As those of you with children know, rational parenting is like the Loch Ness Monster. We all hope it's out there somewhere, but we don't know anyone who has actually discovered it (and if we do come across someone who claims to have found it, deep down we think that person is a little off.
Attention can be trained very naturally, with affection, just as you train a puppy. When something distracts your attention, you say “Come back” and bring it back again. With a lot of training, you can teach your mind to come running back to you when you call, just like a friendly pup.
The daily mindfulness, consistency, and discipline is ultimately more important than the amount of time. In other words, it’s more about quality than quantity. If you use 15 minutes effectively, you’ll accomplish more than you would be able to with two hours of unfocused, random actions.
The pursuit of material-external things as if they can provide deep and lasting happiness is contributing to a dwindling of real meaning and is a factor contributing to an increase in mental health problems. It just isn't possible to fill the hole inside us by piling up the things outside us." pg9
You are not your thoughts; you are aware of your thoughts. You are not your emotions; you feelemotions. You are not your body; you look at it in the mirror and experience this world through its eyes and ears. You are the conscious being who is aware that you are aware of all these inner and outer things.
In the 1991 movie City Slickers, Jack Palance gives Billy Crystal some profoundly simple advice. When Crystal asks him the secret of life, Palance holds up a forefinger, answers with a single word: "One."Choose one thing. Do it to the best of your ability. Let it go. Pick something else. Repeat endlessly.
Conversion of our views of self in light of God is continual. We daily have to take the time to notice and trust in who he is in order to understand who we are. The book of Romans assures us that God's Spirit will fill each moment of our lives if we notice and trust the way he is repairing our humanity.
Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is. It teaches the heart to be more accommodating, not by beating it into submission, but by making it clear that accommodation is a gratifying choice.
My trouble is that I think there is a track that things should stay on. I'm hooked to a belief that life should go a certain way. I develop an attachment to Plan A and set up my expectations accordingly. An important part of spiritual practice is to learn to let go, to recognize that Plan A exists only in my head.
The leaves that remain are only a very small part of the tea. The tea that goes into me is a much bigger part of the tea. It is the richest part.We are the same; our essence has gone into our children, our friends, and the entire universe. We have to find ourselves in those directions and not in the spent tea leaves.
We have a right to decide how we want our bodies to look and feel, but unfortunately we do not exercise these rights. Instead, we tend to drift along, victims of our own ignorance of the fact that we can have what we want, if we are willing to take that first step toward developing the self-discipline to govern our thoughts.
We cannot control the mind by trying to force it to be peaceful or positive. Many have attempted this using a plethora of methods throughout the ages, but it simply does not work. Trying to fight the human mind is like walking into a lion’s den empty-handed and believing that you have a realistic chance of defending yourself.
Write that novel, sail that boat. And if you can't, immerse yourself in the fantasy, be the ultimate dabbler, just enjoy what it is you enjoy. It'll help you get well if you're going to get well, and it'll help you sail that great boat in the sky if that's what's going to happen. Onwards and Upwards. No regrets.
Not everyone wants to take up meditation, but most people can feel an alignment with values like mutual respect, insightful investigation, listening to one another.Meditation is a way to help those values become real in day-to-day life, helping people to understand themselves more and more and have a way to not get lost in old patterns.
It is also important to understand that, even though you have been taught to believe that your mind is in charge of life, it was not designed for this. It is an exquisite tool for maneuvering through your life, but it is not supposed to be in charge of it. Life is in charge of your life, and it does a lot better job than your mind does.
