Living in a distracted age

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Philosopher Alain de Botton on the effects of the relentless barrage of information which our minds are subject to in today’s world and how we need to re-learn and practice the ability to switch off:

One of the more embarrassing and self-indulgent challenges of our time is the task of relearning how to concentrate. The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible…..The need to diet, which we know so well in relation to food, and which runs so contrary to our natural impulses, should be brought to bear on what we now have to relearn in relation to knowledge, people, and ideas. Our minds, no less than our bodies, require periods of fasting.

Do not look for answers

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Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.

Rilke

Sunday Quote: Choosing

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You are what you want to become.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Realities which make life beautiful

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I was talking earlier today with someone about time spent I spent in the Ecumenical community in Taize in France many years ago, when the founder, Br. Roger,  was still alive. His extraordinary simplicity and humanity was very striking, managing to combine a deep inner life with an understanding of what makes for full human growth. He witnessed a time of hatred and war in his youth and went on to create a community that healed divisions. Many of his words, like these ones, reduce life down to its essence, away from the fears which make us lose faith in each other.

Are there realities which make life beautiful and of which it can be said that they bring a kind of fulfillment, an inner joy? Yes, there are. And one of these realities bears the name of trust. Do we realize that what is best in each of us is built up through a simple trusting? This is something even a child can do.

Br Roger.

First steps in Mindfulness: Strengthen concentration

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Too many meditators get discouraged at the beginning because their minds won’t settle down. But just as you can’t wait until you’re  strong before you start strength training, you can’t wait until your concentration is strong before you start sitting.  Only by exercising what little concentration you have will you make it solid and steady.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Building your mental muscles

How meditation leads to kindness

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Think of Mindfulness as the habit of seeing things in an uncomplicated way. We generally don’t. Based on our individual histories, our memories, and our fears, we often make up our reality out of a projected worry and frighten or discourage ourselves. Mindfulness is seeing things as they actually are,  not as we imagine them to be.

Mindfulness practice… supports our ability to best serve. It keeps our motivation going. I say, “When we see, even in the simplest circumstances, how difficult it is to stay content, how easily irritated we become, how many worries we have, how hard it is to relax — we intuit that that must be true for other people as well. All other people. And we start to be kinder. We are kinder to ourselves and, ultimately, more forgiving of others. The world would get happier if everyone relaxed and forgave each other.” Usually people think about that a moment. Then they smile and say, “I think you’re right.”

Sylvia Boorstein