Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness

  • by Jon Kabat-Zinn

“In a nutshell: The cultivation of mindfulness is not only an invaluable means of appreciating the present moment and healing the body; it is a discipline that opens our senses and gives us a way to cope with the distress and dissatisfaction of our lives and move toward the creation of a better world.” (from http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=9509)

  • relationality
  • orthogonal institutions
  • thinking turns situations into problems → situations require a response - require an analysis and observation
  • you make / u have - thinking is a fabrication - a screen between us and direct experience
  • clear thinking is powerful, but often it isn't clear
  • untrained mind-fabricating, proliferation… - invisible
  • seeing it with equanimity
  • less clinging and grasping
  • detecting fabrication
  • like writing on water
  • intention not to make anything
  • do we really know what is happening in an event? (news?)
  • removed from our direct experience until they (events) become our direct experience - can we be orthogonal, inclusive, compassionate, wise?

Shouldn't we be more engaged?

  • being aware of what we know and not know…
  • not to get caught up and blinded by our blind emotions
  • take practical steps to nurture new possibilities
  • what are we doing with our creative energies to heal the body politic

Suspension of distraction

  • communing, making eye contact, less absorbed with daily preoccupations
  • wordless presence
  • recognition of dis-ease (9/11)
  • everything is impermanent - institutions can't stop it
  • things are fundamentally uncertain - terrifying people
  • the mind forgets rapidly
  • embodiment of our deepest principles: linger collectively in suspension of distraction

Capabilities

  • capturing the full spectrum of our capabilities, rather than narrowing ourselves to only making & thinking
  • massive interior ignoring of who we are and where we live
  • own to our own sentience, come to our senses
  • start paying attention & wake up to things as they are. all else will follow.

(…)

Notes taken while listening to the audiobook:

Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Coming to Our Senses. Hyperion Audiobooks.
  • coming_to_our_senses.txt
  • Last modified: 2011-10-20 07:56
  • by nik