The Here and Now

All the spiritual teachers points to the same place: to be present, to be here and now, so that your internal light can spread free and the ego can't emerge, without interferences from the ego, without blockages. This internal light is love, the end of suffering, the Kingdom of God.

To achieve this, they show us the path:

- Follow the breath
- Mindfulness or vipassana, full attention to every action through your everyday life.
- Observe the thinker, the mind (E. Tolle)
- Atenttion, atenttion, attention (any Zen master)
- Leave the self behind, don't worry for tomorrow, love your neighbour as yourself (Jesus)
- Feel the Chi
- Inquiry the mind: Who am I? (Ramana Maharshi)
- Mu (Zen koan)
- Or Buddha's Paticcasamuppada (Law of Dependent Origin), don't allow desire or attachment to emerge

...between others

Without need for religions, nor attachment to our thoughts nor believes

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome cure

Some time ago I was suffering Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), that's pain at the wrist caused because of too much hours in front the computer with the hand in the mouse and keyboard with very little movement.

CC by

Conventional treatment includes stretching, drugs, wristbands and surgery!


I changed the mouse to the left hand and did some stretching with very little improvement.

But I discovered Taichi Taoist and since that CTS is forgotten. CURED. Why?
In my point of view, CTS is caused by a lack of join movement so it's a non sense to try to cure that with a surgery.

Taichi is always lubricating this joint through its gentle movement and stretching with the fingers pointing up and down continuously.

cc-by

So, my recommendations are:

- If you have a Taichi Taoist centre near you, go for it. There are centres around the world.

- If not, I suppose any other Taichi school or qiqong can be equally good.

- If not, do this qigong exercise everyday:

Stopping ZeroAccess Botnet in your Cisco ASA firewall

Is your LAN infected by ZeroAccess Botnet and you don’t know where, or maybe your IP address is in some blacklist like CBL or Spamhaus ?

This was the case in the network of one of my clients. They appeared in CBL blacklist for infection by ZeroAccess. CBL is linked to Spamhaus and they couldn't send email.

ZeroAccess Botnet communicates over P2P using UDP so the most fast solution to find out which PC is infected is deny in the firewall all the outbound UDP traffic (except DNS server and NTP server) in the inside interface.

Something like this in Cisco ASA:

access-list ACL_INSIDE permit udp host dns_server any eq domain

access-list ACL_INSIDE permit udp host time_server any eq ntp

access-list ACL_INSIDE deny udp any any

access-list ACL_INSIDE permit ip any any

access-group ACL_INSIDE in interface inside

Define the level of logging to catch the zombi:

logging buffered errors

And we look into the "show logging" to find out who is being blocked by the ACL.

Better if you combine this with the SMTP outbound filter and a fail-safe security police, that’s a default deny stance (specify only what you allow and prohibit everything else).

The key of happiness

You can only be truly happy when you have all. And you can only have all what you want when you do not want anything.

When you do not want anything, you have everything and attain true happiness.

Then, you learn to cherish every moment because every moment is perfect, nothing is missing. You have everything at that moment so you do not need anything more. You begin to appreciate the beauty of the little details. And achieve inner peace because you don't wish nothing more than what you have now

Cisco Wireless Guest Access

I f you have Cisco Access Points you can deploy Wireless Guest Access and you need:

A WLC (Wireless LAN Controller), at this very moment the best options is the Cisco 5508 WLAN Controller because it's optimized for 802.11n support. It can be licensed for 12, 25, 50, 100 or 250 Access Points. With the controller you will have Wireless Guest Access based on a secure captive portal (HTTPS). You'll define users locally or in a radius server and a lifetime. At the same time of authentication you can enforce the users to accept a disclaimer or enterprise policy.

The Guest Access SSID must be configured to a Guest VLAN with only access to Internet (HTTP, HTTPS and DNS). Don't allow SMTP in this VLAN because if your ISP detects they are sending SPAM from that IP they will close that port and your organization couldn't send email.

The controller has some advantages like:

- Peer-to-peer blocking (protect wlan users from communication between other wlan users)
- The option to use the same system for wired guest access
- QoS for every class of traffic or users
- Rogue access point detection

If you have budget is better to have WCS (Wireless Control System) software too. With WCS, you add some advanced features like:

- Advanced authentication and authorizacion. Which days and hours and where each user can connect.
- Advanced report and logging. And historical data
- Management of several WLC
- Security alarm and monitoring

The main problem of all that is the prize!

Visiting London in four days

I've been in London the last weekend and this is the way I've done to visit this amazing city.

I've flight with Easyjet for the first time and it has been a nice experience. In its website I reserved the hotel too. My hotel was Park Plaza Sherlock Holmes, in Baker Street near the underground station which is very important in London. But it has been a little deception when we have seen the room which has nothing to do with the photographs in its website. If you go to Gatwick Airport is important to buy a Gatwick Espress ticket before flying. This train arrives to London in 30 minutes without stops up to Victoria Station in central London. In the same Victoria station catch the underground (before that you must buy an economic Oyster Card, so you don't need a ticket every time you catch the tube).
The tube (London Underground) is very easy to understand. There is a lot of lines that cross London form North to South and East to West, so you only need to know clearly where you go, look the map (the colour or the name of the line) and take a direction (Northbound, Southbound, Eastbound or Werstbound). The indications are clear and the underground is very secure and populated, sure the best option to move in London.

Thursday:
We arrive in the afternoon, take the tube to the hotel, and tube another time to Oxford Street, dinner in Soho, visit Picadilly Circus and come back to the hotel.

Friday:
We cross Regent's Park (I love all the big and green parks London has) up to Camden and visit Camden Market. Tube to London Tower, cross Tower Bridge, visit St. Paul's Cathedral (it's a surprise in London you must pay a lot to enter a Cathedral and you don't pay in the museums). Cross the Thames for the modern Millenium Bridge and visit to Tate Modern Museum. Tube to Covent Garden , walking to Trafalgar Square, lunch Fish and Chips. Leicester Square and arrive to the Dominion Theatre in the Tottenham Court Road Station and buy tickets for the Queen musical "We Will Rock You" (Great!!!). After that you can visit the British Museum (a must). Rest a little in the hotel. Go for a walk to Notting Hill and dinner in Pizza Express (very good pizzas). And finally we went to a pub to drink some Guiness beer.

Saturday:
Breakfast in Starburcks (fine!).
Green Park, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park (lovely squirrels), Webminster Abbey, Big Ben, House of Parliament, London Eye (very big queue, I've no time to get on), vegetarian Lunch and good company in the London Fo Guang Buddhist Temple, come back to the hotel for the incredibly crowded Oxford Street, prepare yourself to go to Queen Musical (We Will Rock You): Amazing!

Sunday:
Hyde Park (more squirrels), Museums (History, Science), Harrod's, Lunch at Royal China Seafood Restaurant in Baker Street and go to the airport. Go with time, I found a great easyjet queue to check-in, and nearly lost my flight!

Zen attention

Attention is one of the most powerful features of the human mind. In Zen, attention allow us to be "here and now", with no errors, without losing energy in other thoughts and with a clear mind.

You can train attention through meditation and in you everyday tasks and life. That demands hard work, you can't allow your mind do what it wants, it must do what you want. With this awareness you are always in the present (there isn't nothing more than the actual moment)

At the same time, attention is useful against fears, stress or problems, because you can see the moment that that thoughts begin to appear, because you only made one thing at a time. In the work, at home or in your spiritual life, you always must pay attention.