mayayo3's comments

which in turn points to this: "That’s per a Wall Street Journal story...." http://www.wsj.com/articles/propelled-by-apple-ad-blocking-c...

Sometimes, you meet a new person and the first thing that you notice is the immense calm on their faces. You get good vibes from them. And even without talking, you can tell they are nice people.

It happened with me recently a few times. As I got to know those people better, I learnt that they've all done Vipassana at some point in their lives. It might sound mumbo jumbo but these are the facts.

I haven't done Vipassana but my girlfriend did, about a few months back. Honestly, I didn't see any noticeable change in her. I mean she loves puppies now as much as she did earlier. She definitely did have trippy, out of body experiences. Perhaps, others who don't see her as often as I do might be able to tell some very visible, external changes.

However, there was one very peculiar effect. She had been complaining of a chronic back pain for almost a year. After she returned, her back pain was 90% gone!

Some of my close friends have also recently returned from it, and they all seem calmer, more mindful people now.

When I started reading Murakami, I couldn't stop. He weaves a world which seems so surreal without feeling absurd. Eventually, I read 4 of his books back to back and then bought the rest.

But, then I read the 5th one. And for some reason it felt like I've read it before. The protagonist in his novels has some very common characteristics - they like being alone, they cook and like to run. More often than not, a cat is involved (probably owing to the crazy high ratio of cats/people in Japan).

The last thing I read by him was actually a short story in New Yorker called 'Town of Cats'. I am now reading 1Q84. After a few pages, I felt like I had read some of it before. Even the character's jobs were the same. Peculiar details were common. And then I realised that I had read this in the short story.