Tag: Mindfulness

Where we should invest

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The 2008 Annual Meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists at Imperial College, London was told that the evidence-base for the therapeutic value of meditation for a wide range of health problems was significantly stronger than most pharmaceutical products. A new meta-analysis of 823 randomly controlled trials of meditation, conducted by the US National Institute of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, showed the clinical benefits of meditation across a wide range of physical and emotional disorders.

Meditation is a way of life rather than quick fix achieved by using gimmicks such as incense, music and light, Dr Avdesh Sharma, past president of the Indian Psychiatric Association, said. It doesn’t work immediately. You need to practice it for several weeks before the effects begin to be felt. Dr Sharma added: If meditation was a drug, we’d all want shares in it. It has a beneficial effect on most physical health problems and is very effective for mental health problems significantly reducing levels of depression, anxiety and insomnia by improving relaxation, oxygenation of the brain, and energy levels.

Paying attention

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Meditation is really about paying attention,
and the only way we can pay attention is through the senses,  including the mind.

Mindfulness is a way of befriending ourselves, and our experience.

Jon Kabat Zinn

Being kind

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Appreciative words are the most powerful force for good on the earth. George W. Crane

Most of us would not consider ourselves to be deliberately unkind. However, it is probably true that we miss many occasions each day to be more kind.  We ourselves can probably remember occasions when we were hurt by others not doing something – not listening, not noticing when we did something, not being there when we needed them. Being kind does not always mean having to give beyond our strength. The Buddha spoke of making  “offerings that cost nothing“, such as  a compassionate eye, a smiling face, and loving words. So let us do the simple things, such as being present, or acknowledging what was done or saying words that are within our capacity to say, knowing that our heartfelt words can make such a difference in peoples lives.

Kindness in words creates confidence,

Kindness in thinking creates profoundness

Kindness in giving creates love.

Lao Tzu

Halloween demons and monsters

Karl Duffy1 Comment

A similar post with a halloween theme, on how to work with the fears which our mind creates. It suggests that the best way to work with our fears involves turning towards and holding them in non-judgmental awareness, rather than fighting or running away:

Normally we empower our demons by believing that they are real and strong in themselves and have the power to destroy us…. [But]…demons are ultimately part of the mind and, as such, have no independent existence.

Nonetheless we engage with them as though they were real, and we believe in their existence – ask anyone who has fought post-traumatic stress, or addiction, or anxiety. The mind perceives demons as real, so we get up caught up in battling with them. Usually this habit of fighting against our perceived problems gives demons strength, rather than weakening them. In the end all demons are rooted in our tendency to create polarization. By understanding how to work with this tendency  – to try and dominate the perceived enemy and to see things as either/or – we free ourselves from demons by eliminating them at their very source.

Tsultrim Allione, Feeding your Demons: Ancient Wisdon for Resolving Inner Conflict

Things to do this weekend

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Modern culture keeps sending all these messages that the people who know how to live properly are always doing something.

The great question “What are you doing this weekend?” keeps coming up, as if that defines us. We hear talk about lives where everything is “so busy that I do not have time to think”, or “I am so busy I never have time for myself”, or “I am so busy I am exhausted”, and this word, busy, busy, busy comes up time and again, and it starts to sound like an epidemic –  an epidemic of busyness.

Abbot Christopher Jameson, The Big Silence, BBC2

The difficulties are the way

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View all problems as challenges.
Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow.
Don’t run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence.

You have a problem? Great.
More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English