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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 30 2015 : 7:30:39 PM
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For me, I have a couple go-to options beyond the daily practice routine. #1 is going to work, which I enjoy. I work in communications at a medical non-profit and talk to nurses all day, so I try to infuse each call with divine love (but not in an obnoxious, gushy way...just very subtle, like samyama). Sometimes their voices sound like musical instruments, and my receptivity allows me to bask in their compassion. Also, at work, in between phone calls, I post on the AYP forum and have been doing lots of writing for my recovery website. And...I watch movies in short spurts and read books during downtime. 
#2 is playing guitar, singing and writing songs. Without fail, I play everyday, just as sure as I meditate everyday (self-pacing applied). This is a slow but steady learning process that rewards me with an ever-deepening appreciation of the phenomenon of sound, as well as the opportunity to play with others. For instance, yesterday I played with my buddy James in my grandparents' backyard, and we had a blast.
#3 is dragging myself to AA meetings to pontificate to the miserable lot of people mis-identifying as alcoholics. LMAO. Kidding, kidding. I've learned how to tailor and temper my speech to fit the mold. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. And actually, that's exactly why I am building my own website and meeting group, so I don't have to worry about changing what can't be changed.
#4 is vigorous exercise and physical activity. Running, swimming, dancing, tennis, basketball, spontaneous free movement, and so on. Today I threw the frisbee by the river with my brother. Stillness in action!
Friends and family are always intertwined in the above mixture. And I'm leaving plenty of stuff out (attending AYP retreats, musical concerts, art museums, exploring Mother Nature, random acts of creativity and kindness...you get the gist).
The whole point is that you have to fill in the blanks. Don't live to practice; practice to live. Practice is for enhancing daily life. Very simple. What are your talents? How can you get involved in the community? What are you passionate about? This is the kind of self-inquiry you must engage in. Tragically, there's a bunch of teachers who think the crux of self-inquiry is simply a matter of negation and transcending the ego. I don't buy that. Self-inquiry is like unlocking a treasure chest and letting the golden dragon come out to play. You dig? |
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Yogaman
USA
295 Posts |
Posted - Apr 05 2015 : 1:31:08 PM
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BT: thanks for the clarification. We share a lot of interests :) I maintain a daily guitar play/practice, and as a visual artist I also have been maintaining a daily "create" practice. I too get exercise/physical activity in — every day if possible. Walking/hiking and biking, as well as bodyweight workout. Even during these damn cold winter days we just slogged through :)
I've also been getting into the concepts of sustainability, learning more about growing my own food and composting the scraps — I started a worm composting bin a couple months ago! Also digging into fermentation and other direct experience activities to learn more about not just food, health and nutrition, but of the cycles and interdependence of life in this planet.
As well, I now write daily and aim to post one essay a week on my personal blog. I'm also working on some long-form essays with an eye to writing a book.
And working in extending one of my art merchandise products into a business with my brother.
I think these things relate to what you are saying. I'm not just meditating all day and ignoring my life in other aspects. And I don't doubt that meditation plays a role in some of these habits/hobbies/interests. Although the seeds of most of the, were planted before meditation was in the picture. I can actually thank my depression for much of this stuff! |
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Yogaman
USA
295 Posts |
Posted - Apr 05 2015 : 1:32:42 PM
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Yoga Recap 2015-04-05
Interesting week after my decision to narrow down my daily meditation routines in light of some growing discontent and disillusionment with the whole process. Almost immediately my sits were more calm, focused and the inner energetic sensations were intensified. My sits consist these days of spinal breathing pranayama and meditation. I do some basic asanas before evening sits. Spinal breathing includes sambhavi mudra and mula bandha, along with khumbaka on exhale. Meditation includes solar centering.
My decision to pare down my routine was inspired by the thought that perhaps by spending quite a bit of time on the sits and the practice, I was also increasing my expectation levels. I've also chosen to do very brief sits if the day is rushed. I used to be very diligent about my 30 minutes for each sit, but perhaps I was subconsciously seeing this as a "sacrifice" that I should be "rewarded" for.
My daily life has improved as well, the recent bout of mild depression seems to be on its way out, mostly gone. Without a doubt depressive episodes add to these disillusioned thoughts,and not just with meditation. It pervades one's life. The depression brought me to meditation initially, and seems to help. I think I get frustrated when the depressive episodes strike, it sometimes makes me feel like my efforts were/are in vain.
That said, the episodes are far more mild and I've amassed the skills, techniques and methods to keep it at bat longer, and reduce the intensity and duration when it inevitably does arise. I've come to accept that depression isn't ever going away. Part of my life is just maintaining habits that help minimize the experience when it does rear up, and also make that less likely to happen.
I can't say my sits are any more rewarding than as of late, but I feel a bit more relaxed when I do sit, with less expectations and being less outcome-dependent on them. This does seem to have improved my experiences during and after the sits.
Still, as a "left-brained Buddha", I won't deny my desire for more tangible effects. I know these are considered "scenery" and little more than distractions, but for us analytical types, this stuff is like and experiment and with nothing to track progress, it can seem a lot like placebo, wishful-thinking and perhaps even self-hypnosis/delusion.
Still, there are too many reports from credible folks out there for me to go that route with my thinking. I still return to my lucid dreaming analogy — another purely subjective experience with little in the way of specific techniques that are guaranteed to work, easy to dismiss, but incontrovertible once one has achieved the state.
I guess I just find it hard to believe that so many people online are having these experiences from meditation/yoga techniques, when not a single person I know in my real life has had anything close to these kinds of experiences. In fact, most gave up due to "nothing happening". It makes me suspicious. But then again, the forums and message boards might just attract those with a more natural tendency towards these experiences, and less so for those like me who seem to not experience much. At least not in comparison to the claims of those experiencing a lot of "scenery" (which seems to be the majority of people in these communities).
At any rate, this is why I journal and share these thoughts. I know there are great numbers of others like myself: interested in self-development, self-exploration, open-minded to these non-mainstream concepts and techniques, healthily skeptical, averse to New Age bandwagon mentality when it comes to meditation, and a focus on direct experience. Instead of wondering, I chose to dig in and find out for myself, first-hand. I can only share my honest reactions to these experiences, even if they conflict with the "party line" of the rest.
Most of the like-minded people I know who have an interest in, and some experience with, meditation all have abandoned it from "not much happening". I'm just too stubborn not to see this through. But it's a struggle when the fellow travelers on this path all seem to be riding in air-conditioned, GPS-equipped chariots with grand, scenic views and luxurious rest stops, while I trudge along in my covered wagon, earning every mile, hazily heading in what I think is the right direction through the obscuring dust storms that seem to never subside.
Hyaw! |
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chinmayo
Finland
67 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2015 : 05:27:40 AM
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Heya!
Just stopping by and nice to see you're still at it. I admire you for your persistence!
Here the exoteric life has taken over about a year ago and the sitting routine hasn't come back even after a couple of attempts. Not sure if it even is possible to forcibly start sitting again, as it could be so that the sitting welcomes the sitter - if it does - as was the case with me when starting AYP over two years ago. In any case, the progress made in the solitary sitting seems to want to be integrated into the daily life somehow, as if the captain has been awakened to make an adjustment. There is contentment, but a slight yearn of the bliss of the complete no-mind of the sitting sometimes.
Since you have a good routine going on, I would encourage you to keep at it as good habits are hard to form but too easy to forget.
Peace,
Q |
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kumar ul islam
United Kingdom
791 Posts |
Posted - Apr 07 2015 : 3:58:18 PM
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hi yogaman before you jump out of your wagon and set up camp and start your fire and put your coffe on and put your feet up ,please listen to a fantastic narration of the bhagavad gita ,it is read by deepak chopra and is called healing sounds and sacred verses its on itunes ,it may just change everything worth a punt .peace and love  |
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Yogaman
USA
295 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2015 : 12:21:58 PM
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Many thanks for the replies, and the insight from the various perspectives. Quite an interesting contrast of perspectives it seems. As I've mentioned, I, not planning to give up my practices but I do encounter these periods of disillusionment from time to time and was hoping for those who dealthnwoth the same to perhaps shed some light on ways to persist positively.
At any rate, I really appreciate the feedback. It helps :) |
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Yogaman
USA
295 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2015 : 12:42:56 PM
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Yoga Recap 2015-04-12 - Hitting The Enthusiasm Wall
A week of decent sits. Overall very energetic and still. Good focus and the new enhanced mantra is becoming less clunky every day. Energetic sensations at the brow remain strong and obvious and continue to refine. Mula bandha also seems refined, and has begun to engage the musculature a bit higher up in the pelvis. Along with my decision to scale back my practice and technique repertoire, I've also been relaxing a bit more in the application of these mudras and bandhas. This seems to be improving their expression. The entire sambhavi mudra/mula bandha "system" seems more unified as a result. The sensations actually seem strong with the reduced physical effort.
Also this week I've experienced some strong focus on a few meditations sits, again seeming to be the result of decreased strain/urgency on my part to do everything correctly, perfectly, and so on. I've even allowed time lengths of sits to suit my mood at the time. Often, as has been the case in the past, the shorter sits can often be the more profound sits. This observation a while ago contributed to the choice to scale back the routine and the time.
Outside of sits I've had a few periods of strong "spinal nerve" or sushumna sensations while driving or on the couch or bed reading. Always kicks in once the body get to a relaxed state. Can be quite strong at times. Typically includes strong sensations at the brow.
Depression, the coinciding rumination, and the doubts and over-analysis have been receding over the past week. Much welcomed. I wouldn't say anything is resolved in my thinking, but I'm no longer ruminating on the lack of resolution and that's a worthy runner-up achievement for the time. I'm pretty much back to my default questioning mental state — for better or worse!
Scaling back on the practice — both in the attention I give to it and the actual amount to techniques and time spent — both seem to have been a wise move. As Stephen Pressfield points out in "The War Of Art", Resistance (his personified word/name for the procrastination and perfectionism within us) will capitalize on our enthusiasm to derail us from our goals. I'm susceptible to this in my artistic pursuits without question, so I've no doubt it can seep into other areas of my life the same way.
I suspect this happened a bit more slowly with meditation/yoga, where it usually reveals itself much more quickly with art — days and weeks, compared to the weeks and months in yoga. No doubt the fact that I've mastered technical skills to a larger extent in the art arena than in the yoga practices. And I've got a lifetime of artistic ability behind me versus just a couple years of meditation.
But I know I am often hitting that "Enthusiasm Wall" in my pursuit of interests, and have been on the watch for when that starts to happen. |
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Ecdyonurus
Switzerland
479 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2015 : 2:55:12 PM
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Yogaman
USA
295 Posts |
Posted - Apr 19 2015 : 12:22:30 PM
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Yoga Recap 2015-04-19: Right-Brain Expatriate
A good week of sits overall. Reducing the time and techniques seems to have been an improvement. I think I was correct in my assumption that the extensive amount of time and effort I'd been putting in wasn't "paying off". Interestingly, the reduced effort seems to have relaxed the entire process into a new, more refined level of the core techniques that remain.
Both mula bandha and sambhavi mudra have concurrently started requiring less effort, and also have increased in their intensity. Mula bandha has continued to engage in the higher abdominal/pelvic musculature, and sambhavi mudra engages deeper within the skull and brow, closer to the nasal cavity it seems. Both continue to unify in the sensation of the sushumna/"spinal nerve".
Additionally, the solar centering technique of focusing the mantra on the solar plexus area is also becoming a bit more natural. I still do not feel as if my awareness is centered there, but I can definitely feel the sensations at that area of the torso and associate the internal expression of the mantra to that location.
Sambhavi mudra and to a lesser degree mula bandha both engage naturally when I find the groove in the meditation sits.
Focus has been quite good this week. Stillness continues to be easy to reach and maintain. Mind-wandering is persistent but the mind is a bit more calm this week.
The mind and life outside of sits remains positive overall, punctuated by some periods of depressed moods and some trying times due to over identification with my art business, which has been going through some unusually slow periods.
Mindfulness practice tapered off dramatically. I find myself rarely even in "hindsight mindfulness" these days, usually off into thought and back to the task at hand when I realize I've been drifting off. I have moments but overall I find myself less vigilant about being in the present moment. The financial struggles as of late make the uncertain future much more salient than some "now" moment to savor.
Sure, I have no problems "in the Now", but they are on the horizon and even if time is an illusion, it's a damn convincing one and has some realities one must plan for. In these situations I find it difficult to enjoy the Now when I know the tomorrows to come have their demands that need to be met, and to do so requires planning and doing ahead of time.
I dug deeper into some articles and books on the right-brain/left-brain personality types and characteristics. I'm convinced that my struggles with the experiences many others seem to achieve with less effort in meditation arise from being a heavily left-brained person. The constant chatter, over-analysis and verbal-/language-heavy experience of my brain's bias seems to play a big factor.
I read the book "My Stroke Of Insight", a memoir of a brain scientist who had a stroke which disabled the left side of her brain for a period of time. She described her experiences as a fellow heavily left-brained person experiencing the world free from that new perspective free from the ongoing analysis, judgement, partitioning and criticism. Her descriptions sound quite a bit like what is described by meditators.
The book itself didn't get any deeper into the details behind this, which is what I was hoping for. It was more a description of the stroke and her recovery, which I was less interested in. But it did confirm my suspicions that meditation is a process to quiet these verbal and logical areas of the brain, allowing the experiential areas of the brain to have a bit more dominance.
Meditation, particularly mantra meditation, might be effective for us language-heavy over-thinkers, as the repetition of the mantra engages the verbal areas, but strips the activity of meaning and corrals the process into a loop, as opposed to that meandering rumination so familiar to left-brainers.
The experience of this right-brain state on a spontaneous level reinforces the idea that the experience comes not only from within, but is deeply tied to the biology and the processes of that biology.
I think having this framework of a vague explanation about what is going on is very helpful for us left-brain types who are always analyzing every last detail of an experience. In a way, research this stuff and having this conceptual framework is itself a meditation/concentration practice, "quieting the mind" from another angle.
I feel there is a gap in meditation practices/techniques/explanations for us left-brained "hardgainers". Overly analytical types need to quiet that part of the mind that wants answers and explanations. The mantra seems to be one key to this, engaging that verbal/language aspect of the brain that left-brained types are so immersed in. This might explain why switching from the breath focus to the mantra had such obvious effects for me. And why extending the mantra increases the effects — it's like riding no-handed on a bike once you've mastered the basics. It requires a bit more refinement and extended focus of the same activity, further taking one away from the dip back into incessant mental verbiage and runaway rumination and inner dialogue.
At any rate, the experience of these blissful states by a left-brained stroke survivor gave me some hope in the availability of this experience. We all have that right-brain experience available, but us heavily left-brained types are just expatriates with a longer journey back home. |
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Ecdyonurus
Switzerland
479 Posts |
Posted - Apr 19 2015 : 12:43:59 PM
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Your journey back might be a little longer, but it's an interesting one!  |
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Yogaman
USA
295 Posts |
Posted - Apr 26 2015 : 12:38:18 PM
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Yoga Recap 2015-04-26: Downsides To Intelligence
Another week of overall good sits. Some very deep physical stillness, and strong, focused energetic sensations. Mula bandha again further refined and requiring less effort. Sambhavi mudra becoming more pronounced and sensations increasing in the strength of the muscular engagement. At least I assume this all has a muscular component to it.
Focus during sits has been decent. Some very good focus but also some distracted sits. As usual. Often my sits are intended to be of shorter duration, but I end up enjoying the physical sensations on a relaxation level and they end up going longer. Particularly spinal breathing pranayama.
I've sensed quite an increase in spontaneous kechari mudra, more so than usual. Also quite a bit of other automatic yoga actions, mostly in the head and neck. Neither has made a noticeable impact on the mental or sense-based experiences during the sit. They remain for now a physical curiosity/artifact of the process.
Mindfulness practice has drifted off even further. I still try and maintain when I am aware I am deep into thoughts, but I find myself more often deep in thoughts and mental chatter than in the body and senses. From the discussions I've had online, it seems for some this is a very simple process. People seemed amused that I find it a challenging exercise. I'm either misguided about what the practice is, or they should be more thankful that it comes naturally for them. For me, it's a struggle to not constantly be in the endless mental stream of verbal analysis, constantly chopping up experience into words.
Life between sits remains overall positive. Mood had been improving somewhat, although seasonal allergies seem to be flaring up. I've noticed a very direct correlation between allergic bouts and depression, with even noticing a while ago that allergy medication was alleviating my depression symptoms.
I've been reading the book "The Mood Cure", which discusses the importance of ingesting amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), and how low levels can affect mood due to the core role the amino acids play in the synthesis of neurotransmitters (serotonin), endorphins, dopamine and other chemicals in our bodies that regulate mood, motivation and soothe pain and stress. I've ordered the suggested supplements for the low mood and motivation, as those appear to be my primary struggle areas.
The allergy medication and release depression symptoms really surprised me, and has made me curious about a biochemical basis for these moods and non-ideal mental states. I'm aware enough of my mind and body these days that I think I can actually percoece and noticeable effects from the supplements.
The past two weeks I notice how my mood and motivation both seem to vary dramatically, even within a day or an hour. Even before I sat down to write this entry, I was coming off of a day or so of mostly-positive mental states, and even woke with one. But as the morning progressed, the mood worsened. As if I had "used up" whatever was keeping me buoyant.
I also wondered, in light of earlier explorations as to the role the heavy leaning on the verbal and language centers of the brain play in us logical thinkers, if my daily practice of writing out goals as well as doing journal entries was perhaps somehow priming these language centers upon waking? I'm wondering if doing this writing at the end of the day might be more beneficial to us left-brained types?
The verbal centers in my brain seem like an anxious puppy, and detecting the waking body they leap to my awareness to play, as if they've been sitting there alert all night just waiting for me to be conscious again. It's tiresome.
I've been reading some articles around the idea of natural aptitude for verbal/logical intelligence ("book smarts") being a hindrance rather than a help. In other words, the idea that "being smart" isn't actually much of a benefit in the long run.
It definitely ties into the concepts of the Fixed Mindset vs the Growth Mindset. But it reaches deeper than that. We live in a society that rewards logical intelligence in school, but for those of us for whom it came easily, we end up thinking that somehow we should be "rewarded" for these abilities. And the logic seems sound: if they are conditioning us to learn these skills, and we already have mastered them, then shouldn't we recap whatever rewards are a result of this schooling process? The truth is, once the grades are no longer handed out, the smart kids are lost.
In fact, school does smart kids a massive disservice. It doesn't teach them how to handle their skills in a productive way in the society we live in. We are raised to feel unique, special and gifted, but out in the real world there is no benefit for this if you can't put it into practical use. Thus, there are a lot of intelligent people who go on to lead quite mundane lives, never clear how exactly to put their intelligence to any productive use.
I watched Linklater's "Boyhood" over the weekend, and there is a scene where the main character, a budding artist, is challenged by his high school photography teacher for the kid's lack of effort. "Anybody can take a photo, but it takes discipline to create art", the teacher says. This is where the intelligent types struggle. School is designed for those for whom the subjects and processes do not come easy. Intelligent kids manage this with ease. In the process, they are not taught to work hard, to encounter failure, to persist. Things come easy, they are rewarded with good grades.
We just assume this pattern will repeat once school ends. But it doesn't. And there are enough smart people out there that like any other talent, yours isn't as unique as it was back in the small pond. But you were never prepared to struggle in the larger pond. You do not have the tools. Those skills were all taught to those for whom this stuff didn't come easily.
Once again, a bike analogy comes in handy here. It struck me that for those who have some natural talent for a thing (art, match, sports, writing, etc), they get massive attention for being able to do so at an early age. Much the same as it is for the kids who could ride a bike the earliest. But once you can ride a bike, nobody has any ongoing amazement about your bike-riding skills. And not too long after you've developed those skills, the other kids who wanted to learn have caught up with you and soon it's just what all kids do.
But somehow, in matters of intelligence, the smart kids are still aching for that attention of being able to do it better and before anyone else. And while they are coasting, as other s are working hard to work up to expected levels — and gaining all this incidental effort and persistence training at the same time — the smart person is actually atrophying the entire time, as they never learned to push themselves, and still long for that concentrated attention back when there were no challengers.
A dangerous and damaging false sense of security that can psychologically cripple one once they are no longer in that environment of false constraints. |
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Dogboy
USA
2197 Posts |
Posted - May 11 2015 : 06:03:18 AM
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 where for art thou, Yogaman |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1730 Posts |
Posted - May 15 2015 : 04:45:50 AM
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| Where for art thou, Yogaman? And where for art thou, Dogboy? We've not heard from you lately either. |
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Dogboy
USA
2197 Posts |
Posted - May 15 2015 : 06:28:51 AM
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 just living the dream! |
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BlueRaincoat
United Kingdom
1730 Posts |
Posted - May 15 2015 : 06:57:41 AM
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| Ah,there you are! Just went a little quiet. Live/dream on my brother |
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Dogboy
USA
2197 Posts |
Posted - Jun 08 2015 : 4:05:33 PM
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Fear not, fellow AYPers, Yogaman has not left the building. I have been in touch with him recently and he is well, and still a "yoga man". He is merely taking a sabbatical from journaling his process.  |
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BillinL.A.
USA
375 Posts |
Posted - Jun 08 2015 : 5:02:42 PM
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| Good news! |
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Ecdyonurus
Switzerland
479 Posts |
Posted - Jun 08 2015 : 5:13:22 PM
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| Great - already missing his reporting. |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Jun 08 2015 : 5:36:37 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Dogboy
just living the dream!
(I just want to re-post that because it looks radical in a simple way.  ) |
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Yogaman's journal
