I'm happiest when I leave my mind alone

I'm happiest when I leave my mind alone.

Now I just have to figure out how to leave my mind alone when I'm, uh, using it.

Recession Over in China

Still more breaking news and some China facts:

• China has emerged from recession. It's GDP grew by 7.9% in the second quarter. On the other hand, China has to grow at 8% just to keep unemployment at bay. However, must be nice to be keeping unemployment at bay...
  
• Industrial production increased 10.7% in June Y/Y.
  
• It's stock market has now surpassed Japan's in terms of market cap, making it #2 in the world (the U.S. is #1).
  
• Imports of copper and copper products increased 13% in June.
  
• It is the third largest world economy at $3.2 trillion
• This dude projects that the reminbi could replace the dollar as the global reserve currency by 2050.

Geopolitics is going to be interesting. Will China bend the rest of the world to it's ways because the rest of us will be bankrupt? Will China need to modify it's ways in order to do business with us? Something in between? None of the above? The world is interesting now and I like that.

There's been some debate whether China can lead the world out of recession, but now it seems that China is doing just that. As we are all painfully aware, China is the #1 buyer of U.S. debt and if it didn't buy it, we'd immediately be toast. Sales to China helped drive Intel's ginormous earnings upside surprise which took the entire market up 3% yesterday, and is increasing the topline of AMSC and other companies.

I want to start inner city factories in Cleveland and employ disadvantaged people so we can be China's China :-)

OK it's 8:26 pm, gotta go watch Squawk Box Asia. CNBC.com streams it live and free and puts up a "commercial break" frame during the commercials. Don't get left behind kiddies, it's not too late.

Bad Poetry

More breaking news--The sunrise and the morning air are unbelievably gorgeous. I can see why people are moved to write bad poetry. In the past, people have tried to get me to enjoy things like the sunrise and flowers, but I thought that was way too trite and hippie-ish. I was much too impatient and worried about all the stuff that I wasn't getting done. I couldn't enjoy those other things if I tried. And I did try. It just didn't work.

I've been sickish for over 2 weeks and I've enjoyed every minute. I didn't do anything other than study day trading and watch Glambert videos. No practice, no volunteer work, no phone calls, no social obligations. It's really wonderful to be a recluse.

My mom's been giving me gentle chores to get me in the fresh air. Yesterday she told me to go pick the blueberries off the bush.

I love my mom :-)

Who knew life could be really enjoyable?

I mean, I did appreciate life version 1.0 and especially in Idaho and then in the SF Bay Area.

But, well, money and possessions don't buy you happiness. In fact, all that excess is an extreme pain in the ass.

Maybe I should start a stress junkie rehab camp where people can learn that their self-worth is not based on how much they accomplish or what they do or what they have. They can learn that they are worthy simply because they are a living, breathing being. They'll all come here and just do nothing.

Life 2.0

Breaking News--When you get regular sleep and plenty of it, you have no trouble staying awake during the day and you don't even need coffee. Who knew? You totally need to try this sleeping thing out. It's so necessary for your well-being. Promise me you'll try it. Try it for a month. You'll be amazed!

I used to feel terrified of death, especially during the time when my husband, Karl, was dying of cancer.

Then when I was working for Rigpa, I reached a point of, what I thought was a bit of renunciation. I was happy that I was helping people find and follow the Buddhist teachings and I didn't care if I lived or died. I could die knowing that my life was well-spent and hopefully I would meet the teachings again in my next lifetime or at least eventually.

Now, however, I am enjoying my new slacker life so much, I would really, really prefer to live!

So on the one hand, you could say I was so miserable that I didn't care if I lived or died and I was so tired I was numb to all pain and discomfort. On the other hand, I feel as if I've ended one life and am now in heaven and probably I'm using up the good karma I created in my life version 1.0. Either way it's all good. Liz calls working for your buddhist group "Staff Ngondro" and now I do believe it's true. Ngondro is a practice of purification. It's sort of like polishing the tarnish off to reveal the gold underneath. My life version 2.0 would not be this amazing if version 1.0 hadn't come first.

The Secret to Being Liz

I have this friend who is an accupuncturist. She's always going to India, does triathlons, spends every weekend at her boyfriend's house in the country, which is a remodeled barn with solar panels, is doing a Buddhist chaplaincy program, and does lots of volunteer work. She has the freedom and flexibility to follow her dreams. It seems like she's always having fun and knows everyone and she has a big heart. I've always said, "I want to be Liz in my next life."

I was trapped in my high stress, endless work lifestyle and death was the only way out.

There are millions of impoverished people around the world who are, indeed, trapped in poverty and misery. They work all day and still it's not enough so they need to have children and send them to work too so collectively they can earn enough money to house and feed themselves.

Generally, though, as Americans, we're not one of those millions. We have choices.

We choose a lifestyle of overconsumption which traps us in the golden cage of our jobs.

We choose to occupy ourselves with projects in the hope that it will improve our situation but just robs us of time and money.

We choose complexity over simplicity to keep ourselves busy so that we don't have to look at our inner selves and follow our secret dreams.

Now, I'm Liz too. I just had to choose to be Liz. It was as simple as that. Everything I needed to be Liz was there all my life.

The Buddha said, "He who loves himself would never harm another."

So forget about your goals and follow your dreams, be the real you, and be happy.

Don't be afraid to dream big, as in helping half a billion people out of poverty in one fell swoop and making a profit while doing it. Here's an inspiring (long) video of Vinod Khosla, a founder of Sun Microsystems and now a venture capitalist, talking about microfinance.

Renouncing Stress

I used to be a stress junkie. I used to work in corporate IT. I helped to deploy and maintain mission critical business systems. If the computer system went down, business ground to a halt and all kinds of very bad things happened and lots of blame and anger ensued. I loved being so important.

Now I have completely renounced stress and coffee and I have embraced slacking and sleeping.

Our lives are rife with hope and fear. EVERY little thing in our lives is a source of stress. Can you name anything that is not a source of stress? Even fun things, like these Charles David sandals on bluefly.com, are a source of stress. Can I afford them? While wearing them, I'll have to be constantly careful so I don't scuff them up.

We say and do all sorts of things in frustration, blame, and anger because we are stressed. But you can have the right answers and still be wrong. Right answers and wrong answers are really just ideas on the relative level. So aren't they really part of this grand delusion that is samsara? What's really important are your fellow human beings. Those people standing right in front of you. Besides, getting upset is, well, so stressful :-)

We can sometimes have so many grandiose ideas about our work, our goals, our mission in life. My last job was working for the Buddhist group to which I belong. I completely missed the irony of my having so much hope and fear about contributing to the work of my Buddhist teacher, whose life's work is to free our minds of hope and fear.

The end doesn't justify the means. In Buddhism, I think the means are the end.

Zen of Day Trading

I'm finally starting to crack the day trading code. Mom's going to lose her job in September so it would be good to start making some money eventually. Toni Turner, author of "A Beginner's Guide to Day Trading Online," talks about the need for "detachment." She seems to be a Deepak Chopra fan. Everyone is a Deepak Chopra fan and everyone is gay. Is Deepak Chopra a Buddhist?

Actually, day trading, along with everything else, is buddhist. You can take a buddhist approach to everything. You can use all circumstances to practice buddhism. Moreover, being successful at something requires that you take a buddhist approach.

To excel at something, you have to let go of hope and fear and your attachment to outcomes, be open to what evolves, be able to recognize what is instead of what you think it is, be open-minded and flexible and be able to change on a dime, be humble enough to listen to people and learn, have respect, and be centered, grounded, focused and true to yourself.

Still sickish

Still not well, ugh. Overextended myself by making a birthday cake and dinner for my mother in law for 4th of July. My mother in law's existence is so wretched, hollow, and pointless it's painful to watch her suffer. She enjoyed the weekend at our house so that was good. She has every material comfort and need met and hasn't worked in 47 years, but as she herself says, "Money doesn't buy happiness."

However, if you already are happy, money is definitely an asset!

Sick

I think I got swine flu, ok just kidding. I went to a Rigpa training weekend and got super sick. I'm back home now recuperating.