Tag: Mindfulness

Sunday Quote: Letting go of our stories…

Karl Duffy3 Comments

[Penguin]

When we become fixed in our perceptions,

we lose our ability to fly

Yongey Mingpur Rinpoche

When we become a mood

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Normally, as a negative mood arises, it catches hold and infects the whole mind – we become that mood – with its characteristic form. This is the big weakness of the undeveloped mind – it makes how I feel into who I am. There’s a grasp, a contraction, and we get pushed into the story, get mesmerized by it and rehash it time and time again.

Ajahn Sucitto, Kamma and the End of Kamma

Stress proofing the mind

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Bus Runner 2Unless we train it the mind does the minimum necessary to fulfill a function. In that way it is like the body. For example, our muscles and bones are strong enough for us to walk – but not to run, unless we condition them…..The difference between the mind and the body is that no one is surprised to get winded while running to catch the bus. Nobody get’s mad at themselves, saying “I can’t believe I can’t run 26.2 miles!” However, when we get overwhelmed by longer hours at work, more emails or more parenting duties, we become irritable, moody and unhappy. It does not occur to us that our mind is out of shape. We put more stress on ourselves because we assume we should be able to handle it all.

Sakyong Mipham, Running with the Mind of Mediation

Noticing our Wandering Mind

Karl Duffy3 Comments

Unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. Indeed, “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation… Our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the nonpresent. A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Mind-wandering is an excellent predictor of people’s happiness. In fact, how often our minds leave the present and where they tend to go is a better predictor of our happiness than the activities in which we are engaged…. [So] ..The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.

Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel T. Gilbert, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind”, Science Magazine

Addicted to thinking

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Most of the time we are not aware of being alive. We are too busy living. Our daily dramas, plans and desires fill our minds: we are addicted storytellers (both waking and sleeping) constantly rehearsing scripts and scenarios that we wish to arise or that may arise. The more mental energy we give our stories, the faster they spin and the more intense the experience becomes. It is powerfully addictive and feeds on itself. It is the ultimate drug and like any drug, increasing amounts are needed to maintain the intensity. Should the intensity drop for any length of time, we believe that something has gone wrong…If we run out of fantasies to pursue, we say that life has become meaningless.

Simon Small, From the Bottom of the Pool

Things come toward us

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I know that nothing has ever been real
without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
And they come toward me, to meet and be met.

 

Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

 

The quality of life is in proportion to the capacity for delight.

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

May Sarton