1 John 4:9-11 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Spiritually Awake is my latest Web resource. If you would like to participate, I am adding new author articles and contributing editors. You can message me here or at Spiritually Awake to learn more.
Are you paying attention to me, Feet say to Mind.
Mind abruptly stops its chatter momentarily to say
I know you are there. Of course I know.
Feet respond that they would like to feel mind’s presence.
Mind says there are many important things
for me to think, to remember, to plan.
You are so clever, thinking highly of yourself
and the endless seductive ideas that pop
on and off of your screen, says Feet.
Please offer me your full attention
and together we will walk in freedom,
free from illusions and ignorance,
free to truly love and feel loved
free to fully embrace and enjoy
the miracle of walking in beauty
on this precious planet
at this very wonderful moment.
Helped by mindful breath’s calming
Mind smiles while letting go of its thinking
and experiences the miracle
of being alive
walking with Feet.
“Emotions are related to activity in brain areas that direct our attention, motivate our behaviour, and determine the significance of what is going on around us.”
It is so important to keep this in mind because heightened emotions have such a powerful and far-reaching impact on our lives, and the lives of those around us. Our emotions determine what we notice, how we react, and how we perceive and evaluate our environment. It’s no wonder that things look better in the morning when you’re feeling more composed. At that point your emotions are more under control, more bearable, because the immediate intensity of your emotional reaction has dissipated. This then has a calming effect on your perception of your circumstances; you tend see things in a calmer light, which then results in more mediated behaviour.
It’s just another reason why mindfulness it so important. And now neuroscience provides the…
Visit http://globalmeditation.chopra.com/ and sign up to be part of the global meditation event of the year, and help set the Guinness World Record for the largest meditation gathering in history. Join Deepak Chopra, Gabrielle Bernstein, India Arie, and Maya Tiwari.
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There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try themselves, and those who are afraid that you will succeed.
Our true home is in the here and the now. Thích Nhất Hạnh . Yesterday perhaps I understood for a moment what Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches, in his book, that “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.”
Today, I look again, and there is a new awakening. I am still and I learn that perhaps when we cling to a past, it may not seem harmful and it may seem natural if we are disturbed to allow this. Yet, the stillness allows me to know this is suffering.
Still Cling is perhaps meant in a manner of speaking as emotionally forming around the possession or being right/justified about a situation that involves blame of others and even as important perhaps it may describe the feeling of shame that we might Still Cling onto that then will keep us stuck from any progress as though we are jailed by the delusion.
In his book, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation… Thích Nhất Hạnh says, “The Three Kinds of Pride are: (1) thinking I am better than the other(s); (2) thinking I am worse than the other(s); and (3) thinking I am just as good as the other(s).”
In the stillness of now I see that I may live in the dream manifestation of past emotion as the dream. I see also the freedom in mindful stillness. In this moment then, in Honesty now, I am free to let go of perceptions. In a now moment, I am the dreamer. Thus I am free in any such moment from suffering to Still Cling. In a regular practice, I may expand personal freedom.
These moments of awareness dissolve many illusory perceptions in days and weeks of practice. .
. WisdomFilms, a genre in contemplative life-enhancing media, offer short films as a way to stop, take a breath, and come home to yourself, restoring balance to your mind, heart, and soul. By featuring spoken wisdom from today’s most acclaimed voices in self-help and spirituality, these films can help to create sacred space within and without, providing personal sanctuaries of profound beauty and peace.
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Thanks for visiting.
Eric
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I assist spiritual authors, artists, and bloggers… free… just e-mail me: thehunt4truth@yahoo.com
Results of a study conducted with the use of the Wim Hof method suggest that a person can learn to consciously control his immune responses. Wim Hof is a Dutch world record holder who is famous worldwide for his ability to resist cold. For this incredible invulnerability to cold, he was commonly nicknamed “the Iceman.”
Scientists led by Matthijs Kox of the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, studied his method, which is similar to the Tibetan Tummo technique (yoga of inner heat) and involves third-eye meditation, breathing exercises and cold exposure, and used it to train 12 volunteers to fend off inflammation.
In the framework of the study, 24 volunteers, including 12 people trained in the Wim Hof method and 12 who did not undergo any training, were subjected to the inflammation test, during which they were injected with a strain of bacteria that provokes flu-like symptoms.
As a result, volunteers who underwent training with Hof method reported fewer and less intense flu-like symptoms than those who did not. At the same time, trained volunteers produced smaller amounts of proteins related to inflammation, and higher levels of interleukin-10, an inflammation-fighting protein.
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I’ve updated this post by adding comment and content. So, Wim Hof first caught the attention of scientists when he proved he was able to use meditation to stay submerged in ice for an hour and 53 minutes without his core body temperature changing. Since then, he’s climbed Mount Everest in his shorts, resisted altitude sickness, completed a marathon in the Namib Desert with no water, and he’s proven in a scientific laboratory setting that he’s able to influence his autonomic nervous system and his immune system, at will.
Almost everything Wim has done was previously thought to be impossible, but he is not a freak of nature.
To demonstrate that any human can learn his methods, Wim offered to teach Matt Shea and Daisy-May Hudson to climb a freezing cold mountain in their shorts without getting cold. But when Matt and Daisy signed up for the training, they had no idea that the so-called Iceman was planning to lead them on a psychedelic journey across Europe that circled the chasm between science, spirituality and mystery. Watch this:
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I love science breakthroughs.
Now, if you’ve been following this blog and and links that I provide, you possibly have been undergoing changes and looking back over time, I wonder if you are aware that there is by now a new more present and capable and confident you. Every day, I kept at this. Its been more than seven months now since I began my every day is a perfect day to improve back in December. If you missed any of it, you can use the archive. I added a new category: I can improve today. If you don’t already have a daily improvement routine, take a lesson every day or two and I’ll think you’ll notice a difference in a few weeks. I have more than 75 posts in this category.
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Thanks for visiting.
Eric
I assist spiritual authors,
artists, and bloggers.
1. Increases immune function 2. Decreases Pain 3. Decreases Inflammation at the Cellular Level 4. Increases Positive Emotion 5. Decreases Depression 6. Decreases Anxiety 7. Decreases Stress 8. Increases social connection & emotional intelligence 9. Makes you more compassionate 10. Makes you feel less lonely 11. Improves your ability to regulate your emotions 12. Improves your ability to introspect 13. Increases grey matter 14. Increases emotion regulation, positive emotions & self-control 15. Increases cortical thickness in areas related to paying attention 16. Increases your focus & attention 17. Improves your ability to multitask 18. Improves your memory 19. Improves your ability to be creative 20. It makes you wise(r)
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Program Description Meditation. If you believe leading research scientists, it’s as close to a magic pill as we can get! Let’s take a quick look at 5 reasons why meditation is awesome along with 10 tips on how to rock it! This is a Big Idea fromOptimal Living 101.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the 87-year-old Zen master considered by many to be the father of mindfulness in the west, says as long as business leaders practice “true” mindfulness, it does not matter if the original intention is triggered by wanting to be more effective at work or to make bigger profits. That is because the practice will fundamentally change their perspective on life as it naturally opens hearts to greater compassion and develops the desire to end the suffering of others.
Sitting in a lotus position on the floor of his monastery at Plum Village near Bordeaux, France, Thay tells the Guardian: “If you know how to practice mindfulness you can generate peace and joy right here, right now. And you’ll appreciate that and it will change you. In the beginning, you believe that if you cannot become number one, you cannot be happy, but if you practice mindfulness…
Simple is best when beginning anything. So, today, I’ll give you a simple practice for making the most of every moment. This technique comes from Thich Nhat Hanh.
Use this practice daily for a month — if stressed at all — if you are low on energy — if you are lacking sometimes in concentration; You will VERY likely notice a substantial difference — Or if this sort of practice is entirely new to you then you will notice a difference in that you now have a way to find inner peace and serenity.
Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the world’s leading teachers of mindfulness and meditation. He claims that life is available only in the here and the now; it is our “true home” according to his teachings. This mindfulness meditation is simple and isn’t at all religious.
I’ll summarize the five steps here.
Mindfulness (here and the now) living as a practice of five simple steps that you can use in just about every moment of your day.
Thich presents mindfulness (here and the now) living as a practice of five simple steps that you can use in just about very moment of your day.
1) Mindful Breathing, 2) Concentration, 3) Awareness of Your Body, 4) Releasing Tension, and 5) Walking Meditation
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Most people are often caught up in a state being preoccupied… forgetful of inner peace (true self); not really present at least during some of their time. Is your mind ever caught-up by worries, fears, by regrets, anger, by obsession? That is the state of “being forgetfulness” — here but, not here…. caught-up in being preoccupied.
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Thich Nhat Hanh’s method is designed to bring mindfulness home, into your body, to become more fully alive, and to perform the miracle of mindfulness — always. If you discipline yourself to practice the simple five steps, you can do so in every moment. The more that you are fully in the moment, the healthier will you be as we’ve discovered in my previous article.
Simple… the “Five Steps to Mindfulness” is a simple way to relax and energize. It brings more blood into the brain and it facilitates a deeply relaxed peacefulness. It is so simple you can use it all the time. Use it always.
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1. “Breathing in, I know that I am breathing in.”
You don’t make an effort. Allow your breath to take place. Become aware of it and enjoy it…. think: Effortlessness and simple Enjoyment.
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2. “The energy of mindfulness is the energy of concentration.”
Follow your in-breath from the beginning to the end. If your in-breath lasts three or four seconds, then your mindfulness also lasts three or four seconds. Breathing in, I follow my in-breath all the way through. Breathing out, I follow my out-breath all the way through. From the beginning of my out-breath to the end of my out-breath, my mind is always with here with my breath.
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3. “Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body.”
My body is here, so my mind ought to be here. Put peace and harmony in your breathing; the peace and the harmony will penetrate into the body, and the body will profit.
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4. “There is peace and harmony in your breathing.”
Practice this simple affirmation often during the day: “Breathing in, I’m aware of my body. Breathing out, I release the tension in my body.”
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5. “Every step is joy. “
You don’t make any effort during walking meditation, because it is enjoyable. You are here, body and mind together. The last step is to remind you during every transition that may occur in your day, be here, be relaxed, breathing and aware of peacefulness.
I begin the day with a simple mindfulness morning Meditation followed by a simple prayer and breakfast. It takes only a few minutes to get the day started and thus retain the benefit of rest and to charge up my body with lasting daytime energy. NOTE: while stillness of mind is ideal, the fact that we begin to notice bothersome thought is actually tremendous progress — so, expect progress and relax into realizing that with practice comes progress.
Alternatively, you may prefer this simple standing movement:
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If you like a more varied routine, try the video technique one day and the morning Meditation another day… the essential key to making progress is really that by increasing mindfulness, you will become more healthy, more energetic, and peacefully relaxed.
Jon Kabat-Zinn: “Mindfulness is paying attention in the present moment in a non-judgmental way.”
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When we engage in mental training,
we change the function and structure of our brain.
In this respect, the mind is no different than the body…
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Becoming Conscious: The Science of Mindfulness
The final event of the 2013 “The Emerging Science of Consciousness Series” presented by the Nour Foundation, Wisconsin Public Radio’s nationally-syndicated program features Neuroscientists Richard Davidson and Amishi Jha joined clinical mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn to explore the role of consciousness in mental and physical health.
These experts report that we can train the mind to become more flexible and adaptable.
The entire session is included (below) in the comments section of this post.
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Now, news on studies that focus on mindfulness and our youth:
Mar. 13, 2014 — Mindfulness-based meditation could lessen some symptoms associated with cancer in teens, according to the results of a clinical trial intervention. Mindfulness-based meditation focuses on the present moment and the connection between the mind and body. Adolescents living with cancer face not only the physical symptoms of their condition, but also the anxiety and uncertainty related to the progression of the disease, the anticipation of physical and emotional pain related to illness and treatment, the significant changes implied in living with cancer, as well as the fear of recurrence after remission… full story
Mar. 15, 2013 — Secondary school students who follow an in-class mindfulness program report reduced indications of depression, anxiety and stress up to six months later. Moreover, these students were less likely to develop pronounced depression-like symptoms … full story
Sep. 1, 2010 — “Mindfulness,” the process of learning to become more aware of our ongoing experiences, increases well-being in adolescent boys, a new study reports …full story
Teaching mindfulness-based practices to parents has the potential to improve parent emotion regulation and parents’ ability to cope with the stress and emotional complexity of raising a young teenager. Levels of child negative affect rise during adolescence and there is evidence that adolescents transmit their negative affect to their parents.
[See: Collins, W. A. (1990). Parent-child relationships in the transition to adolescence: Continuity and change in interaction, affect, and cognition. In R. Montemayor, G. R. Adams, & T. P. Gullotta (Eds.), From childhood to adolescence: A transitional period (pp. 85–106). London: Sage.; AND Larson, R. W., & Richards, M. H. (1994). Family emotions: Do young adolescents and their parents experience the same states? Journal of Research on Adolescence, 4(4), 567–583.]
Creating Stability of Mind and Finding Liberation…
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“It’s not what’s happening that’s important. What’s important is our relationship to what’s happening“
~Joseph Goldstein
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Joseph Goldstein has been leading insight and loving kindness meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. He is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he is one of the organization’s guiding teachers. I really enjoy listening to Goldstein’s calm voice and strong insights. I decided to feature two of his talks today.
Before finding a path of deepening spiritual awareness, I was to discover by trial and error and failures and successes a lot about myself and others. In family life, in my career experiences, and then via other activities, life took its course for me more by happenstance than by having good directions for living that I could count upon. I had a vision one day. It was an awakening to purpose then that became important to me. Many of my thoughts afterward still led me to dissatisfaction. I need to practice daily and to change according to spiritually fit living.
I have two videos today. The first is about reaching for stability. This particular video represents well my first greatest lesson in the awakening to my deeper needs.
The first video is short enough to listen and reflect upon about weakness or strength of mind and habits. The second is an hour and it contains reference to Buddhist teachings and terminology. I hope you may enjoy them both. However, my purpose is only to continue my journal here. I post here about my progress to attain inner peace, serenity and to practice being loving kindness. Both videos are available from Youtube.
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1. Creating Stability of Mind
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Program Description This program provides information about how mindfulness and meditative practice may lead to skillful awareness, stability of mind and gradual freedom from addictive habits and patterns.
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2. Liberation Through Non-Clinging
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Program Description Do you or did you ever feel like you’re a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by desperate and irrational clinging? Let’s not submit to living in a trance from birth to death. There is an easier and gentler way.
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This post presents techniques
for beginning, tuning and improving mindfulness.
Take some time… invest in your well-being and… share this one around.
I at first believed that a still mind is absolutely silent and devoid of everything and anything. I eventually came to accept that a silent mind is alert to surroundings. A silent mind is devoid of judging, clinging, rejecting, comparing. The silent mind is free from hatred, anger, jealousy, confusion and conflict. I began to understand in time that stillness of mind refers to inner peace and serenity and that there may be thoughts of love and kindness or other positive thoughts that do not at all detract from the stillness of connectivity. What I want in fact is connectivity. Being devoid of everything and anything is not the point of stillness at all. The point is connection to everything that is loving.
“Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts. Whenever your mind becomes scattered, use your breath as the means to take hold of your mind again.” ~Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh
Deer Park stupa fog ~d nelson
Offering simple thanks for this gift of life
My life, your life, all life,
burst forward out of nowhere
in the form of
lyrics and a tune.
A song expressed
through the breath of my heart.
May the joy from which it manifest
water seeds of joy in you.
(lyrics below)
I am
the most important, special, wonderful person
in the universe
yeh, ya
just like everyone else
I looked around
it’s what I found
You are
the most important, special, wonderful person
in the universe
yeh, ya
just like everyone else
Look around
tell me what you found
It’s a gift
being here now
exploring life’s wonders both…
Multitasking is what culture demands of us… most of us stress out just simply because we aren’t naturally ready for intense multitasking… let’s look at how mindfulness allows us to manage thinking and stress; to maintain health and well-being.
Mindfulness Practices to Improve Well Being
with Larry Berkelhammer, PhD
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Program Description This presentation was given at Marin Center for Independent Living in 2013. It describes how and why mindfulness practice has the power to improve health and well-being. Mindfulness practice allows us to live fully in the moment, which allows us to liberate ourselves from rumination and anxiety. For more articles and talks on How to Live Well With Chronic Illness, visit http://www.larryberkelhammer.com
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I know I need certain simple techniques to get higher return from mindfulness. After all, I was practically an old man before I began. In fact, regrading multitasking — actually I am improved. However, it is because I focus more on the prsent one thing that I am better able to multitask. .
Greater self-awareness leads to greater options. Preface each behavior with “I am choosing.” By announcing to yourself that you are about to engage in a behavior, you create greater self-awareness.
Here are some examples:
I’m choosing to walk across the room.
I’m choosing to stop at the red light.
I’m choosing to stop eating before finishing what’s on my plate.
You can do this with simple behaviors or complex ones. The point is that announcing each behavior reduces automatic behaviors that we normally perform each day without any conscious awareness. This practice is a great antidote to the feelings of powerlessness that often accompany life with a chronic illness.
It is valuable for a number of reasons:
It serves as a mindfulness practice, making us fully aware of our behavior.
It serves to replace automatic behavior with conscious intention.
For those of us living with chronic illness, it serves to return a sense of mastery — a sense that we are in control of our lives.
It serves to continually remind us that we can choose our behavior in every moment of the day.
I’ll begin with a short story that Eckhart Tolle likes to tell:
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Two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido, were walking along a country road that had become extremely wet with mud and deep puddles after heavy rains. .
Near a village, they came upon a girl who was trying to cross the road, but the mud was so deep. it would have ruined the silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan at once picked her up and carried her to the other side. .
The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temple, Ekido couldn’t restrain himself any longer. He finally snapped, “Tanzan, why did you carry that girl across the road? We monks are not supposed to hold girls like that.” .
“I put the girl down hours ago,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying her Ekido?” . .
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Sometime I just go with what the expert says. In this case, I have a few clarifying paragraphs.
The story that Tolle relates is used to illustrate a point that we have a vulnerability protection system. He calls it the ego.
I just want to clarify what happened (in this story).
First, the mind is not who we/you are. However, the body believes whatever thoughts that mind allows. Thus as the information is processed in the body, it actually changes subtly the body; the brain and molecules, etc… we know there are chemicals and brain waves and signals being transmitted throughout the brain-heart-gut-body (form, aka. mind-body, un-awakened consciousness). The information, together with form, is ever changing. Thinking, therefore, requiring time, occurs in form (as interpretations of information / consciousness) … not in a/the single unchanging mind (divine mind).
This is confusing and difficult when there is an upset.
In the story, Ekido believes that Tanzan did wrong by carrying the girl. The monks have been walking for a long time when Ekido finally tires of his burden. Ekido has been carrying his belief of the wrongness for hours. He’s been feeling upset. Finally, he relieves himself of this upset by confronting Tanzan rather than himself. He might have said right away to Tanzan, “I got uncomfortable with what happened. What is bothering me is my thinking that it was wrong. We are not supposed to hold women. Still, no harm came of it. She clearly needed some help. I ought to get over this.”
Instead, Ekido allows the disturbance to grow into greater discomfort. He begins to believe that Tanzan is the cause of his discomfort.
Negative thinking about it may have seemed to be the best thing. However, negativity attracts more negativity and the mind then is left feeling badly and having a pressing urge to find some relief. Typically, a person acts out when under this sort of pressure. If there is someone else that can be blamed, that seems the right thing then to do. The upset gets taken over by the body’s pain management system — the source of the pain being out there, Ekido accuses his friend of doing a wrong.
Ekido unknowingly was maintaining a separation from the present moment while he was feeling disturbed. This gets tiring. The disturbance feeds into a delusion that Tanzan is responsible for the upset. His mind is unable to break free of the discomfort while ruminating about the past event. Finally his mind then convinced him that the problem can be fixed by blaming Tanzan. Fortunately Tanzan feels free to accept that Ekido is needlessly upset and his reply is matter-of-fact rather than defensive. If Ekido wants to think excessively, he may. The thinking was tiring his mind. Since the incident is past and Tanzan was free of it when he put the girl down, Ekido wasted his time carrying the upset for miles.
There are two parts to Ekido’s problem. First off, he is excessively thinking.
. Here is a training video by Eckhart Tolle… “How do we break the habit of excessive thinking?”
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Eckhart explores excessive (addiction to) thinking, offering a handful of ways to put the stop to thoughts and to choose presence of now instead. When body sends a signal, mind gets a thought. You may allow this or you may choose to diminish the thought by coming back to the presence of now.
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A second problem for Ekido is that he didn’t have any control to change what upset him since the upset is about Tanzan’s action. The inner dialog lead to excessive thinking about something that was beyond his control. Some of us spend our time when dealing with people trying to change circumstance that are beyond our control. This is, it turns out, usually just a waste of time and energy.
We may even threaten, scold, manipulate, coerce, bully, plead, beg, shout, pout, bribe or try anything to make a situation go the “right” way — often, only to see things getting progressively worse before they get better. Since negativity attracts more negativity this is quite stressful and the mind-body then is left feeling badly.
Peace is my goal and tolerance, acceptance, compassion, genuine concern and loving presence is my way to get this. Getting better at this began for me with reducing stress and finding inner peace. I began to understand that I was reactive to the content of my life situations and that I was sacrificing sanity this way. Self-will was inadequate. Controlling my surroundings by exercising self-will was not healthy. I began to look for solutions and I found that there are hundreds of great ways to reduce stress and gain personal freedom. Today’s second video may help you to gain some peace of mind for dealing with stress.
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“How to live without Stress in your day-to-day life”
by Eckhart Tolle
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Learning how to achieve peaceful living may be much eased by knowing how to live without reacting to the “content” of our lives. There may be realization that the form of thought need not make a home in me as a lasting identity.
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I hope you find this training useful. I added some more in the comments section and there are additional related articles listed too.
Need help or want to collaborate with me?
e-mail me at thehunt4truth@yahoo.com
Contemplative practices are counter-cultural. Broadly defined, contemplative practices, are more than the stereotype of prayer of a religious nature or meditation within an eastern tradition. Contemplative mind-body practices cultivate a focus on experiences, ideas or situations that act to remind us to connect to what we find most meaningful.
Contemplative practices are widely varied. I included an illustration below from the center for Contemplative Mind in Society that visually expands contemplative practices; for instance: various forms of meditation; focused thinking or brainstorming; time out in nature; writing; performing in the arts; contemplative movement in active, physical practices like yoga or tai chi; and silent practices like mindfulness and prayer of course.
Some people find that rituals rooted in a religious or cultural tradition sooth their soul. Not all practices are done in solitude. Groups and communities engage in practices that support reflection in a social context.
We may each benefit by a contemplative practice.
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The Tree of Contemplative Practices
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Click to enlarge: The Tree of Contemplative Practices
From the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society…
Historically, contemplative practice has been taught by the world’s spiritual traditions. However, in the last three decades, the fields of psychology, medicine, and education have recognized that contemplative practice can contribute to well-being and maturation. As a result, health professionals and educators have been teaching contemplative practices in ‘non-religious forms’ that can be used as a resource for resilience by agnostics and atheists, as well as by people with a spiritual or religious worldview.
There are two major types of contemplative practice:
Contemplation of behavior: When stressed out, angry, or afraid, we tend to become reactive. In such moments, we often act impulsively, in ways that harm ourselves or others. Contemplative practice teaches us to examine and change these destructive forms of behavior.
Elevation of awareness: The stress of daily life is like a sticky spider’s web. It ensnares us. It prevents us from experiencing the beauty that surrounds us, our capacity for love and compassion, and the presence of a transcendent dimension in life. Through meditation, prayer, the arts, and observation of the natural world (and many other techniques), contemplative practice can help us restore our ability to rise above our anxieties, and to perceive life’s mystery and beauty.
The links below offer some examples of contemplative practices:
Additionally… here is a short program of eastern contemplative Christian practices:
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Program Description An in depth dialogue on the teachings of early Christianity and the spirituality of eastern Orthodoxy, still little known in the West. A rare source of mystical wisdom.
In 2017 the Protestant Reformation will be “officially” 500 years old, and what do we show for it? Behold, the American Mega Church! A bloated pimple rising up from the greasy adolescent face of American frontier religion.
Since then, much of American Protestant Christianity has morphed into a corporate conglomerate of consumer-capitalistic religion – a multi-faceted industry of books, movies, music, conferences and seminars. Looking back at the sweep of Christianity’s twists and turns, it appears that whatever good may have sprung out of the Reformation’s Pandora’s Box, that good now seems smothered over.
In short, it’s time for the next octave of Christianity to emerge into its full resonance.
So, having said that, here are three big-picture reasons why America’s Protestant Mega Churches should become communities of contemplative practice, or go extinct by 2017:
Reason #1: Meditationis now unavoidable for human survival
Given present global conditions, risks and non-sustainable depletion of life-sustaining resources, the future survival of human civilization will require increasing numbers of people practicing some form of a daily contemplative/meditative prayer…
“Researchers used brain scans to analyze the thought process of people with ‘high justice sensitivity’. By using a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) brain scanning device, they studied the brain activity as the subjects watched videos showing behavior that was morally good or bad like seeing a person put money in the beggar’s cup or kick the beggar’s cup away. They were asked how much they would blame or praise the person in the video and to complete questionnaires that assessed cognitive and emotional empathy and their justice sensitivity.
Those who scored high on the justice sensitivity assigned significantly more blame when asked to evaluate scenes of harm and also praised more the act of an helping person. But it was the brain scans that surprised the scientists.
During the behavior-evaluation exercise, people with high justice sensitivity showed more activity in the parts of brain associated with higher order cognition as compared to an average subject whereas the areas of brain concerned with emotional processing were not affected at all. Thus proving that individuals sensitive to justice are cognitively driven, not emotionally as everyone thinks.
So the search of justice does not primarily come from the sentimental motivations like portrayed rather it comes from reason and mental sophisticated analysis.
When evaluating good actions, a high activity in the regions of brain involved on decision making, motivation and reward was shown, answering why some people react more strongly to justice related situations and why they value justice more than others. The findings also suggest that individuals make judgement about behavior based on how they process the reward value of good actions as compared to bad actions.”
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How do you suppose people are coming to higher-consciousness about social justice?
If you have been following my blog, you may guess that I believe it isn’t by accident — I’m pretty darn sure its because this is what we are doing while we are getting more spiritually fit and mindfully attuned and prayerfully loving. We are changing our brains and our genetics. We are evolving. We are learning and teaching that it is good to love being loving and compassionate. We are learning that we may even have compassion for people that are awful (and of course still have legal justice)… its work; yes it is… its God’s work.
Mindfulness improves reading ability, .
working memory, and task-focus
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If you think your inability to concentrate is a hopeless condition, think again — and breathe, and focus. According to a new study, as little as two weeks of mindfulness training can significantly improve one’s reading comprehension, working memory capacity, and ability to focus. (source)
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Findings were recently published online in the empirical psychology journal Psychological Science.
Michael Mrazek, author of the paper:
“What surprised me the most was actually the clarity of the results. Mindfulness Training Improves Working Memory Capacity and GRE Performance While Reducing Mind Wandering.” “Even with a rigorous design and effective training program, it wouldn’t be unusual to find mixed results. But we found reduced mind-wandering in every way we measured it.“
To investigate whether mindfulness training can reduce mind-wandering and thereby improve performance, the scientists randomly assigned 48 undergraduate students to either a class that taught the practice of mindfulness or a class that covered fundamental topics in nutrition. Both classes were taught by professionals with extensive teaching experience in their fields. Within a week before the classes, the students were given two tests: a modified verbal reasoning test from the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) and a working memory capacity (WMC) test. Mind-wandering during both tests was also measured.
The mindfulness classes provided a conceptual introduction along with practical instruction on how to practice mindfulness in both targeted exercises and daily life. Meanwhile, the nutrition class taught nutrition science and strategies for healthy eating, and required students to log their daily food intake.
Within a week after the classes ended, the students were tested again. Their scores indicated that the mindfulness group significantly improved on both the verbal GRE test and the working memory capacity test. They also mind-wandered less during testing. None of these changes were true of the nutrition group.
Mrazek:
“This is the most complete and rigorous demonstration that mindfulness can reduce mind-wandering, one of the clearest demonstrations that mindfulness can improve working memory and reading, and the first study to tie all this together to show that mind-wandering mediates the improvements in performance.“
He added that the research establishes with greater certainty that some cognitive abilities often seen as immutable, such as working memory capacity, can be improved through mindfulness training.
Mrazek and the rest of the research team –– which includes Michael S. Franklin, project scientist; mindfulness teacher and research specialist Dawa Tarchin Phillips; graduate student Benjamin Baird; and senior investigator Jonathan Schooler, professor of psychological and brain sciences –– are extending their work by investigating whether similar results can be achieved with younger populations, or with web-based mindfulness interventions. They are also examining whether or not the benefits of mindfulness can be compounded by a program of personal development that also targets nutrition, exercise, sleep, and personal relationships.
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For more information on the mindfulness training program,
contact Dawa Tarchin Phillips
(805) 680-3988 or phillips@psych.ucsb.edu
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University of California – Santa Barbara. “Mindfulness improves reading ability, working memory, and task-focus.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 26 March 2013. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130326133339.htm>.
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see also:
Meditation Changes Brains Gamma brain wave production is associated with consciousness, attention, learning and memory. We want to train our brains to increase peace and serenity and this changes the brain.
Embrace Silence Instead of rationalizing and asking your friends and family what to do without being you, just be you. Relax your mind. Open up the small spaces between your thoughts to silence.
Eric
iated behaviour.
Eric
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Deer Park stupa fog ~d nelson 
the Hunt for Truth 