#573 Wise Effort in Meditation - Effortless, Instant

     "The next time you sit in meditation, notice how often you get lost in thought. What causes that drift into thinking? Did you deliberately try to lose yourself? If not, then getting lost in thought was not your responsibility.
     Now notice when you have awakened out of thought. You may take credit for waking yourself up, but the noticing you are no longer lost in thought occurs after having awakened out of it. 
     You cannot take responsibility for losing yourself or waking back up. What really happens is a mystery.

     The less we do to establish or cultivate awareness, the more it reveals itself."


       Rodney Smith. Awakening. A Paradigm Shift of the Heart. Shambhala, Boston, 2014.

#514 Surviving - OR - Thriving in your Studies?

     It's well known that most of our stresses today, are misinterpretations of threats to our egos, as if these were threats to our actual lives. Extreme examples: one man looks at another man, or another man's girlfriend, "the wrong way", causing (at times lethal) confrontation; paralyzing anxiety over writing "high-stakes exams" eg fellowship, board or bar exams; cyber-bullying tragically leading, in some cases, to suicide. We routinely take some things way too seriously; while at the same time, we pay too little attention to things that actually matter. How we direct our attention & energy can make the difference between barely surviving & thriving.
     For students it's very important to realize that excessive stress also negatively impacts judgment & memory. While studying, if you're worried about doing badly in a subject, you likely waste huge amounts of time & energy listening to negative self-talk. Stress also interferes with your ability to remember the material, so the efficiency of your studying is greatly reduced. Then, while writing the exam, if you're stressed, your judgments eg choices you make on a multiple-choice exam, are negatively impacted. See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/02/490-safe-learning-environment.html
     Not well known is the fact that the opposite of fear-based stress is love. See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/06/140-love.html How much effort did it take for you to learn all sorts of information about your favorite sport or hobby? None - it certainly didn't feel like work! How difficult is it for you to remember all this info? Easy, effortless! 
     To the extent you're able to bring about liking or even loving the subject that you're studying, you eliminate all the self-defeating, energy-draining barriers that keeps the information from going deep into your memory banks. If you don't find the subject itself inherently likeable, can you see how much good will come from knowing it? Now, what you study, will behave EXACTLY like all that information about your favorite sport or hobby. You are learning to open up, & welcome in information. Once it's deeply within "the marrow of your bones", it's readily retrievable & appropriately applicable in any context (test or real-world eg clinical application).
     Learn to become aware of self-talk, thoughts & moods. If they're not helpful, learn to let them go & switch over to ones that work for you! YES YOU CAN!

IlanS   www.dpreview.com

#440 Effort & Inhibition May Differ in Different Contexts

     "According to attention restoration theory (ART), directed attention is voluntary, central to maintaining focus, controls distractions through inhibitory mechanisms, and requires effort. It is vulnerable to fatigue and becomes less effective with sustained use, leading to reduced ability to focus attention, increased performance errors, and heightened irritability. When directed attention fatigue occurs in response to intense and sustained mental effort, individuals experience a condition commonly referred to as mental fatigue."

       Felsten G. Where to take a study break on the college campus: An attention restoration theory perspective. Journal of Environmental Psychology 2009; 29(1): 160-167.

     Acceptance and displacement differ qualitatively from inhibition. The effort used in meditation to stabilize attention is again qualitatively different from how we normally conceive of effort. If "effort" is not expended on things like "inhibition," maybe "fatigue" is not an issue at all in mindfulness. Mindfulness may even be energizing.
     See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/11/435-right-effort-does-not-take-but.html

Greg Burke   www.dpreview.com

#46 Non-doing

     “Do not confuse motion and progress. 
     A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.”                   Alfred A. Montapert
 
     “Effortless activity happens at moments in dance and in sports at the highest levels of performance; when it does, it takes everyone’s breath away. But it also happens in every area of human activity, from painting to car repair to parenting. Years of practice and experience combine on some occasions, giving rise to a new capacity to let execution unfold beyond technique, beyond exertion, beyond thinking. Action then becomes a pure expression of art, of being, of letting go of all doing – a merging of mind and body in motion. … magic of true mastery … moments of grace and harmony.
 
     Thoreau said, ‘To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.’”
 
       Kabat-Zinn J. “Wherever you go, there you are. Mindfulness meditation in everyday life.” Hyperion, NY, 1994.

photodottom   www.dpreview.com