Mindfulness of self and world

[Happy Buddha]

Dear all, please forgive me if this is not appropriate to to this page, if not do direct me to another. However, I thopught i would share a few words about mindfulness - hope they are enjoyed.

Mindfulness of self and world
The one thing that had brought our planet to the edge of disaster is that the vast majority of us are self-centred. This is not a judgement about us being bad people, it is the way we are wired. Without some form of serious spiritual practice most of us stay this way too. So the way to truly care for our world is to move from a self-centred mode of existence, to a life-centred mode of existence and this is what mindfulness is all about.
Being self-centred we are caught up with our own desires, our own views and our own opinions. In this mode our first priority is to satisfy our own neurotic desires (not natural desires like food and friendship etc) and to have our deeply held views proved right. We can easily tell if we are living from the self-centred mode, if somebody criticises you and you feel hurt or hateful you are living from the self-centred mode. In the self-centred mode we feel separate from life. It feels like I am here and life is out there happening to me. This feeling separate from life is really the essence of the self-centred mode of being.

The vast majority of us live in this self-centred mode of being. We may like to think we don’t but if we take a good honest look at what is going on inside we will be in for a big surprise. The person living in the self-centred mode will have a headful of thoughts, because the self-centred person obsessively thinks about themselves and life even though they may not realise it. The first priority of living in the self-centred mode is - ourselves. We may find ourselves thinking about our problems most of the day. We might notice how anxious we are about what the future holds. Living in the self-centred mode is hard because we are resisting the flow of life. It is an unnatural life. It is a life of tension and dis-ease because we are constantly on the alert for anything that can hurt us, which includes our reputation and status amongst others. Our energy in living in the self-centred mode goes into having people like us and or not like us depending on what will make us feel most comfortable. We seek comfort above all else.

To live from a life-centred mode of being is very different though it can look the same from the outside. Our motivations are not about satisfying our own needs and not about proving anything to ourselves or others in any way. When living from the life centred mode we don’t care whether people like us or not. We are certainly not cold to others but what they think of us is not really important. Our actions are motivated by what is best for all concerned in any given situation. This is not about being a martyr and sacrificing ourselves on the altar of doing good. Living in the life centred mode we don’t feel separate from life, we are life. We don’t need to obsessively think about life and how to make it work, we live in the moment and have a deep trust in the goodness of life, in our own deep goodness. In this mode we find uncaused happiness, love and a deep gratitude to our beautiful earth.

How do we move from being self-centred to being life centred? This is what mindfulness meditation is all about. Through meditation we come to see all the attitudes, beliefs and opinions that separate us from each other and life itself. These views held strongly are what lead to conflict and war. We come to realise that trying to fulfil our insatiable appetites are contributing to the problems in our world. One of our greatest wrong views we hold is that we are separate from life, separate from our world. This is the view that is doing damage to our planet. Through mindfulness we come to see that this view is simply that, a view that we have inherited through life and is simply untrue.

As we practice mindfulness we dissolve this feeling of separation and open ourselves to the wonder of life and our innate inter- connectedness to all things and all beings. We see deeply that when we hurt another or our world we are hurting ourselves.

When we live from the self-centred mode we are living a natural life. What I mean is that we flow with the natural way of things. We know deeply that life is uncertain, impermanent and unpredictable. We have come face to face with these facts in our meditation and are at ease with them. In this life-centred mode there is more energy available to us for following our calling. This is because we are not battling against the natural flow of life, we have surrendered our desires to the greater good.
Mindfulness is what our planet needs, not more idealism, but moment to moment mindfulness and a trust in the goodness that lies within us all.

[JonW]

Brilliant post. Beautifully written.
This passage particularly struck a chord with me:
"The person living in the self-centred mode will have a headful of thoughts, because the self-centred person obsessively thinks about themselves and life even though they may not realise it."
If someone had called me self-centred before I took up meditation I'd have taken it for an unfair rebuke. I wouldn't have considered myself self-centred at all. Meditation has taught me the true meaning of the term. Inside my head I was a complete drama queen. Me, me, me, me, me.
It strikes me that the entire post provides essential information for anyone embarking on the mindfulness adventure. So it strikes me as perfect for the Beginners section. At the same time, I wonder if there's an argument for a separate section that gathers together members' thoughts about the long-term benefits of mindfulness.
Fee? Gareth? Anyone?
Cheers, Jon

[Happy Buddha]

Thank you Jon, let us see what Gareth and Fee have to say...

[FeeHutch]

Thank you for this, I found the same section really resonated me for the same reason.
Once I started paying attention I was genuinely shocked at where my thoughts could take me in under 5 seconds.
Let me have a think about where posts like this should be. My concern if we create too many specialist forums posts might get over looked. I think we reflect on the long term benefits in lots of different posts across all the boards, it is a thread through so many posts.
This post could be a blog post perhaps and would it be OK to tweet this to encourage more readers?

[Happy Buddha]

Of course tweet to your heart's delight...more people are reached the better.
I was wondering (Gareth I think alluded to this) whether to put up the 8 week course which I run.
I call it a programme of Vision (the easy bit) and Transformation (the hard bit) and the The themes are:
The Jewel in the Ice
The Feeling body
Calming the chattering Mind
Living in the Present
Dancing with Dragons (working with difficult emotions)
Sitting still and letting go
Bringing mindfulness to life
Trust and bringing it altogether

Perhaps we could if people are interested run a loose programme on this forum?

[JonW]

I've danced with a few dragons in my time.
But enough about my days on the South Wales disco circuit...

[Steve]

Happy Buddha

The program you mention sounds interesting. A couple of thoughts: my feeling is that 8 week type programs are ideally best attended in person. I am not sure how successful they are online although if you have experience of this and believe they can work in this format, I think it would be great to explore this further (and I think this could be very beneficial). My limited experience of this is based on the following:

1) I initiated the 'how to train an elephant' thread which I think is much simpler and less demanding (although running for 52 weeks) than a typical 8 week program. I have found this an effective way of keeping up the practice (my initial intention was to find one or more online 'meditation buddies' to support/encourage each other and to provide feedback/comments (which much enhances the learning/training experience)). This has, I think, worked well even though only I and Fee appear to be working through it (with some input from others and, it seems, a large number of readers who don't actively contribute (but are very welcome nonetheless). I am surprised more people have not joined in actively but don't know the reason for this.

2) we are part way through an 8 week program. Quite a few people expressed interest in this (including me) but the number of contributions to the threads beyond Fee and Jon's input have been limited. I have not found it easy to keep up with the program in this format and have let it slip (and my guess is that others may have too). I am continuing with the 'elephant' thread (and find this very helpful) but haven't managed to do both at once (although I don't think this would be impossible).

If another 8 week type program is started, it may be good to consider how this interacts/overlaps with the other one. If an online program is facilitated by someone with experience of running such programs online, it may be much more likely to work, attract more active participants and this in turn may help participants to keep up the practice. Your views on this would be very interesting.

This is just my 'two penny worth' as one of the contributors over the past 6 months (but no other 'qualification').

Many thanks for your contributions so far - I look forward to more.

Steve

[Gareth]

Hello all,

Firstly: the original post. It's beautifully written and I agree with all of it; I can't wait to share it on Twitter to see if we get some responses. I'm not sure what the best place is for a post such as this; my own instinct is 'Experienced Practitioners' (might be a bit heavy for someone coming to mindfulness right at the start), but that's just my opinion, I'll leave up to Fee and Jon to make that decision (got to get better at letting go). It would be just wonderful if you could encourage some of your course members to come here, the more people we get coming, the stronger the place will become. The structure and organisation of the place will all evolve with time.

Secondly: in relation to the 8-week course being done online. I agree with Steve in that the ideal situation is somebody attending a course in person (I want provision on the site for people to be able to find a course near them). However we don't live in an ideal world, and I can envisage people out there with anxiety and other issues, who would find any excuse not to go out and attend a course full of people. I think the online system could help those people, to get started at least. I also think that the forum could be used as an addition to physically attending the course i.e "let's talk about the issues arising in week 5 before we go and attend week 6." We'll see. An experiment by Suryacitta with his course members would certainly be highly beneficial. Again, the way that we manage these things will evolve over time. The important thing is that we keep talking.

What we also need to do is get on the phone and get talking to other mindfulness teachers and suggest some of the things that we are talking about in this thread. My life is just so busy at the minute......

[Happy Buddha]

Hi Guys, I think you both bring up some good points and even whilst offering the course I had my doubts so how about we leave it for now and see what Fee can come up with. Would people mind if I then put up our courses once a month onto the forum. If you are what would be the best page to put it on. For your information we are a not for profit Community Interest company called and our website in mindfulnesscic.co.uk.

thanks, Suryacitta

[Steve]

I think it would be great to list your existing courses on one of the resources threads but it would be good to explore your suggestion of some sort of 'loose programme' on this forum. Even though it may be better to attend in person, as Gareth says, there may be those who (for many reasons) would prefer to start with something online. I hope my comments didn't come over as pouring cold water on the idea - I do think it is worth taking through these ideas and getting other people's views.

What sort of ideas do you have for this? Have you any experience in doing things like this remotely? I think it would be good to explore this further - having an experienced teacher to help facilitate something would I am sure would be beneficial. Whilst the other 8 week program is running, we have an ideal time to exchange ideas and thoughts on this and I would be interested to hear more about your suggestions.

Steve