Two days ago a guy named Satya Narayan Goenka died. Who was Goenka and why should I care? First, I’ll mention how I found out about him. I had no experience with meditation when a longtime friend I hadn’t seen in a while suggested I try it. The idea made no sense to me because meditation made no sense to me. I didn’t know or care about it to that[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World, by Admiral William H. McRaven: I saw the video of McRaven’s commencement speech to the University of Texas years ago. It resonated with me because My sidchas, standard operating procedures, and preferences include waking up, making my bed, and crossing the room to turn off my alarm within sixty seconds. Also, I had[…] Keep reading →

About ten months in to meditating 20 minutes two days out of my five-day exercise cycle, a few updates. I last updated in November on my full lotus pose. Practice is making it more comfortable. Here’s my post with the video of me in the pose. You may have noticed my sitting on a folded towel on a folded sheet. Here’s me, about to sit on the folded towel on[…] Keep reading →

A podcaster and I were emailing about the possibility of doing an interview. He said his podcast was mostly health related. As I summarized for him my health-related activities, I felt that what I was writing would summarize well here, so wrote it more comprehensively than I normally would have. I like sharing these practices. Note that they are things anyone can do. I mean, if you’re wheelchair bound, you[…] Keep reading →

I’ve been answering questions on the social media site Quora for about a month. My responses are getting more views and upvotes, so I thought I’d put some here, since the posts there are like posts here for readers who don’t feel like going there. I’m thinking about making a standard Saturday practice of collecting my responses here from there for the week. Since I have a month to catch[…] Keep reading →

If you didn’t know, I spent my past ten days at my second ten-day mediation retreat. Here are old posts on it for your background: Vipassana Meditation Goenka and 10-day meditation retreats These retreats have no internet, phone, reading, writing, or talking. You sit still for about ten to twelve hours a day. Because writing here is one of my SIDCHAs and I don’t want to deprive readers of my[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on the Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activity (SIDCHA). If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] New Years Day conjures thoughts of resolutions. Here is a list of SIDCHAs that work for many people. Please share other ideas I haven’t thought of — ones[…] Keep reading →