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Michael Joel Hall
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Michael Joel Hall

Reflections

Using Heartbreak as Practice

A Latina Buddhist practitioner reflects on the bodhisattva vow through the story of Chenrezig shattering at the world’s suffering. She argues that genuine practice should break us open in response to injustice like ICE raids, and warns against spiritual bypassing that hides behind concepts like equanimity and non-duality to justify inaction. Teaching: • Frame the…

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Pickings · 2026-06-27 — Notes

Catching the listening party & preview of Madonna’s Confessions II at Byrdland Record store in Union Market is such a queer experience. Bless you, Madonna, for helping to cultivate Queer Joy. euphoria. The dancefloor really is a spiritual space. A threshold, as Madonna says. Indeed, I feel so free. I Love us Gays. Happy Pride!!

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Pickings · 2026-06-27

The photo shows a person holding a promotional poster for Madonna’s album “Confessions II” in a casual setting. The mood appears to be enthusiastic, likely reflecting excitement for the album’s pre-release event.
Text in image: MADONNA
CONFESSIONS II
ALBUM PRE-RELEASE EVENT
WARNER RECORDS
a Stan

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Kafka’s Approach to Creative Block and the Four Psychological Hindrances That Keep the Gifted from Living Up to Their Gifts

Maria Popova explores Kafka’s diaries as a record of his struggle with creative block, identifying four psychological hindrances that separate the gifted from their gifts: time-anxiety, world-anxiety, and others. Kafka used journaling as both discipline and exorcism, holding fast to the practice even when nothing else flowed, recognizing that procrastination and self-doubt are paradoxically part…

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Future Space Tourism and Space Industry Will End Up Being Great for the Environment

NextBigFuture argues that while scaling space tourism to 5 million orbital trips per year via Starship could add roughly 3% to current global tourism emissions, the long-term upside is moving mining, manufacturing, and data centers off Earth. The piece frames near-term launch pollution as a worthwhile tradeoff for eventually decoupling industrial growth from the biosphere….

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Philosophy Uncategorized

Cognition Is Navigation

Two very different books argue the same thing: if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.

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Silhouetted workers form the trunk and roots of a large tree made of text and data, while a single figure at the top collects the fruit labeled profit into a basket.
Science and Tech

Equity, Not Extraction

AI isn’t the threat — extraction is, and we’ve already run this playbook before.

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Digest

Respect isn’t agreement. It’s how you disagree.

Most yoga arguments aren’t about the practice. They’re about who gets to say what the practice is.That’s the subtext under almost every debate about body diversity in Ashtanga. One side says the…

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anyone else find that nidra is the practice they never skip? even more than asana?
Uncategorized

anyone else find that nidra is the practice they never skip? even more than asana?

This is Ashtanga Yoga Tech Support. Real questions from the yoga community, answered. The Question something I've been thinking about lately I've had an on-and-off asana practice for years. some weeks I'm on the mat every day, other weeks I talk myself out of it constantly. you know how it goes but yoga nidra? every single night. haven't missed in months. it's become the most consistent practice I have by far I think it's because it requires zero activation energy. you're already in bed. you press play. you lie there.

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Read more: https://ashtanga.tech/tech-support/anyone-else-find-that-nidra-is-the-practice-they-never-skip-even-more-than-asana/
All content: https://mjh.yoga

#ashtanga #yoga #ashtangayoga #techsupport #ashtangatech

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How did you come to Ashtanga
Uncategorized

How did you come to Ashtanga

This is Ashtanga Yoga Tech Support. Real questions from the yoga community, answered. The Question I’ve been listening to a lot of genesis stories lately from Laruga and Kino and so on of how each found Ashtanga and continued the practice. I have been reflecting on my own journey and wanted to hear some everyday stories from the community on how you got here? Bit of a long post if you’re interested: I took my first yoga class when I was 18 or 19 on a gap year where I was bored with a lot of free time at the gym.

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Read more: https://ashtanga.tech/tech-support/how-did-you-come-to-ashtanga/
All content: https://mjh.yoga

#ashtanga #yoga #ashtangayoga #techsupport #ashtangatech

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© 2026 Michael Joel Hall

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