#717 Many Contemplative Practices

     There's a bewildering array of ways to intentionally go deeper, to experience and engage more profoundly with this amazing human journey (see illustration below). Nor is this illustration complete - missing are the numerous and varied specific secular mental-health approaches.
     All of these paths can help one function better and live a happier life.
     A small proportion of people elect to follow a path until it leads to complete transformation of heart-mind-body, referred to in some traditions as awakening, enlightenment or liberation.
     

© The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society
Concept & design by Maia Duerr; illustration by Carrie Bergman

#673 Forced to Care about Others, the Big Picture

     "When China burns coal, that pollution doesn't just stay above Chinese skies, nor does nuclear radioactivity from Fukushima stay only in Japanese coastal waters. The same is true generally for humankind and the rest of the natural world: when the ecosystems of the earth become sick, we become sick. In short, the ecological crisis is also a spiritual*** crisis: we are challenged to realize our interdependence - our larger 'self' - or else. What the earth seems to be telling us is Wake up or get out of the way."
       David Loy. "Awakening in the Age of Climate Change." Tricycle, Spring 2015.                               ww.tricycle.com


     *** "spirituality ... ‘the personal quest for understanding answers to ultimate questions about life, about meaning, and about relationship to the sacred or transcendent’."
       Greeson JM et al. "Changes in spirituality partly explain health-related quality of life outcomes after Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction." J Behav Med 2011; 34(6): 508-18.

     Atheists also recognize the critical role of spirituality - see:
       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

#668 We Can Do Much Better Than "Quiet Desperation"

     Desperately hoping for luck, or special favors from god, nature, the universe is childishly silly, even from a religious / spiritual perspective. We waste our limited time & energies into trying to control largely or completely uncontrollable things & situations.
     Desperation feels like being a greyhound perpetually racing around the track after a fake fox, or like being a duck or buck during hunting season. Perpetually chasing or being chased feels anxious, fearful, tight, cold.

     Adult maturation to a large extent involves letting go of wishful, magical, egocentric thinking. Mindfulness practice trains us to accept things as they are now, with an open heart-mind. With this clarity, equanimity and loving-kindness, we can truly accept things we can't change, and intelligently change the things that can and need to be.

#644 The Word We Fear the Most!

     I frequently email over a hundred people who've previously taken courses in, or have otherwise shown interest in Mindfulness. I point them to a blog I've just posted that I feel is particularly worth reading. Over the next few days, such a highlighted blog gets 60-400+ hits.
     Folks on this list are probably far more interested in deep, substantial topics than the average person. Nevertheless, whenever I include one, specific word, the blog gets the absolute lowest number of hits. And what is this most dreaded of all words? Wisdom!
     Why, even among this select, self-reflective group of people, is "wisdom" such a powerful buzz kill? I'm guessing that non-readers assume that:
          • they themselves lack wisdom, 
          • can't do anything to gain any, 
          • certainly can't ever "become wise". 

     Then there's the long history of corrupt religious authority figures who speak of wisdom, yet do so strictly for personal gain. They insist that human beings are inherently evil, doomed to burn in hell. Our only hope is to buy our way into heaven via the clergy. Corrupt clergy strongly oppose meditation, mysticism, gnosticism etc because these empower people spiritually, eliminating corrupt clergy's power, influence & wealth. Legitimate clergy embody wisdom, inviting & inspiring all to share this most magnificant journey.
     For valid reasons, a large segment of society has lost faith in organized religions, yet the old nonsense about humans being inherently evil remains buried in our collective subconscious, and bubbles forth as our current epidemic of cynicism. Most of us have low spiritual self-esteem, and incorrectly assume that there's nothing we can do about it.
     There is transformative wisdom in the world's wisdom traditions, and more than ever, each of us has ready access to these. Mindfulness provides today's educated, intelligent people easy access to access, cultivate & embody our own inherent clarity & wisdom - where all wisdom traditions meet.

Yeah, darlin'
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

Like a true nature's child
We were born
Born to be WISE

Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild (lyrics slightly modified)

     Wisdom: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2015/01/620-what-is-wisdom.html
     and: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/04/psychospiritual-technologies.html

#620 What is "Wisdom"?

     Wisdom is far more profound than intelligence or long-term practicality. However, wisdom in it's deepest sense, is seldom considered or discussed these days. Though there are many exceptions, overall we tend to stumble a bit closer to wisdom with age. Many consider themselves wiser than their behavior would suggest. Wisdom is complex - perhaps the most profound, critical concept we have.
     Wisdom is the highest human goal, the most evolved way of being. The major religions have been called "wisdom traditions", though the vast majority of both clergy and their followers have minimal knowledge or interest in wisdom. Only a small minority of monks and mystics devote their lives to a disciplined practice of intentional self-transformation towards "sainthood", "enlightenment" ie wisdom.
     Wisdom is “a developmental process involving self-transcendence. Self-transcendence refers to the ability to move beyond self-centered consciousness, and to see things as they are with clear awareness of human nature and human problems, and with a considerable measure of freedom from biological and social conditioning. This ability to move beyond a self-centered perspective is certainly an important component of wisdom. Consistent with this idea, … transcending the self is needed to move beyond ingrained, automatic ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and to connect empathetically with the experiences of others.”
       Le TN, Levenson MR. Wisdom as self-transcendence: What's love (& individualism) got to do with it? Journal of Research in Personality 2005; 39(4): 443-457.

     According to Buddhism, all of us can and should do our best to become wise. The clearest description and explanation from this perspective that I’ve found:
       Smith R. “Awakening. A Paradigm Shift of the Heart.” Shambhala, Boston, 2014.
 
     There are many other wisdom paths - one to suit every individual: Aboriginal, Hindu, Kabbalah, Christian, Sufi, & many other fine authors eg Joseph Campbell, Laurence Freeman, Thomas Keating, and Huston Smith.
     Atheists also recognize the critical role of wisdom:
       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

     Intentional pursuit of wisdom - by whatever path best suits the individual - is the most effective way to minimize causing suffering to oneself & others, and maximize one’s own & others’ quality of life.

     No path toward wisdom is quick or easy. All require:
          • mindfulness
          • ethical conduct; 
          • progressive letting go of self-centeredness, materialism & other forms of distraction;
          • increasing empathic engagement with others and the environment.

     So why bother to even consider taking such a challenging, life-long journey? Because at some point, everything else will disappoint with respect to feeling: real, authentic, meaningful, valuable, satisfying, joyful, peaceful.
     One would reasonably assume that wisdom occupies a central place in our education system. Sadly, it's virtually absent. Why?

Deepak Kaw   www.dpreview.com

#367 Discovering & Manifesting our Innate Goodness & Wisdom

     “We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart. When our heart is free from the contractions of fear, anger, grasping, & confusion, the spiritual qualities we have tried to cultivate manifest in us naturally. They are our true nature, and they spontaneously shine in our consciousness whenever we let go of the rigid structures of our identity.”               Jack Kornfield

     "Spirituality" (like "faith" & "religion") have a checkered history. Currently, in healthcare, attempts are being made to engage the valuable (while avoiding the divisive) aspects of these universally potent paradigms.
     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/10/critical-spirituality-is-way-of-naming.html
     and: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/02/spirituality-in-health-care_28.html
       and: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/03/faith.html 

Frenchfx   www.dpreview.com

#356 The World Mirrors our Individual & Collective Level of Consciousness

     “The great experiment in consciousness, human evolution, now stands at a precipice of its own making. That same consciousness which struggled for millions of years to ensure human survival is now on the verge of depleting its planet’s resources, rendering its environment uninhabitable, and fashioning the instruments of its own self-annihilation. Can this consciousness (we) develop the wisdom not to do these things? Can we foster sufficient self-understanding to reduce our destructiveness, and mature rapidly enough to carry us through this evolutionary crisis? …  
     … the crucial fact about these global crises is that all of them have psychological origins. Our own behavior has created these threats, and, thus, psychological approaches may be essential to understanding and reversing them. And to the extent that these threats are determined by psychological forces within us and between us, they are actually symptoms – symptoms of our individual and collective state of mind. These global symptoms reflect and express faulty beliefs and perceptions, fears and fantasies, defences and denials, that shape and misshape our individual and collective behavior. The state of the world reflects our state of mind; our collective crises mirror our collective consciousness. … 
     We have clearly created a world situation that demands unprecedented psychological and social maturation if we are to survive. Until now, we have been able to cover or compensate for our psychological shortcomings. We have been able to consume without fear of depletion, discard wastes without fear of pollution, bear children without fear of overpopulation, and fight without fear of extinction. We have been able to act out our psychological immaturities rather than having to understand and outgrow them, to indulge our addictions rather than resolve them, and to revolve through the same neurotic patterns rather than evolve out of them. But if the world is a stage, it is now no longer big enough for us to continue playing out our psychological immaturities. It is time for us to grow up, and we ourselves have created the situation which may force us to do so.”           Roger Walsh MD

       Walsh R. Human survival: A psychoevolutionary analysis. ReVision 1985; 8: 7-10. (available free as pdf on the web) 

                       AND IN

       Grof S ed. Human Survival and Consciousness Evolution. State University of New York Press, Albany, 1988.

Elizabeth Jameson   http://www.jamesonfineart.com

#331 Thoughts, Energies, Actions - Choices, Choices, Choices

     A sponge is porous, all of the stuff in the water passes through a sponge immersed in the water. Likewise, each of us is immersed in the thoughts and energies of our current global culture. It ALL passes through each of us, whether we realize it or not, want it or not. Humans are completely interconnected at ALL LEVELS (thoughts, emotions, energies, communications, financially, ecologically etc).
     A massive problem is the fact that our human family is so diverse in terms of psychosocialspiritual development - from stone-age blood feuds to the Dalai Lama's message AND embodiment of forgiveness of current persecutors. We are in the age of BOTH the basest of child-soldier massacres AND Nelson Mandela's soaring example of what a human being can and MUST evolve to. 
     ALL levels of thoughts and energies pass through each of us - hideous & inspired - WE CHOOSE which ones to cultivate, which ones to enact in our lives, in this our one and only world. WE ALONE CREATE OUR REALITY, moment-by-moment. We must take great care about what we choose to occupy our minds, and what activities to feed with energy.

     “Wisdom traditions, the paths followed by our patients and our own experiences suggest that a sense of integrity comes through establishing healing connections. That’s not quite it. It wasn’t that the wave needed to establish connections. It was connected — part of a greater whole. Its challenge was to recognize the connectedness that was already there.”     Mount BM. The existential moment. Palliat Support Care 2003; 1(1): 93-6.

     Movement on the quality of life “continuum toward an experience of integrity and wholeness may be thought of as healing, and toward suffering and anguish as wounding.”
     Mount BM et al. Healing connections: on moving from suffering to a sense of well-being. J Pain Symptom Manage 2007; 33(4): 372-88. 

     “The key to self-development … is the experience of … a state of relaxed concentration in which the individual neither freezes out of fear nor clings due to desire. … the free flow of vital energy within the body and between the body and the universe.”     Sayama MK. “Samadhi. Self-development in Zen, swordsmanship, and psychotherapy.” State University of New York Press. 1986.

Dale Chihuly   http://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/

#86 Facing Basic Fear

     “I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life ... there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious (spiritual ***) outlook on life.”
      "Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose."             Carl Jung

     “The secret cause of all suffering is mortality itself, which is the prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed … The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life’s joy.”          Joseph Campbell

     Humor: "I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes." and "Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."     Anon

     *** See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/04/psychospiritual-technologies.html