BLOOD PRESSURE CAN BE REDUCED BY MEDITATION. THIS EXAMPLE OF 15 MIN OF VIPASSANA

I don't think any one will argue with you about the benefits of Yoga or Meditation when it comes to High Blood Pressure. Observational studies have shown that Blood Pressure can be controlled by Yoga or Meditation. I had written before how BP can be reduced by ISHA KRIYA. Today I decided to see the effect on BP by a short routine of Vipassana listening to SN GOENKA's voice. The results speak for themselves. I am a medical doctor and many of the medications currently used may not give such a good reduction.

 

The readings were taken 18 minutes apart, the meditation was 15 minutes long and the results are immediate. when you take  medications the effect is not this immediate.

A good reduction in BP , 13 mm Hg of Systolic BP and 5 mg Hg of Diastolic BP.. just 15 minutes 

of doing Meditation.

Whether or not you have Increased BP , I recommend that you meditate, it has multiple benefits. Reduction in BP is just one of them.

WHEN AND HOW VIPASSANA MEDITATION COME TO BE INTRODUCED TO MY WORLD VIEW? A PERSONAL HISTORY

 Who has not heard of Easter Island and the legendary Moai there? Because of the extreme isolation of the island, travel there is not easy. I have been lucky enough to have visited the island four times since 2003 and made friends with some of the Rapa Nui families.

The Japanese are very fascinated with Rapa Nui and their government has been active in the restoration of the Moai. 

I was lucky enough to stay at the home of the guide and his rap nui wife Fatima and we set out in his van to see feel and learn the history of the island (me, he knew it by heart).

The platforms on which the Moai stand are called AHU and you are not supposed to step on them.

Despite the signs i still see the tourists climbing up on the Ahu, especially where the isolated ones are .

I saw a young japanese girl with a day pack on her back, wandering around the AHU. I hurried up to her and said, in English: Please those platforms are sacred and please dont climb on them.

She was embarrassed and she quickly climbed down and said to me, if you want you can speak Spanish to me.

I was amazed that this young woman with no knowledge of English, rudimentary spanish communication, wandering around the world. She said she was heading to Europe and then on to India.

One of the things she wanted to do in India was Vipassana Meditation. I heard people mention about it in Myanmar and in Cambodia.

My interest in Vipassana meditation was spiked by my interest in the works of Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli public Intellectual who talked highly of Vipassana who did the meditation at the request of a friend and found it so useful to him in terms of clearing his mind and his thinking. He became an ardent follower and goes to India every year and practices Vipassana daily.

Yuval was lucky in that he was introduced to Vipassana meditation by that master, S N Goenka a Burmese of Indian descent who learned from a Burmese Monk.

Whenever I get a chance I like to listen to SN Goenka's introduction to Anapana which takes only 10 minutes.

Just yesterday I came across a book 

The Art of Living

Vipassana meditation as taught by SN Goenka. It is available as pdf on line

I was lucky to listen to it on BLINKIST and in the following paragraphs there are lots of sentences from the summary provided by BLINKIST.

No amount of study can replace practical experience. When it comes to Buddhism, the same is true. Buddhism will only have a positive effect on your life if you apply its lessons on a daily basis. But on the other hand if you are doing actions such as Yoga without understanding the philosophy, it is just like doing stretching exercises. Like Yogic Philosophy does not refer to a religion such as Hinduism, the words of Buddha are universal, does not pertain to a religion

There is no doubt about the saying from Yogic Philosophy: (a lot of things in common with Buddhist philosophy as they were contemporaries in the beginning, Patanjali and Buddha lived among the same ambiance , perhaps not at the same time or place. Buddha 5th century BCE and Patanjali 2nd Century BCE

The key message here is: You can only benefit from Buddhism through practical application.

Practical and here and now.. Mindful of what is happening now . Think of the Buddhist Vietnamese Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh.

It is often seen, many a times in USA, people going to church on Sunday and saying that they are spiritual, and the rest of the week they do not follow anything written in their scriptures. 

If you have a faith, you have to live the faith. Don’t count your money but think of being kind to others.

I am never impressed with people who quote Bible when they are talking, such as many of the pastors with their own private planes. I have not read any of the scriptures whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu.

Mr Ahmed, a Qatari friend of mine reminded me: Don’t be impressed with superficial things like Money, titles or degrees but be impressed by Kindness, Empathy, Generosity, Humility, Integrity

You are always told: Free yourself of suffering. But what are the origins of Individual suffering, the society , the culture , the country. 

When I was a junior doctor in Melbourne, I thought about freeing myself of all the attachments and wrote down the order in which I have to free myself:  Country and Nationality, many a times the significance of passport as a nationality came down to the colour of the passport. Next is your profession, I am a Doctor many identify themselves like that, that is what you do, and not what you are. Then you have to free yourself of your skin, your body, your gender and your looks. In the last few years, there has been so much division in societies east and west based on caste, creed and colour. I look the way I do, and I ask for no privileges. When you give up these things, you also give up the attachment and the other side of the coin, aversion. Once I heard a Bosnian migrant say, I love America and I felt a deep pity for him. Be a good person whether you live in Argentina or Yemen and if you want to migrate to Australia or Canada ,go if you can. Many people might find freeing their attachment to the family difficult. In my case, it was made easier by their giving upon me and sending me off to Australia which possibly was the best thing that happened in my life, allowing me to become my own person in my thoughts. Be in love but not in attachment.  I am truly grateful for Australia

Later when I read Buddhist and Yoga literature I recognized the universal nature they had predicted in their thoughts 2500 years ago trailblazers for other philosophers. 

Individuals aren’t stable entities – they’re things in flux.  Buddha had said this long before the western physicists had come to that conclusion. I fully subscribe to this. Individuals are in flux and thus to attribute, written on stone, characteristics to people may not be correct. 

“On his quest for enlightenment, the Buddha sought to know himself as deeply as possible. But what did he find as he searched his mind and body?

His most powerful revelation was something that particle scientists would only discover many centuries later. He found that, rather than being a permanently fixed being, he was actually an entity that kept changing from moment to moment. 

Individuals aren’t stable entities – they are things in flux.

Look at the way our bodies are composed. After meditating deeply and looking into himself, the Buddha came to the conclusion that the entire material universe was composed of particles called kalāpas. These are indivisible units that combine to form matter. He believed that these kalāpas were continuously coming into existence – and then passing away. So our bodies, rather than being permanent structures, are actually in flux.

His philosophy roughly corresponds to what scientists discovered for themselves. The body, which appears solid to us, is actually composed of subatomic particles and empty space. These particles, just as the Buddha proposed, have no actual solidity – they appear and then disappear within a trillionth of a second.” SNGOENKA

Buddha discovered that MIND had FOUR PROCESSES.

CONSCIOUSNESS

PERCEPTION 

SENSATION

REACTION

Yesterday an older lady said something to me and I felt it in my skin and I resisted reacting to that sensation which would have been worse and not resolved the problem.

Your capacity for perception will translate into Sensation in your skin and body. We all have felt the overwhelming joy at looking at something beautiful in the nature or the thought of a beautiful friendship and at the same time a negative feeling would evoke a nasty sensation in your skin. You hear people feeling confusion, nausea at the words or behaviour of others. It is the sensation. I feel that a person who is not grounded, who is not calm would react to the sensation with a REACTION which does not solve the problem, not does it address the origin of the word, the insult or action. Needless to say the person whose words cause that sensation is least grounded and without happiness in their hearts

Most of us are not even aware of it . I feel that Vipassana intercedes the level of PERCEPTION and the sensation is isolated and does not cause suffering and of course there is no need to REACT .

“Most of us believe that the “I” is fixed – that our bodies and personalities endure from one moment to the next. But the Buddha believed that this attachment to ourselves and the world around us is the cause of our suffering. 

The key message here is: To alleviate suffering, become less attached to yourself and the world.” SNGOENKA

A little known aspect of the intellectual history of India is the question: India is the birthplace of Buddhism but it is almost cleansed out  of India, how did it happen. 

I wholeheartedly recommend the following book for a fascinating read . 

An End of Suffering by Pankaj Mishra.

2500 years ago Buddhism and Yogic philosophy may not have been competitors but existed side by side. It is well known that Buddhism became extremely popular in India (threatening the Brahmins whose livelihood depended upon rituals of Hinduism). Tanjur Thanjavoor in 
South India became a centre of Buddhist learning and monks from Sri Lanka, Burma and other parts of South East Asia came to learn and return to their countries. (the fact that Burmese Mon Lao Thai Khmer Balinese scripts resemble TAMIL the language of Tanjur Thanjavoor may not be a coincidence.)

I FOUND THE CONCEPTS OF KLEISHAS OR STRUCTURAL DEFECTS OF THE MIND TO BE EXTEMELY USEFUL 

IGNORANCE

EGO

ATTACHMENT AND ITS REVERSE ,AVERSION

FEAR OF CHANGE 

Attachment  is the root of all suffering. IGNORANCE IS AT THE ROOT OF ALL STRUCTURAL DEFECTS OF YOUR MIND

Practicing SILA OR MORALITY, is a kind of common sense; it’s intended to protect yourself and others. Like the four things my friend Ahmed Qatar wrote to me about: Be impressed with these things. 

Practicing bhāvanā, or meditation, will lead you to a state of equanimity.

By acting, speaking, and working in a way that doesn’t bring harm to ourselves or others, we stop the spread of suffering in the world. 

IT IS EASY TO TALK ABOUT BRINGING THE SUFFERING OF THE WORLD WHEN YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS SUFFERING THE MOST

However, our problems often begin as trouble in the mind. We can try and control our actions and speech all we like – but if our minds are still full of anxieties and cravings, then it’ll all be in vain. At some point, this imbalance will reveal itself. So, to bring equanimity to the mind and harness its powers, the Buddha proposed bhāvanā, or meditation. 

: Practicing bhāvanā, or meditation, will lead you to a state of equanimity. (mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.

“How do you practice bhāvanā properly? Just like with the practice of sīla MORALITY, there are some concrete rules. You’ll need to train yourself in right effort, right awareness, and right concentration.

Let’s first look at right effort. To meditate, you’ll need to sit down in a comfortable position and close your eyes. At first, it’s likely that you’ll have a distracted mind – an obstacle you’ll encounter when looking deeply into yourself. 

What you should do, then, is focus only on your breathing. This will be difficult; your mind will stray to other thoughts. Maybe you’ll start thinking about what you did yesterday, or the cramp in your leg. To practice right effort, gently draw your consciousness back to your breathing – again and again.

Next is right awareness. One of the main causes of suffering comes from an inability to connect with the present moment and the reality of our lives. We lose ourselves in reveries about the past or future, in fantasies and illusions. Practicing right awareness means bringing ourselves back to our present. Again, this can be done by focusing only on the breath. 

And when you do this, you’ll learn to read your mental state by the nature of your breathing. If your mind is troubled or anxious, your breathing will be fast and rough; if it’s calm, the breath will be soft and natural. This will help you connect yourself to the present.

Last, there is right concentration. While deep concentration is one of the aims of meditation, there are other types of concentration that aren’t helpful. For instance, focusing on sensual pleasure or phobias isn’t right concentration. Right concentration means a focus only on the breath, with a mind free of desires, fears, or other thoughts. It means connecting with the here and now in which you exist.”SN GOENKA

Cultivate paññā, or wisdom, to attain peace and freedom from suffering.

Cultivating morality and practicing meditation are key to attaining a peaceful state of mind. But without training the mind in wisdom, or paññā, this state of mind will remain elusive. 

Wisdom might seem like a difficult thing to learn – often, we consider people naturally wise or not. But the Buddha believed that wisdom can be cultivated. To do that, he suggested right thought and right understanding.

The key message here is: Cultivate paññā, or wisdom, to attain peace and freedom from suffering.

Let’s begin with the idea of right thought. Quite simply, this means a calmer, more objective frame of mind, free from craving and aversion. This is the first step on the path of wisdom.

While you need to prepare yourself with right thought, true wisdom comes through right understanding. This is the kind of wisdom that can only be found through experience – not just speculation. 

There are three types of wisdom: received wisdom, intellectual wisdom, and experiential wisdom. Received wisdom is what you’ve heard from others. Intellectual wisdom is found in books and teachings; it’s not your own insight, but an intellectualized version of received wisdom. Experiential wisdom is that which is discovered in the experience of life itself.

But, when it comes to walking the same path as the Buddha, developing experiential wisdom is essential.

This can be cultivated through Vipassanā-bhāvanā, which translates to “insight meditation.” It entails focusing on physical sensation during meditation – objectively and without passing judgment. Why sensation? Because it is through sensation that we encounter reality, and the truth of everything that is. Ultimately, there is nothing other than sensation.

We notice how our sensations, whether pleasant or unpleasant, arise and disappear. By maintaining our focus, we learn, really learn, how ephemeral we are. As sensations come and go, we understand that there is nothing permanent in this world. There is certainly no “I,” or anything that can be called “ours.”

The kernel of wisdom that Vipassanā-bhāvanā imparts is that suffering can be avoided if you let go. Let go of the ego, the “I,” and everything it clings to, and you will attain real peace and happiness.

And here’s some more actionable advice:

When sitting still in meditation, learn to accept your aches.

A large part of Vipassanā meditation is about achieving equanimity. The next time you feel discomfort when in a meditating pose, learn to accept any aches with calmness. Register them as just another sensation that will pass with time – like everything else in this world!

SNGOENKA

I hope this hybrid essay is of some use to people who may wish to begin Meditation. Always remember, it is only when you are ready that a teacher appears. I was very lucky that my later best friend in Asia appeared at the airport in Siem Reap in 2008 and by 2010, we had already invited a Yoga Teacher (including Philosophy) Vandana Yadav from Bombay to teach us in KL at the home of that erudite Indian expatriate, Brijesh and his lovely wife Aparna. 

I wrote this piece tonight thinking of MCA of Brasil. Hope this is useful for her.

Grateful to MCY of Kuala Lumpur, my best friend in Asia and her consort, Fernando.

and of course there are other players in my magical world

Maqroll. La petite poete de côte sauvage, Sr. Carlos with his linen suit and Ray Ban glasses.

WHO IS JALALUDIN RUMI, MAULANA RUMI? YOU ARE RUMI, SO AM I .

 

Not Christian, nor Jew nor Muslim, not Hindu/ Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion/ or cultural system. I am not from the East/ or the West, not out of the ocean or above.

If you can say the above, and believe in it without suspicion

you too are RUMI.

The Little Poet said to me :

No need to raise your voice, All that will happen is that you loose your voice.

This little descendant of Middle East, how did she acquire the spirit of Rumi

The Little poet is also RUMI.

I remember the Vice-Director of the International School of Kisses of Baracoa, saying one day:

Do not ask him, where he comes from, many countries claim him as his own.

The Indian mystics say

If you think you are very important, your absence will not make the world stop tomorrow, it will do on and in a little while there would be no one left that remembers you.

It is now, the time to LOVE and let us hear what RUMI had to say

Love lives on in our hearts, until it is also silenced.

There are no memories of love that persists. You need a beating heart for Love to flourish.

When I close my left eye, the right eye perceives my life as a whole, while looking through my left eye, it seems so fragmented.

Lovers come and go and do not lament, they will come back in life and death

After trying for years, I have become free .. of homes attachments and professions and nationalities .. only Love remains

The uneasiness is always within myself, i need to sharpen abilities to ease it

Let us forgive but not forget those who cannot love us.

I was born in a erstwhile capital of a distant province of the Portuguese empire and I have no attachment to that land but I am fond of it. 

Love without attachment, I have always strived for it. ..

Let us with abandon welcome 2022, while listening to the snake-charmers of Djemma al Fina? or wait up to see the first rays of the sun coming over the Majayara ? It wont be Miami.

LA PETITE POETE DE COTE SAUVAGE AND THE BRASILIAN POET CECILIA MEIRELLES .. E MOI, AVEC SAUDADE

The Young poet of Cote Sauvage, one day said to me:

The waves are coming to say Hello to the Earth ..

She will grow up to be another Cecilia Meirelles who wrote 

O choro vem perto dos olhos

para que a dor transship e caia.

O choro vem quase chorando

como a onda que toca na praia.

Descem dos ceus ordens augustas

eo mar chama a onda para o centro.

O choro foge sem vestigios,

mas levando naufragos dentro.

There is a quest for love, but not of saudade. Nothing mystical but personal statement, separating herself from what she sees, nature does not lead to any self realization, but she emphasizes the present, the reality and the actual presence of the moment.

Translation:

Our tears well up in our eyes

-only so can our grief overflow-

our tears well up, like the weeping

of a wave as it touches the shore.

Stern orders come down from the heavens:

the sea calls the wave to its heart.

Our tears bear the shipwrecked away;

Not a trace do they leave as they part.

The Last time I saw La Petite Poete de Cote Sauvage she said to me:

I will not miss you when you leave

How can I miss you when I carry you in my heart?

CABO VERDE. BRASIL. CUBA WORDS AND MUSIC RINGING IN MY EARS SODADE POR CESARIA EVORA AND NERUDA TO THE RESCUE

Bem conchê ess terra morena

Ondê que cada criola é um serena

Bem, q’ês nos céu tambê é de anil

Êss nos terra piquinina

É um padacinho di brasil

Brasil, qui nos tudo tem na peito

Brasil, qui no ta sinti na sangue

Brasil, bo é nos irmão

Sim c’ma nos bo é morena

Brasil no crebu txeu, no crebu txeu, di coração

Vento qui ta bem di sul

Ta trazê na ses cantos acenos di brasil

Si no ca ta bai, es ca ta dixanu

Brasil bo é nos sonho

Bo é nos sonho azul

IT IS A MORNA SUNG BY NANCY VIERA

Who writes such beautiful songs?

B. LEZA 

until today I did not realize it stands for Beleza. Beauty 

Francisco Xavier da Cruz (B.Leza ou Beléza) foi um músico de Cabo Verde.

Natural do Mindelo, B.Leza inovou a morna ao utilizar frequentemente os acordes de passagem, (chamados de meio-tom brasileiro na gíria dos músicos cabo-veridanos), antes pouco usados nesse género musical.

O seu estilo e a sua obra, que começaram a ter sucesso na década de 1950, marcaram a música de Cabo Verde nos vinte anos seguintes. Compôs dezenas de mornas, entre as quais se destacam Eclipse, Miss Perfumado, Resposta de Segredo Cu Mar e Lua Nha Testemunha, que, diz a lenda, foi composta no leito do hospital, dias antes da sua morte a 14 de Junho de 1958.

• Diz também a lenda que muitas pessoas iam ter com o mestre B.Leza para lhe pedir uma morna para a pessoa amada, para uma serenata ou para assinalar um acontecimento. Em questão de dias, B.Leza tinha a obra feita. Moacyr Rodrigues escreve que “influenciado pela música brasileira e argentina – B.Leza – vai enriquecer não só a música com a introdução do meio-tom mas também a letra pelo desenvolvimento de ideias” (from Wikipedia)
• 
• B LEZA 

the lyrics are above. it is in Cabo Verdean Creole (Kriol)

There are so many great singers from Cabo Verde. I had a chance to visit the Cabo Verdean Embassy in Havana and the Lady Ambassador (now CV Ambassador to France) insisted that I listen to some CV music!

Who can say they do not like the songs of Cesaria Evora and she has sung many of the mornas of B. Leza.

Who wrote SODADE ..

the very first song I heard of Cesaria when I was reading Anthropology in London?

"Sodade" is a Cape Verdean slow coladeira song written in the 1950s by Armando Zeferino Soares, and best popularized by Cesária Évora on her 1992 album Miss Perfumado. The name is the Cape Verdean Creole variant of the Portuguese term saudade. (Wiki)

She truly had a fantastic band backing her .. 

Sodade

Qui t’a montré

Ce long chemin

Qui t’a montré

Ce long chemin

Ce chemin

Pour São Tomé (*) ?

 

Sodade Sodade

Sodade (*)

De ma terre de São Nicolau (*)

 

Si tu m’écris

Je t’écrirai

Si tu m’oublies

Je t’oublierai

Jusqu’au jour

De ton retour

 

Sodade Sodade

Sodade (*)

De ma terre de São Nicolau (*)

I have known that I was born with Saudade

CAFÉ MAGIC BEAN, QUITO,ECUADOR

4JUNIO2000

it is such my friends

the end is always the same

whatever had happened,

the beauty, the magic,

nothing matters-

End

What does saudade matter?

All that you could give each other 

Only tore you apart--

E manha sera otra dia…

What images pass through

This crystalline heart of mine

Fragrances that were forgotten

How could one not remember such knots of passion?

Where was that?

How could one not forget?

SAUDADES

Significa en portugues un afecto interior; una ansia por ver la cosa amada, un pesar por no tenerla presente, y, en fin, en esta palabra estan comprendidas una fuerza de amor y otros conceptos que en ninguna otra lengua pueden expresarse

Antonio Sousa de Macedo  Lisboa 1631

One begins and ends with Pablo Neruda 

RUE DE RIVOLI IN PARIS TO KENDALLTOWN IN MIAMI. TEN YEARS ON THIS DAY OF MOURNING 25.11.2021

 

We had been invited to dinner at the home of the daughter of my Brother Youssef. It is only a short walk from where I am staying with him.

The hostess had put special efforts into the dinner which turned out to be delicious. 

I had brought a Trapiche Malbec which served its purpose well. It was soon gulped down and the hostess let me select a wine from her collection.

I had never tasted this one, it was pleasant for the occasion. Conversation flowed as it covered the contemporary, touching the reality of the time and place in USA. The intergenerational and International presence made the chat more interesting.

We walked home and I settled down in front of the computer to catch up on my Medicine, Anthropology, International News items (I do not watch US TV nor follow any USA based website, I do read New York Times daily a left over ritual from my adolescent days).

Suddenly there was a knock at the window through which I look at the trees and the lights of the houses nearby and those of passing cars.

She waved vigorously and I thought of that distant day, 10 years earlier of a lunch along rue Saint Germain, where we had walked from her hotel in rue de Rivoli just across from Jardin des Tuileries 

I had never met her before, but she was the daughter of a neighbour just three doors down from Youssef in Miami. (she was based in New York)

I went outside and we quickly exchange some pleasantries but I realized that this was not the time for nostalgic recollections. 

She had come to visit her parents. She is fully vaccinated and she had done her last covid test about one month ago. She had felt some pain in the eyes this morning and a slight headache. She realized that in the rare chance if she were to have Covid 19, she would be putting her elderly parents at risk.

What to do? It was around 9 pm on a very popular holiday. She remembered that I visit this house, three doors from her parents and she knew I was a traveller but a Physician. She was so surprised to see me at my desk fully visible through the large window.

She explained the situation, thought that being a doctor I might have a quick antigen home test. Her guess was correct, so we decided to do a quick test on her, right in front of the house.

One has to wait for 15 min for the result, and it was indeed a long 15 minutes. I checked her temperature 97 F , her blood oxygenation was 98 % and she has not lost her olfactory sense.

Reminded me of waiting for Godot. If she had antigens in her nose swab, the second line on the sensor card would become apparent quickly.  No she did not have .. we both were happy.

Indians say that things do not happen for a reason, it is that we are not smart enough to understand why. But I have a feeling why this happened..

Why did a lady I had met for the first time in Paris ten years ago, appear in front of my window on this dark night of a favourite holiday?

Superficially it looks, a young woman needed to have dinner (an important dinner in the American calendar), but she needed something or someone to alleviate her anxiety. If she had come 10 minutes earlier, I wouldn't have been here, as I was at the home where I had dinner this evening. 

It so happened we had a rapid test kit in the house. What is the value of it if not to use in an urgent situation and this one was certainly an urgent situation.

A very happy daughter, going to visit and have dinner with her parents.

My gesture was simple. I am a healer, Sanador in Spanish, and I needed to take care of the anxiety of this person. The fringe benefit is the joy of her having dinner with her parents. So little effort and such a humanistic action in the universal nature of things.

 I as a Physician who has taken the oath of Maimonides to help others, can assess the  risk of attending to a virtual stranger, I can only say. I did what was human thing to do. 

An older Indian man well versed in the ways of his people said: some people do not evolve well in their thinking and they become inhuman. I did not want to be inhuman 

As we were walking back to the house, I said to Youssef, what a lovely evening it was: in the company of friends, spending an agreeable time.

The Great Spirit then tests, who among us are human by sending someone looking for a rapid test for Covid. and send contentment to those who are human and self destructing anger to those who are not.

PS when you are an experienced doctor, you have the discernment to know who is sick or may be sick and you act accordingly.

To dampen the ire of those who might object to actions such as this, I did a Covid test two days after the encounter as is recommended by CDC   Negative Of course .