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Life unfolds in the present. But so often, we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized, and squandering the precious seconds of our lives as we worry about the future and ruminate about what’s past.
When we’re at work, we fantasize about being on vacation; on vacation, we worry about the work piling up on our desks. We dwell on intrusive memories of the past or fret about what may or may not happen in the future. We don’t appreciate the living present because our “monkey minds,†as Buddhists call them, vault from thought to thought like monkeys swinging from tree to tree.
Most of us don’t undertake our thoughts in awareness. Rather, our thoughts control us. “Ordinary thoughts course through our mind like a deafening waterfall,†writes Jon Kabat-Zinn, the biomedical scientist who introduced meditation into mainstream medicine. In order to feel more in control of our minds and our lives, to find the sense of balance that eludes us, we need to step out of this current, to pause, and, as Kabat-Zinn puts it, to “rest in stillness—to stop doing and focus on just being.â€
We need to live more in the moment. Living in the moment—also called mindfulness—is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. When you become mindful, you realize that you are not your thoughts; you become an observer of your thoughts from moment to moment without judging them. Mindfulness involves being with your thoughts as they are, neither grasping at them nor pushing them away. Instead of letting your life go by without living it, you awaken to experience.
Cultivating a nonjudgmental awareness of the present bestows a host of benefits. Mindfulness reduces stress, boosts immune functioning, reduces chronic pain, lowers blood pressure, and helps patients cope with cancer. By alleviating stress, spending a few minutes a day actively focusing on living in the moment reduces the risk of heart disease. Mindfulness may even slow the progression of HIV.
Mindful people are happier, more exuberant, more empathetic, and more secure. They have higher self-esteem and are more accepting of their own weaknesses. Anchoring awareness in the here and now reduces the kinds of impulsivity and reactivity that underlie depression, binge eating, and attention problems. Mindful people can hear negative feedback without feeling threatened. They fight less with their romantic partners and are more accommodating and less defensive. As a result, mindful couples have more satisfying relationships.
Mindfulness is at the root of Buddhism, Taoism, and many Native-American traditions, not to mention yoga. It’s why Thoreau went to Walden Pond; it’s what Emerson and Whitman wrote about in their essays and poems.
Tags: Art of Living
Still the Mind Give up everything you are holding. That’s all you have to do. Let go or be dragged. And your mind becomes free of any attachments, vasanas and desires. This is freedom. See that your mind is not longing after any object. All objects are past objects. Attachment is an impediment to this wisdom, consciousness and light. If you can give up all attachments of the mind until this moment, you can imagine what will happen. Discrimination, clarity and desire for freedom will arise in a pure mind. Everybody wants to understand intellectually, but the intellect cannot carry you across to the other shore. So, be free of the mind, of the intellect, and then you will see that you are your Self: Being, Knowledge-Bliss. Somehow, you have lost touch with your real self, therefore in satsang you are reminded, “You are Being-Knowledge-Bliss.†Whatever you are doing, you are doing from within your consciousness. ‘You’ are not doing, ‘It’ is doing. Put the responsibility of action on Consciousness, and be free. 'It' is doing, it's that simple!
Tags: Art of Living
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