Poetry - Bubbling Couldron

The grass grows cleanly and peacefully
Ponys dance and prance between picket fences
Childrens' smiling faces
Innocence unknowing what lies below
Beneath our feet, shadows play, and change shape
I fling open the dark door, and step into the heat fearlessly
Ghouls and goblins slink across red flames, in dervish frenzy
I spot an angel in the corner dancing with a demon
Whistles, laughter, high pitched music
An old man rests in waiting, expressionless face
Waterfalls of red, black endless depths
A dark hooded creature stirs the giant pot, smiling with all knowing
Welcome home, some cry
Do you hate us all, others shout
We're always with you, to lend a guiding hand, yet you give us no due, they lament
In the fire I see them all, past present and future
Faces of the familiar blur and hide behind distortions
Sadness and joy, grief and acceptance, fear and courage
They poke and prod toward the roof, yearning to be set free
I wander calmly among them, eyes wide open
For a few minutes I dance, but this world is not permanent
I have to attend to important matters I tell them, as I rise to the surface
I nod at them, and leave them, to warm the land I daily tend
The lawn must be kept as regulations indicate

Blue skies and picket fences, the kingdom of the dead, and death is salvation

Meditation Instructions

What is Meditation?
Meditation is a technique of the body and mind to achieve a state of mental and emotional clarity. This leads to an understanding of yourself and your environment. It's actually difficult to imagine true clarity without ever having experienced it, so it just has to be practiced for a while by following some instructions before it can be understood. Only after finally experiencing it, will your practice take off.
What you are trying to achieve is an awareness of all thoughts, emotions and sensations while at the same time not being attached to any. It can also be thought of as no thought, and this is a good goal to begin with. You want to dissolve and simply be. There are many paradoxical explanations of this state of mind.

Instructions:
- Timer
A timer is a very useful device to use for meditation. This will prevent your mind from questioning how long you will sit or having to decide when to stop, and you will simply wait for the sound to signal the end. To begin with, start with 5 or 10 minutes, and over time as you get better at it, 30 minutes would be all that's necessary for regular practice. Sometimes longer sessions would also be powerful and enjoyable.
- Seating position
An ideal meditation position will be comfortable, with no pressure points, as well as balanced. It is important that your spine be in a natural position. This is best done with a meditation cushion to sit on with your legs crossed so you balance on your two knees and butt. Hands should be relaxed and you should maintain good posture. Your eyes should look at a spot around 10 feet away on the ground.
- Begin by breathing
To begin, take a few deep breaths and focus on your posture. A good way to begin is to focus on your breathing. Count for every inhale and exhale up to 10 or 20, then start over. Do nothing but focus on awareness of breath and keeping count. You're training your concentration at this point. Depending on how predisposed your mind is for this kind of thing, you might not be able to concentrate to even make it to 10. This is all part of the process, and then you simply start over. Keep this up for the duration of your short initial sessions until it can be maintained.
- Focus
Another option instead of breathing or as a follow on, or both, is focusing on an area of vision in front of you. It can also be a sound, or repeated sound you make yourself. The point is to have something simple and repetitive to focus on until your mind stills. It's a crutch to begin your practice, or session, but you should try to stick with whatever it is for a while.
- Thoughts meander
When you begin practicing the technique you'll begin to notice that thoughts will arise and your consciousness will attach to various thoughts that arise spontaneously. You will realize that you are interrupted by thoughts beyond your control, and your consciousness shifts abruptly. When a thought interrupts your concentration you will eventually catch yourself, accept it, and refocus on concentrating on breathing.
- Clarity
Over time, be it weeks of practice, or then just a few minutes into it, you will begin to notice spaces in your consciousness where there is nothing. At this point you can advance and be more free in the process. This is where there is no thought and often occurs between inhales and exhales. Begin to focus on this space and try to expand that kind of awareness, until you no longer need to focus on anything else. What you're trying to achieve here, is a mind that is not attached to any of the thoughts that come and go, and extend this stillness longer. All these depth levels of state of mind overlap during a session sometimes, and you just return to whatever level you can maintain.
- Blissful awareness
The ultimate purpose though, is not having a complete blankness, but a still yet complete awareness. As you move from active attached mind to stillness, many thoughts that were either denied or repressed will arise and will be viewable not as a You but as a process within you. You will learn from them. Thoughts that were too active or unnecessary will also come and go but will be given rest. Obsessions and worries will take a back seat, and this will provide a blissful relaxation. When you learn not to attach but observe thought you can have awareness as well as stillness.

Progress
The important thing to keep in mind when beginning meditation practice is to not be too goal oriented and let the practice itself guide your progress. In the beginning it's important to focus on the technique and things will just happen on their own. At some point a key moment will occur when you suddenly understand what it's all about. I vividly and clearly remember the exact moment when I got it. I remember the leaves on the tree, the ground and what I was looking at when I fell into a perfectly clear state of mind when everything made sense. There was no past or future, only the present moment. It was sudden jolt into complete and still awareness. In Japanese Zen this is called a Kensho moment, which is the first perception of Buddha Nature or an "awakening".

Consequences
The first Kensho moment is a life changing experience, that will always stay with you. It makes me smile every time I recall it. Achieving this point took me about 3 months of daily meditation, and different minds with different levels of experience in mental states will take different lengths of time, but you should never try to force yourself into this imagined state until you naturally come to it with regular practice.
Many great things will happen in your life just as a result of practicing regularly and won't be apparent until some time later. Very subtle but profound things will occur when you practice stillness, and the best way to describe it is that your life will simply improve. Achieving proficiency in Meditation is only the begining. The real work starts with the discipline to doing it every day, because it's easy to fall back into darkness again when practice stops. Many, many books and words have been written on the philosophy to describe these experiences and attempt to explain and guide to a better understanding on what has been achieved. Reading this deepens the understanding but it all revolves around the simple concept of sitting in clear awareness.

Poetry - Spring

Spring

In a high mountain forest, there is a spring.
Thoughts from the earth flow upwards beneath a carpet of leaves and rotting logs.
They bubble to the surface without pause.
The spring gives freely and unselfishly, because it Is.
Beyond the reach of published trails, it flows.
The ultimate source is deep and unseen, rarely witnessed or understood.
From the earth and Universe itself.
When the season is warm, and the ground clear, it flows visibly.
Clear, pure, uncontrolled.
The sun shines on this magical source of life, warming it and giving it vitality and meaning.
In winter, it's covered in obscurity, never to be seen by anyone, yet it still flows.
It pools in muddy puddles, resting and flowing around the muck.
Sitting still, it merges with the dirt, and is absorbed back, to disappear.
Its presence unknown.
Yet, the explorer seeking discovery, the thirsty traveler, a mystic in pursuit of truth, all seek it as a source of life.
Those willing to step off the worn path, will stumble upon it, and discover it's magic.
Sweeping the leaves away, it shows itself, to nourish a thirsty mind.
Some flow into streams and rivers, all merging into the great ocean of knowledge.
Some will be pillaged, bottled, and sold, until dry. A brilliant mind destroyed.
But look to the cliffs, the forbidden lands, a lonely desert oasis.
There, where no one dares to look, is a spring, flowing silently and without pause.
Witness it if you dare to search, drink from it and respect it.
Let fate take it where it may.

Essay - Decisions

Every decision we make in life has to be based on something. It interests me to think about the processes of the mind and I will attempt to break it down. Based on some initial assertions about what we seek, and what we value, I believe there is a basic process that non-rationally but justifiably reaches a decision, but which should be observed and tempered with some logic. In rational areas, emotions cloud judgment while in areas emotional by nature, we don't integrate rationality well.

Pleasure
People are driven to seek pleasure. Pleasure can be happiness, satisfaction, or physical. Whatever it may objectively be, we want to have a positive feeling about it. The point is that there is a positive feeling to be gained and everything we do is to achieve more of it. I will assert that it ultimately leads to a low level chemical stimulation of good feeling. Pleasure seeking is the great adaptation of all living creatures, and what allows life happen.

Outcomes
The outcome of any decision can be measured in the level of reward, or in the win/loss degree. Outcomes of every act elicit either positive or negative feelings in various degrees. The important idea here is that the result is a feeling, not linked to rational or objective results, but how personality shapes our emotional responses to events. It must be noted that external events are sensations perceived and interpreted by our personality, conceptualized to thoughts, and linked with stimulated feelings about it. We can therefore think of a positive outcome as a positive feeling. Any part of this process can be observed by a skilled mind.
These can be contrasted as follows, and weighed as such.

Effort/Time ---------------------------- Reward
Negative Outcome ----------------------Positive Outcome

Probability
The other major factor is our perception of outcome probabilities. A scientific method allows us to test, calculate and achieve satisfactory knowledge to make good decisions. The problem is that most life decisions don't allow the use of the precise scientific approach. Expectations are based on an intuitive process using past events, our personal outlook with different degrees of optimism, and most significantly an emotional weight. This is all done subconsciously because logic can't deal with the ambiguities when decisions have to be made with limited information. The mind experiences pure reality by conceptualizing a situation as a sort of compression of the sensed information, which can then be easily recalled because it's similar. The fact is, no situation is ever exactly the same, and this is a source of error. Conceptual memories are associated with a feeling, and this is what is then used to evaluate the expected outcome. What kind of feeling is linked with memories has a great effect on our future actions because that memory is used for evaluation.

Time Frame
The time frame of the expected outcome also has an important effect on the decision process. Events in the far future carry much less weight, then something in the near term. This makes sense because we want to avoid short term dangers to live another day. In this area, people also differ, as some are able to hold out for something big in the future, while others are impatient and are compelled by short term satisfaction.

Evaluation Process
Based on the proposed assertions, we can say that most decisions and behaviors are driven by a subconscious, emotionally driven process. Expected feelings associated with the negative side are weighed against the positive, with emotionally weighted probabilities. If the amount of painful effort invested, is less then the expected positive outcome, factored with the emotional weight, we do it. What makes this possible is the amazing power of the mind and biological brain, and the fact that we use the more efficient emotional evaluation rather then the more limited but more accurate conscious, rational process. Our brains have evolved emotionally and precede our rationality. Often times people can't describe why they made certain decisions, and say it's instinct or gut. The success of this depends on your life history, past patterns and a learned outlook on life.

Risk aversion and the pain bias
The key assertion needed to make my point is that individuals have degrees of risk aversion and we all have a general bias against pain. Risk aversion refers to a person's fear of a negative outcome. A risk taker is willing to take a chance on higher returns in the face of higher losses. They are able to handle the bigger swing of feelings, and enjoy the ups and downs of emotion. There is a rush and excitement when taking a risk, and this in itself can be a goal.
In general though, there is a pain bias in decision evaluations. People are generally driven to minimize absolute loss rather then maximize the win or the overall win/loss ratio. We remember pain more clearly then pleasure. This is evident in many areas of life. A hurtful event might prevent a person from trying anything similar, just to prevent it from happening again even though it doesn't make sense rationally. It's been researched in investing, that people would rather not lose, then win. People hold losing stocks much longer then rationality would indicate so they don't have to admit the loss. They believe it should be worth more, so they stick with it not actualizing a negative feeling. In gambling experiments, when given the choice people choose a high probability small win, rather then a riskier move even though in the long term that would be more profitable, when designed as such.

The Fallacy
This leads to the fallacy that what seems like a rational decision by weighing of risk/reward based on probabilities, has a hidden factor of emotional weight attached. This factor is attached to both the value of an outcome, as well as to the probability. Because of the pain bias, and risk aversion degree, we tend to think that bad things will occur more often then logic indicates. Our decisions then are often not optimal as we seek to avoid a negative outcome. When we see something terrible happen, our memory remembers that, and we seek to avoid it by associating it with the chance of it occurring. This is clearly non-rational.

A rational world
The modern, western world, based on facts, science and since the Enlightenment, values rationality as a high human virtue, has diminished the value of this intuitive process. We have less trust in our instincts and doubt ourselves when we don't have the facts. We are taught to think things through, and look at what's quantifiable. This leads us to confusion and doubt when we need to trust our intuition and feel conflicted. The dualistic model of heart and mind prevents a harmonious integration of all our faculties, based on circumstances. When we overly rely on rationality, we don't understand why we don't feel satisfied sometimes. We are often unable to integrate our personal values of outcomes as feelings, time frame factors get in the way, and what seems like a good decision leaves us unhappy. When we deny the fact that emotion is a factor, we're not aware that it's affecting our judgment in areas that should be judged rationally.

Harmony

Rational --------------------- Emotional
Balanced

If you look inside yourself you'll realize you're not as in control of yourself as you think. Consciousness is what passes through the filter into awareness, but as I've proposed, a decision is often made before you're aware of it. We often believe we are more rational that we really are. When you consider and integrate the emotional factors that influence behavior and decisions, you find balance. The goal of a good decision evaluation is to find harmony between rationality and emotionality. Both heart and mind should be wisely considered.

Conclusion - Harmonious Evaluation
Getting back to the purpose of a decision then, it is to make a correct evaluation of Risk/Reward using a harmonious process appropriately integrating rationality and emotion.
In logical, materialistic decisions, emotions skew our evaluations by inserting feelings, as factors into the outcomes as well as the probabilities. We therefore should take emotions out of the equation. Where rationality is required, possible outcomes should be well defined and materialistic, probabilities should be based on numbers and statistics, and we should make the same decision in the same circumstance every time, not worrying about a possible loss, because we weighed the factors and are content with all possible outcomes. I referred to this when discussing poker in a previous post.
In interpersonal or non-materialistic decisions, logic skews our evaluations by under emphasizing the emotional weights. In these cases we should use rationality to minimize the emotional weight we are giving to a probability, while fully considering the emotional outcome. Probability should not be given emotional weight, but the outcomes should, and quantifiable facts made secondary.

When we integrate both faculties with correct understanding, everything we do in any type of situation will be worthwhile, time well spent, and we won't be hurt by failure because it was the correct decision, rationally and emotionally.

"Let the truth of love be lighted
Let the love of truth shine clear
Sensibility
Armed with sense and liberty
With the heart and mind united
In a single perfect sphere"

- Cygnus X-1 on Hemispheres by RUSH

Poetry - Ascent

Ascent

I floated through the pulsating valleys of color and life.
As the thorns parted, I moved effortlessly, like an enigma towards the light.
The path was before me, the riddle created, and I faced the battle, ascending upwards in my own time.
The heat and sterility challenged me, and voices of temptation whispered that I did not belong.
I faced the demons, and they were driven away, because the destination's calling was strong.
As I rose beyond the trivial fixations of the earthbound, the air cooled, and the valleys sighed,
for I had joined them in eternal breathing, to stay forever in wonder of the magnificent gallery below me.

Essay - Winning Poker

"Poker takes a day to learn and a lifetime to master."

I've taken a serious approach to winning at poker for the last few months, and did fairly well. Yet during this time I've come to a few realizations about the game and what it takes to win, both from books and much personal experience.
I would like to describe my insight about what a personal emotional evaluation will tell you about the style of poker you can play and whether to play at all as well as some other gambling points. I'm talking here about whether to treat poker as a money making venture, not a recreational activity.
As you begin to understand the game you progress in levels of understanding and improve in more aspects of skills. There is a vertical progress as you integrate more skills into your decision making process, but there is also an emotional aspect which I believe runs parallel to technical skills and will make or break any progress along the way.

What is Poker really about:
This is a basic definition of the game, see Wikipedia - Texas Hold'em Poker
There are many variants of Poker with Texas Hold'em currently being the most popular. This is due to the fact that it's easy to learn, is more exciting because of its structure, and because even poor players can do well sometimes especially short term. It has a potential for good players to exploit weak players more easily without poor players really knowing this in the long term.

The purpose of poker as I see it, is To sell false hopes, while buying disappointment.
To win money someone has to pay you, thinking or hoping that they have the best hand. You want to offer a false hope, using your knowledge of odds, pot to hand odds, reading opponents, including presenting weakness, as some of the tools. The flip side is to buy disappointment because when you win by showing cards or by bluffing, there is someone there to be disappointed by it. A winning player will maximize big pots, by buying the big disappointments, repeatedly buy small ones, and minimize his purchases of false hopes. In this light we can see that the game is all about emotions. Technical skills and their quality are only the tools and their efficiency in the hands of an emotional craftsman.

General progression of skills (technical aspects):
Most poker learning is based on technical skills, akin to someone learning to use tools. The following are these tools, in increasing order of sophistication. I'm not trying to layout detailed strategies, but just illustrating the progression. They must be mastered in order, although they overlap and their definitions are provided as convenient divisions.
1. Rules
First you have to learn the structure of the game and then the hand rankings. You need to be aware of what hand you have and which hands beat which. You bet when you have good hands and fold when you don't.
2. Anticipate possibilities for your own hands
As cards come out you need to think about what possible hands you can make with what you have and cards that haven't come out yet. Before focusing on other skills you need to master knowing where you stand at the moment with your own cards. Up to this level you are focusing on your own hands and the knowledge of rankings.
3. Anticipate possibilities for other players hands.
At this point, you need to learn to read the board to tell you what other players might have. At this level you're now playing and thinking about your opponents and what they might have by reading the board. This requires some analysis and more thoughtful play. Lot's of people play at this level, but you can't be a winning player without more evaluation. Knowledge to this point doesn't tell you anything about how much to bet and when. You tend to bet on the strength of your own hand instead of expected returns, or nebulous feelings about opponents or odds. Most home games or with people that play for fun will not progress beyond this level.
4. Odds and Pot Odds
This level of play requires a bit of study and here the emotional aspects begin to be noticed. You are now calculating probabilities for improving your hand, and figuring out probabilities of opponents holding different hands. This is combined with a calculation of Pot Odds, which is the ratio of the money you are putting in vs the possible money you can win. This leads to a basic formula for any gambling evaluation. The ratio of money put up vs money to win should always be less than the chances of winning. For example, betting $1 to win $4 is 1 to 4 pot odds. If your chances to win is less then 1 to 4, this is a losing bet, if your chances are better, it's a good bet. This is often an unintuitive way to play, but is necessary and you can't play with your gut. You now make decisions and bets not based on what you have but based on the probabilities of the situation. Most casino gambling games obfuscate your ability to evaluate this, and promise big wins, or keep these two ratios very close but never in your favor. That is how the house always wins.
5. Reading opponents
If you always play by calculated probabilities without including predictions about opponents, you're not being accurate enough with predicting overall chances and miss out on many opportunities to maximize winnings as well as being open to exploitation by opponents. This is what makes poker unique among other gambling, and allows better players to win. You need to at this point learn to interpret the betting patterns of opponents. The biggest tells are betting patterns. You need to constantly track what every opponent does in different situations and use that history to add on another factor in narrowing down your probability assessment of the situation.
6. Awareness of your own play patterns
As you get more sophisticated you need to be aware with how you're perceived, and what your actions say about your play, to prevent your patterns from being used to exploit you. You need to know when to vary your play, how to craft an image of yourself to others, when to bluff and fold. At these levels of play as more people are aware of image and play patterns the game is more about playing the opponents rather then the cards, because everyone is trying to trick everyone. Most good poker games in casinos will have players that can play at this level, and these will tend to win.
7. Multiple levels of deception, and behavioral reads.
At high levels of play you need to be aware of how you're perceived and how what you want to be perceived is perceived, and it gets very psychological. You also include reads of behavioral tells and become aware of your own behaviors. This is where intuition can be used, but only after all the basics are mastered. High level players will play at this level and exploit every weakness.

Emotions as a parallel factor in all poker skills:
A great artist without creative inspiration cannot be successful as well as a great poker player without emotional control cannot.
Rarely mentioned in poker theory books, is the emotional factor. One reason being that there is no formula to address this, it doesn't sell well, and also I think the insiders want as many suckers in the game as possible. Learning theory and strategy is a way to lure people into thinking they can win.
All contribute to what is called tilt. Tilt is any harmful state of mind that prevents an otherwise good player from playing correctly.
1. Greed or Desire
Everyone is greedy to a certain extent. You desire for yourself, and always want more. We are taught that if we try hard enough or learn enough we can get what we want. This a good feeling to have, because it empowers us to act to get what we want in life. We need to get into the game and take our chances if we are to succeed. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. This kind of thinking has no place in poker. You can't make things happen, just because you want to, and your success will be determined only by reliance on cold probabilities and calculated strategies. You are dependent solely on the environment and you can't change your chances at any one point. Greed often affects someone that has been on a winning streak, by thinking that they can do no wrong and plays more loosely and aggressively, without following the original strategy, only to start losing.
2. Impatience
People generally don't stick around long in a losing situation. Nobody likes to waste time doing something unproductive. This is a proper emotional response, that stimulates you not to waste your life. Sometimes in poker you need to sit and fold for hours, watching everyone else take down pots, making crazy plays without good cards. People that need excitement, change and stimulation, might actually not make good players long term. You need to accept boredom and have the ability to get out of plays when your mental evaluation tells you so. If you stop following your strategy because the cards aren't coming and everyone else is playing, it doesn't matter how good the strategy is.
3. Anger and depression
When you do your best and lose, you often feel angry or depressed about it. When probability indicates that you should win but repeatedly lose or get outplayed, these feeling naturally arise. When you've been playing all night, and have already lost hundreds, your emotions tell you you're in a bad situation. This is also generally an appropriate emotional response in life, that indicates to you that you should change something. In poker again, this has no place. It usually leads players to try to win back what was lost, and change their game in an attempt to not repeat what just happened. This feeling, again, stops people from following their rational strategy.
4. Fear
Fear prevents people from doing risky or dangerous things, and isn't something to be banished. It's to be evaluated rationally. Courage is acting despite fear, not by lack of fear. Sometimes in poker you need to take chances because your calculations and strategy tells you so, and that it's correct to make a big bet or call. You can surely lose it, but it's still correct. You can't be afraid of doing the right thing, despite the risks in poker.

Emotional Personality and Poker playing style:
I've outlined the technical skills progression and the important emotional aspects that need to be managed to become successful at poker. This lead to the implications and the insight I want to present.

Hands Played
Impatient --------------------------------- Sensitive
Loose --------------------------------- Tight
Betting
Fearless---------------------------Fearful
Aggressive--------------------Passive

1. Ideal State of Mind
All emotions must be taken out of the equation if you want to be a great poker player. This allows you to vary your tight/loose, aggressive/passive play to take advantage of your image, as well as respond to table tendencies and opponent styles. This is much easier said then done, and few can achieve this consistently. That's why most players lose at poker consistently. Everyone at certain times is affected by it. Of course having good technical skills will often override the temporary bad state of mind, in terms of overall win rate. The key is to isolate these and get back to correct play as soon as possible. The problem is that in a game with already such narrow win margins, and requirement for constant focus these shortcoming can amplify mistakes.
2. An impatient person
If you're an impatient person that has trouble playing a tight game where you need to wait for good opportunities, you can develop a more loose style of play where you can play more hands and see more action. This will give you a looser image, with people more likely to call you, when you make a great hand. The downside is that you'll need to handle bigger swings, and will need extra emotional stability with that aspect, and be less sensitive to swings. You need to be fine with being down a larger amount, and taking more losses. You need to trust your ability to take down bigger pots sometimes, and not let greed take your winnings. Top pros are unpredictable and see alot of action.
3. Sensitive person prone to anger
If you're someone who gets angry or greedy with big swings, you need to have the patience to play tight and probably take down smaller pots, but also fewer losses. This is generally the safest most recommended way to play, but you'll see less action. A tight, aggressive disciplined player is a winning player. You need to deal with boredom and this can be difficult.
4. Impatient, greedy, angry, ambitious emotions
If you can't handle at least some or most of the emotional aspects in a poker game, you shouldn't play since you will not be a long term winning player. This is the case with most people, especially when coupled with lack of technical skills. This is the reason poker can be profitable for good players, and the reason that Hold'em keeps bad players coming for more.

Conclusion:
A person without the right personality, cannot be successful even with the best tools. Someone trying to paint must have an artistic intelligence to be successful and not simply knowing how to apply paint to a canvas. This is the same with poker, except here, lack of emotion is most important. You need to train yourself to act coldly and rationally.
To play good poker you need to sideline your emotional, human aspect and then poker becomes a miserable fight with your own human nature. You must train the ability to be cold and calculating.
It's a very interesting challenge, an exercise in an exploration of yourself, and overcoming. It's something that's worth attempting to give yourself better emotion control and get to know yourself better. Being successful at it, means you've learned to control your emotions and they don't factor in your decision making. To some people this might not be something they want to excel at. While it's good to learn to not be controlled by them, in poker they must be totally sidelined, and it's a very tiring and miserable state of mind. If there is one thing I learned from Poker, is how irrational people are by nature.

This brings me to the idea of Risk/Time/Effort VS Reward. For me, learning to excel at poker doesn't provide a favorable ratio. I will explore this idea in general, in a future post.