Change of Blog

Please, continue visiting my newer blog at Karakusa Life. It is a blog about my pottery but not exclusive to that topic.

Cycle of Life

As I look outside the window laying on the bed, I see bright yellow leaves still hanging onto the branches. The leaves are shaking in a gentle wind on a mid autumn day. By the thick of the winter, those leaves will have fallen on the ground joining the rest of the fallen leaves to make a yellow carpet in the back yard.
At the time when almost all leaves are on the ground, my partner and I will welcome our baby to this world.
It, most definitely, will be a cold day when our baby will be born. We will swaddle the baby with a cotton blanket so he or she will stay warm. A pale yellow blanket shall be used in the honor of the yellow leaves outside.

11/17/'11

Today was a big day for the protesters and people who represent 99% of the population of this country. We are in the age of Aquarius now. Anything is possible using group consciousness. All for one and one for all!

#2

June 23 2010

Each One of Us Represent the World.Ever since I moved away from my home country, Japan, when I was 19 years old, I became conscious about what I do because of the thought I had, which was that each person represent his/her own country. That thought developed over the years, and I started thinking that each one of us represent not only the country we are from but also the family, ancestors, and our own past and the future. Then I started to think I should live as an earth being as a person and a being without borders.

One day near the end of the year 2008, I was hit by a taxi on the way to a restaurant after the MFA show at the Hunter college. The taxi driver drove away and I was carried to a hospital. I was stuck with very expensive hospital bills. Some time after the accident, I spent my days in the state of a shock. In those disorienting days of my life, I had a chance to talk toGuru Prem Singh, one of only two masters appointed by Yogi Bhajan.

Being the posture master that he is, he told me a few thing about my posture and the alignment of my body. Surprisingly, he was knowledgeable about healing properties of stones, and told me to get a carnelian to heal my wounds from the accident. But the most interesting and eye opening thing that he said was something that sounded very familiar to me.

What lead him to say what he said to me was my black T-shirt with a x-ray drawing of a gun. As a customary, Kundalini Yogis wear white clothing. I remember clearly before I even went to see him, I was thinking to myself that I can not wear this T-shirt in front of him. But somehow in that morning, I was left with the black-gun-T-shirt because I had already worn other. So I reluctantly wore it thinking that I need to take off when I go to the appointment to see him in the evening on that day. My work day was stressful and went way longer than I expected. I almost missed the appointment with him. By the time I got to the appointment, I was not in my center. I felt very uneasy being late to come see him. I was mad at my work being so time consuming and making me late to the appointment. When I was facing the posture master himself, I was reminded by him that I wore a wrong T-shirt to see him. He said that he was exactly the wrong person for me to wear that T-shirt to. And he was right. I said to myself almost exactly the same phrase in that morning. About the T-shirt, he told me to think about what it represents. Following that, he also gave me an insight that our appearance, actions, what we say, all of those represent something in this world. And all of those representations combined, that becomes the impact of the person to others. And he calmly added, "You may think you only represent yourself, where you grew up, your family, or ancestors, but you actually DO represent this world." I was speechless for a moment. And repeated this question silently inside myself, "Did what he just said to me come from him or he somehow got in my brain and reminded me what I thought once?"

Just about 1 and half years have past since my meeting with him. Back then, I was struck by the coincident of him mentioning exactly what I believed that time. But now, those words came back to me like an echo. Only this time, it came back to me as a full-on impact that I can not even doubt that it was just a coincident. It was meant to be heard.

With all those human conflicts that happen in this world, and all those devastation that we bring to the environment, we need to evaluate our own recognitions of our places. We, each, represent the world. We, each, have responsibilities as a member of the world. If we want peace to this world, we should act peacefully. If we want to breathe clean air, we should not pollute the air. If we want to realize our own dreams, we should realize others' dreams as well. It is our time to project how we want this world to be and represent what we believe.

#1

May 11 2010

Highway to Hell, Fun Ride to La-la-land, and Walking Path to Balance. When my negative, positive, and neutral minds are working properly, the world around me seems a little bit at ease- I am centered, enjoying, and confident. But somehow when I go out of balance, some time of my life afterwards becomes down fall in many aspects, and I need to recollect my life and re-correct my acts accordingly. In many cases when my life go out of balance, my negative, positive, and neutral minds seem not working together properly. This article revolves around my experience with the idea of negative, positive, and neutral minds applied to everyday life, and I do not claim that these are the only elements that maintain the balance in everyday life. However, I find the idea of negative, positive, and neutral minds to be helpful organizing my fast falling state of mind.

Negative mind, a.k.a. protective mind, first of all, is not negative at all to have. We need a healthy negative mind to detect danger in actions and situations that we engage in. Negative mind works as analytical system so during or after an action is taken, we are not over loaded with unnecessary process of recoveries or recompenses. Another proper attribute of negative mind is to make us obedient to our own inner guidance. Our answers to improve life sometimes are in unexpected place-within ourselves. Our resistance to inner guidance causes a great deal, in contrast, healthy negative mind can lead us to take an action to realize what we really want to do and who we really want to be.

Positive mind, a.k.a. expansive mind, affirms the situations. It sees the benefits of the situation and tells us to go for it. With healthy positive mind, you are open to opportunities and you know when to take it. Your projection of presence is strong but you can remain humble at the same time. You have conscious and effective communications with others. With healthy positive mind, you also become optimistic.

Neutral mind, a.k.a. meditative mind, processes both negative and positive minds' input. It sees the bigger picture of all situations and allows us to be intuitive. Neutral mind connects us to deep in our soul, and let us operate with compassion.

All minds on strike. In this situation, almost nothing works and it blows. Time to time, I experience this and be reminded to keep up with what my inner guidance tells me. To tell you a conclusion, in my case, practicing kundalini yoga and meditation is a big part of what my inner guidance says. In the situation all my minds do not work properly, unhealthy side of those three minds become dominant.

Highway to hell and fun ride to la-la-land. When my balance in life is tipped, the first thing it goes is my discipline, namely my daily practice of yoga, meditation, and so on. This is a sign of unhealthy negative mind that detracts me from containment. Then, my focus is lost and I do things I should not do- I will not divulge my occasional (but less frequently occurring) and embarrassing eating and sleeping disorders. It is clearly a case of dysfunctional negative mind- not seeing danger in a situation. But it is also a case of malfunction of positive mind- my judgement is way off based in reality that I think it is a good idea to, for example, devour an entire pizza at 11pm and then somehow try to either do yoga or meditate until 5am!! As a result of overindulgence, I feel I have no more energy, guilty of no discipline, and hence, get trapped in the emotions that are all about myself. The danger to that is, obviously, while it is happening, it is fun but then I will have to pay the price. Paying that price is not fun at all. Moreover, while I am paying the price of my own silliness, it is also pretty hard for me to have compassion towards others.

Walking Path to Balance. But really, no one has to go there. In this fast pace and over stressed society, what we can truly count on is our own intuitions. That is why we need to relax, meditate, practice yoga, or do something that is beneficial to ourselves even just a little bit everyday. When we are steady with our own daily practice, we will develop meditative mind, a.k.a. neutral mind. With that mind, we will have intuition and honest relationship with our own bodies. In many cases, our bodies tell us or at least try to communicate with our minds what to do or not to do. However, our minds are so stubborn we override those subtle signals with our minds' uncooperative desires or resistance.

I believe that we are free in this world. More specifically, we have freedom over our own actions. When we have that freedom, it seems logical that we choose the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. But that does not seem like a very human way. Maybe that is why we repeat the similar mistakes again and again sometimes. If we are able to stay in the state of bliss no matter what we choose to do, that does not sound like a very human way either. For now, I try to go the middle way. Keeping up with what I think it works to maintain my neutral mind and take a step at a time.

(KRI suggests in order to balance negative mind, value your discipline, develop conscious relationships of integrity. To balance positive mind, strengthen the navel point, increase your self-esteem, and use positive affirmations. To balance neutral mind, meditate.)

the first entry

Life has an order.

The order of life is the order of the universe.

The universe is the cradle of every life which consists of physical, mental, and spiritual complexities.

Life lacking any components will not feel sufficient to any healthy individual because we have internal devises that long for the balance of all three.

Our lives are results of our own actions and those actions feed interwoven networks of three pillars of life- physical, mental, and spiritual laws.

My goal with this blog is to share my new (re)discovery as a spirit experiencing a human life. In the process, I may say something very off, naive, or basic. However, my hope is so I, as a part of whole, we, are able to expand our consciousness and awareness to connect people together and grow.