Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul Part 2 of 9: Flexibility
December 24, 2009 by dr. lam · 4 Comments
When we look at our body for a fix of the mind, then we can have problems. Let me explain. Do we just grab an antidepressant pill when we are just sugar coating the problem and not really investigating why we are feeling the way we are feeling? Is there a deeper rooted, older feeling that is lingering around until today that is manifesting in the way that we respond to the world? When the stock market crashes, do we?
Chopra talks about how the people who live into their 90s may have the benefit of genetics, lifestyle, and well luck. But it goes much deeper than that. It goes into how they adapted their living much earlier and how they respond to life crises. In a word, it relates to their flexibility. When they encounter problems, do they freak out? Or, do they calmly respond to crises because they can go with the flow?
People that have heart attacks in their 40s oftentimes have issues that remain unresolved emotionally in their twenties. Their hardened emotions may be now manifesting as hardened arteries. (Not always. I am a physician, but I am much more than that. I see the mind-body-spiritual connection.) It is a known fact that widowers soon die after losing their spouse or at least are more susceptible to dying. A huge reason is how they enter depression or how they view life after their spouse’s death.
Chopra encourages all of us not just to pop a pill but to investigate how flexible are we in our life to life circumstances and further to find better ways to change our energy flow so that we can truly avert disaster by living in a state of freedom.
Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul Part 1 of 9: Energy and Change
December 23, 2009 by dr. lam · 10 Comments
Deepak Chopra’s book, Reinventing The Body, Resurrecting the Soul, was a joy to read and to digest. As I have stated often, these blogs are as much therapy for me to write as hopefully they are for you to read. Chopra’s book is chock full of anecdotes, witticisms, and insight, and I encourage my readers of this blog to get it and to read it in its entirety. I have only chosen a few select passages from the book that have had resonance with me personally. You may find other parts of the book more enlightening or more tailored for you.
He starts the book with the idea that our body is a fiction, i.e., our conventional knowledge that our body is a fixed physical entity is a falsehood. Instead, our body is a product of our energy. When we hate others, we become a product of that hate, as disease enters our spirit and ultimately affects our body. When we are in a destructive relationship, that not only eats into our soul but it then robs us of our bodily health and vitality.
Looking at our body as a pure source of energy then, we can see that we are mutable creatures that can be influenced by our thoughts and our emotions. If we perceive the static nature of our body, so there shall we reside. However, if we work to focus on the flowing energy (rather than the stuck, negative energy), we can begin to free ourselves into wondrous creatures that we potentially can be, as this blog series will explore in depth.
Buzzati’s Restless Nights Part 5 of 5: The Seven Messengers
December 22, 2009 by dr. lam · 5 Comments
As the heir to my father’s kingdom, I decided at the age of 30 to set forth and to define where the boundaries of my father’s kingdom lie, as no one before me has hitherto done so. I brought along with me seven of my trusted men, whom I named alphabetically to minimize confusion. They were Alessandro, Bartolomeo, Caio, Domenico, Ettore, Federico, and Gregorio. We set out after my thirtieth birthday on this tireless quest.
At first, we went over the mountains and the rivers that were familiar to us and after about 30 days I sent back Alessandro to give message of our travels and to report back to us what message he had learned from our kingdom. We continued to travel further away from the kingdom’s center, and I did not account properly for the time that it would take Alessandro to travel back to the kingdom and then come back to our extended position. It took him approximately 3 months at that point to reach us with news from the kingdom.
I then sent out Bartolomeo and we were at this point 6 months into our travels, and it required about 2 years before Bartolomeo made it back to us with withered parchment of outdated news from the kingdom. Every few months, I continued to send out messengers knowing full well that it would be years before I would see them back. I was hesitant to send out my last Gregorio until Alessandro should return.
We had now journeyed many years out, and I was now in my sixtieth year on earth, knowing that my last messenger at this time, Domenico, would not return before my death. Nevertheless, I sent him back to tell them of our whereabouts as we continued our journey further not knowing when and if I should gain news, albeit very old and perhaps useless, of our kingdom. My father had already died and I had not seen him for 30 years now. My brother had assumed the throne, as I was unavailable due to this extended journey.
I do not know in fact whether we have passed the frontier or not. I do not know what the frontier between my father’s land and beyond actually looks like. We just continued to travel perhaps in vain to find that frontier. I am still venturing forth to find that marker on behalf of the kingdom.
Buzzati’s story was profoundly enlightening to me. First, what resonates with me is this man is on a fruitless quest for something that may have no merit for him, his kingdom, or his travel mates. He in fact has no idea why he is doing it. He also had no real plan for going forth, and he cannot even recognize what the frontier border is to begin with. Many times in our life, we spend so many years striving for something that we think is right for us, but is it? Are we not like the protagonist tirelessly pursuing something that may not have any merit for us? When do we stop doing it, when we are old and tired or when we can stop our mission at an earlier interval? Does our ego dominate why we do what we do or is there a larger purpose that makes sense in a more fundamental way?
Mindfulness Mondays 30: Hara Hachi Bu
December 21, 2009 by dr. lam · 7 Comments
Reading a fantastic book by Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen, on how to present more cleanly and magnificently in front of an audience, one expression has sort of stuck in my brain. The expression is Japanese, hara hachi bu, which means eat to 80% full, as Reynolds an American expatriot who resides in Osaka, Japan admonishes.
This rule holds true for not only our appetite but for our presentation style as well as for many things in life. We tend to be gluttons where our satiety buttons cannot even register our fullness because we are still gorging ourselves. You hear presenters drone on for too long, and the audience snores. You stuff yourself until you want to vomit. You think if a little is good, then give me a ton more.
This week during the holiday season and hopefully beyond, as we approach life, remember the simple Japanese admonition of hara hachi bu.
Buzzati’s Restless Nights Part 4 of 5: The Scandal on Via Sesostri
December 18, 2009 by dr. lam · 12 Comments
There lived a famous surgeon by the name of Professor Tullio Larosi who died all of a sudden to the shock and dismay of all around him at the elegant and famed address, 5 Via Sesostri. The funeral procession was scheduled for the following morning, and his wife who was still quite young as the Professor wed later in life was mourning dreadfully.
That afternoon, the local police officer, Commissioner Luccefreddi came to me and announced that he had alarming news about the good Professor. Apparently as the Commissioner recounted, the professor was in fact an escaped Nazi who committed grievous atrocities during the war that are hard to recount aloud and then fled in 1942 after having been found out to have had a Jewish grandmother. He circumnavigated the world, landed in the Americas, and returned to Italy under an assumed name, now pretending to be the great Tullio Larosi, a renowned gynecologist.
The commissioner wanted to share more news with me that night over dinner, as most of my friends know that my maid makes one of the most delicious dinners that could be imagined. I could not envision any more details of the story that would shock my little world more considering that 5 Via Sesostri, this building, is occupied only by the most dignified tenants in the world; and until this present time I thought was the envy of the world as the premiere address in all of Italy.
That night after a meal of homespun papardelle and native mushrooms in a cream sauce, the Commissioner and I retired to the living room to discuss matters over a port digestif. He began by saying, “Did you know that Franco on the first floor of this building is the famed convicted felon Niccolo Abruzzi who escaped 5 years ago from prison. I found that out by digging deeper into his records. Moreover, Signora Vicenzo who occupies the entire fourth floor is the woman who killed her first husband, went on trial, was acquitted, but then killed her second husband and is now a fugitive.”
I was shocked to say the very least. “That’s not all. The third floor, the distinguished banker Alessandro Vinano is the famed rapist who is obviously using an assumed name who escaped from France after having committed multiple crimes that I dare not repeat. He is known as the Strangler of Les Halles. On the second floor, the young lad Giorgio is also a convict who escaped his trial after having committed untold counts of embezzlement against the Church in South America. “
The Commissioner turned to me, “Unfortunately, you Serponella are the terrorist who after the bombing in Lyon changed your name from Luis Serponella to Luigi Andromatta. I have found you out by studious evaluation of your previous records. Don’t try to move. I have a cordon of police officers twice encircling this building.”
“Dear Commissioner,” I replied, “Do you not know that I have done the same research on you. I know that you go by the Luccefreddi name now but in fact you are part of the famous Nicolai crime family and have committed 3 murders yourself. You are not what you seem either. Now, I assume you will let me escape your men?”
“Well dear Serponella, you have proven to be a tough adversary. After coffee, I shall let you walk out before my men come in. We are friends after all, right?”
Buzzati’s matter of fact style is so beguiling because it sets up the story as being something that it ultimately is not. As it unravels, we start to see the underbelly beneath the veneer of respectability with which he begins his journey. I have shortened his tale in my own words, as I have done for all of these stories, so my apologies go to the deceased writer for perhaps telling a condensed version that lacks the flavor and build of his original stories.
Nevertheless, we can all learn the valuable lesson that humanity is a bit more complex thans what we as individuals purport to be. Are we a simple titled individual like surgeon, mother, daughter, or maid? Or do we have a rich complexity that may not be as perfect in our mind of what we hold ourselves to be? We only show the world a certain side of us that we believe is sturdily constructed and in short flawless. We don’t allow our cracks to come through nor are we allowed to see the cracks in others. Buzzati’s fantastical, Kafkaesque writing reveals perhaps who we are as humans more than we would like to behold in ourselves.