Quotes
A commonplace book: 3372 passages from 707 books, papers and web pages, saved while reading since 2013. About →
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Shikantaza (definizione)
Shikantaza. «Il puro e semplice sedersi in meditazione»: termine Zen. Si scoraggia l’illusione secondo cui la meditazione comporterebbe l’attingimento di una mèta.
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Your identity is literally your "repeated beingness"
Your identity emerges out of your habits. [...] More precisely, your habits are how you embody your identity. When you make your bed each day, you embody the identity of an organized person. When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train…
Shared identity begins to reinforce your personal identity
Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe. It transforms a personal quest into a shared one. Previously, you were on your own. Your identity was singular. You are a reader. You are a musician. You are an athlete. When you join a book club or a band or a…
We need the diaries of explorers
I have felt myself to be in the position of geographers or explorers of an earlier age, as they pushed into terra incognita. I am still not sure myself of exactly what happened, or of what I saw. In the words of Terence McKenna: The early approach with psychedelics was the…
LSD as a breakthrough for psychotherapy
Depression and anxiety were particularly responsive to treatment, and by the mid-1950s, lysergic acid was beginning to look like a major breakthrough in the entire field of analytically oriented psychotherapy. The drug worked equally well for Freudians, Jungians, and any other…
The Buddhist roots of mindfulness
The practice of mindfulness goes back thousands of years. Many spiritual traditions have encouraged presence in the moment as a way to be in touch with our inner selves, or the divine. Buddhism has made mindfulness a core part of its teachings, more so than any other tradition…
Befriending the person you already are
The kind of meditation we use in mindfulness training is not about going off into altered states, trying to get to some better place. It’s not about sitting in the lotus position in flowing white robes on a turquoise beach, as the advertising posters would have it – pleasant…
BI tools limitations
..if a metric on a dashboard falls below some threshold, absolutely, send an email. But BI tools aren’t pipelines. They’re borders, handing off data between machines and humans. People read data differently than computers—we can digest small amounts of it; we like pictures. We…
BI tools limitations
..if a metric on a dashboard falls below some threshold, absolutely, send an email. But BI tools aren’t pipelines. They’re borders, handing off data between machines and humans. People read data differently than computers—we can digest small amounts of it; we like pictures. We…
Fred Brooks' law
What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months.
Right and wrong
If the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work in the wrong way.