I have been attempting to get back to some old practices that I discovered in my latter years of school in an attempt to live a more mindful and enlightened life. I'm not sure how familiar anyone is with Mindfulness or how many of you have an interest in yoga or meditation, but I have found some peace in these practices over the years and would like to share them with you in hopes that maybe they will help you as well. Below are seven of the Mindfulness principles that deal with our attitudes towards thoughts and feelings. If anyone has an interest or if these ideas strike a chord with you and you'd like to know more about meditation, yoga, or Mindfulness I'd be happy to share some books, podcasts, and cds you could check out for guidance. Note: Mindfulness is not a religious practice, but rather a healthy way of life that promotes a positive mind and loving heart. It is conducive to all other philosophies based in love and wellness.
Nonjudging: To do this requires that you become aware of the constant stream of judging and reacting to inner and outer experiences that we are normally caught up in and learn to step back from it.
Patience: Intentionally reminding ourselves that there is no need to be impatient with ourselves because we find the mind judging all of the time, or because we are tense or agitated or worried, or because we have been practicing mindfulness for some time and nothing positive seems to have happened.
A Beginner's Mind: To see the richness of the present moment (afterall, where else does life occur?), we need to cultivate what has been called "beginner's mind"--a mind that is willing to see everthing as if for the first time. No moment is the same as any other. Each is unique and contains unique possibilities. Beginner's Mind reminds us of this simple truth.
Trust: Developing a basic trust in yourself and your feelings is an integral part of meditation training. This will be particularly useful in the yoga practice. When practicing yoga, it is important to honor your feelings and listen to when your body tells you to stop or to back off in a particular stretch. If you don't listen, you might injure yourself.
Nonstriving: Almost everthing we do we do for a purpose, to get something or somewhere. But, in meditation, this attitude can be a real obstacle. Ultimately, meditating is non-doing. It has no goal other than for you to be yourself. In the meditative domain, the best way to achieve your goals is to back off from striving for results and, instead, to start focusing carefully on seeing and accepting things as they are, moment to moment.
Acceptance: Acceptance means seeing things as they actually are in the present. If you have a headache, accept that you have a headache. If you are in pain, emotionally or physically, accept that you are in pain. Acceptance does not mean that you have to like everything or that you have to take a passive attitude. It does not mean that you are satisfied with things as they are. Acceptance, as we are speaking of it simply means that you have a willingness to see things as they are. In meditation practice, we cultivate acceptance by taking each moment as it comes and being with it fully, as it is. We try not to impose our ideas about what we should be feeling or thinking or seeing on our experience, but be receptive and open to whatever we are feeling, thinking, or seeing and to accept it because it is here right now.
Letting Go: In meditation practice we intentionally put aside the tendency to elevate some aspects of our experience and to reject others--prolonging pleasant thoughts or feelings and trying to get rid of the unpleasant. Instead, we just let our experience be what it is and practice observing it from moment to moment.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
What Do Today's Kids Need? Smarter Adults.
I've been hearing this sentiment a lot lately--being that my mother and mother-in-law are both teachers--that kids today are out of control. They're cussing at young ages and talking about sex and guns and shooting each other in school, etc. and it never used to be this way. Well, first off, yes, it did used to be this way, it just wasn't this way for suburbanite middle-class white kids. And now it is. Actually I can still remember cussing and talking about sex and violence at a pretty early age--never shot at anyone, but I probably wished I had the sack to a few times.
My mothers both share the opinion that because there is no longer prayer in schools, this is why kids are going crazy. I respectfully disagree (mostly because I went to Catholic school my whole life and never did or didn't do anything good or bad based on the fact that I was being forced to pray to a God I didn't understand or necessarily agree with). I believe the real problem is that kids today have access to information beyond our parent's wildest dreams and the adults aren't keeping up. If you are my age, 27, or there abouts, imagine going through college without the internet for research. WHAT? Actually having to go through microfilms and books to find little tidbits that we can now punch into a computer screen and in one second have everything ever written in the entire world. This is what today's kids get from day one. Not only this but they are smart enough to get into things that kids probably shouldn't see--such as sexual content, violent video clips, etc--but are. So what do we do about this? It makes sense to me to deal with it in a way that addresses the problem. We didn't ask for kids to be exposed to this stuff and we certainly can't stop it completely. If they want to see things they shouldn't see, they're going to find a computer somewhere where they can access these things. Can we talk to them? Is this that big of a deal? I don't have kids so I don't want to assert too much here, but I can't imagine myself not just sitting down with my child and explaining why these things can be harmful to their worldview. And if I can't explain it, maybe I should consider that I'm being close-minded and that this is just a change the world is going through--not the coming of days.
I don't know the answer, but I certainly remember what I thought as a teen. I wanted the WHY behind everything. If an adult couldn't give me the WHY I usually considered that adult pretty ignorant. I respected adults with answers, with information. Not just because they earned their place as the Alpha, but because they made me a smarter person and usually didn't ask me to do things based on their own laziness and apathy. So, I'm sorry my fellow adults, there is a traitor in your midst. I'm with the kids on this one. Give them information, talk to them like intelligent human beings, they'll respect you. Order them around like some kind of dictator who deserves respect simply for being alive longer, and I gurantee they're going to rebel.
My mothers both share the opinion that because there is no longer prayer in schools, this is why kids are going crazy. I respectfully disagree (mostly because I went to Catholic school my whole life and never did or didn't do anything good or bad based on the fact that I was being forced to pray to a God I didn't understand or necessarily agree with). I believe the real problem is that kids today have access to information beyond our parent's wildest dreams and the adults aren't keeping up. If you are my age, 27, or there abouts, imagine going through college without the internet for research. WHAT? Actually having to go through microfilms and books to find little tidbits that we can now punch into a computer screen and in one second have everything ever written in the entire world. This is what today's kids get from day one. Not only this but they are smart enough to get into things that kids probably shouldn't see--such as sexual content, violent video clips, etc--but are. So what do we do about this? It makes sense to me to deal with it in a way that addresses the problem. We didn't ask for kids to be exposed to this stuff and we certainly can't stop it completely. If they want to see things they shouldn't see, they're going to find a computer somewhere where they can access these things. Can we talk to them? Is this that big of a deal? I don't have kids so I don't want to assert too much here, but I can't imagine myself not just sitting down with my child and explaining why these things can be harmful to their worldview. And if I can't explain it, maybe I should consider that I'm being close-minded and that this is just a change the world is going through--not the coming of days.
I don't know the answer, but I certainly remember what I thought as a teen. I wanted the WHY behind everything. If an adult couldn't give me the WHY I usually considered that adult pretty ignorant. I respected adults with answers, with information. Not just because they earned their place as the Alpha, but because they made me a smarter person and usually didn't ask me to do things based on their own laziness and apathy. So, I'm sorry my fellow adults, there is a traitor in your midst. I'm with the kids on this one. Give them information, talk to them like intelligent human beings, they'll respect you. Order them around like some kind of dictator who deserves respect simply for being alive longer, and I gurantee they're going to rebel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
