#348 Heart of Mindfulness Practice - Perseverance, Embracing "Difficulties"

     I was very excited to read the paper below on strengthening resiliency. It nicely describes "heart" as a collection of critical qualities that can be developed in a number of ways, such as sports and enduring a difficult childhood, but perhaps the most efficient laboratory-like conditions for creating heart is mindfulness practice. See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/06/heart-can-should-be-cultivated.html

     "Kokoro is the Japanese word for heart or fighting spirit. The Koreans refer to kokoro simply as the 'indomitable spirit.' ... it is something housed in all of us, and all we need to do is simply find ways to release it. ... Heart only needs to be tapped into and enriched.
     In martial arts, confidence, which can be defined as having trust in one's abilities, is recognized as being 'a product of one's previous experience.' Thus, training an individual by exposing him or her to supervised challenges that require 'reaching down inside' for heart teaches the student to have confidence in the ability to draw on fighting spirit when severely challenged. To be internalized, such training must be continually practiced and rehearsed. Such training is invaluable ... as everyone runs the risk of being exposed to traumatic stress."
       Bell CC, Suggs H. Using sports to strengthen resiliency in children. Training heart. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am 1998; 7(4): 859-65.

     Heart allows one to PERSEVERE, and by experiencing a sequence of mini triumphs - daily meditation practice, sitting still for the predetermined time, despite urges to do stuff, itchy nose, stiffness, sleepiness, anxiety, boredom, plans, worries, etc, etc, etc one remains like-a-mountain sitting still - one builds internal strength to PERSEVERE, gradually transcending "ordinary unhappiness," finding greater and greater ease, equanimity, joy.

Anne Bastedo   http://www.serenityimages.ca

#326 Classical Japanese Centeredness & Mindfulness

      Profound awareness of, being fully at home and thoroughly grounded in one's own body, anywhere, under any circumstance, is relatively rare these days, perhaps even in the East. Nevertheless, this mind-body-universe integrity is an important quality to regain, and mindfulness practice is an excellent way to do so.

     “Japanese women … their way of sitting still – knees together, resting on their heels, withdrawn into themselves and yet completely free and relaxed. If with a swift and supple motion they rise from this position to do something such as pouring out the rice wine, they return immediately and without loss of poise to the quiet sitting posture, upright and attentive, completely there, yet not there at all, and just wait until the next thing has to be done. … but so also sits the ballad singer, and the singing geisha, and so sits the male choir in the Kabuki, the classical theater, and so the Samurai – so they all sit and stand like symbols of life, collected and ready for anything. And as they sit and stand, so also do they walk and dance and wrestle and fence, fundamentally motionless. For every movement is as though anchored in an immovable center from which all motion flows and from which it receives its force, direction and measure. The immovable center lies in Hara.”

       Durckheim KG. “Hara – The vital center of man.” Inner Traditions, Rochester VT, 1975 (originally published 1956). 

     For more on Hara see: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=hara

Tai Chi on Samish Island, WA