On Mindfulness
Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.
New York Times
I am becoming more aware of the disconnection between what I know and how I behave.
Returning home after a blissful weekend of yoga and dance at Harbin Hot Springs with Bella, I rushed to my computer to answer the hundred plus emails that had piled up over the weekend. Yes, I confess, I am one of those email addicts that is constantly checking to see who loves me, who hates me, and who needs me in this surreal world of cyberspace… The bells go off and I’m like Pavlov’s dog running to the computer or phone. I went to bed with a cyber headache.
The next morning the headlines of the Sac Bee and NY Times ran an article that addressed our technological addictions. It reports that our growing skill at multi-tasking has led to “trouble focusing and shutting out useless information...” It seems multi-taking stimulates excitement – “and gives us a dopamine squirt” – that researchers say can be addictive. This addiction leads to increased stress, diminished ability to concentrate on what’s important, and fragmented thinking.
We’ve developed an amazing capability to connect and share information through computers, but we seem to often use that ability for mindless consumption and exploitation rather than useful learning, spiritual inspiration, the enhancement of human culture or the protection of our natural world. Our disconnection from the earth has never been greater, nor has the need to listen to her voice. How can we return to a more balanced, connected and peaceful life in harmony with our planet when we are being bombarded by waves of useless information?
The key to success is to focus our conscious mind
on things we desire not things we fear.
Brian Tracy
What does it mean to live a successful life? The dictionary defines success as “an event that accomplishes its intended purpose.” For so many it relates to what they have. Is that really our purpose in life – to have more? The Dalai Lama says our purpose in life is to “seek happiness” and this “can be achieved by training the mind”. It is clear that wealth has little to do with happiness since it is often the poorest of the poor that seem the happiest. The question I ask myself is, who am I being or becoming in this fragmented, fractured and fast paced world in which I am immersed? If I were to design my life, what would it look like? Am I happy, fulfilled or enjoying this life I have been given?
Another question that haunts me is “what am I living my life for...?” Like the country western song says, “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” So what do I stand for? It is hard to know when you’re moving so fast, in so many directions. Perhaps to find out what we truly stand for we can find a still place within ourselves through meditation. This quiet sanctuary can act as a refuge, while we are discovering our true purpose. Returning here often can help us in bringing our vision forth into the world.
Bioneer’s cofounder, Nina Simons, shares the idea that moving towards what you fear will support greater growth, awareness and freedom. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. If we can stand in the face of it, life becomes very vivid and clear. Facing our fears becomes a doorway to wisdom and finding our true purpose in life. Of course our primary fear is the loss of our egoic sense of self. Who would I be being if there was no self, if I let go of the story of me? To discover the answer to this we must slow down and eliminate unnecessary distractions in our lives. This is a practice!
We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus
on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right.
Marianne Williamson
One thing I notice for myself is that when I am fragmented and distracted it costs a great deal of energy. I try to control, suppress, adjust or in someway manipulate “what is” into something that “should be” – that’s an exercise in frustration and very different from finding a still place and focusing our attention on what’s working and what could be! What about all the things that are right in our lives; friends, health, beauty, learning and love... Every thing starts in the fertile garden of the mind. What seeds are we planting with our words, thoughts and actions? Yes, there are dark clouds on the horizon. It can seem pretty bleak when we begin to see that the world as we have known it is changing at an exponential evolutionary pace. We are going somewhere and we are headed there fast.
A racing mind that reacts sensitively to little things indicates thinking that has lost
its spiritual strength. Meditation restores that power.
Innerspace
I realize that my racing mind and neurotic thoughts distract me from my life purpose of learning to love and be of service to humanity. All my knowledge, spiritual reading and inquiry means little if the quality of life around me isn’t flourishing. It seems as if I am swept from one thing to the next, always on the edge of exhaustion, and never feeling a sense of accomplishment or personal growth. When I see this I know it is time to sit or dance in meditation.
My goal is to develop a real knowledge and relationship with truth, not the fundamentalist truth of right/wrong or win/loose, but the truth of the human condition and the state of the world. It has been said that God is truth. This is a very different perspective from a white male sitting on a cloud passing judgment on the sinners of the world. If I develop the discipline to slow the mind chatter and truly come to a place of peace with things as they are, I would increase my power to take action to bring about real change in my own life, and in the world.
Mindfulness is the foundation of all spiritual growth as it reveals the truth of the way things are, internally and externally.
Kevin Griffin
It is not hard to see that there is growing chaos in the world. In the 5Rhythms meditation practice the rhythm of Chaos is the rhythm of surrender and letting go. Isn’t that at the heart of a all spiritual life, surrendering and opening to the ever-changing nature of life, to a power higher than the plans of our self encapsulated ego? I am committing myself this month to increasing my awareness and practice of mindfulness and journaling my daily experiences. The easiest place for me to do this is in spending time in the natural world, but it is also available on a cushion or on the dance floor. I invite you all to join me in the inquiry into mindfulness and share your experiences with me. Is it possible for us to be total in all we do?
With total love and blessings,
michael
Every moment there is a possibility to be total. Whatsoever you are doing, be absorbed in it so utterly that the mind thinks nothing, is just there, is just a presence. And more and more totality will be coming. And the taste of totality will make you more and more capable of being total. And try to see when you are not total. Those are the moments which have to be dropped slowly, slowly. When you are not total, whenever you are in the head--thinking, brooding, calculating, cunning, clever--you are not total. Slowly, slowly slip out of those moments. It is just an old habit. Habits die hard.
But they die certainly — if one persists, they die.
Osho
