Pavel Somov's Blog
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Nov.30.2008
Nadeem Aslam (in “The Homesick Restaurant”) shares a story of stumbling upon a dish that had been spiced in a peculiarly familiar manner: “the food – the flavor of the mutton, of the samosas – was the best we had tasted since our visits to our eldest aunt’s home in Lahore. That was 20 years ago,...
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Nov.26.2008
It's November 26th. The season of overeating is upon us. Great: we have an opportunity to set a precedent of mindful holiday eating!
REMINISCENCE EATING: eating links us to people, places and things of OUR PAST and as such can be a great way of going down the memory lane. Ask your eating...
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4 comments
Nov.21.2008
Look at any three dots that are not in line:
. .
.
What do you see?
You see a triangle, right? But there is no triangle! The lines with which your mind connects these four dots into a pattern of a triangle do not exist. Yet - somehow - your mind organizes these three data-points of...
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Nov.20.2008
Sitdownlike a dog.
Waitfornothing.
Senseeverything.
Sit,Mind,sit.
pavel somov/copyright2008/totem of tautology
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Nov.19.2008
What’s eating you, Omnivore of Consciousness?
Everything?You’ve tasted all,but a sense of Self?
This reality you craveis but a subjective idea of reference.
Enlightento your transparency:Full of everything, you’re no more than a state of hunger.
copyright, 2008/pavel somov, ph.d.
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Nov.18.2008
“Becoming and being have no relationship with each other, they move in entirely different directions,” asserts J. Krishnamurti in “Asceticism and Total Being.” Indeed.
Becoming and Being are as different as Anchorites and Eremites. An anchorite was a devout believer who allowed him/her-self to be...
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Nov.17.2008
“Desire is contradiction,” claims J. Krishnamurti. And a self-contradiction at that! When I want (anything), I want to change from the state that I am in to a state that I am not. The problem is that I am the state that I am in and to want (anything) is to desire to not be (in the state that I...
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Nov.17.2008
review of "Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea" (Charles Seife, 2000)
Here's a curious occurence. "The Indian name for zero is sunya, meaning "empty," which the Arabs turned into sifr. When some Western scholars described the new number to their colleagues, they...
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3 comments
Nov.17.2008
Addictive or compulsive behavior is experienced as feeling un-free: a substance user feels compelled or driven to use. Compulsion is experienced as a state of being enslaved in a pattern of repetitive behavior.
This forced, driven, un-free nature of the compulsive experience is reflected in the...
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Nov.16.2008
In my former work as a clinical director of a drug and alcohol treatment program in a county jail and in my current outpatient work with substance use clients I continuously come across a certain iatrogenic (treatment-related) legacy of powerlessness which stems directly from the 1st of the 12...
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Nov.10.2008
The existential "alphabet" of Being begins not with the letter A, but with the verb "to Be," which in its turn takes root from the so-called "B-root," the Proto-Indo-European language base of the verb "to be." The "B-root" (bheu or bhu) - from which...
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Nov.10.2008
Men, drunk, in unfinished basements.Models, entertaining, in furnished lofts.
Absence and pretense:a future so cliché it’s already past tense...
Except for a blade of grass,swaying in the wind,that simplystands.
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Nov.08.2008
Point 1
What exists?
Does yesterday exist now?
Does tomorrow exist now?
Of course, not.
Our thoughts of yesterday may exist now if we are now thinking of yesterday.
Our thoughts of tomorrow may exist now if we are now thinking of tomorrow.
But neither yesterday nor tomorrow exists.
What...
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2 comments
Nov.06.2008
Knut Hamsun wrote: "My soul broods. Mechanically I walk over to a tree, pull my cap low over my eyes and lean with my back against the tree, hands clasped behind my neck. I gaze and think, the flames from my fire dazzle my eyes, but I feel nothing. For some time I stand in this meaningless...
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Nov.05.2008
"Once I, Zhuang Zhou, dreamt that I was a butterfly fluttering about happily. I did not know that I was Zhou. Suddenly, I awoke, and there I was, Zhou again. I did not know whether it was Zhou dreaming that he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that it was Zhou" (Zhuangzi).
Are you...
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Being human is a good gig. Being humane is a better gig. Enjoy the gig whatever it is.
”
About Pavel
GOAL: to help you reclaim eating moments of your life with meaning and moderation; to help you leverage self-acceptance and compassion; to help you appreciate the ordinary perfection of what is; and to help you rediscover your essential self.
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