Mindfulness

[PartTimeBrewer]

              I am starting a new thread here mainly for purposes of my own catharsis. It is my intention, at least at this point, to make regular contributions. Of course, if anyone else has anything to add, they are more than welcome. If you have any input, please contribute.

              Over a year ago I decided to deal head-on with my self-diagnosed adult attention disorder, (ADD). The inability to stay focused was becoming too stressful. I found myself sitting around watching the clock tick, yet I couldn’t keep “on task” with any project I started. Nothing was getting done and just starting something was becoming depressing.

              The smart thing to do was probably to get professional help, so instead I decided to try to heal myself, at least as a first try. Cognitive therapy and pharmaceuticals (UGH) might be the approved way to go but I decided to try meditation first.

              18 months and countless self-help books later, I still can’t bring myself to a regular, formal meditation program. But, along the way, I discovered informal mindfulness. Yes, I know it is the “Fad” right now. It is hard to navigate modern social trends without “tripping over” somebody extolling the benefits of mindfulness.

              Let me add my voice to the chorus.

[PartTimeBrewer]

Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.”

― Alan W. Watts

[PartTimeBrewer]

"When we protect ourselves so we won't feel pain, that protection becomes like armor, like armor that imprisons the softness of the heart."
— Pema Chödrön

"I am a rock. I am an island...."  ~  Paul Simon

[PartTimeBrewer]

Is that really the way to go?

"The object of Zen is not to kill all feelings and become anesthetized to pain and fear. The object of Zen is to free us to scream loudly and fully when it is time to scream."
― Francis Harold Cook

[PartTimeBrewer]

"People who live for the future are 'not quite all there' — or here: by overeagerness they are perpetually missing the point. Foresight is bought at the price of anxiety, and, when overused, it destroys all its own advantages."
— Alan Watts

[PartTimeBrewer]

It isn't the trauma that makes you stronger, kinder and more compassionate. It's how you handle it.  ~   Paraphrase of Lori Deschene (Tiny Buddha)

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Some of your hurts you have cured
And the sharpest you've even survived,
But what torments of grief you've endured
From evils which never arrived."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

[PartTimeBrewer]

"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness."

― Dalai Lama XIV

[PartTimeBrewer]

Why do we make it so much more complicated?

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Kindness is loving others without making judgment as to their deservability."
— B. D. Schiers

[Aggie]

They ran to the groceries, they filled up their carts,
They emptied the Tops and Price Chopper and Walmart,
They panicked and fought and then panicked some more,
Then they rushed to their homes and they locked all the doors.
The food will be gone! The milk eggs and cheese!
The yogurt! The apples! The green beans and peas!
The stores have run out, now what will we do?
They’ll be starving and looting and nothing to do!

Then they paused, and they listened a moment or two.
And they did hear a sound, rising over the fear,
It started out far, then began to grow near.

But this sound wasn’t sad, nor was it new,
The farms were still doing what farms always do.

The food was still coming, though they’d emptied the shelves,
The farms kept it coming, though they struggled themselves,

Though the cities had forgotten from where their food came,
The farms made them food every day, just the same.
Through weather and critics and markets that fall,
The farms kept on farming in spite of it all.

They farmed without thank yous.
They farmed without praise.
They farmed on the hottest and coldest of days.

They’d bought all the food, yet the next day came more,
And the people thought of something they hadn’t before.
Maybe food, they thought, doesn’t come from a store.
Maybe farmers, perhaps, mean a little bit more.

*Borrowed from a fellow farmer *

[PartTimeBrewer]

"Wherever you are is the perfect place to awaken. This moment is the exact place to practice compassion and loving awareness. You have all the ingredients to breathe and find freedom just where you are."
— Jack Kornfield

[PartTimeBrewer]

"You do not have to abandon this world. You do not have to go to heaven or wait for the future to take refuge. You can take refuge here and now. You only need to dwell deeply in the present moment."
— Thich Nhat Hanh