Kai Romhardt has written a cute little book, titled "Slow Down Your Life", which to the best of my knowledge is only available in German, and which shares some light on what we mean debugging our minds. Romhardt spent several years at Plum Village and calls Thich Nhat Hanh his teacher. His book is about deceleration from our hectic lives, it contains the five keys of slowing down:

Kai Romhardt's five keys of slowing down

Here and Now

All is change

There is no beginning nor ending

Growth

Rhythm The five keys are then applied to four areas: Body, Mind, Activity, and Environment. Although the book does not use the term debugging, it is actually very close to what I have in mind. It goes into much more detail though.

A very useful feature of the book is the introduction of checkpoints, where one is supposed to apply the brakes to decelerate, and then to reflect the situation. I remember Thich Nhat Hanh said, when the phone rings, we should not rush to pick it up, instead spend a brief moment to compose ourselves, to be mindful, and perhaps wish the caller well, whoever he or she is. We could say "God bless you", or "May all be happy", or "Amituofo" before we pick up the phone. Romhardt has dozens of similar checkpoints as constant reminders to be mindful. For example, there is a checkpoint when we win big or lose big, when we are with sick or elderly people, when we hear church bells, when we are still in the office at 9 pm, when we eat in front of the television, and many others. Please note that checkpoints in this sense are exactly the same as checkpoints in the debugging process. They are times to make a brief stop, to review the state of affairs. Another version of checkpoints is simply the advice, "whenever you go through a door, stop briefly". In the past, this advice could have arisen because we were afraid to get ambushed, but now it means just to be composed and present. If you are present, you will automatically notice the things we normally don't see, such as seeing a possible ambush. The Thai version is, "whenever you enter or leave a place, pray to the spirits". Substitute "pray to the spirits" with "be mindful", and you have a convenient and easy to remember checkpoint of mindfulness.

Romhardt's first key, "here and now" means a complete acceptance of the present moment. He quotes a motto from the Plum Village: "You have arrived, you are home". Some people hurry from place to place, from activity to activity, from past to future times, somehow they never arrive. It is nowadays popular, to apply visualization, to fantasize about beautiful, and peaceful places. It is possible that such exercises has their usefulness for stress reduction, but they are certainly not a mindfulness practice. Similar thing can be said about hypnosis.

The essence to "here and now" is that we stay embodied all the time. We have to stay relaxed but at the same time alert. Just relaxed may be good by itself, but relaxed by itself is not mindfulness.

The second key is "all is change" or impermanence. Heraclitus said, "you can never enter into the same river twice". The "I", that I know so well, is not something constant, its molecules changes from moment to moment. Meditators feel impermanence naturally, as they watch their breath.

Fritjof Capra, in the book The Tao of Physics, talked about a dynamic equilibrium, which is the result of the forces of Yin and Yang, or the dance of Shiva if you like. A dynamic equilibrium changes all the time, sometimes Yin is above and Yang below, and at other times, the reverse is true.

The third key is "no beginning and ending". This is about the continuity of all things. It may seem contradictory to the birth and death of many things, including ourselves. If we watch our breath, we see that there is a beginning, in-breath, pause, out-breath, ending, and stop, and then a repeat from the beginning again. Each breath is born, and dies later, and then a new breath is born and goes through the same process. Each breath is however different from the previous ones. This is not the meaning of the third key, it says that although each breath has a different identity from the previous ones (i.e. soul does not exist, re-incarnation does not exist), there is continuity physically and mentally. There is biological inheritance and memetic transmission. There is also the extended phenotype, a term used by Dawkins to denote phenotype created in our environment. The result of them all, is that continuity is ensured by the eighth level of consciousness, the consciousness before we were born, which is none other than the store of all causal events or Karma.

The fourth key is Growth or Development, according to which each thing has a unique growth path of its own, until it matures. Romhardt gives an example from I Ching: growth has different phases, including waiting in patience, doing nothing, getting stuck, step backs and step forwards. It is essential to know or feel the timing of the phases. Getting it wrong, or worse, trying to manipulate time to fit us is a sin against nature. Slowing down means not manipulating time, but to do as nature dictates.

"Nothing else in the world... not all the armies... is so powerful as an idea whose time has come. " Victor Hugo

It used to be very simple, night is night and day is day, each fruit has its season, but now we have the technology, we can change nights into days, and make apples grow in winter. The results are often disappointing. Is it not better, to do like the polar bear, who knows when to sleep and when to hunt? When a Zen master was asked how to be true to oneself, he replied, "If I am hungry, I eat, and if I am sleepy, I sleep." Very wise indeed.

The fifth key is related to the fourth, but in regard to rhythms. Everything has its own rhythm. Slowing actually does not always mean slowing, it can also be speeding, but always in tune with the rhythms. The rhythm is sometimes slow, sometimes fast. The fourth and fifth keys are practically identical to Non-doing or Wu-Wei in Taoism. Go with the flow is the modern expression for this principle. What then are the benefits of slowing down?

* fewer mistakes

* better concentrationI talked about slowing down in a previous post (http://10outof10.blogspot.com/), as part of a debugging process, whereby we apply bare attention and maintain to be fully present, here and now, to avoid becoming slaves of viruses in our minds.

Kai Romhardt has written a cute little book, titled "Slow Down Your Life", which to the best of my knowledge is only available in German, and which shares some light on what we mean debugging our minds. Romhardt spent several years at Plum Village and calls Thich Nhat Hanh his teacher. His book is about deceleration from our hectic lives, it contains the five keys of slowing down:

Kai Romhardt's five keys of slowing down

Here and Now

All is change

There is no beginning nor ending

Growth

Rhythm The five keys are then applied to four areas: Body, Mind, Activity, and Environment. Although the book does not use the term debugging, it is actually very close to what I have in mind. It goes into much more detail though.

A very useful feature of the book is the introduction of checkpoints, where one is supposed to apply the brakes to decelerate, and then to reflect the situation. I remember Thich Nhat Hanh said, when the phone rings, we should not rush to pick it up, instead spend a brief moment to compose ourselves, to be mindful, and perhaps wish the caller well, whoever he or she is. We could say "God bless you", or "May all be happy", or "Amituofo" before we pick up the phone. Romhardt has dozens of similar checkpoints as constant reminders to be mindful. For example, there is a checkpoint when we win big or lose big, when we are with sick or elderly people, when we hear church bells, when we are still in the office at 9 pm, when we eat in front of the television, and many others. Please note that checkpoints in this sense are exactly the same as checkpoints in the debugging process. They are times to make a brief stop, to review the state of affairs. Another version of checkpoints is simply the advice, "whenever you go through a door, stop briefly". In the past, this advice could have arisen because we were afraid to get ambushed, but now it means just to be composed and present. If you are present, you will automatically notice the things we normally don't see, such as seeing a possible ambush. The Thai version is, "whenever you enter or leave a place, pray to the spirits". Substitute "pray to the spirits" with "be mindful", and you have a convenient and easy to remember checkpoint of mindfulness.

Romhardt's first key, "here and now" means a complete acceptance of the present moment. He quotes a motto from the Plum Village: "You have arrived, you are home". Some people hurry from place to place, from activity to activity, from past to future times, somehow they never arrive. It is nowadays popular, to apply visualization, to fantasize about beautiful, and peaceful places. It is possible that such exercises has their usefulness for stress reduction, but they are certainly not a mindfulness practice. Similar thing can be said about hypnosis.

The essence to "here and now" is that we stay embodied all the time. We have to stay relaxed but at the same time alert. Just relaxed may be good by itself, but relaxed by itself is not mindfulness.

The second key is "all is change" or impermanence. Heraclitus said, "you can never enter into the same river twice". The "I", that I know so well, is not something constant, its molecules changes from moment to moment. Meditators feel impermanence naturally, as they watch their breath.

Fritjof Capra, in the book The Tao of Physics, talked about a dynamic equilibrium, which is the result of the forces of Yin and Yang, or the dance of Shiva if you like. A dynamic equilibrium changes all the time, sometimes Yin is above and Yang below, and at other times, the reverse is true.

The third key is "no beginning and ending". This is about the continuity of all things. It may seem contradictory to the birth and death of many things, including ourselves. If we watch our breath, we see that there is a beginning, in-breath, pause, out-breath, ending, and stop, and then a repeat from the beginning again. Each breath is born, and dies later, and then a new breath is born and goes through the same process. Each breath is however different from the previous ones. This is not the meaning of the third key, it says that although each breath has a different identity from the previous ones (i.e. soul does not exist, re-incarnation does not exist), there is continuity physically and mentally. There is biological inheritance and memetic transmission. There is also the extended phenotype, a term used by Dawkins to denote phenotype created in our environment. The result of them all, is that continuity is ensured by the eighth level of consciousness, the consciousness before we were born, which is none other than the store of all causal events or Karma.

The fourth key is Growth or Development, according to which each thing has a unique growth path of its own, until it matures. Romhardt gives an example from I Ching: growth has different phases, including waiting in patience, doing nothing, getting stuck, step backs and step forwards. It is essential to know or feel the timing of the phases. Getting it wrong, or worse, trying to manipulate time to fit us is a sin against nature. Slowing down means not manipulating time, but to do as nature dictates.

"Nothing else in the world... not all the armies... is so powerful as an idea whose time has come. " Victor Hugo

It used to be very simple, night is night and day is day, each fruit has its season, but now we have the technology, we can change nights into days, and make apples grow in winter. The results are often disappointing. Is it not better, to do like the polar bear, who knows when to sleep and when to hunt? When a Zen master was asked how to be true to oneself, he replied, "If I am hungry, I eat, and if I am sleepy, I sleep." Very wise indeed.

The fifth key is related to the fourth, but in regard to rhythms. Everything has its own rhythm. Slowing actually does not always mean slowing, it can also be speeding, but always in tune with the rhythms. The rhythm is sometimes slow, sometimes fast. The fourth and fifth keys are practically identical to Non-doing or Wu-Wei in Taoism. Go with the flow is the modern expression for this principle. What then are the benefits of slowing down?

* fewer mistakes

* better concentration

* more effective

* better relationship

* not wasting energy, smaller ecological footprint

* less stress

* healthier living

* can appreciate ordinary things

* get rid of bad habits

* to be true to oneself

* on the path to liberation

The above is my interpretation of Romhardt's book. I apologize if I have misrepresented his ideas, one way or the other.

* more effective

* better relationship

* not wasting energy, smaller ecological footprint

* less stress

* healthier living

* can appreciate ordinary things

* get rid of bad habits

* to be true to oneself

* on the path to liberation

The above is my interpretation of Romhardt's book. I apologize if I have misrepresented his ideas, one way or the other.