heart – Page 234 – Mindfulbalance

Simple daily practices: Bring awareness to your anxiety

July 20, 2011July 10, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

To begin with, I’ve found it helps me to appreciate how scared that little lizard inside each one us is. Lizards – and early mammals, emerging about 200 million years ago – that were not continually uneasy and vigilant would fail the first test of life in the wild: eat lunch – don’t be lunch – today. So be aware of the ongoing background trickle of anxiety in your mind, the subtle guarding and bracing with people and events as you move through your day. Then, again and again, try to relax some, remind yourself that you are actually alright right now, and send soothing and calming down into the most ancient layers of your mind.

Also soothe your own body. Most of the signals coming into the brain originate inside the body, not from out there in the world. Therefore, as your body settles down, that sends feedback up into your brain that all is well – or at least not too bad. Take a deep breath and feel each part of it, noticing that you are basically OK, and letting go of tension and anxiety as you exhale; repeat as you like. Shift your posture – even right now as you read this – to a more comfortable position. As you do activities such as eating, walking, using the bathroom, or going to bed, keep bringing awareness to the fact that you are safe, that necessary things are getting done just fine, that you are alive and well. Register the experience in your body of a softening, calming, and opening; savor it; stay with it for 10-20-30 seconds in a row so that it can transfer to implicit memory.

Rick Hanson, Pet the Lizard

Estranged from our true selves

July 18, 2011July 11, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Thus the state of our whole life is estrangement from others and ourselves, because we are estranged from the Ground of our being, because we are estranged from the origin and aim of our life. And we do not know where we have come from, or where we are going. We are separated from the mystery, the depth, and the greatness of our existence. We hear the voice of that depth; but our ears are closed. We feel that something radical, total, and unconditioned is demanded of us; but we rebel against it, try to escape its urgency, and will not accept its promise.

Paul Tillich

Recommended Summer Reading 3

July 18, 2011July 11, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Jeffrey Brantley is the director of the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction program at the Duke Center for Integrative Medicine. I find that he is one of the clearest and best writers about mindfulness meditation practice, giving straightforward and unfussy instructions. His latest book, written in conjunction with Wendy Millstine, is a lovely small-sized work entitled, True Belonging: Mindful Practices to Help You Overcome Loneliness, Connect with Others, and Cultivate Happiness.

The book essentially looks at how mindfulness practice can help us nurture connections and relationships, thus reducing the sense of separateness and loneliness which is increasingly common in today’s world. It is divided into four sections. The first section, called “Foundation” introduces mindfulness and leads in a core mindfulness of breath practice. The Next three sections are entitled “Connecting with yourself”, “Connecting with others” and Taking mindful and compassionate action in the world”, and consist of reflections followed by guided exercises to help the reader enter into the theme covered in each chapter.

There is a lot of lovely material contained in these short pages, which would reward any reader who takes each chapter and allows the insights and practices sink gently into the heart. For example, sections such as “The Gift of Forgiveness”. “Nourishing your hunger for Connection” or “Dissolve the Boundary” introduces readers into reflections on what separates them from others or what historical baggage may be holding them back. The subsequent exercises then, in a simple, direct way, leads the reader into mediations focused on these areas.

This book, although it does have a section introducing mindfulness, is a perfect one for deepening meditation practice and allowing it soak into the deeper aspects of our being and our lives. Its format makes it seem like a guidebook and it seems to me to be something to be taken up at different times during the summer months. It touches into, and potentially can heal, the disconnectedness arising from the mistaken beliefs we have built up about ourselves and others.

Our deep hope and intention in writing this book is that as you read the narratives here, and most importantly, you try and directly experience at least some of the practices, you will gain increased understanding, a deeper sense of connection and greater peace and happiness. And we hope and intend that you will be guided and inspired by that experience in some mysterious way so that, just possibly, our world and others in it may benefit more than ever by the beauty of your life (p. 13).

Steering the mind

July 16, 2011July 8, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

For each and every one of us, the most important thing is our state of mind. That which feels joy or sorrow, pleasure or pain, is just our mind. But our mind doesn’t have to simply react to things around us. It can be steered in different directions. You can direct yourself toward what is good, and by doing so, you get accustomed to positive thoughts. If you direct yourself toward being negative, that also can become a habit. If you allow yourself to become apathetic and not care much, you become insensitive and dull. The word spiritual refers to directing or steering our mind toward something good, something noble. Simply that. One of the most important factors in accomplishing that goal is to know how to let ourselves be completely at ease.

Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Recognizing Our Natural Mind State

We discover as we go along

July 13, 2011July 12, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Walking on the country roads near my house early yesterday. It is nice walking the same paths each day or each week – we see the changes that the seasons bring, and the colours which follow those changes. The fields demonstrate a constant succession of decay and growth. However, we also see what does not change and how the path stretches out in front of us each day, not matter how many things have moved on.

We don’t receive wisdom;

we must discover it for ourselves after a journey

that no one can take for us, or spare us.

Marcel Proust

Making time for our better health 2: Noticing internal busyness

July 12, 2011July 12, 2011 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

[The Princeton] Study (see yesterday’s post) offers an important clue about internal busyness. It’s rooted in an attitude about time. When the pace of work is intensified, as it is in modern industrial and post industrial societies, time is seen as a finite, ever-dwindling commodity. Because time sees scarce, people try to squeeze the maximum amount of productivity out of every minute. They tend to spend less time on things like meditation, contemplation and singing – activities that can’t be made increase the “yield” on the time invested in them. Even we…who supposedly have our eyes on the inner depths of life, often find ourselves living by the basic capitalist assumption that what we do needs to yield a quantifiable result. How many of us got interested in meditation when we read about University of Wisconsin studies that showed that people who meditate can increase activity in the “happiness” section of the brain? This assumption – that if we are going to spend time on something, it needs to produce a measurable yield – is one root of internal busyness.