On Mindfulness

[fookisan]

On Mindfulness........On page 108 of "50 Ways to Simplify Your Life" the author talks about living mindfully saying , "Mindfulness is a great simplifying tool, because it is an antidote to doing too much." The book also gives the following example from the "The Miracle of Mindfulness." "If while washing dishes we think only of the tea that awaits us...then we are not 'washing the dishes.' If we can't wash the dishes, chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either." How many times have we read a page and not know what we have just read. Forget where we are driving to and have to retrace our route. Find ourselves confused talking to someone on the phone after we realize we have no idea whose number we have just dialed.

How can we start to be mindful instead of mindless? Awareness of our thoughts is the first step, taking action to live mindfully is the second step. We also need to stop putting ourselves on auto pilot. Mindfulness will come easier with daily practice. A good way to practice mindfulness is to concentrate on your breathing and to pay attentions to distracting thoughts as they fall away and disappear.

In the old classic "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance author Robert Pirsig discusses this when he compares an ego based (mindless) climber to a selfless climber that is not driven by pride and ego.

"To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. Both kinds of climbers place one front in front of the other both breathe in and out at the same rate. Both stop when they need a rest. Both go forward when rested. But what a difference! The ego-climber is like an instrument that's out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He's likely to miss a beautiful passage of sunlight through the trees. He goes on when the sloppiness of his step shows he's tired. He rests at odd times. He looks up the trail trying to see what's ahead even when he knows what's ahead because
he just looked a second before. He goes too fast or too slow for the conditions and when he talks his talk is forever about somewhere else, something else. He's here but he's not here. He rejects the here, is unhappy with it, wants to be farther up the trail but when he gets there will be just as unhappy because then it will be "here." What he's looking for, what he wants, is all around him, but he doesn't want that because it is all around him. Every step's an effort, both physically and spiritually, because he imagines his goal to be external and distant."

With being an ADD and an addict, it is a a constant battle for me to be mindful. I have to make a conscious effort to be mindful of the bite of food I am eating as my normal way is to put in a second bite before I've finished the first - sensation addiction. I used my addictions as distraction from living life and dealing with problems and as artificial ways to relieve pain. I've abused these pain relievers so that now they are pain generators in my life. Isn't it much easier to fantasize about something else than stay in the hear and now? I try and catch myself when I practice this escapism and work to bring my thoughts back to the present. Whenever the fantasy starts I check to see what I am escaping from? Why do I fixate on something else instead of where I'm at? Practicing mindfulness of the present moment as part of a Buddhist practice has helped and working 12 step programs to repair the damage and balance my life has also helped. It is important to distinguish being mindful vs being concentrated as we can be concentrated on one aspect and blind to the big picture.

Going back to my breath helps me return to the present and realize that peace is all around me for the taking as Thich Nhat Hanh said:

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way. This means that we can realize peace right here in the present moment with our look, our smile, our words and our actions. Peace work in not a means, each step we take should be peace. Every step we take should be joy. Every step we take should be happiness. Are you massaging Mother Earth every time your foot touches her? Are you planting seeds of joy and peace? Enlightenment, peace and joy will not be granted by someone else. The well is within us and if we dig deeply in the present moment the water will spring forth. If we are determined, we can do it. We don't need the future. We can smile, breath fully and relax Everything we want is here in the present moment. Peace is every step. Shall we continue our journey?"


fookisan

 

[Green_Manelishi]

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Col 3:23-24

And no, my feet do not caress "mother earth". My wife says I walk like an elephant; I am not sure what that means but I am sure my footsteps are not caressing.

 

[fookisan]

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Col 3:23-24

And no, my feet do not caress "mother earth". My wife says I walk like an elephant; I am not sure what that means but I am sure my footsteps are not caressing.

Elephant...haha that's funny.

Are you heavy or just heavy footed?

If not mindful of our exertion we use in everyday life we can waste much energy that way. I read a book by a lady on simplicity and she said that many people are not mindful of how much energy they waste each day by using excessive force when such force is not needed. Such as using extra energy to grab and turn a door knob or slam a door when it is not needed.

Thanks for your quotes.


fookisan

 

[Green_Manelishi]

Elephant...haha that's funny.

Are you heavy or just heavy footed?

If not mindful of our exertion we use in everyday life we can waste much energy that way. I read a book by a lady on simplicity and she said that many people are not mindful of how much energy they waste each day by using excessive force when such force is not needed. Such as using extra energy to grab and turn a door knob or slam a door when it is not needed.

Thanks for your quotes.


fookisan

Not that heavy; very flat feet. Hard of hearing and eyesight as well so I am probably seeking audio feedback that I am actually moving forward. It's especially frightening when I am all geared up, ears covered with hood and no eyeglasses.

You are welcome for the quotes.

 

[Cacia]

I know too many divers who are not in the moment and feel bad they miss so much. Often, the whale's call is almost deafening and the melody is repeated from different directions... Then, on the boat people say they did not hear a thing.....how is this possible?

 

[Randy43068]

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Col 3:23-24

And no, my feet do not caress "mother earth". My wife says I walk like an elephant; I am not sure what that means but I am sure my footsteps are not caressing.

Thanks for the reminder. I needed that.

 

[fookisan]

I know too many divers who are not in the moment and feel bad they miss so much. Often, the whale's call is almost deafening and the melody is repeated from different directions... Then, on the boat people say they did not hear a thing.....how is this possible?

.....how is this possible?


A snip from my post to a 12 step group on blindness...I guess it applies to deafness as well?

"When a mans mind is concentrated he is blind"

Charles Ponzi provided me with a very important recovery concept. Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, was born in the late 19th century and was credited with developing the first pyramid scheme in the 1920's, which has appropriately been dubbed "The Ponzi Scheme" He would deliver the promise "Would you like to be rich? I can double your money every ninety days, guaranteed" and was successful with bilking people out of many millions of dollars For those that do not know what a pyramid or Ponzi scheme is, here is the definition from Investors World dot com:

"An illegal investment scheme in which investors are promised impossibly high returns on their investments. These are scams in which money from later investors is used to pay earlier investors. The creators of the scheme get most of the profits while those who come later are left with nothing because there are eventually an insufficient number of new investors to pay the existing ones. These scams inevitably collapse because they require exponential growth in the number of participants at each step, which is impossible."

A few years ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about Ponzi. The article stated when Ponzi was interviewed he was asked how he was able to swindle so many people so easily, his responded, "When a man's mind is concentrated he is blind." When I read this it hit home that this is what I had been doing all those years with my addictions. I was anesthetizing myself to living and dealing with life with my drugs and had done a good job blinding myself with my addictions and unbalanced way of living. This blindness lead to more blindness and more unbalance and it snowballed from there.

This case of having your mind concentrated to the point of blindness is not anything new. The ancient philosophers new this well. They called it "putting passion before reason." Both these areas of passion and reason where the foundation of much philosophical discussion of ethics and virtue with the ancient Greeks. They knew when passion rules the mind, that the only job left for reason is that of the subservient task to find cleaver ways to satisfy the passions. When our minds are occupied with too much wreckage of the past, too many problems and complexities and out of control passions then there is little room left in it for reasoning. This is why addicts make poor decisions a lot of the time. Addicts blind themselves with their addiction and out of balance life....


fookisan

 

[fookisan]

Forgot to add Catherine of Angelfish Productions...pretty photo and lovely islands you are lucky to live on.


fookisan

 

[Green_Manelishi]

.....how is this possible?

A snip from my post to a 12 step group on blindness...I guess it applies to deafness as well?

"When a mans mind is concentrated he is blind"

Charles Ponzi provided me with a very important recovery concept. Ponzi, an Italian immigrant, was born in the late 19th century and was credited with developing the first pyramid scheme in the 1920's, which has appropriately been dubbed "The Ponzi Scheme" He would deliver the promise "Would you like to be rich? I can double your money every ninety days, guaranteed" and was successful with bilking people out of many millions of dollars For those that do not know what a pyramid or Ponzi scheme is, here is the definition from Investors World dot com:

"An illegal investment scheme in which investors are promised impossibly high returns on their investments. These are scams in which money from later investors is used to pay earlier investors. The creators of the scheme get most of the profits while those who come later are left with nothing because there are eventually an insufficient number of new investors to pay the existing ones. These scams inevitably collapse because they require exponential growth in the number of participants at each step, which is impossible."

A few years ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about Ponzi. The article stated when Ponzi was interviewed he was asked how he was able to swindle so many people so easily, his responded, "When a man's mind is concentrated he is blind." When I read this it hit home that this is what I had been doing all those years with my addictions. I was anesthetizing myself to living and dealing with life with my drugs and had done a good job blinding myself with my addictions and unbalanced way of living. This blindness lead to more blindness and more unbalance and it snowballed from there.

This case of having your mind concentrated to the point of blindness is not anything new. The ancient philosophers new this well. They called it "putting passion before reason." Both these areas of passion and reason where the foundation of much philosophical discussion of ethics and virtue with the ancient Greeks. They knew when passion rules the mind, that the only job left for reason is that of the subservient task to find cleaver ways to satisfy the passions. When our minds are occupied with too much wreckage of the past, too many problems and complexities and out of control passions then there is little room left in it for reasoning. This is why addicts make poor decisions a lot of the time. Addicts blind themselves with their addiction and out of balance life....

fookisan

And then "the gub-mint" invented Social Security. It's the ultimate ponzi scheme except .... only the gub-mint gets rich !!!