Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.
Alan Alda
Thinking is a three-step process.
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Category Archives: Mindfulness
Mindfulness: Speaking clearly, communication in a modern world.
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.
If a man speaks or acts with a pure mind, joy follows him as his own shadow.
Dhammapada 1:2
Man is not worried about real problems so much as his imagined anxieties about real problems.
Epictetus.
Our thoughts and speech reflect the emotional tone of our lives.
Our speech reflects our thoughts, which are often present as an internal, private dialogue. Our thoughts do not become clear until we give them substance by putting them into words, either as private self talk in our mind, or more publicly when we start to speak, or send a message over social media.
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Mountains of mindfulness.
Do you need to convert to Buddhism? Do you need to abandon the tradition in which you were raised or the ideals to which you have a deep commitment? Do you need to cast aside anything that your intellect or understanding of the world tells you is true?
Absolutely not. You can retain your current frame of reference and accept only what you are prepared to accept, a piece at a time, and only what you in fact find helpful.
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana. Beyond Mindfulness – in plain English.
When I was a teenager the space race was in full swing.
Neil Armstrong was making a complete hash of his line about one small step, and the world was looking outward into the depths of interstellar space.
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Why yo-yos don’t get depressed.
It is a widely accepted axiom that what goes up must come down.
Yet the converse does not seem to be true.
A much harder question to answer is; “Why do only some things that go down, come up again?”.
Repaying the sleep mortgage at three months a year.
Some people cannot sleep because they have insomnia. Me? I cannot sleep because I have an Internet connection.
Sleep is a sadly neglected part of human life. If we are short of time, if we have too much to do, or are under pressure at work, or with our homework, we tend to scrimp on our sleep. Working an all nighter is a badge of honour in some companies. This sounds like a good idea, freeing up more time for us to deal with the stressful goings on in our lives. However we may just be storing up more trouble for ourselves than we avoid.
Many of the old wives tales and nursery rhymes contain a large element of truth.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a boy healthy, wealthy and wise.
You need your beauty sleep.
Missing a night of sleep has the same effects on our brains as having a blood alcohol level that is above the legal driving limit.
Mindfulness: Flow states and staying calm.
“To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.”
Dogen Zenji 1200-1253
When I was young my grandmother took me to see a Chinese circus perform in Edinburgh. One of my favourite acts was the mysterious girl in the red cheongsam, emblazoned with dragons, who span plates on long bamboo poles. I became quite worried as the plates slowed down and looked as though they were about to topple to the ground and smash at any moment.
Only this never happened.
Mindfulness for all
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates
Mindfulness has gone mainstream. No longer the preserve of ancient and inscrutable oriental monks or bearded hippie weirdos, it is now being taught in schools. Several leading US companies are providing training to their workers and it is touted as the cure for many of the ills that affect modern man. Even the United States military are training their soldiers in mindfulness techniques.
Adapted from Buddhist teaching and increasingly applied to psychology and then to the mundane world, mindfulness is advertised as helping all psychological disorders from depression, where it is described as being as effective as antidepressant medication, through eating disorders and drug addiction to ADHD. Although it is less helpful for physical disorders, if you believe the newspapers and the internet, it is said to help with heart disease, cancer, lowering blood pressure, chronic pain, sleep and a myriad of other conditions. It leads to a longer life, better health and a much greater sense of wellbeing. Mindfulness boosts the immune system, leads to sporting prowess and better parenting, reduces anger and sets free creativity. The scientific evidence suggests that it is a key element in happiness.
Has mindfulness become a twenty first century panacea?
Vajra Blue 
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