sin otra luz ni guia
sino la que en el coraçon ardia.
Aquesta me guiaua
mas cierto que la luz del mediodia,
adonde me esperaua
quien yo bien me sabia,
en parte donde nadie parecia.
¡Oh noche que me guiaste!
¡oh noche amable mas que el aluorada!,
¡oh noche que juntaste
amado con amada,
amada en el amado transformada!
San Juan De La Cruz
Friday, July 15, 2011
Task-negative network
"The default network is a network of brain regions that are active when the individual is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest. Also called the default mode network (DMN), default state network, or task-negative network (TNN), it is characterized by coherent neuronal oscillations at a rate lower than 0.1 Hz (one every ten seconds). During goal-oriented activity, the DMN is deactivated and another network, the task-positive network (TPN) is activated. It is thought that the default network corresponds to task-independent introspection, or self-referential thought, while the TPN corresponds to action, and that perhaps the TNN and TPN may be "considered elements of a single default network with anti-correlated components".
Wikipedia
Collection of abstracts from PubMed :
Wikipedia
Collection of abstracts from PubMed :
- Neural correlates of ongoing conscious experience: both task-unrelatedness and stimulus-independence are related to default network activity.
- Resting-state functional connectivity reflects structural connectivity in the default mode network.
- White matter microstructure underlying default mode network connectivity in the human brain.
- The influence of rest period instructions on the default mode network.
- Functional connectivity hubs in the human brain.
- Association between Functional Connectivity Hubs and Brain Networks.
(Seven networks covering 80% of the gray matter volume were identified. Seven as the chakras?!) - Resting-state networks in awake five- to eight-year old children
- Influence of age on the dynamics of fMRI activations during a semantic fluency task
No place to stand
"I do not actually give you an home base to come back to, as "keep come back to the breath". There is a reason: when you finally give up the notion that you are going to have a place to stand that's when you are doing 3D zen as opposed to a flat zen put down from a fixed prospective: "I'm over here, sitting on the river bank, watching the river". If that works right at some point you became the river without being caught by the river, but if this doesn't work right you can expend 20 or 30 years on the bank of that river and never be liberated. So I do not want you to have a center, I want the center to have you, a completely different experience."
Shinzen Young
>> No place to stand (video)
Shinzen Young
>> No place to stand (video)
Brain stem and the consciousness of the lizard
"Most people in neuroscience and, by the way, I was one of them until recently, thought that consciousness and the process of self are emerging mainly out of the cerebral cortex.
I think that this is incorrect. I think that while the cerebral cortex is extremely important to generate consciousness and in particular the self, the structure that is the key, and without which you wouldn't have self processes at all, is actually in the brain stem. This is very fascinating because it sends you to a set of structures that is very old in evolution. A set of structures that, in essence, have existed since reptilian times. And, maybe, it can even go further back."
Antonio Damasio
"The brain stem provides the main motor and sensory innervation to the face and neck via the cranial nerves. Though small, this is an extremely important part of the brain as the nerve connections of the motor and sensory systems from the main part of the brain to the rest of the body pass through the brain stem. This includes the corticospinal tract (motor), the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway (fine touch, vibration sensation and proprioception) and the spinothalamic tract (pain, temperature, itch and crude touch). The brain stem also plays an important role in the regulation of cardiac and respiratory function. It also regulates the central nervous system, and is pivotal in maintaining consciousness and regulating the sleep cycle."
From Wikipedia
I think that this is incorrect. I think that while the cerebral cortex is extremely important to generate consciousness and in particular the self, the structure that is the key, and without which you wouldn't have self processes at all, is actually in the brain stem. This is very fascinating because it sends you to a set of structures that is very old in evolution. A set of structures that, in essence, have existed since reptilian times. And, maybe, it can even go further back."
Antonio Damasio
"The brain stem provides the main motor and sensory innervation to the face and neck via the cranial nerves. Though small, this is an extremely important part of the brain as the nerve connections of the motor and sensory systems from the main part of the brain to the rest of the body pass through the brain stem. This includes the corticospinal tract (motor), the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway (fine touch, vibration sensation and proprioception) and the spinothalamic tract (pain, temperature, itch and crude touch). The brain stem also plays an important role in the regulation of cardiac and respiratory function. It also regulates the central nervous system, and is pivotal in maintaining consciousness and regulating the sleep cycle."
From Wikipedia
Monday, July 11, 2011
All you want is a little bit of nothing
Marjorie Barstow was the first person to graduate from F. M. Alexander's first training course in 1933. After working as A. R. Alexander's assistant in Boston and New York in the 1930's, she returned to Lincoln. She continued teaching until shortly before her death in 1995 at age 95.
http://marjoriebarstow.com/
I collect here some senteces I can connect in some way with my experience:
http://marjoriebarstow.com/
I collect here some senteces I can connect in some way with my experience:
- The Technique "acquaints individuals with the details for understanding the activities of the 'Primary Control', and also of observing habits of movement. When unnecessary pressures are noticed the pupil learns to re-direct that energy to release those pressures."
- F.M. said, "Inhibition is receiving a stimulus to gain a certain end and refusing to react to it, thereby inhibiting the unsatisfactory habits of use associated with habitual reaction." My experience has proved to me that inhibition is an activity.
(I would say: inhibition is the activation and the sustainment of a particular "mental state" that somewhat corresponds to what Neuroscience refer as "task-negative network", "resting-state network" or "default mode network") - It is the delicacy of the movement that will give you your release.
(You have to be able to move without disrupting the "resting-state" but in my personal experience and understanding there is also another reason)
- I don't let you take all that time before you start because you're trying to feel you're right and that's endgaining.
- When you give up--doesn't that mean you were looking for a position?
- You can't tell until you move it. You move it, then you feel it--and that's what you notice. When you fix it--you've lost it.
- Pupil: "I move my head but I'm not sure."
Marj: "You're never sure. You move your head and you see what happens." - When you don't feel some stiffening or pressure, you don't know what to do.
"All you want is a little bit of nothing"
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The reptilian brain - Working Through the Primal Feel Strata
"We have within us this freaked out infant animal, deep down within. As we meditate the super adult part of us shines is attention on this freaked out animal part that remains and integrates, or we can say even eats up, this more primitive part, strata by strata, and derived nutrition from it. "
Shinzen Young
Working Through the Primal Feel Strata
Shinzen Young
Working Through the Primal Feel Strata
"The surface of the subconscious can be reached through mental talk, a little deeper level cannot be reached by mental talk but it can be reached by mental images. The deepest level of the subconscious cannot even be reached by mental images but it can be reached by body sensations.
At the level of body sensations when the reptilian brain notices that when there is an interference with the flow of body sensations, it's own product of course, than there is suffering, and when it stops interfering then there is the absence of suffering or fulfillment."
"Le lizard brain is trained (in a skinnerian model) in not interfering with his own activity "
Shinzen Young
Slow as a snail
As I started sitting I had to deal with pressing demands of my body: neck and shoulder were the first.
It was like trying to understand why your baby is crying and I simply do what I do in these cases: let he do whatever he wants to do and paying attention. It seems my body do not like the "right-balanced-symmetric" posture at all: it feel like it would be better if the head had turned a bit to the right, and then an other little bit, and then if it bent a little to the side, and so on...
Very slowly, slowly as a snail.
Then the thing took off, always very slow, but the movements were increasingly large and the stretching sometimes rather painful. There were a symmetry in the movements, and a kind of plan: one part of the body following the other, as if someone had created a specific program of exercises for me.
I still did not know what I was doing, and moreover, when I was getting tired of that slowness that required so much attention, and thought I can complete the movement independently with a little more speed, the movement went "wrong" and I was pushed to start again.
This went on for two weeks: eventually my neck, shoulders and my whole body felt "free" for the first time.
How can I know how to do that without knowing what I was doing? I was sometimes scared about what felt like "to be possessed" but I were already at a point were really no rational fear was left in my mind, so I went on with that without trying to control it.
Who knows what it is needed to do if not my "not conscious self" that had done so many things during my life I have no idea how to do consciously? At the same time it felt like he cannot do that by itself: I had to pay attention, and I had "to follow" and do my part. Which is the part in charge? which one is teaching the other? which one is giving directions? which one is following? where the "allowing" ends and the "doing" starts?
Does that matters?
It was like trying to understand why your baby is crying and I simply do what I do in these cases: let he do whatever he wants to do and paying attention. It seems my body do not like the "right-balanced-symmetric" posture at all: it feel like it would be better if the head had turned a bit to the right, and then an other little bit, and then if it bent a little to the side, and so on...
Then the thing took off, always very slow, but the movements were increasingly large and the stretching sometimes rather painful. There were a symmetry in the movements, and a kind of plan: one part of the body following the other, as if someone had created a specific program of exercises for me.
I still did not know what I was doing, and moreover, when I was getting tired of that slowness that required so much attention, and thought I can complete the movement independently with a little more speed, the movement went "wrong" and I was pushed to start again.
This went on for two weeks: eventually my neck, shoulders and my whole body felt "free" for the first time.
How can I know how to do that without knowing what I was doing? I was sometimes scared about what felt like "to be possessed" but I were already at a point were really no rational fear was left in my mind, so I went on with that without trying to control it.
Who knows what it is needed to do if not my "not conscious self" that had done so many things during my life I have no idea how to do consciously? At the same time it felt like he cannot do that by itself: I had to pay attention, and I had "to follow" and do my part. Which is the part in charge? which one is teaching the other? which one is giving directions? which one is following? where the "allowing" ends and the "doing" starts?
Does that matters?
The hunger for your touch
I swept the marble chambers,
But you sent me down below.
You kept me from believing
Until you let me know
That I am not the one who loves
It’s love that seizes me.
When hatred with his package comes,
You forbid delivery.
And when the hunger for your touch
Rises from the hunger,
You whisper, "You have loved enough,
Now let me be the Lover."
Leonard Choen, You have loved enough - Ten new songs
But you sent me down below.
You kept me from believing
Until you let me know
That I am not the one who loves
It’s love that seizes me.
When hatred with his package comes,
You forbid delivery.
And when the hunger for your touch
Rises from the hunger,
You whisper, "You have loved enough,
Now let me be the Lover."
Leonard Choen, You have loved enough - Ten new songs
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Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.
"Looking For Your Own Face" as translated by Coleman Barks in The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia