Coming to Our Senses
Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness
- by Jon Kabat-Zinn
“In a nutshell: The cultivation of mindfulness is not only an invaluable means of appreciating the present moment and healing the body; it is a discipline that opens our senses and gives us a way to cope with the distress and dissatisfaction of our lives and move toward the creation of a better world.” (from http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=9509)
- relationality
- orthogonal institutions
- thinking turns situations into problems → situations require a response - require an analysis and observation
- you make / u have - thinking is a fabrication - a screen between us and direct experience
- clear thinking is powerful, but often it isn't clear
- untrained mind-fabricating, proliferation… - invisible
- seeing it with equanimity
- less clinging and grasping
- detecting fabrication
- like writing on water
- intention not to make anything
- do we really know what is happening in an event? (news?)
- removed from our direct experience until they (events) become our direct experience - can we be orthogonal, inclusive, compassionate, wise?
Shouldn't we be more engaged?
- being aware of what we know and not know…
- not to get caught up and blinded by our blind emotions
- take practical steps to nurture new possibilities
- what are we doing with our creative energies to heal the body politic
Suspension of distraction
- communing, making eye contact, less absorbed with daily preoccupations
- wordless presence
- recognition of dis-ease (9/11)
- everything is impermanent - institutions can't stop it
- things are fundamentally uncertain - terrifying people
- the mind forgets rapidly
- embodiment of our deepest principles: linger collectively in suspension of distraction
Capabilities
- capturing the full spectrum of our capabilities, rather than narrowing ourselves to only making & thinking
- massive interior ignoring of who we are and where we live
- own to our own sentience, come to our senses
- start paying attention & wake up to things as they are. all else will follow.
(…)
Notes taken while listening to the audiobook:
nik