The Power of Mindfulness

"Mindfulness" is the practice of focusing one's self in the present. Things like paying attention to your mood, heart rate, temperature, stress level, etc. By focusing like this you recognize things that may have escaped you previously or feelings you may be ignoring. Many people practice mindfulness as part of meditation.

Recently researchers at UCLA compared those who were more "mindful" to those who were not by monitoring their brain activity. Their finding was that those were more mindful experienced less negative emotions and showed greater calmness in their brain activity.

So based on this research we know that mindfulness works, but what it doesn't tell you is that it is not easy. It takes discipline and focus. When we are busy with deadlines, errands, and are bombarded by the information that surrounds us every day, it becomes quite difficult to focus on the present and on one's self. As a result some of us neglect ourselves to a point of extreme emotional discomfort that goes beyond the point that a little mindfulness each day can clear up. That is why we need to remember to be mindful everyday, even if just for a few minutes. You may already do this and not even know it. Possibly when you walking, cooking, or taking a shower part of your mind wanders into thinking about your current state. Remember the importance of these times especially when the more stressful moments arise.

The Teachings of "Fight Club"

Tyler Durden: The things you own end up owning you.
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Tyler Durden: [whispering] Tell him the liberator who destroyed my property has realigned my perception.
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Narrator: I flipped through catalogs and wondered: What kind of dining set defines me as a person?
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Tyler Durden: We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Narrator: Martha Stewart.
Tyler Durden: Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So fuck off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns. I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.
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Narrator: This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.
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Tyler Durden: People do it everyday, they talk to themselves... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it.
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Tyler Durden: First you have to give up, first you have to *know*... not fear... *know*... that someday you're gonna die.
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Tyler Durden: Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!
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Tyler Durden: All right, if the applicant is young, tell him he's too young. Old, too old. Fat, too fat. If the applicant then waits for three days without food, shelter, or encouragement he may then enter and begin his training.
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Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
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Tyler Durden: All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
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Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.
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Tyler Durden: Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
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Narrator: On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
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Narrator: When people think you're dying, they really, really listen to you, instead of just... Marla Singer: - instead of just waiting for their turn to speak?
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[after deliberately crashing the car on the side of the road] Tyler Durden: Goddamn! [Histerical laughs]
Tyler Durden: We just had a near-life experience, fellas.
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Narrator: After fighting, everything else in your life got the volume turned down.
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Narrator: And then, something happened. I let go. Lost in oblivion. Dark and silent and complete. I found freedom. Losing all hope was freedom.
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Tyler Durden: Fuck what you know. You need to forget about what you know, that's your problem. Forget about what you think you know about life, about friendship, and especially about you and me.
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Tyler Durden: Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned- Tyler
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[Gets up from airplane seat] Tyler Durden: Now a question of etiquette; as I pass, do I give you the ass or the crotch...?

That's Spirituality??? Cool.

I got into a conversation with a guy getting his masters is Spiritual Therapy. At first I was very skeptical but then he explained that they studied things like unlearning our constant need to judge everything, and changing our perspective to see things as they are, rather than seeing everything as right and wrong, good and bad. I had never really thought of spirituality in these terms before. So I looked up some quotes on spirituality. Here are two I liked:

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
Carl Sagan (1934 - 1996)

Religion is for those who don't want to go to Hell. Spirituality is for those of us who have already been through it.
Anonymous

Zen vs. Modern Life

"From craving, grief and fear are born; for the person who is free of craving, their is no grief or fear." -Author Unknown

This quote got me thinking. It appears to be true but I kept asking myself: If one lives without cravings what are they living for? Don't we live to satisfy our cravings??? I think I found the answer in the following Zen Story:

"A man who, fleeing a tiger, jumped over a cliff to escape, grabbed a vine and hung suspended from the side saw another tiger gazing hungrily up.
While the tiger pawed down at him, glancing below he saw another tiger gazing hungrily up.
In a moment of surrender, the man looked to a solitary flower growing from the cliff.
'Splendid!'" -Author Unknown

I know this sounds a bit strange for those who haven't read Zen before. But the point is that when the man had abandoned his fear, his craving to survive (because he accepted that he was doomed), then he saw the true beauty of the flower... We don't need cravings to appreciate life. In fact they appear to distort our perception from the truth to a constructed reality filled with cravings, fear, grief, "successes," false goals, and endless disappointment.

Now the question is: How do we attain the truth? How do we shed our cravings? I often think it is impossible given the influence our modern environment's exert on us. Instead I try to maintain a balance between being craving driven and grounded in truth. Not a glutton nor a Yogi. Still fear does play an unwanted role in my life.

Story: Emptying Your Cup

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It's overfull! No more will go in!" the professor blurted. "You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup." (Author Unknown)

I think a lot of us are needlessly "overfull" these days.