Check on it, yoga
Satori, The Buddha Within, yoga — Stephen on 21 February 2008 @ 4:56 PM — 2 comments
It may seem that these two things are completely at odds, but I find that my yoga practice is quite productive while listening to Beyoncé. Hm.
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Wish me luck
Satori, driving — Stephen on 21 February 2008 @ 1:09 PM — 1 comment
Rocco and I are heading to Oaxaca tomorrow for the weekend. We have decided to rent a car. It is actually less expensive than taking the bus, and the added mobility will allow us to see some other cool stuff like Monte Albán.
That’s right, I will be driving in Mexico. I hope I don’t cause any incidents of La conducción agresiva.
Travel tip: Insurance
Satori, insurance — Stephen on 20 February 2008 @ 1:12 PM — 1 comment
For those of you out there traveling for long periods of time outside the US (or inside for that matter) I highly recommend getting yourself some travel health insurance. It will cover things like emergency evacuation and repatriation, as well as normal health care costs when outside the US (and sometimes inside). The best site I have found for buying this insurance is Seven Corners. I just bought my second insurance plan from them (the first was for last year in India). It is very easy to choose your options, fill out the online form and printout your insurance card instantly. I am also pretty damn impressed by how reasonable the rates are. It is quite a bit less expensive than regular health coverage in the US, and there doesn’t seem to be much missing from the plans (that I would need anyway). The only thing I am unsure of (and hope to remain unsure of) is the difficulty of reimbursement. Let’s hope I never have to write that part of the review, but the peace of mind of having health insurance is pretty grand in principle.
Giving someone the finger
Greatest Hits, Satori, gestures — Stephen on 19 February 2008 @ 1:08 PM — 1 comment
For a few weeks I have been noticing with ever greater frequency the propensity of people to hold up their hand and move their index finger as if it were a little puppet or being with a consciousness all its own. And I kept thinking to myself, man these guys must really love The Shining. They all keep making that creepy “redrum, redrum” finger movement like that possessed kid.
Turns out that here in Mexico, this is just a culturally approved gestural way of indicating the affirmative. In other words, this just means “yes”. Like nodding your head, but on the tip of your index finger.
It still creeps me out a little.
Over it
Satori, buddhism, meditation — Stephen on 18 February 2008 @ 9:24 AM — 0 comments
Really. Feeling much better today. Let’s face it, it is part and parcel of being human to experience these moods from time to time. I have had way fewer of them in the past couple of years than at previous times in my life and they have been much more short-lived and mild when I do have them. And to put it bluntly, they are bullshit, aroused by things that do not matter. And no matter the variety of the situation, they are always caused by the same damn thing. Being out of phase with the present. Projecting into the future or the past, neither of which exist. It is a human tendency I know, but if I have learned anything in the past year and a half it is that now is all we have in a very real sense. It is not that we do not plan for the future, but obsessing about a state that one can do nothing about in the present is a recipe for unhappiness. And there are techniques to combat these feelings when they arise that seem to work pretty well (for me at least).
Try the following the next time you are experiencing an unspecified feeling of anxiety, of being down or blue or whatever you want to call it. Sit quietly, with your eyes closed, and focus on the physical manifestation of your feeling. Really search your body for the physical feelings, not the emotional ones. As you hone in on whatever sensations your body has (perhaps a shortness of breath, perhaps a tightness in the chest or stomach) and really observe these sensations, you will find that they disappear. They are elusive, created by our emotional states and worth nothing at all. They are anxiety about things we have no control over. They are anxiety about the states of our ego. They are outside the realm of being and the present, and they are obstacles to our happiness. Chalk one up to lessons in meditation.
Feeling a little blue
Satori, depression — Stephen on 17 February 2008 @ 5:12 PM — 2 comments
Some of it is the frustration of trying to make friends here, which is a bit slow going. I spend too much time alone, whether it is in my room or out in the city, and it makes me feel isolated. If I really want to improve my Spanish, I have to redouble my efforts to meet people and get invited out to places, dinners, parties, etc. I have been trying to make friends on the internet, and I am having a little success but not as much as I would like. I need to force myself go out to more public places (and be more public) this week. In any event, I am leaving Friday on a big trip which will be nice. So far I am planning to hit Oaxaca, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Palenque and Campeche before meeting up with Arnaud in Cancún.
Elbows
Satori, ouch — Stephen on 16 February 2008 @ 10:49 PM — 0 comments
Do you have any idea how many god-damned times a day we lean on these things?!
Thanks to my near death experience in the cattle car of public transport, I am stymied from enjoying this basic human comfort.
Do you know the way to Santa Fe?
Satori, architecture — Stephen on 16 February 2008 @ 8:22 PM — 0 comments
Rocco and I took a trip out to a crazy suburb of Mexico City called Santa Fe. According to Rocco, it is where the wealthiest of people in this part of Mexico call home. Many cities of the world have built places like these. Huge conglomerations of massive buildings that are self contained communities. Ultimately I find these places to be the antithesis of city and community, and don’t much care for them. But the architecture is often fascinating, both the good and the bad. Because each building is essentially its own neighborhood and is free standing, they lack a strong conception of context. Mostly they are self referential, or refer to an international set of architectural motifs. They are sculptures that may be beautiful or ugly, but not too many of them seem to value the human interaction and community that happens in a neighborhood as there is no real “street” life. For children in particular I feel bad since they have no means of transport (a car for example), and nowhere to go without it. There is no fabric that binds each of these self contained worlds to each other or the outside world.
Mind the gap!
Satori, injury, public transportation — Stephen on 15 February 2008 @ 12:22 PM — 1 comment
Oh brother! It was about 7:30pm last night, and I was on my way to visit a friend of mine on the Metrobus. I’m not sure if 7:30pm is normally rush hour, or whether everyone was on their way to some Valentine’s Day tryst, but the buses were crazy full of people (or is that full of crazy people?). I had the particular misfortune to have to shove myself just inside the doors. At each stop, the crowd would push their way out, I would step to the platform, then shove myself back in before the doors closed a microsecond later. At Insurgentes (which is a curved station), the crowd was even more aggressive than at the other stations, and literally shoved (and I mean SHOVED) to get out. As I was being hustled out by the motion of the mob, I was pushed in such a way that I fell into the gap between the bus and the platform (which was a good foot and a half wide). The height of this platform is roughly 5 ft off the ground (as is the bus floor) and I landed on my elbows between the two. The crowed couldn’t have cared less, as they continued to plow over me. There was one nice soul on the platform waiting to board who helped me up out of the hole. I am lucky that I had time to scramble out before the bus took off, or I could have been cut in two.
All of this should serve as a warning to anyone riding the Metrobus when it is crowded. Mind the gap! Don’t ride the bus when it is crowded! Punch an old lady in the face if you have to!
Metta Bhavana en Español
Satori, The Buddha Within, buddhism, meditation — Stephen on 14 February 2008 @ 5:20 PM — 2 comments
Today I went to my first drop-in meditation at the Buddhist Center here in Mexico City. Although not understanding all of the words our guide was using, I did get that today’s meditation was a Metta Bhavana, which I was pretty familiar with from my time at Igatpuri. With all the noise from the street and construction going on in the building, it wasn’t the most focused meditation I ever had, but I still left feeling pretty at peace. The center itself is really lovely and just a short walk from my place.
