In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs, I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred, but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder, as an architect of peace. School Prayer (excerpt) by Diane Ackerman
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When meditating you practise noticing when and where the mind wanders and gently bringing it back to a chosen focus or 'anchor'. You soon discover it does this a lot and that mind wandering is not a mistake, it is a big part of the practice. And you also find that the mind has some well-worn thinking patterns that it quite automatically wanders into...
How is this helpful? When you regularly practise noticing where your mind travels to, you start to notice this more often as you go about your day. And it gradually becomes second nature. This awareness of thoughts brings choice. When you notice your mind's activities in this way you can gently label it as 'thinking' and you can note what flavour of thinking it is. Planning thoughts... Maybe rumination... Or an overly feisty inner critic is here? Are these thoughts helpful or not? Are they misleading? Do you want to be thinking about this in this moment? Are they taking you away from something that you don't want to miss... or are they a helpful distraction? Thinking isn't a bad thing. But sometimes it's not helpful or it takes us places we don't need to go. We can spend a lot of time living in our heads. Practising awareness of thoughts as thoughts ('metacognition') brings choice. 'Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvellous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.’
~Rainer Maria Rilke Finding equanimity in relationships is not easy. Breathe, spaciousness, allowing, opening to, insight, patience, trust, compassion... practice... beginning again A really timely piece by Jamie Bristow on the role mindfulness could and should play in social change. More than just stepping back, how can mindfulness make wise decisions and skilful actions?
www.opendemocracy.net/en/transformation/time-new-thinking-about-mindfulness-and-social-change/?fbclid=IwAR2hiOy1I2N1bKeabt4f1g1rv_shlM1hdfIxeoh3XBkkMjXb9gZM8PRr0lw |
AuthorI'm Claire - and I (re)learn something every day from practising and teaching mindfulness... Archives
March 2022
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